OK over the last few years we have maybe not had the stability you allude to mate. Too many loans and superfluous players brought in by DOF Lawwell certainly did not help.
But what baffles me is the financial clout we have compared to some European teams and how that doesn’t seem to reflect when we meet them. Look at Bodo for example. Money wise we would bury them. So why don't our expensive, highly paid players sweep sides like this aside?
Is it really the SPFL standard that drags the players down? I think good players are good players no matter where they play.
Take the Real team of the 50s and 60s I think they used to play totally inferior teams and hammer them by double figure scores. Yes they had great players but what that seemed to do was boost confidence even more. They didn’t drop to the standard of the teams they hammered.
Will things be different this season in Europe? I hope so but I’m still concerned about some of our defensive lapses and tactical errors.
There have been many great teams created in the past, but today's game is still so reliant upon the depth of squad especially with the demands placed upon them with the amount of games there expected to preform in at there highest possible level.
All seen how the demands still couldn't get man City and Liverpool there preferred outcomes in what was a fairly successful season by 2 of the best teams in world football, yet the 2 biggest trophies in European football ended up in the hands of
1) Half decent team, yet still nowhere near the best in Europe imo
2) A very average team and being generous at that.
The demands within our club are massive, yet expected to deliver them upon a budget that might not be that high compared to the demands of what many a European team have to face and contend with either.
Our tactical play within European football can be judged much better this coming season still as last season was still well to early to judge still, but was still able to produce enough encouraging signs.
Will always claim that the bodo game wasn't high on our agenda, especially with the league at stake and the injury crisis the way it was and all expected to be done with new players coming only just in the door and without next to none European football experience still.
We are still only a developing European team in the making still, where errors will be punished more serverly than within the SPFL still, but everyone within the club knows that.
We still can't expect to be perfect in European football but wouldn't totally write us off either still, just because we handed up a few soft goals in pre season and without our main defensive unit even been able to play together yet and not even completed with the players we should have available still for the coming European campaign hopefully.
