Toby Sibbick has urged people in England to “educate” themselves on Scottish football rather than dismissing it as no good. The Hearts star has experienced the Championship and League One with Barnsley and AFC Wimbledon respectively.
He got his first taste of top flight action in Scotland three years ago, then returned to Tynecastle on a permanent basis in January 2022.
Having sampled both, Sibbick is well placed to make a comparison. Often, those who pay no attention to anything outside the English game tend to combine an over-inflated opinion of its standard with an arrogantly sneering view on football north of the border.
Confidently predicted their grannies, or “nan” as the cliche goes, could do a job in the SPFL. But Sibbick has slammed such narrow mindedness and warns that Celtic, Rangers or Hearts would more than hold their own against teams in the Championship and beat plenty of them. “In England, there are four tiers,” he told the Edinburgh Evening News. “There are some really good teams in League One, like Sheffield Wednesday and Derby County.