Jump to content

Dunning1874

Gold Members
  • Posts

    12,328
  • Joined

  • Days Won

    30

Everything posted by Dunning1874

  1. Labour are being investigated by the Police over their candidate selection in Croydon East, which they had to suspend in November after it was found that several members in the constituency who were eligible to vote didn't get access to the online ballot. It transpired that somehow members' email addresses had been changed without their knowledge.
  2. Looking back to the 10 game unbeaten run last season before Oakley signed where we had Muirhead at centre forward, we were very reliant on natural width with Quitongo on the right and McGrattan or Kabia on the left, with the long balls primarily aimed at finding the feet of wingers rather than going for Muirhead's head and trying to play off flick ons. I can understand why Imrie has stuck with things like Blues on the right when he was in fantastic form there until a few games ago, but in Oakley's absence we need that natural width back to give us an outball. Having naturally central players there is fine when we're scrapping for second balls in a congested middle of the park and you want whoever's playing out wide to be comfortable stepping inside, but with no target man to aim at we need players who are comfortable opening up space by hugging the touchline, linking up with Strapp and French and carrying us up the park by running at full backs. Garrity has to start next week.
  3. It's a feasible scenario from here that Gardyne could score the goal to relegate them in the playoffs. That'd be quite the turn of events.
  4. All the rules stipulate is one metre, there was nothing against the rules in bringing them that close in and nothing against the rules in Strapp moving them when they were in his way.
  5. Right, the fan spitting at him is a vile thing to do and there's no justification for it. That doesn’t justify Scullion also spitting back, because if spitting at someone is a horrible thing to do then it's not justified even if it's retaliatory and someone else has spat first. You use the example of working in retail: if a retail worker gets spat at, they're still going to be in serious bother with their employer if their response is to spit back.
  6. We're probably only a couple of wins from safety, but vital that we stop the rot next week. It's been a bit unfortunate that Oakley & Wilson being out has coincided with a tough run of fixtures in playing Raith, Dundee United and Partick, but you've got to adapt to injuries and we've failed to do so. With two home games in a row coming up we've a chance to fully remove ourselves from this conversation, but lose again v Dunfermline and it'll be looking like freefall.
  7. Singling out Strapp as a poor performer is an outrageous take. He was the only one of our starting XI to get pass marks yesterday and was our only attacking threat until Garrity came on, subbing him was an admission the game was done. Looking at the highlights, the first goal is even worse from Power than it seemed at the time. Madness to try to bring that down rather than getting rid of it first time. The second goal is just far too easy.
  8. Garrity beat McMillan and got crosses in several times, when no one had gotten by a full back before his introduction. Hard to judge in a way because the game was obviously done at 2-0 and Partick were happy to let us have the ball so we might not have looked as immediately drastically better after the subs had they happened at 1-0, but regardless Garrity offered more in his first five minutes on the park than Muirhead has in the last five games. McGrattan was quieter, but to some extent that comes with the territory of playing on the right with O'Connor behind you as opposed to being on the left with Strapp overlapping. He was about score a tap-in at the back post from a corner soon after coming on, but Baird got in the way. The game had become a frantic mess at the point Bearne came on, but he at least tried to run at the full back and he won a couple of corners, which was again more than anyone in the starting XI achieved. Garrity needs to start next week.
  9. And that one came from us having no outball because our most advanced player from the previous clearance was Gillespie. Subs should have been on at half-time if not after 10 minutes, far too late now.
  10. No, and it's gone as badly as you'd think. I've seen managers get the brainwave to move full backs into holding midfield before and it usually goes terribly, but at least you can often see the thought process in those full backs being good passers of the ball so might be able to spray it around from midfield. I think French genuinely has the worst distribution of any professional footballer I've ever seen including goalkeepers, and he's predictably been even more abysmal than usual. The goal though is entirely on Power. Absolutely brainless to try to bring it down and take a touch with the ball dropping in that area of the park with Graham a yard away from it him, he was always more likely to lose it than keep it and there's nothing anyone else can do about it once Graham's away from Power. It had been coming though, we've looked lost since kick-off. The feeling without Oakley has been that we're beaten as soon as we're behind, and we've had even less attacking threat here than we've had in any of the last four games with Gillespie also having no idea what he's doing in an advanced role and no width. With Broadfoot on a booking get him off for Garrity and reshuffle everyone else into their real positions.
  11. This is a 4-2-3-1 with O'Connor right back, Power and French sitting, Gillespie in the middle of the 3. This seems insane.
  12. Some exceptional shithousery before we even reach kick-off. Have to respect the pettiness, but will be very funny when we inevitably hear about Morton's cynicism later regardless of the result.
  13. Getting through the final might not be their biggest problem, it's keeping their bottle to get there in the first place that's looking questionable.
  14. While some of that reflects terribly on the Queen of the South board, Gibson still appears to be in denial about being a dreadful manager. That Bartley has contrived to be even worse doesn't change that.
  15. While this is undeniably an accurate description of Ross County & Roy McGregor, this perhaps isn't the best time to be bringing up millions of pounds of losses. The material difference between the two clubs at the moment appears to be that Ross County's owner is deliberately budgeting for substantial losses and is willing to write them off, while Inverness Caledonian Thistle's directors are deliberately budgeting for substantial losses and have no willingness to write them off, preferring to hope a get rich quick scheme will fill the gap.
  16. Genuine questions, how many players are under contract for next season and how much debt is the club in? If the club just slash the playing budget - and indeed the non-playing budget meaning you can say goodbye to a charlatan like Gardiner - so the losses stop piling up this obviously leaves you with the outstanding debt to directors who've been maintaining the losses with loans every season. That's likely debt you're not going to raise the sums to clear if you end up in League One, but that also changes the whole nature of the conversation about how to be a sustainable club. Rather than your directors being able to continually point fingers elsewhere to deflect from their own role, having seen amazing get rich quick schemes like the concert company and (pending an appeal) now the battery storage blow up in their face, at that point that the debt is the sole issue they have no one else to blame. If you actually get to a place of breaking even year on year then the debt is the sole threat to the club's continued existence, and rather than playing the victim because of the intransigence of the council or whoever else, current and former directors then have the scrutiny fully turned on them. Are they willing to kill the club by calling in the debt to them personally, a debt that only exists because of their inability to budget properly while they were supposed to be custodians of the club, even with such massive financial windfalls as a Scottish Cup final? The likes of Ross Morrison could hardly play the victim in that scenario if they didn't simply write the debt off.
  17. I walked past that the other day and did wonder what the need for a viewing platform was at a point of the river where footbridges aren't far away in either direction and you can have a nice view walking along the path as it is, with crossing to the islands also an option for a closer look.
  18. See Abbott has an article in the Independent today which primarily focuses on the Tories & Hester, but also mentions Labour's own failures on racism and sexism, including their failure to act on the Forde Report. Cue a massive amount of blatant lying from Labour figures on TV today claiming the recommendations of that report have been implemented in full, when no such thing has happened to the point that Forde himself went to the media to complain about it. Meanwhile, Labour are using the Hester scandal to fundraise, sending the following email out: Abbott is currently suspended from the whip and has been for 11 months.
  19. A genuine worst football top of all time contender, with no debate to be had about being Scotland's worst ever. Revolting.
  20. A team with no clean sheets or wins in 8 games against a team who've failed to score in 5 of their last 6 games. The only thing I'm confident predicting here is something hilarious for neutrals will occur, whether through calamitous defending, abysmal finishing or players losing the plot and getting mad red cards. Would be happy to see us continue with a back three here in the continued absence of Oakley and Wilson. If you wanted to make it a bit more attacking considering our recent lack of goal threat, you could drop Gillespie, move Crawford back and bring Garrity or McGrattan in to play off Muirhead, but I'd be leaving it unchanged. That could too easily turn into a 3-4-3 rather than 3-5-2 with Crawford pressing up the park (if Lawless and Fitzpatrick have Strapp and French pinned back then 5-2-3) and despite their recent struggles, you can't afford to surrender the midfield like that against Partick.
  21. Tangential to the donation, Lindsay Hoyle is in bother again as the issue came up throughout PMQs. One MP who repeatedly stood to be called on for a question and was ignored for the entire session was... Diane Abbott. You'd think the MP who's been the subject of the racism scandal the government are denying while other parties try to make political capital out of it would be given the opportunity to speak about it herself, particularly when abuse and threats of MPs have seemingly been a huge issue of late to the extent that Hoyle decreed Parliament shouldn't be allowed to hold votes on issues that might have constituents contacting MPs, and studies over the years have found that Abbot gets almost as much abuse as the other 649 MPs combined. Apparently not!
  22. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68513408 Some horrifying accounts of the abduction and torture Gazan medical staff have been subjected to here.
  23. What in the name of the f**k was Broadfoot doing for that goal? He'd had a good game overall but f**k me, why is he considering stepping up to the ball, getting nowhere near then leaving Shankland in about 8 yards of space? Couldn't really have asked for a better performance in the circumstances, but what a brutal goal to lose it. Hopefully we can replicate that performance level in the league until Oakley's back, we looked like ourselves again despite obviously missing him and Wilson. Going to be some laugh tomorrow when the Scotland squad is announced and we realise Clarke was actually there to decide whether Ryan Mullen and Lewis Strapp are only being called up as cover or going straight in as first choice.
  24. I'm including him, incredibly. We had a front three of McKay, O'Connor and Vine a couple of times that season, halcyon days.
×
×
  • Create New...