Greatest League in the World 2024 [new thread available]

Oat, we (Drogheda) drew 0-0 with you in United Park a few weeks ago. It was a fair result.

Earlier in the season. you played us off the park and were 3-0 up at half time. It was the best display from an away side that I have seen this season.

I'm not sure what happened with Liam Buckley but, from the times that I have seen you, the change hasn't brought you forwards.

Rovers should keep Lyons as long as they're still in Europe, hes worth more to them that way. Lets hope he doesn't have some stupid release fee in his contract.

What makes you think Sligo should be ahead of Pats, Derry or Dundalk, let alone comfortably ? It’s pretty close between all four as far as I can see. Derry looked well ahead the rest when they came to Richmond earlier in the season, but have kind of imploded since then.

If we had taken points from the sides we should be beating then we'd be comfortably inside the top 4. That's not an unreasonable statement.

Both Derry and Pats have underperformed from where they were expected to be and Rovers should have been primed to capitalise and grab a top 4 place.

The opinion of most LOI fans before the season started was if a challenge were to be mounted it would come from Derry or Pats. Even if ultimately it would be a year too soon for Derry in particular and Shams would have enough to pull away in the final third of the season. That hasn't materialised at all.

Rovers have had some very disappointing results. The latest being the basement side beating us 2-0 and also being beaten at home by Bala. An out of season part time outfit where we needed a brilliant goalkeeping performance to get through to avoid losing the tie in normal time and then again on penalties.

UCD have gotten 4 points out of their last 9 games and they've all been against us! (they've taken 5 points off us this season nearly half their total) We're single handily keeping them in the play off race at this point! Pathetic by any metric.

We, Drogheda, lost all of our back 5 from last season for nothing.

It sucks but that's LoI where short term contracts means this will continue to happen.

We could all say similar though. We’ve lost points to Drogheda, Finn Harps and Shelbourne where we wouldn't have expected so. Ultimately we all have the points we earned, so everyone is where the deserve to be. We can all look back at certain games and go “ if only. “

I thought the league had turned a bit of a corner after the Doherty and Bazunu deals but more of the same this window. Mandoriou, McGinty and Toal were 3 of the leagues top performers and they've gone for a combined fee of around €200k.

Leagues going nowhere until it gets proper transfer fees. Bit of a chicken and egg situation though. You can't get the big fees regularly until its a fulltime pro league and only way to generate the kind of money that takes is a fulltime pro league.

It’s also a symptom of the improvement in the leagues underage teams. The more quality they produce, the more the vultures will be circling. Clubs abroad will be looking for ideally teenage players, early 20’s at the oldest. Look at Pats, we’ve have lost Darragh Burns, James Abankwah, and Josh Keely, with possibly Sam Curtis to follow once he gets over his injury. We also have Adam Murphy, who I’m pretty sure is going to attract a lot of attention when he gets back playing. All still teenagers. At least Pats have got relatively decent money, unlike some clubs. It’s unfortunate, but it’s the way of the world, and I honestly don’t see what can be done. All we can hope is to get some of the players back if it ultimately doesn’t work out for them, like Forrestor, Burke, etc.

No offence to Pats or Rovers but they annually pick players free from other clubs without a prick of conscience.

Last season, Pats took Odumuso, Doyle and Redmond from Drogheda.

Most bright prospects in the league are linked with Rovers at some point.

It's all about money.

To be fair to Shams Gaffney and Towell have done very well. Gaffney's hold up play in particular has been excellent but these are just levels above. Could be all over for them tonight.

I hadn't realised how small Ludogorets are. They've a fan base and catchment area not too dissimilar to Finn harps. They play in a 12,000 seater but average about 1,000 at games and have frozen the big Bulgarian capital clubs out of the league for the past decade. They're from a town not much bigger than Leitrim (34,000). Its purely their pharma billionaire owner that's made them what they are.

Having a pharma billionaire does help though.

Or any type of multi millionaire. Eh Derry ;)

Well that's the tie over.

Shkupi are currently leading away to Zagreb.

Kind of comical that a team that often only gets 1,000 bums on seats for home games should have such a good team.

Linfield barely getting past Total Network Solutions last week and then beating Bodo/Glimt tonight provides a bit of hope that we might not be hockeyed by Motherwell.

Shkupi also managed to draw 2-2 in Zagreb which is quite a result for them. Looks like it might be a tough game for Shams in the next round whoever loses that tie.

With fans being fans there would also no doubt be complaints if a player wasn’t working out, but he still has two years of a contract to see out. As supporters we want it all ways really.

Pat's doing ok so far, by for a home game they look a bit too cautious.

Keena with a great finish

Very good results tonight, fair play to Pats and particularly Sligo. That non-award of a penalty for Sligo better not be crucial

Keena's goal