Fitbaw Talk: Things clubs look forward to at the Scottish LeagueCup
Martyn and Ben tap into their predictions for the Scottish League Cup
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00:00Hello and welcome to National World FIPPA Talk, your nan's favourite football podcast,
00:12Ken. It's a show where we break down all the latest news and results from the Scottish
00:15Premiership and around SPFL. I'm your host Martin Simpson, joined once again by Ben Banks.
00:22This week we're going to be looking at some of the biggest transfer bits of business across
00:25the Scottish Premiership so far, and we're also going to be looking ahead to the Scottish
00:29League Cup which kicks off this weekend. So Ben, let's start out with the two Glasgow
00:34clubs in the Premiership because it's been very differing starts to the transfer window.
00:40Celtic, of course, have yet to sign anyone but have been linked with, at this stage,
00:45countless goalkeepers. A lot of speculation continues to surround Matt O'Reilly's future,
00:51there are other players, Kyogo, Hatate, also a bit of speculation there. Do you sense any
00:58sort of restlessness in the Celtic fanbase at this stage? I don't sense any now, but
01:04I think if it goes on maybe, I think once they go to America, I think if they go to
01:09America with no new signings then I think there'll be questions asked because at that
01:12point it's not like Rangers, for example, if they sign somebody this week you can put
01:16them on a Jet 2 flight or an EasyJet flight to Holland and they're there. It's a bit more
01:20difficult to do that when they're touring the total coast of America. So if they go
01:25there without MD I think you'll start to see restlessness. At this stage I don't think
01:29so and I think, and although Rangers and Celtic fans maybe have the thing of they don't look
01:33across the city, but it is a wee bit there because I think when you look at Rangers signings
01:38there's none to me that scream like, oh that's a game-changing signing. A lot of them are
01:43sort of in that sort of 2023 project bracket and they might well be very good players but
01:49at this stage there's no real household names as such. So I think Celtic, if you get Adam
01:56Ida and you know what you're getting there, you're probably getting a 15-20 goal a season
01:59striker at Premiership level. You're better off waiting for somebody like that rather
02:05than taking somebody maybe a couple of weeks ago who just isn't of the same quality. I
02:10think the biggest thing for Celtic arguably is probably the exits. I think we covered
02:16the Celtic air game on Friday and that sort of gives you a scope of how many, there's
02:21a lot of players playing there that aren't going to feature on the first game of the
02:23season and it probably gives you more scope of how much business Celtic need to do that
02:28way, just as much as incoming. So I think it'll be quality over quantity. Paolo Bernardo
02:34is one that's been discussed as well, as well as the new number one. So I think they will
02:38come, but as you say I think if they're not in sooner rather than later at this stage
02:43then fans will start to ask questions of why they're not in.
02:46Yeah, we'll get to it in just a second, but the whole Adam Ida thing, it's beginning
02:52to get a little bit kind of silly, isn't it? I mean, obviously the initial kind of
02:58transfer rumour was 5 million was what Celtic would have to pay to get them and it kind
03:03of seemed locked in that that was going to happen. And then of course Norwich, things
03:08change a bit there and now they want to keep a hold of them. What sort of figure do you
03:15think Celtic leave discussions at? If Norwich are saying, presumably we don't want to sell
03:21him means, well it means we don't want to sell him, but I'm sure there will be a figure
03:28that Norwich would go, oh actually, yeah, okay, bye. What do you think that figure is
03:33and at what stage do you think Celtic are potentially overpaying?
03:37I think Celtic, if it gets to that, maybe 7-8 million. I think Celtic maybe consider
03:42it as a deal, probably not for them, not because Adam Ida's not a good player. I think when
03:47he came up in January, I mean, you would need to look back at the comments. I can't imagine
03:51many of them positive. A lot of it was, you know, it's the cheap option. Fans wanted Sidney
03:55van Goydonk at the time who was going to Norwich. There was that parallel between a striker
03:59for Serie A going to the championship and Celtic getting the championship sides back
04:04up. Turns out Ida did much better than van Goydonk did at Norwich. So, I think Celtic
04:10board will be aware that the fans really want to see this deal done now. I know there's
04:17been a few reports saying that Norwich want to look at him and Norwich want a certain
04:21amount of money, but there's also been reports saying Adam Ida wants to move and he's told
04:25Norwich as much that he wants to move. So, I think once the player puts a club in that
04:29position, it kind of reduces their holding power because you don't want a player that's
04:35probably not going to feature in your plans just sort of moping about and want to move
04:39elsewhere. So, I would imagine this one isn't, I've always thought sort of from the way Roger
04:44spoke after the cup final, this one always to me seemed a case of sort of when, not if,
04:50and there's nothing really, even though there's been reports saying otherwise, there's nothing
04:53that's really changed my mind on that, to be honest. I think this will get done and
04:57I would imagine this, if there's one Celtic deal that's going to get done before they
05:01go to America, I would imagine it would be this one.
05:05Once you get to the 7.8 million area, well, obviously 8 million, but I think 7 million
05:14would probably just about be more than enough to prize Bojan Mijovski away from Aberdeen.
05:21They're not the same player, Ida is probably a bit more physical. He's a touch younger
05:25as well, which works in his benefit when you're going to pay those kinds of figures.
05:29But I think we know that Mijovski is certainly a player that Brendan Rogers and Celtic admire.
05:37And he seems like whenever you like sort of read through the forums or read through the
05:41comments on transfer speculation, the Celtic fans, for the most part, and the Rangers fans
05:47as well, who I'm sure would love to see him at Ibrox, he's a player that they all seem
05:51to rate quite highly. If you're a Celtic fan and you're getting to that 7 million
05:56marker, you're wondering, well, we could have Mijovski for this. Should we maybe be
06:02sort of diverting our attention there? Or are they happier with Ida? And of course,
06:06you have to consider the fact that, as we know, as history has shown us, Celtic would
06:12be willing to pay 7 million to Ida because they're paying that 7 million to Norwich City.
06:18Whereas if Aberdeen go, oh, hello, we'll take 7 million for Bojan Mijovski, that 7 million
06:23suddenly becomes 3 million because they don't want to pump that kind of cash into a league
06:30rival, so to speak. I don't think Adam Ida is the same quality of the players I'm going
06:36to mention, but similarly sort of Jota and Cameron Carter-Vickers in that they've had
06:39that period with them. They kind of know what they need to pay for them. And Bojan Mijovski
06:44has been good for Aberdeen in these, I mean, he's up there probably best young striker
06:48in league at the minute, but you know what you're getting from Adam Ida and you know
06:52how he fits in the system and how he plays with these players. I think it's a risk. I
06:56think even at 5, 6 million, it's a risk-free signing for Celtic, as weird as that sounds,
07:00but you know, you're probably going to get, as I said, 15 to 20 goals out of him. And
07:06with Kiyoko, if he still stays at the club, I know there's been a bit of talk about sort
07:09of going home to Japan. I could see Adam Ida starting for Celtic ahead of Kiyoko. The way
07:13Rodgers wants to play this team, he seems a much better fit in terms of that lone striker
07:17role. So I think if you're wanting a starting striker paying 5, 6 million for a known quantity,
07:24whether he steps up in the champions league is probably the bigger thing, but you could
07:27say that about Bojan Mijovski as well, and that he's the unknown quantity there. But
07:32yeah, I just think with Adam Ida, it makes a lot of sense, both on the player side,
07:36from Norwich side, they're getting a bigger fee than they probably would have imagined
07:40for the player six months ago. And for Celtic, they get a goal scorer who's already a cult hero
07:45with a goal at Hampden and some of the big goals he scored in the title race when it did look a
07:50bit in doubt at times last season.
07:53Well, switching over to Rangers, you touched on it earlier, much the same sort of feeling as I've
07:58had, looking at the Rangers signings, it's like they've been very active, but at the same time,
08:04like you said, it's project players, and without using this as an overly disrespectful term,
08:10squad players. Like, some of the guys, listen, they could turn out to be world beaters. I
08:19couldn't tell you a single thing about Clinton Nizalia or Hamza Ighamani. All I know is that
08:28they're young players with big upsides. So I think the Rangers fans will be quite excited
08:34to have them in. And then you get someone like Liam Kelly, who's obviously been signed to be
08:40a backup player. Connor Barron, who wasn't even a guaranteed starter at Aberdeen. Yeah, like you
08:48said, they've signed so many, but I don't think there's anyone that the Rangers fans are going to
08:52look at and go, like you say, a statement signing. Yeah, I can't. It's not like, for example,
08:59they've went and spent like four or five months, like last summer, even though you may be,
09:04they're kind of similar. Had you heard much about Siri Odessos last summer? Probably not,
09:08if you're a Scottish football fan, but you see the four or five million fee for him getting spent,
09:12you see six million being spent on a striker for Feyenoord, and all of a sudden you start getting
09:17a bit excited about it. And it's no disrespect to these guys. I think it is just because they are
09:21total, like properly unknown quantities. I think Ighamani came from the Moroccan football. I can't
09:27imagine many at Ibrox or in Scottish football keep up to that league very often. So it is one
09:33of them. They have got massive upsides. And if it works, they've got, I've seen people comparing
09:40Clinton and Siala to Calvin Bassey in terms of playing style. If they get that level of upside
09:45off somebody like him, even one of them, then you could consider this transfer window a success
09:50because they're going to make a serious amount of cash off the profit of them when they sell them
09:54on in a couple of years after a good couple of years of action. But if it doesn't work,
09:59and these guys take time to settle, and obviously there's been the full stadium,
10:03sort of debate and ongoing situation about not playing at Ibrox. If you've made these
10:10signings that are seemingly projects, you're then potentially going to be out of Ibrox. Recent
10:15reports today as we record this on the 8th of July, but it could be October. You're already a
10:21quarter of the way through the season. You've not played a game at Ibrox and you're potentially
10:25already behind Celtic in the signing race, if you want to call that. Even though Celtic haven't made
10:30any signings, the signing of Adam Ida probably creates a bit more excitement at Celtic than
10:35all of Rangers signings combined, just purely off the unknown quantity of them. So yeah, it could
10:42work, might not work. Problem is we don't really know a lot about any of these guys, apart from
10:47Liam Kelly, who is a solid backup, but won't displace, nobody's going to displace Jack
10:53Butland while he's at Ibrox. And Conor Barron, who I'm not necessarily sure is an upgrade on
10:58Ryan Jack or John Lundstrom. Anything you would class him as necessarily a similar player. I look
11:03at him more as a Raskin type and I don't see him as an improvement on Nicola Raskin. So I get why
11:09you signed Conor Barron, because you've got a young player who's going to cost you a poultry
11:16fee probably by tribunal. Aberdeen would be due half a million based on previous experiences going
11:21to tribunal. Aberdeen will be lucky to get 250k for him now since he's gone to Rangers, but say
11:28that's kind of the figure Rangers are looking. Young enough Scottish player, a good player that
11:34can fill in around the squad. I'd imagine he'll start a lot of the cup games, probably see him
11:40mainly coming off the bench, maybe feature a little bit in Europe, but yeah, like he's not
11:45upgrading on anyone. We need to take a short break now, but we'll be right back in just a minute.
12:06Welcome back. My God, how bad are their B teams that this is, that they can't just bring a couple
12:13of players through every summer. Am I missing something here? I appreciate how big a step up
12:19it is from the Lowland League or from Rangers Academy to playing Scottish Premiership football,
12:26but it doesn't stop other clubs in the country giving decent amount of game time to their
12:31Academy players. What exactly is stopping Celtic and Rangers from doing that?
12:36There is, it's an argument for a different day, but I think it's harder to give these guys
12:44opportunities just generally in Scottish football, whether you're at Rangers and Celtic or maybe
12:49it doesn't apply so much the further down you go, but certainly in the Premiership, it's really
12:52difficult to give these type of players, Bailey Rices, Rocco Vata, who's away at Watford now from Celtic
12:59to give them the opportunities because the demand to win is every week. You haven't got, especially
13:04at Rangers and Celtic, if you lose a couple of games, you're on the top for sacking and if that's
13:09down to you trancing with a couple of youngsters in a game, the written press and the broadcast
13:15press, fans, the general noise just builds on you regardless of what you do. So the need to win
13:21is you need a manager that is really bold and really believes in these young players and if
13:28they're not 100% guaranteed to go in and managers being confident that they're going to make a
13:34difference, that's why they do sort of end up even, I mean, Bailey Rice from, I mean at Motherwell,
13:39I know when he moved there was talked about as potentially he could have been starting in
13:43midfield with Lennon Miller last season, that sort of, he was viewed as that level of talent.
13:48So there it is Ben, sorry, but if that's the, this is what we're talking about, so why sign
13:53Conor Barron? This is kind of the bit that confuses me. I get that Conor Barron is a more
13:58developed, more ready player with a lot of experience at a young age in the Scottish
14:03Premiership compared to Bailey Rice, but we already know he's not an upgrade on what they
14:10have at the moment, so why are you signing players to be backup when you've got the biggest, most
14:16well-funded youth academy in the country? And I agree with everything you're saying about the
14:22absolute need to win every game, but Rangers in the season, they are going to find themselves
14:30at least, probably realistically, what, once a month, once every four or five games,
14:35they're going to find themselves in a situation where they're playing a Ross County or another
14:40team at Ibrox, and listen, there might be one week where Ross County are 1-0 up at Ibrox or
14:45they take them all the way with just a goal in it. There'll be other games where these teams are
14:493-0 down by the hour mark, 4-0 down by the 70th minute,
14:54and yeah, there will be opportunities to give these young lads time.
14:59So, the Scottish League Cup kicks off this weekend. Group stages, Ben, what we're thinking,
15:05well, have we had a chance to look at the groups? Is there any one group that stands out to you at
15:10the moment? Any teams from maybe lower down the divisions we might be expecting, and then of
15:16course, we've got the likes of Aberdeen and Hibs. We're going to get an early look at some of the
15:22new faces in the door. They are excited. Well, it's nice to just have the competitive action
15:28back. The Euros buzz lasted all of about eight days for us, so it's nice to get the competitive
15:33stuff back here, but I think probably the most intriguing, if you're looking at maybe the bigger
15:37teams, is how Aberdeen look under sort of new management. Same with Hibs. I think Hibs,
15:44particularly, have got sort of still scars of this competition a couple of years ago. I can
15:48remember being in the stadium when they were playing Morton at this stage in the tournament,
15:52I think July 22, and sort of wondering, is Rocky Bashiri not meant to be suspended for this game?
15:58And then sort of they get all jumped out the cup off the back of all that type of stuff. So,
16:04I think this competition is sometimes written off as pre-season friendlies, and I've already
16:08heard bit and wee different snippets of, you know, is this a good build-up to the league season?
16:13I think it's really dangerous for even managers down the divisions to view it as that,
16:18especially at Premiership level, you don't want to be happening to what happened to St.
16:21Johnson last season, where you could beat 4-0 off Stirling Albion, and you've been beat off
16:25Stenhousemuir, and then you need to go into your league season off the back of that, already out
16:29the cup. So, I think it gives you a good base for starting your Premiership season, if you can get
16:34off to, even if it is against lower league opposition, rack up two or three decent enough
16:39wins, get through in the cup, try out your squad if you get the opportunity to do that,
16:44and then you're into the last 16 as well. But I think probably for me, probably Aberdeen is
16:50probably more interesting, we've kind of had a wee bit of seeing what a David Gray team would
16:55look like over these last sort of four interim stints, but Aberdeen I think is a totally unknown
17:01contact this season, we haven't really heard or seen a lot from them yet, so it'll be interesting
17:06to see how they sort of attack this group stage. Yeah, the thing I love about, I mean, I'm a big
17:12fan of the group stage, I know not everyone is, but I think if you're a manager, it really can
17:18go either one way or the other, and I look at the groups, and I don't want to pick on certain clubs,
17:25because a lot can change in the early weeks of the summer, but if you're David Gray, and you're
17:29looking at your group of Queen's Park, Kelty Hearts, Peterhead, and Elgin, you've sort of,
17:36well, it's the same for all these lower league clubs, they've really got everything to gain
17:40and nothing to lose, so if you're a premiership club, it can be quite deadly, but I think David
17:46Gray, even with the sort of fluctuations in Hibs last season, backs himself to get a win in all
17:52those games. The Queen's Park are going to be their biggest test, and I think that kind of
17:58tells you everything you need to know, I'm not saying that to be disrespectful to Queen's Park,
18:02but Hibs are going to be massive favorites going into that, and Queen's Park are perfectly capable
18:07of causing an upset there, and it's going to be a difficult game for them, but after that,
18:13with the sort of quality they've got, they really should be looking to blow away the likes of Kelty,
18:18Peterhead, and Elgin, and then you look at Dundee, a similar situation, Inverness, a club in turmoil,
18:25Arbroath, a club rebuilding after relegation, and then Annan and Bonnyrig, two solid
18:32league one, league two clubs, but again, you'd be talking huge upsets for either of them to get
18:37something off Dundee, and then you've got the opposite, so I think if you're Craig Levine, for
18:42example, and you're looking at that group, Greenock, Morton, Aloe Athletic, and East Fife are probably,
18:49like I say, Morton, wouldn't surprise me if they took something off of St. Johnston,
18:57Aloe, again, a very capable league one team, wouldn't surprise me if they got some good results
19:02like that, Motherwell potentially in a similar situation with Partick, Fissell, and Montrose,
19:07Ross County, of course, have got Rafe Rovers and Hamilton Ackies, that's absolutely brutal for them,
19:12but Aberdeen's an interesting one, obviously East Kilbride, Dumbarton,
19:18teams you expect them to beat, Queen of the South, a team that you'll expect them to beat,
19:21Airdrie Onions, that's going to be a really interesting match, I'm looking forward to that
19:27one from an Aberdeen perspective. I think the Mullow groups, certainly, I think maybe on paper
19:33you look at that and go that's a not too bad group for Mullow, the Edinburgh City game on the
19:40first game should be, I mean, that should be, and for all the teams in that group, you would
19:44imagine that's going to be comfortable wins, but Montrose away on the Tuesday night, that's always
19:49been notoriously one of the more, you know, the cliched difficult places to go to of the lower
19:54leagues, going away to Clyde who are a bit more rejuvenated under Ian McColl, ended the season
19:59fairly strong, and Partick, Fissell as well, who I think were probably the championship team you
20:05wanted to get least out of this one, especially on the last day when you're maybe playing for the
20:12group in first place, because it can be so pivotal, I think Hearts had it in 2022 as well,
20:19where they lost out on the seeding by goal difference, I think it was a draw against
20:24Inverness, and they lost out on the seeding by goal difference just purely on that, and then
20:28they ended up with Celtic at Parkhead, so the seeding is massively important for clubs like
20:32Mullow, Premiership wise anyway, so you're sort of maybe get a slightly easier draw, so I think
20:37that's maybe an interesting group, St Johnston I think is just a wider point, St Johnston have been
20:42quite intrigued by some of their signings this summer, and I'm intrigued that Josh McPake,
20:48for example, stepping up from League One to Premiership level, Josh Ray coming in from Airdries,
20:54the replacement for Mitov, they've brought in a few players from the lower leagues in their squad,
20:58and they brought in Ike Piazzu, but he's now injured till September, October, so their squad
21:04maybe looks a bit undercooked heading into this, and I'd be interested to see, as you say, Morton
21:11sprung a cup shock already this year against Motherwell, so they'll probably quite fancy it,
21:15and some of their signings for the Championship have been fairly impressive, so at this stage
21:19of the season, this competition has brought up a few shocks every single summer, and no doubt
21:24there will be some more along the way, I would imagine.
21:28The other thing I love about it is you just get a lot of matches you would otherwise never see,
21:34there's a lot of little stories, Aberdeen against East Kilbride is not something that's going to
21:40jump out at anyone, because it's a lowland league club against one of the biggest clubs in the
21:44Premiership, it's Aberdeen getting another crack at a Mick Kennedy side, and believe me, Aberdeen
21:52fans are really going to want to see them do a number on his East Kilbride team. Group B,
21:57of course, you've got Falkirk against Stenhousemuir, that's a local derby that we haven't
22:02gotten to see too much a couple of times in recent years, but generally those two clubs are seldom
22:08in the same division, so I think that'll be a really interesting one, a really raucous crowd,
22:14you've got Inverness against Arbroath, really interesting, two clubs relegated from the
22:20Championship last season, how are they going to shape up against each other, Ross County against
22:24Rafe Rovers as a replay of the playoff match, obviously, how's that going to look, lots of
22:33little intriguing ties here and there, and then obviously the kind of ones that spring out a bit
22:40more, you've got Aberdeen against Airdrie, Hibbs against Queen's Park, Dundee United against Ayr
22:46should be an interesting one, Ross County against Rafe Rovers, as I've already mentioned, but that's
22:50definitely an interesting one, but I like the format, I think it's something that's just added
22:58a little intrigue to kick off the season early on. Yeah, I think it's for fans as well, you're like,
23:04you know, going to a ground that you've no really, you don't really up and down whether you're a
23:08League 2 fan or you're a Premiership fan, you're going to a ground you don't usually go to before,
23:12the weather's usually okay, it's always good until your team starts getting beat off lower
23:17league clubs or starts getting battered every game, and then you're wishing you'd just been
23:21on holiday for an extra couple of weeks, but certainly the idea of it, I quite like it,
23:25and I do quite like now that it's not regionalised, I think that took away from it a wee bit,
23:29because you've got the same ties every single year, it's became a running joke in ML1 about
23:34Mullow and Morton getting each other in the Cups every year, a yearly trip to Palmerston was kind
23:39of the thing when you got Queen on the South every year in this competition.
23:42Well, thanks very much Ben, that's all we've got time for,
23:45but we'll be back next week with more Friplator.