Lex

Money is thrown about at part time level all the time. There’s obviously plenty of small investors willing to do that for various local reasons and becoming the best part time club in Scotland isn’t difficult. None of those clubs will ever play in the top flight. I was referring to the full time game, where the sums needed are very different.

Agree with this. FFP in Scotland would just solve a problem that sadly in a way, just doesn’t exist. It’s like building a fence to keep out the wolves, when the wolves went extinct over 10 years ago, with the failed Mileson and Romanov experiments. Many examples show this, Stewart Gilmour was desperately trying to sell St Mirren for over a decade, it ended up having to be the fans buying him out. Already mentioned the Browns troubles in trying to offload St Johnstone and I’m sure we’ve all seen the video of Motherwell whoring themselves for ‘investors’ on social media. No one of any proper means is interested in investing in any of these clubs, all of whom are secure in the top flight and debt free, there just are no wolves for FFP to keep out. The reason for this came up on a Q&A with the Hollywood Wrexham investors. I didn’t see it but I believe they were asked if they considered investing in a Scottish club before they chose Wrexham. They said they looked at it and concluded it was not a viable investment. It would be easy to make any club in the 42 the third force in Scotland without much investment, but anything beyond that just isn’t realistically achievable. With Wrexham, they’ll see what similarly sized clubs are doing in the EPL just now and think that there’s no reason that won’t be them within 10 years, and then they may be able to sell for a profit. Point is anyone with serious money to invest in football isn’t going to choose to invest in Scottish football, why would they? FFP just stops the much dreamed of and very rare rich fan putting his cash in. This further helps to maintains the status quo, which is not really endangered anyway.

I doubt it would make much difference to be honest. I feel the days of clubs grotesquely overspending in Scottish football are over. We’ve seen Rangers, Hearts, Motherwell and Dundee shamelessly cheat with varying levels of success, but that was all over 10 years ago now. There’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in Scottish football that would entice financial doping to that extent anymore. If you throw money at any club in Scottish football you’re just throwing it down the drain. See the trouble a really well run club like St Johnstone are having attracting a buyer. No outsider is interested because there is no prospect of progression for clubs like that so no way they could ever be sold on for a profit. it’s different in the lower reaches of English football which is rife with over spending, but that’s because they’re chasing the EPL gold. It works sometimes too, see the likes of Bournemouth and Brighton who have went from financial basket cases to two of the richest clubs in the world in the last 20 years. All that financial fair play would do in Scotland would be to consolidate the gap between the old firm and anyone else. It would stop any investor/Euromillions winner coming in and throwing money at a diddy club in order to break their duopoly. But that ain’t happening anyway, so no matter.

Nope we were not, I don’t think we were the only team that done it that day either. Works both ways too. I can’t remember the exact details of this but an ex chairman of ours passed away a few years ago, I think it was Bob Earlie, but happy to be corrected by a Saints fan who recalls this better than me. He was an elderly gent who hadn’t been around the club for a while, but in his day he had spent years of his life doing a lot of good work for us. The kind of guy who is absolutely deserving of recognition at a game. He wasn’t of the social media generation and essentially his death was missed by the club. A bit of understandable upset from friends and family ensued and there was then retrospective acknowledgement. Things like this is why I think we just need to do the tribute every home game. There’s never going to be less tributes, but it’s went so far we just now offend the families of people who don’t get the tribute, many of whom are more deserving than the ones that do.

That's a nonsense to be fair. The concept of a team finishing midtable in the league and being able to get promoted needs binned. At the most the playoff should be the winner of 2nd v 3rd to play 11th. Or, even better, just 2nd v 11th.

Don't think the format makes any difference to the Old Firm really. The previous one was a ten team league playing 36 games, this is two extra teams and we play 38 games. They still play each other four times every season and still finish 1st and 2nd almost every season. There's no change in format that could stop them running away with the league every year. Do agree with kicking them out though.

It's not perfect, no league system is, but it suits our game fine. It's been in place for a good while now and I suspect it will for a good while more, doesn't seem to be any real appetite amongst the clubs for any kind of reconstruction. Of course apart from Hearts when they got relegated in 2020, reconstruction suddenly became very pressing issue to them then, funnily enough they've went strangely quiet on it since they got promoted. It has created a meaningless achievement for middling top flight clubs of 'top six', and I say this as a fan of one club who will probably 'achieve' it this weekend. We never used to celebrate getting top six before the split was invented and I guess it will stop being lauded when the split is finally done away with, but there's no harm in clubs aiming for halfway up the league, I suppose.

It’s at the point where we should just have a minutes applause/silence before every single home match in remembrance of all the ex players, ex club officials and fans that have died since the last home match. Because, of course, there will be people with historic or current connections to the all of the top clubs dying every single week. Not to mention the minutes silence/ applause we sometimes have for deaths of other teams players/officials and select political figures/wars from around the world. The one I remember as bizarre was us having a minutes silence for Fernando Ricksen at St Mirren Park. I had nothing against him, and his young death was tragic, but he had absolutely no connections to our football club.

You’re giving us a goal difference advantage on both there, which is very optimistic given our record of pumping a at Parkhead. We could draw to hearts annd lose to Celtic and finish below both of them.

With four games to go we just really needed two points to all but seal top six. Despite being ahead after 60 minutes against Killie and today, we’ve ended up with one point from those two games. Two fantastic opportunities to secure it and we’ve choked both, doesn’t bode well. We still should probably do it. Hibs need to win both of their games and we need to get one point or less from our two. Sounds unrealistic, till you realise their last two games are St Johnstone and Motherwell and our last two are Hearts and Celtic. Dundee would also need to get st least four points from three games against Aberdeen, Rangers and Motherwell while we lose both ours. We are in a better position than both goal difference wise, but with Celtic away on the horizon that could quickly change. I just feel we really need to do it next week, either by Hibs dropping points or by us winning. The nightmare - and not unlikely - scenario is us going to Parkhead either needing a result or needing Motherwell to avoid defeat to Hibs.

Jesus.

FT 1-1 Meh, more points thrown away on the road. Probably a fair result over the piece. Feel we miss Kwon in the midfield, no idea why he’s suddenly been bombed out the team.

Yet another Motherwell player booked for diving.

HT 0-1 Not much in it but we are doing a job on them, so far. Just like both of our goals against Killie, it’s a Greg Kiltie corner that leads to the opener. Nice of the Well defence to leave Fraser alone like that to head it home. Who knows what the second half holds, we might lose 5-1. Probably not though.

Sorry no, you can’t get your dead dads telly. It must be sold after his death and the proceeds given to the state. The state will send round sentries after each death to inventory each estate to enforce this.

Second one arrived last month, little girl this time. All doing great but we are deep in the two under two trenches at the moment. Both of them in nappies so it’s regular trips to the dump as the wheelie bins just can’t cope with the sheer volume. Still, it’s good fun and I am sure we will get a full nights sleep at some point in the not too distant future…

A sound pumping like Rugby Park will get rid of a load of the travelling fair weather fans, we will be back to our usual away support. Still not sure what to make of those last two games. We won against Aberdeen when it looked like we were going to lose, and then lost to Kilmarnock when it looked like we were going to win. Broke even I think, and a better points return than two draws. After this we have Hearts then Celtic before the split, so this be - should be - our last game against bottom six opposition this season. With that in mind it’s really one we could do with winning if we want to be going to Europe. We’ve played Motherwell three times already this season and they still haven’t scored a single goal against us, so certainly reason to be optimistic. 0-0

To be fair, the strategy of playing friendlies against the strong nations (France, England, Holland) wasn’t great because we kept getting humped. So it certainly made sense to have a home friendly against a diddy nation like Northern Ireland. Get a big win and boost the confidence a bit. Then we go and lose that too, my my. It will be alright on the night, I’m sure.

Finally, someone in this thread can spell pantomime. Will Aberdeen appoint a manager before the end of this managerial break? Oh no they won’t.

He was obviously on the verge of retirement without this injury, and it sounds like another nasty one. He may have played his last game.

Good tournament from Murray to get to the third round, but just dropped off physically at the end of the third set there. No surprise given his age. Thats twice he’s lost to Mahac already this year.

Haven’t and won’t read this thread, but as soon as I saw the title my thoughts went to the Dundee fans. There’s fans of that football club in their 50’s who have been following that football club week in week out for their whole lives and they have never seen their team win a cup. Must be quite maddening. I then thought about fans of Motherwell. There’s fan of that football club in their 30’s who have been following that football club week in week out for their whole lives and they have never seen their team win a cup. Must be quite maddening. Thankfully, no other fans of Premiership clubs have experienced such hardship. Maybe we should all start a gofundme or something? PM if interested and I’ll get the page up. Some kind of charity game involving Claudia Cannigia and James McFadden seems in order. Special guests Michael Higdon and Gary Harkins, Ivano Bonneti and Stuart McCall in the dugouts. Medalless legends in abundance.

What a weekend of FA Cup football

FT 5-2 What an arse collapse that was and we can have no complaints. We definitely have a habit of doing that in big games under Robinson. It reminded me of the quarter final at Easter Road earlier in the season. A comfortable first half, deservedly go in ahead at half time, then completely shit the bed and get thumped second half. Difference is we only shipped three goals in one half that night, five today. Whenever we seem close to actually achieving something, this happens. Ryan Flynn has been a great servant but he’s done at this level. He was at fault for at least two of those goals. I understand we have issues at right back when Strain is injured, but I hope he never plays for us again. Hemming was shit, again, Killie fans singing his name towards the end was some laugh. I really hope he isn’t our goalkeeper next season. We are on still on the verge of the top five and European football, but we simply won’t get it playing like that. Big game at Fir Park in a fortnight.

HT 0-2 Yep think we've been the better side and deserve to be comfortably ahead. First goal's a lovely corner by Kiltie, stramash, and then slammed home by Charles Dunne. His first goal for the club in his 87th appearance. Second goal's another lovely corner by Kiltie, from the same side, stroked home by Mandron at the back post. Bizarre defending by Killie for that one, lovely. Killie not done much at all, they've been rubbish. Think Dunne's been our best player actually, he's copped a lot of stick over the years but he's been great today and took the goal superbly. Keep playing like this and we will win this game comfortably.