Forfinn

I get that it's different, but it's always struck me as slightly odd the dedication some families have for travelling to watch their grown-up child play football. You're essentially watching them do their job. Imagine your own parents turning up in the office and applauding a particularly good Powerpoint presentation...

Someone at the BBC has been reading Narey's Toepoker, I see.

£31 (thirty-one pounds) to attend this as an away supporter. Anyone who pays that is seriously dedicated.

A bit odd Akio is the one singled out for public criticism when he wasn't the only player involved?

You would think that in the year of our Lord 2023 it would be possible to ensure a reliable connection to all the grounds they're covering.

Given the state of that key, I doubt it'll make any difference. It'll be long since written off.

To add to what others have said, as well as having a pretty solid physical infrastructure in place, part of the motivation for the Malky Mackay project was to put a proper football infrastructure in place - recruitment department, sport science etc. That's all with a view to making the club more sustainable in the long run (although self-sustaining at Premiership level is a pipe dream, and I expect recognised as such). Things would be very bad if Macgregor's support was pulled overnight, but there's no reason to expect that would happen. If they can close the gap between what the club brings in and what is spent, that puts the club in a better position for when the subsidy eventually dries up. The difficulty in the short term is that it looks like this approach is condemning us to relegation. Whether it's been badly executed, or simply inevitable due to the the budget available is a matter of opinion (in reality it's probably somewhere in the middle). Additional investment this month from Macgregor could save us from relegation, but that's entirely up to him. We've certainly no right to expect Premiership football in perpetuity. It'll come to an end sooner or later.

Where does the club go from here? A miraculous turnaround seems unlikely. Mackay had several weeks to work with them over the World Cup break, including a training camp in Spain. That was the opportunity to drill his philosophy (such as it is) in to the group, to properly bed in the new players. Since then it's one goal and one point from five games. So if Mackay is to save the club from relegation, Macgregor needs to throw some cash at it and hope Mackay's contacts can throw up some new Joe Hungbos and Harry Clarkes. Would a new manager get a better tune out of this squad? Debatable. But without investment we're going down anyway. Maybe the long term project of Mackay's backroom restructuring is worth it in Macgregor's eyes? Go down, trust the foundations that have been put in place and come straight back up? That's by no means guaranteed. Maybe it'll cost too much to sack him? I imagine he's on a decent wage. Mackay used to talk a good game, but he's increasingly sounding like a snake oil salesman. It'd be good to seem him go soon and we can put this whole sorry chapter behind us.

I wouldn't read too much in to that. He's barely played in 18 months so needs to get back up to speed. He's got 6 months left on his contract, so if he can go out on loan at get some game time at a lower level then that puts him in a better position to get a new club in the summer. If he impresses, then we could offer him a new deal (but I don't think anyone considers that likely). No one is going to want to take him off our hands as things stand so we'll need to pay the remainder of his contract regardless - either by paying up now and releasing him or going down the loan route, so the latter makes sense. It might even be possible for a loaning club to pay a percentage of his wages, but that'd probably depend on how much demand there is for his signature.

For all both teams are on an equally terrible run, I'll be astonished if this doesn't finish as an Aberdeen win.

I wonder what punishment will be dished out for this evening's clearly audible discriminatory singing? I was dipping in and out of the radio commentary and the first thing they did when they cut back to the studio was apologise for it.

I have no idea how big a deal the Mackay issue is for the average punter who is less online than some of us. I suspect that rather than being a primary cause of the malaise, it's just another contributing factor alongside: Changing habits over lockdown - once you're out of the routine of going every week, I can imagine some people have moved on to other things Cost - football is an expensive hobby, and we're now charging walk-ups £28 across the board in a cost of living crisis A wider drift in identity at the club - the "community club" schtick has been getting hollower by the year Generally being a bit rubbish - how enjoyable has the football actually been in recent years? Fewer freebies - I think the club cut down on the number of free season tickets that used to be in circulation (part of the reason "sold out" big games have hundreds of empty seats). Some of those tickets will have been used, but perhaps not by people bothered enough to actually pay For my part, I've not been to Dingwall since pre-pandemic. I was usually good for a handful for home games a season and most away games (Dingwall is a long way from Edinburgh). I didn't go back at first because I got in to the habit of doing different things at the weekend and restrictions that remained in place would have made it a less enjoyable experience than before. The we went and appointed Mackay and my objections became more principled. I'm sure I'll go back again once he's gone, but overall, I care much less than I did before.

It's been the standard price for single match tickets since the start of this season. Even in the Jail End. Pretty hard to justify.

I rather optimistically tuned in at 3pm to hear updates from Livingston v Ross County, only to find technical problems meant there weren't any. After a good 5 minutes of non-stop discussion about Rangers in Europe I turned it off. Honestly, an utterly pointless show now. One day I'll learn my lesson and just stop bothering with it entirely.

Given what happened after County v Killie last week, they simply have to be. It's as clear a red card as you'll see.