Stu

And some cover at left wing back as well it seems.

Seemingly not:

As long as they don’t end up in Weegieland or they’ll miss the game.

Thanks to you and @mathematics for your incredibly generous donations- only injury will stop me, which given my track record isn’t a good omen

Hope the Queens support make it safely from the Borders to the game.

My sponsorship link if anyone has a few quid going spare... https://www.justgiving.com/page/stuartisturning40

Not really Saints related but it's the winter break and not much is going on. I'm running the Manchester Marathon in April, partly to raise money for Accord. If anyone wants to chuck me/them a few quid, I'd be grateful https://www.justgiving.com/page/stuartisturning40 If nothing else, you can have a laugh at a 30+ year old picture of me wearing a Saints tracksuit.

Aiden Gilmarton going on loan to Stranraer - thought he was already out on loan somewhere but maybe not. Either way can't see it making much difference to the budget.

My money would be on the club just down the coast from Morecambe where Burnley's former loans manager has just taken charge.

I know a few folk who had problems with Garmins switching off/losing charge rapidly during the really cold weather in December. Given it's really cold again, could that be the issue? I've a Forerunner 55 and had no issues (yet!), but it's only a year or so old.

Manchester Marathon in mid April will be my main focus, will probably do a few events on the club grand prix before then. I usually do three 13 mile runs a week and a longer one on a Friday so just a case of keeping that up and avoiding injury/illness - easier said than done! Have done a marathon before but will be doing this one for charity as well (not a charity place thankfully!). Bit awkward about getting sponsored when it's something I'd be doing anyway, but it's the first time I've done any sort of sponsorship thing so guessing plenty of folk owe me.

Offord recalled. Maybe he's going elsewhere but if he's staying, you'd imagine one of our other forwards is going because we were already well stocked in that area. Forgot it could also be because they're financially screwed and can't afford what they were paying of his wages.

Brilliant result, glad we’ve managed to get a win before the break. Anything from Tuesday is a bonus now.

A lovely way to end the year

That's the main problem for me at the moment. It's not just that we're not scoring, it's that in most games we're not even creating chances to miss. We had nothing really clear cut against Motherwell (aside from the penalty) and don't seem to have created anything until we were a couple of goals down yesterday. We seem to be starting a different striker alongside Ayunga every other week in the hope that something works (Stav presumably got a second shot because we actually scored with him in the team against County) when, for the most part, they're not the ones to blame because they've sod all to work with. Maybe it's because we have loads of forwards so it's the one area of the team where we can change things about, whereas we have hardly any options in midfield - surely the main reason O'Hara hasn't been dropped/rested/allowed to fully recover from whatever injury he had. As superb as he was last season, he has been really disappointing this year - the reverse of Main over the last few years! We weren't particularly prolific when we were going well earlier in the season but we were keeping it tight at the back. Now we don't seem to be doing that, and because the goals have dried up (three in eight games) we're struggling for form. The Strain injury is obviously a huge part of that - but I wonder if we've hit the stage where other folk have sussed Robinson's system, which the obsessed Motherwell fans told us would happen. The results and lack of goals suggest it is time to change things about with the system. The number of games in the next 10 days or so suggests it would be a sensible time to change around what few personnel we have to keep things fresh, and if a bigger change is coming it'll be after the break when we've had a chance to work on it in training.

Having Colin and Catch as neighbours strikes me as what it would be like living next door to the Mones.

The airport security woman I encountered in Nova Scotia was so full of stereotypical Canadian politeness it was bordering on offensive.

By coincidence, Roy Aitken was briefly mentioned on today's episode of Sacked in the Morning when Dean Windass was talking about getting three red cards in what turned out to be Aitken's last game in charge of Aberdeen. He also doesn't like Alex Miller: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0gz41gr I think Aitken is the last player to be capped for Scotland while playing for Saints.

https://www.friendsoffootballnz.com/2023/12/05/takapuna-keeper-training-with-scottish-premiership-club-st-mirren/

Was just about to type something similar - bit frustrating that we did so well on the park, had bigger crowds and made money from selling Erhahon (and I'd forgotten the extra cup cash from the Celtic game) yet didn't quite break even. Obviously a huge improvement over the previous year, and it confirms one stand for the Old Firm hasn't provided us with an issue, but still not overly brilliant.

I note our gate receipts were up nearly £400,000 despite the apparent financial suicide of restricting the Old Firm to one stand...

My favourite part of that is the Sky comment. Incredible. On that subject, some tremendous Vegas cheerleading from Craig Slater on the latest Sky F1 podcast.

Maybe not. Very poor week from Tasha and she deserved to go. Either the judges were desperately trying to save her with their comments or they were trying to build suspense as it was obvious she should go. Funny how they failed to mention her being bottom of technical in their discussions.

Absolutely nothing compared to the obsession with "Ange". Like a jilted lover trying to win him back. Used to be if you wanted the latest about Rangers' finances, you read a Celtic website. Now if you want the latest on Spurs, you read the Scottish papers.

Thought it was a good run until I saw my time and it was my slowest ever on that course. Funny old game. https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/scottish-race-organiser-accused-running-28131162