Interesting, OPTA paints a rosier picture

Melbourne city	74.1
Adelaide United	71.6
CCM	70.6
Hearts	69.5
Aberdeen	69.2
WSW	68.8
St Miren	68.5
WP	68.2
MV	68.2
Hibernian	68
SFC	67.8
WU	67.8
Motherwell	66.9
BR	66.8
Mac	65.6
NUJ	65.5
Livingstone	66.5
Kilmarnock	65.9
DU	66.5
PG	65.1
ST J	65
Ross	64.5

I personally think that it is very difficult to compare the quality of leagues, personal bias is going to fill the gap where there is a lack of objective ways of evaluating 

That is why I focused on style. Outside of the SPL, League 1 and League 2, most leagues are going to match the a league for style so it is a good idea to find a club that is your level from amongst them imo

Arnold disagrees with you. He is far more qualified than you to form an opinion and unlike you he actually watches the SPL.

So you are saying Wilkshire is intellectually challenged? Again, I trust Arnold's judgement.

Your table leaves out Rangers and Celtic and can’t spell Livingston so loses credibility immediately. Like it or not the two giants are part of the SPL and anything that omits them paints an incorrect and distorted picture.

Why so defensive? I gave pretty big qualifiers about how reliable comparisons are (not very) and throughout I've consistently argued the top two are radically different to the rest of the spl. I doubt any on this forum think the. aleague is as good as celtic/rangers. The opta data is also publically available if you think my typo undermines the credibility of the post - you can cross check it yourself
I'm being very modest with my claims, why so prickly?

Not prickly nor defensive, just pointing out the obvious errors.

"By the way there hasn’t been an old firm since 2012. Just saying."

Oh really? In what sense? Does the glasgow rivalry have a different name

I agree Arnie is far more qualified than me  evaluating that the SPL is a  decent opportunity for for Aussies to play overseas. I terms of results Arnie is the greatest ever Socceroo coach. Although Bert Van Marwijk took  Netherlands to a World Cup Final in 2010. Arnie alludes to the length of the season as being paramount - 40 games in Scotland  is far better than 25 games in the AL.  I totally concur with him on number of games.

However, outside that, the stats show that Scotland isn't a technical league. It wasn't when I used to watch it.  Arnie's Socceroos play very, very sophisticated tactical football, with a number of really smart players - Goodwin, Duke, Irvine, Mooy, Behich, Rowles, Souttar, Degenek, et al. Moreover, the Socceroos under his tutelage,  play a technical brand of football at every opportunity.
 
When the A L started it was a roughhouse, physical, second ball league. It has evolved to be a far more technical and tactical league in accordance with the Football Aus curriculum. Maybe the physical body on body contact element of it has declined?

Again Arnie is far more qualified than me to appoint Wilkshire as a coach. I'm perplexed when Rene Meulenteen, his chief assistant, is such a smart guy. I think RM has designed most of the Man U  academy training ground exercises. They are excellent.  

Arnie's old CCM assistant, Phil Moss, has taken some  terrific training ground sessions for coaches, that I've attended. He has also presented impressive workshop  for coaches under Football Aus auspices,  that I've been fortunate enough to attend.  Ditto the likes of Scott Miller (former Jets coach , now coaching NPL 2 in Vic), et al. These are switched on guys who are well cut out to be head coaches. I would love to hear Arnie's criteria  criteria for selecting Luke W, whilst these other guys are probably available.

Conversely, Luke Wilkshire only ever talks about getting stuck in, playing for the shirt  and physicality as a TV pundit. He has virtually proffered no tactical and technical insights whatsoever, and isn't anywhere near as articulate as most current high level  coaches, or other TV pundits like  Milligan, Harper, Grace Gill, Georgia Yeoman- Dale, Bruce Djite and Alex Brosque.

One of the key factors set out in Football Aus for imparting messages to players, is communication skills.  I'm surprised that Wilkshire has even passed the courses. Many experienced coaches I know, used to say to me at current courses, it is easy for you because you are a teacher. They found them cognitively challenging. I'd suggest that if Luke was an ordinary punter, devoid of an illustrious pro career, he would have failed the C, B and A Licences if assessed objectively. Former pros are often fast tracked, and appraised  too easily in Football Aus coaching courses.

Well If you think misspelling livingstone means the publicly available rankings from opta are wrong, be my guest and check them 

There is no  link to an article by Han Berger, or Clarefontaine, but I'll take your  word for it.

I'd surmise this paragraph has been   extrapolated from a broader, bigger article. Berger is talking about a number of games where the teams with higher possession stats  have lost the game. It happens sometimes.  The phrase coined by Arsene Wenger is 'sterile domination', if a team has lot of possession, but it is in the defensive half.

At the same time Berger has been the architect of establishing a possession game in Australia. He treasures it. The  broader context of the article would have had been some reference to gaining territory in the  attacking half/attacking third  of the pitch being important too, ultimately ending up in the penalty box, and being a  significant factor to winning games.

In one of Berger's presentations in the  National Conference that went around all states in Aus somewhere between 2011 and 2013, he quoted a stat  from the UEFA Technical Department, that teams who have the majority of possession in the attacking third, score 28% more goals. This is evidence based research recorded over time by the UEFA Technical Dept.

At the same conference Berger had Alistair Edwards (his FFA assistant Tech Dir), Darren Davies (  then MV Youth  Coach , later Bris Roar senior coach), and FFA state branch  staff coaches Mike Edwards, Kurt Reynolds and Dean May,  deliver more presentations on possession football to augment his own. Dean even had NTC players on the pitch demonstrating. Then Berger took more on ground sessions with NTC players  to demonstrate a lot of  exercises to develop passing football.  Plus Ange Postecoglou was recruited by FFA to deliver more on ground sessions on the same topic late in the same year . 

Berger oversaw all of this. Australia has derived enormous benefit too.

A few on here have also commented on speed of passes. It varies who and where a pass is made as to the speed and weight  of it - depending on the teammate and their body position at the time of them opening the passing lane and showing to the ball carrier.

In terms of passing speed, handling speed is paramount  in any team playing a possession game. When Rob Baan brought KNVB staff coaches Ad Deksion and Arie Schans to Australia to train up all the then ALM youth coaches, they were appalled at how hard Muscat, T Vidmar, A Vidmar,  Tony Popovic,  Steve Corica, Carl Veart, Alex Tobin, et al, had to work to retain possession given most were former Socceroos. This occurred in training ground exercises at the Institute of Sport.

Amongst a range of weaknesses identified in Aussie players, having to work too hard to maintain possession was considered to be a  problem. Hence, a curriculum was designed to improve that  inherent weakness, amongst other weaknesses.   

Handling speed is the amount time taken to receive  and pass the ball  on to a teammate. In Ralph Honigsten's Das Reboot, analysing the German overhaul of their coaching methodology and NC, they even developed specific machines to improve Germans' handling  speed.

The team with the average lowest handling speed in the world  was Spain, with an average of 1.6 secs to receive and pass the ball on. Germany were one of the next best, recording 1.8 secs, but they desperately strived to emulate Spain to  maintain possession  more efficiently and easily. This    equates to less effort in off the ball movement to maintain possession, the faster players' handling speed is.

Also, at the same conference, the FIFA Technical department, showed that the teams with less possession, had to run more distance than the teams who had more possession.  To play successive games where a team runs more than the opponents, burns teams out earlier in the tournament. All the more reason to value possession.

I haven't watched Scottish football for a few years. When I last did, I was amazed that often defenders or keepers just hoofed high balls out defence  when under minimal  time and space pressure.  

Conversely, in ALM, J League, Championat, La Liga, Bundesliga, Eredevisie, or the Portuguese league, players would  usually pass it to another defender or midfielder showing for the ball in these positions and build up more slowly, or a least  try and launch a more controlled accelerated attack. Keepers tend to roll the ball out to  players too, rather than hoofing it like the Scottish keepers.

@decentric "n Ralph Honigsten's Das Reboot, analysing the German overhaul of their coaching methodology and NC, they even developed specific machines to improve Germans' handling  speed."

I remember Amini using that machine in a promotional video when it is new

"By the way there hasn’t been an old firm since 2012. Just saying."

Oh really? In what sense? Does the glasgow rivalry have a different name

Old Firm is the word used to describe Rangers and Celtic. Or was?

I've never seen the machine. I've only read about it in Das Reboot.

No the misspelling of Livingston raised suspicion but the omission of Celtic and Rangers from the table confirmed it. I understand but disagree as to why you left them out of your analysis but leaving them out of any comparative table is ridiculously wrong.

I agree that Arnie is far more qualified than me  evaluating that the SPL is a  decent option  for Aussies to play overseas. In terms of results, Arnie is the greatest ever Socceroo coach. Although Bert Van Marwijk took  Netherlands to a World Cup Final in 2010. Arnie alludes to the length of the season as being paramount - 40 games in Scotland  is far better than 25 games in the AL.  I totally concur with him on number of games.

However, outside that, the stats show that Scotland isn't a technical league. It wasn't when I used to watch it.  Arnie's Socceroos play very, very sophisticated tactical football, with a number of really smart players - Goodwin, Duke, Irvine, Mooy, Behich, Rowles, Souttar, Degenek, et al. Moreover, the Socceroos under his tutelage,  play a technical brand of football at every opportunity.
 
When the A L started it was a roughhouse, physical, second ball league. It has evolved to be a far more technical and tactical league in accordance with the Football Aus curriculum. Maybe the physical body on body contact element of it has declined?

Again Arnie is far more qualified than me to appoint Wilkshire as a coach. I'm perplexed when Rene Meulenteen, his chief assistant, is such a smart guy. I think RM has designed most of the Man U  academy training ground exercises. They are excellent.  

Arnie's old CCM assistant, Phil Moss, has taken some  terrific training ground sessions for coaches, that I've attended. He has also presented impressive workshop  for coaches under Football Aus auspices,  that I've been fortunate enough to attend.  Ditto the likes of Scott Miller (former Jets coach , now coaching NPL 2 in Vic), et al. These are switched on guys who are well cut out to be head coaches. I would love to hear Arnie's criteria  criteria for selecting Luke W, whilst these other guys are probably available.

Conversely, Luke Wilkshire only ever talks about getting stuck in, playing for the shirt  and physicality as a TV pundit. He has virtually proffered no tactical and technical insights whatsoever, and isn't anywhere near as articulate as most current high level  coaches, or other TV pundits like  Milligan, Harper, Grace Gill, Georgia Yeoman- Dale, Bruce Djite and Alex Brosque.

One of the key factors set out in Football Aus for imparting messages to players, is communication skills.  I'm surprised that Wilkshire has even passed the coaching courses? Many experienced coaches I know, used to say to me at current courses, 'it is easy for you because you are a teacher'. They found them cognitively challenging.

I'd suggest that if Luke was an ordinary punter, devoid of an illustrious pro career, he would have failed the C, B and A Licences if assessed objectively. Former pros are often fast tracked, and appraised  too easily in Football Aus coaching courses.

Rangers ceased to exist in 2012 when it went into receivership and liquidation began. This left 1000's of people being owed money of which there is no hope of recovery. A new company was incorporated  (Sevco) and it purchased the assets of Rangers from the Administrators. It then changed its name to the Rangers Football Club Ltd.. Sevco then applied to admission to the SPL. That was rejected but It  was admitted to the 4th tier of Scottish football. UEFA decided to allow the transfer of the records of the deceased company to the new one but as the legal entity of the former club died so did the club. It has been resurrected but in no way is it old firm.

This is why non Rangers fans refer to the derby as the Glasgow Derby, not the Old Firm Derby.

So the rivalry is now the Glasgow Derby.

LOL
you really now very little about Scottish football Decentric. There has been no old firm since 2012 when Rangers died, It is now the Glasgow derby.

To play devils advocate does it matter how many passes there are in a game? Does that just mean the SPL is stronger in different phases of play rather than just possession?

I get the argument about the need for touches when players are developing their techniques but that should have happened before u18s. These guys should already have sound techniques. 

I don't think it's fair to make a blanket statement that the SPL is poor and poor at developing players. To me it's very much more nuanced and comes down to individuals and a bunch of various factors, whether or not it's the right fit for a player. 

Wanker.

I am making no claims about the quality, but if you learn to play here a certain style where there are around 750 passes per game, go to scotland where outside the glasgow rivals play at 450 passes per game and then try and adjust again either in a european league or the socceroos to many more passes per game,  you are radically adjusting what you are used to much more than you would if you went to any other league. Can you still develop? Sometimes. But generally a player would do better in a league that plays a similar way to the roos, the wc or the champions league knockouts.

I remember many years ago, Pim said that it was better preparation training for buli 2 than playing in the a league. He tried to clarify that he wasn't criticizing the quality of the league, just said it was poor preparation for playing international footbal. He even defended the quality of the league to a middle eastern journalist, pointing out that AU made the champions league final

At the time, a typical a league match had 350 passes per game whereas the socceroos were averaging around 700. Adjusting from the a league with a 350 pass match to a 700 pass match for the roos is not easy, even if your individual quality as a player is good.

Unfortunately that nuance was lost and people heard "the a league sucks". Today the a league plays a similar style to the socceroos, the top leagues in europe, decent development leagues in europe like the eredivisie or buli 2 and the champions league. As we saw at the last world cup, while it may not be the same quality as the best leagues, it is good preparation for international football

I understand the argument and it has merit. I think about it, our World Cup squad, and come back to the thought that the SPL played a huge role in our success. Rowles, Behich, Mooy were fixtures while Baccus started some games. Irvines career took off because of Hibs before moving to St Pauli. Objectively to me the SPL did a good job at preparing those players for the World Cup, and one of our most successful runs at that. 

we will see how rowles and baccus develop as they are in their development phase, so those are the players I am worried about. They had barely been in scotland by the world cup, so fingers crossed they do well.
Obviously I have no objection to playing for celtic/rangers if they are good enough where the style is much more similar to the roos

It's Miller and Kuol that I worry about there. That's retrospective wisdom a bit because I thought both were good moves at the time but currently not doing so well. That said it's still early days so it could just be that tough learning curve and they'll look back on it one day as character building. 

No the misspelling of Livingston raised suspicion but the omission of Celtic and Rangers from the table confirmed it. I understand but disagree as to why you left them out of your analysis but leaving them out of any comparative table is ridiculously wrong.