mccaughey85

Maybe so but you never know. Most ppl would have laughed at the idea of reform becoming the biggest party in the UK but it's looking likely to happen.

Dunno it feels like ppl are wanting serious change and alot of ppl really don't want to vote reform or labour like myself. I think if you could get most of the labour supporters from traditional labour areas of Britain to jump over it could be a success.

Yeh sorry didn't see that buddy.

Anybody seen that Jeremy Corbyn and zarah sultana want to start a new left wing party? I would consider voting for them and it seems like they would already be close to labour according to the polling of voting intentions.

Dunno, how many Scots born ppl live in the USA and Australia? I can't imagine it being massive. I think theres nearly 800k ppl in England who are Scottish born plus a grandparent doesn't necessarily have to be alive for a player to qualify so it's not just confined to that number. I suppose the same could be applied to the USA and Australia. I can't think of many ppl who move to America these days. Quite a few go to Australia but it's not like the olden days when Scots emigrated in huge numbers to those two countries. Yeh I agree that it doesn't need to be loads of players. If we can find even one good player in a position we need then it's worth exploring. Saying that I still think Englands by far our best bet to find players we need just purely based on numbers and the fact it has great facilities, coaching etc.

Yeh not nearly enough to be producing loads of players.

Would there be many players in Australia or USA with Scottish parents or grandparents? I can't imagine there would. This isn't the 1800s anymore. Scots aren't moving in mass numbers to these countries. Englands always our best bet for parent or grandparent players as thats probably where most Scots move to and it's massively into football so I don't really understand the validity of the point that this Croatian guy was saying.

That's interesting. I thought their players would be almost exclusively born in Croatia. Quite a few of their big names were born outside of croatia

Those are the exceptions. Denmark as well. Most countries our size struggle to produce enough top level players to compete consistently.

He looks good. Should have got a penalty. A lower epl side would be perfect. Full season playing every week in the epl would be great.

Yeh not the worst move. He will most likely be first team starter which is good for us. Surprised Celtic never took him even if it was just for back up.

I think it's a mixture. You look at alot of the top countries and they have large amounts of immigrants or sons of immigrants playing for them. We could argue on how big a difference it makes to the large countries as they have large populations and will probably produce lots of good players anyways but I definitely think it helps produce a few extra special players that might make the difference. For instance Henry and Zidane for France or shaquiri for Switzerland. I also think England have been producing good players for at least 25 years or longer so I am not sure the coaching or money is that important, especially if most top nations have it as well. Englands had immigration for a long time as well. They have had Irish, Scots, windrush, Pakistanis, Indians all coming in big numbers since since the 60s or earlier. We only had the Irish and they have contributed massively to producing players for our team but we take that for granted because they are so similar to us. Nearly half our squad today might have some kind of Irish ancestry and so many of our best players over the years have come from Irish backgrounds. Even Darren fletcher was half Irish. Either way I think we need swallow our pride a bit and accept that we will rely on English born players to help us. We are only 5.5m and trying to compete with countries that have ten times our population and have huge resources is hard enough as it is.

I think that's a tad harsh. Hes not been at fault for many goals imo. Our outfield players have been brutal and our defenders have been useless at times.

As Dan cake said England has 10 times our population. France has more than 10 times. The big countries have loads of resources and a huge pool of players to pick from. We can't afford to be picky when it comes to the subject of accepting grandparent rule players if we want to compete at a high level. It also feels like alot of talented players come from immigrant backgrounds and countries like France and England have a diverse mix of ethnicities and races which I think benefits them in producing top players.

Pretty sure it was brought in to help smaller countries like ours be more competitive. I think in the near future we will have to swallow our pride and rely heavily on players born in England because I don't see an awful lot of good young Scottish players under the age of 22. Getting the likes of hackney or Anderson in plus dembele and one or two others could be the difference between us getting out the groups stages of the euros or getting to the world cup. We need to have a strong squad and trying to compete with bigger countries who have players from ex colonies is tough. The french and English don't get their panties in a twist over their players having Irish or Jamaican heritage.