Forfinn

Harry Paton is also out of contract, and there have been conflicting reports about the length of David Cancola's contract. I don't think there's any need to panic about lack of signings yet. The nature of the market we're operating in is that these deals get done later (be it loan signings or guys who are weighing up options elsewhere). The early stages of pre-season and the League Cup should be navigable by the players already on the books supplemented by youngsters. But the lack of updates on the out of contract players is a bit surprising (especially as the decision on "releasing" Paton should be an easy one).

In his P&J column following Malky Mackay's appointment at Ross County, Richard Gordon described fans who took issue with it as "desperate to be offended". So as much as he might be a competent broadcaster, that sums your point up nicely.

Whether he should have been playing the last few months is a question I'm not sure I have the answer to, but actively offering him a new contract while the charges remain outstanding feels like it would be a step too far IMO. Story here: Canadian-born Ross County Football Club player Harry Paton (23) has trial over allegations of abusing and assaulting former partner deferred (ross-shirejournal.co.uk)

It's probably fair to say the Utd fans took things a bit too far, even if it was apparently good natured. It's also probably fair to say there's more than a little in the way of sour grapes from the Ross County side. Just a few days ago this looked it would be the game that secured our passage in to Europe for the first time ever, and then we have to watch Utd fans celebrate that very thing. It's understandable, but it does make us look very Helen Lovejoy-esque.

You've got to admire the optimism of the "now do Charles-Cook" Twitter reply guys.

The answer here is Ross County. Hear me out... Roy MacGregor will be 70 later this year. At some point he'll take a step back. There's three obvious possible outcomes when that happens: 1) The Gretna - While there's no denying the club relies on his investment, it's unlikely the plug gets pulled with no warning. Maybe his family continue their controlling interest, but there's no clear succession planning in place. At the very least though, I'm sure they'd oversee a transition. 2) Regression to the mean - That transition could see other local businessmen/women step in to the breach, perhaps on a more level playing field with no outstanding benefactor. This would see the club stand mostly on its own feet, probably at Championship level or as a struggling Premiership side like Dundee or St Johnstone. 3) Sugar Daddy - Now this is where it gets interesting. Danish multi-billionaire Anders Povlsen owns huge swathes of the Highlands and is the largest private landowner in the UK. His main focus is on rewilding the estates he owns. It's a controversial practice, likened by many to modern day Clearances. What better way to win the locals round than by engaging in a tried and trusted PR exercise? Buy the local football team, invest a tiny percentage of his estimated £6 BILLION fortune and away we go. The Scottish version of Hoffenheim (population: 3,191), except even more successful because you've only got Rangers and Celtic to overhaul, not Bayern Munich. And if not Povlsen, there's any number of obscenely wealthy people who own Highland estates for a number of tax or leisure reasons. It feels just as likely as any other answer at the moment.

What's with this growing trend of clubs making it as difficult as possible for away fans to attend games? RCFC - Supporter Info | Hibernian v RCFC (rosscountyfootballclub.co.uk) "Tickets can be collected up to 1.00pm on Friday 18th February from the Global Energy Stadium. Tickets can also be collected from the Easter Road ticket office on matchday however must be purchased prior to 1.00pm on Friday 18th February."

Chris Konopka is a League Cup winner, how could you possibly have forgotten about him!? I almost saw him play when I was in Canada in 2017. I went to see Edmonton vs North Carolina in the NASL (I wasn't there especially for that, I hasten to add). Konopka made 9 appearances for them that season. Unfortunately, he was injured and didn't even make the bench. So close to being probably the only Ross County fan to see him in action... I was also very disappointed Abdoulaye Meite never got a game. The Central Staggies had a song based on The Mighty Quinn by Manfred Mann ready to go when he lined up alongside Paul Quinn in defence. Sadly, the world was deprived of a beautiful moment. And the less said about Jim Fenlon the better.

I appreciate there's a lot going on in this thread at the moment but I can't believe no one called out Superintendent Hastings here.

There was some discussion during OAM on Tuesday evening. Only Michael Stewart and Tom English spoke about it IIRC and they struck the right tone. Maybe for the best that they didn't ask any of the more "experienced" former professionals.

It flew under the radar back in September. Just behind a paywall on the Aberdeen Journals websites. The trial was supposed to be "later this year" so we can consider it overdue (not necessarily a surprise given the backlogs the courts are dealing with), unless charges were dropped even more quietly than they were revealed.

I can't quite wrap my head around the triple negative here, but on the FA investigation it's worth pointing out the reason Mackay wasn't charged was because, to that point, it was not their policy to bring charges “in respect of private communications sent with a legitimate expectation of privacy”. However, he was “spoken to” about the “inappropriateness of terms used in the messages”. Following the case, the FA instigated a review of how similar cases should be treated in the future. In his original car crash P&J interview Macgregor said Mackay had been found “not guilty” and “exonerated” by the English FA, which casts some doubt on the thoroughness of the club's due diligence. I don't even know where to begin with this, so I won't bother. It's also worth remembering the Sky Sports interview was actually his second apology. The first one was in a statement a day earlier when the story first broke and used the phrase "friendly text message banter". So you'll forgive my cynicism about the sincerity of the crisis management TV interview apology. If Mackay and Macgregor had approached the PR around the appointment differently then we might be in a different place now, but they didn't. As far as they're concerned, and has been repeatedly demonstrated by Macgregor, it's "in the past" and they don't understand what all the fuss is about. To Mackay's credit (I'm not close-minded on this), his Rainbow Laces interview was very good and is exactly the kind of thing he - or any football manager, for that matter - should be doing. It's a shame it was cancelled out by his reaction to the Jeando Fuchs incident which suggested he wasn't really paying attention during all those anti-racism classes.

Wahey!

I think it's quite clear Macgregor still doesn't get it, but I won't bother re-hashing old arguments. Something that's new out of the RSJ write-up of the interview though: "I chased Malky for seven years, but I never thought he would come to this level of football. It was just the right time, place and opportunity." Seven years from 2021 takes us back to 2014. That suggests he first tried to appoint Mackay when Derek Adams was sacked at the end of August, pretty much a week after Mackay lost out on the Crystal Palace job due to Vincent Tan releasing those text messages.

I'm sure some people will manage it.

Except he didn't say that. It's usually a good idea to read what people actually said rather than taking a sensationalist newspaper headline as gospel.

The alternative to doing really badly and getting sacked is doing really well and getting poached by a bigger club, his reputation successfully laundered.

If there was going to be a club in the Premiership inadvertently using motivational quotes from a famous anti-semite in their promotional material this season, it was always going to be Ross County, wasn't it? At least they've deleted it now, which demonstrates more self-awareness than usual. And I'm glad we've avoided a "Henry Ford apologised in 1927, surely it's time we gave him a second chance" narrative...

Speaking as someone who was identified as a close contact last week, if you're double-vaccinated you have to isolate until you receive a negative PCR test. Then you can get back to normal. So if the positive tests were done this morning, as suggested, there wouldn't be enough time to turn around PCR tests for close contacts pre-match.

Rangers fans on Twitter saying County have specifically requested a red zone so there won't be any away ticket sales as they have to move ST holders. Seems a strange one given Aberdeen fans were in last night and there's no longer a requirement for red zones.

I wouldn't take sophia too seriously. However, there's a valid point in there. The opinion of a few dozen people on social media doesn't necessarily correlate with the (allegedly) 2,500 who were in attendance on Saturday, or the wider offline support.

Hi, you must be new around here.

It's really been almost 5 months. Mackay was appointed in late May. I know the season itself is only 9 games old but it's not like he's just in the door. He had the whole of (an admittedly covid-disrupted) pre-season to prepare for the campaign. MacGregor has been conspicuous by his silence recently. His last intervention of note was that disastrous interview with the P&J where he got any number of things wrong about Mackay (showing his due diligence wasn't worth the fag packet it was written on the back of). There's no Cormack-esque vote of confidence in sight. You'd think he'd have to raise his head back above the parapet soon, whether it's to back his man or to recognise it's not working out. ETA: And as others have pointed out, MacGregor has not been shy to take action when it's not been working out as he wanted. See Willie McStay and Dick Campbell in particular. Owen Coyle to a lesser extent, and Jim McIntyre when the entire media class thought it was an outrage (although a lot of County fans think should have been done sooner).

Interesting, thanks. They did at least win a game at the start of 86-87! But that makes this County's worst start to a league campaign in my lifetime (I was born in early 1987). Let's hope things have improved by the time we get to the 15 game mark and we don't have to start looking even further back for a comparison.

Nope, I mean since we joined the SFL in 1994. It's hard to imagine having had a worse start in the Highland League, but no one (to my knowledge) has checked further back.