Wee thread on why comparing Scottish Football with the Premier League is daft, and how we're actually doing not bad against similar ones.

Until the formation of the Premier League, Scottish & English clubs had met 26 times in UEFA competitions, with the English sides winning just 9 times.

(They had their ban in the 80s of course, so managed to avoid certain bodyings off the likes of Dundee United & Aberdeen)

Funnily enough, the more money that comes into their game and the more foreign players that appear, the better they start doing. There was still time for Celtic to dump out Liverpool & Blackburn on their way to Seville though.

Nakamura's winner against Man United in the 06/07 season was the last winner for a Scottish team against a PL side, but it came in the middle of a massive shift in English/European football as a whole.

The Premier League's TV deal struck the next season was a game changer. It was worth £1.7 billion, and meant the team finishing bottom of the league would now receive more money than a top four team did the previous year. Some laugh it's even worse than this now.

The arrivals of the likes of Benitez & Mourinho to English Football and their top teams becoming much more defensive and tactically disciplined meant they were finally able to use these massive resources to their advantage.

From Liverpool's win in 2005, there would be an English team in 6 of the next 7 Champions League finals. The year before (Porto/Monaco in 03/04) would also be the last year a team outwith Europe's "Top 5 leagues" would appear in the CL final.

The landscape had totally shifted. There was already a financial chasm between the SPL and Premier League before 07/08, but this is where they started powering away. Not just from us, pretty much everyone else too.

Until the silly money arrived, we more than had England's number

We should never be compared to the Premier League, it's just daft. Nobody compares the Austrian Bundesliga to Germany's, or the Swiss Super League to Ligue 1. Why would they?

When put up against "similar" leagues we're not actually doing that badly.

Since that Celtic/Man United game there's been 2 Scottish teams in the Last 16 of the Champions League.

It doesn't sound a lot, but that's more than Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Croatia, Switzerland, Sweden, Poland, Romania, Czech Republic etc. The list goes on,

These are the countries we should actually be compared with (financially and population wise)

We've had the same number of teams in European finals this side of the millennium as Holland - still considered to be miles ahead of us. Ajax (occasionally) aside, they're really not.

Bare in mind that during this period Scottish Football has also gone through the Setanta crash, half its clubs nearly dying, Celtic signing Carlton Cole and Rangers doing Rangers things.

This season especially shows Celtic & Rangers are still a match for pretty much everyone.

There is an issue with clubs outside the OF progressing in Europe. I'd say it's more of a mentality thing though. Prime example being Kilmarnock's loss to "Connah's Quay Nomads"

A team that had shown themselves to be even worse than bottom of the Championship Partick Thistle.

It's not arrogance to be suggesting Killie should've dismantled them, even under a new coach. Similar stories with Lincoln Red imps, Progres, Birkirkara etc.

Our teams are capable, there's results to show it, we just need to deal with minnows much, much better than we do.

Aberdeen are capable of going away and bodying the likes of Rijeka with their mental home record. Put them, or Hearts or Hibs against a team they should beat though and bad things often happen.

I don't know what the solution is, but it's certainly not summer football.

Overall though, we're doing fine. What impact COVID will have remains to be seen, but everyone else will be similarly affected.

Tl;dr - Stop comparing the Scottish Premiership and the Premier League. It makes no sense and you look like a fanny.