Diamonds are Forever

Hilarious. He was never going to shoot first time, and even if he had he wouldn't have blocked it by diving in like that. Abysmal defending.

Excellent refereeing. Docherty kicks into the County player, a joke that VAR asked the referee to look at it but at least he was strong enough to stick with his decision.

None of that has anything to do with what I said though has it? It's obvious that we'll not be able to score 82 league goals, dish out hammerings every few weeks and score 4 or more goals in 10 of our league games like we did last season. That's not a criticism, it's a basic observation that we are moving up a level and will find things a lot tougher, no matter how good a job Rhys has done or what his aims are.

League prize money is a big increase definitely. Attendances won't be a huge money spinner though. Assuming Partick go up, we have ICT, Ross County, Arbroath and Queens Park who will bring League 1 level crowds, probably even less. Morton, Ayr, Raith, Dunfermline will all bring decent supports but nothing huge unless they are top of the league. Same with Dundee Utd really. You'd hope there will be a few extra in the home end but we won't be the free scoring side we were this year so that may tail off if we're down the bottom half. The cup run is the big thing, you need a bit of luck with the draw but you also need to take advantage of it. Look at sides like Falkirk and ICT who did very little this year yet managed to reach a semi-final/final and have made a small fortune off it.

That's Dylan, who was CB and captain. I can only assume the poster means Adam McGowan, although quite what evidence he's used to determine that he would suit McCabe's style of play I'm not sure, given that as far as I can tell he's not really an attacker, and that he's barely kicked a ball in his career.

You've managed 4 completely irrelevant statements in 2 sentences, which is quite something. If the decision is correct, which this is, then the only person who has 'ruined' anything is the defender who committed the foul.

How though? There's no way someone like Brad McKay will get another full-time deal after the last 2 years he's had. And even if he did, it would be significantly lower wages, so why would he agree to leave?

I agree, not criticising him. Was just saying that the claim he has 'looked better against Championship opponents' is made up nonsense. His only games against Championship sides this year were: Arbroath away - we lost 3-0 and I can't remember Justin even playing (despite him playing 90 mins). Dundee away - he was subbed at HT. Hamilton at home - subbed after 56 mins after being really poor. Hamilton away - He did well in ET but 30 mins against a tired opposition isn't really representative. I really like him and really hope he signs on, but there's no real evidence yet that he's Championship ready, his performances against sides at that level have ranged from anonymous to poor. However he's young and clearly got potential so I am hopeful he will develop over the course of next season as he gets used to the standard.

McCabe obviously didn't agree as he dropped him after the first Hamilton game.

The play-off final last year was a week earlier than this year's, so we're still within the same time frame as last year assuming there's announcements in the next 2 or 3 days. In general the play-offs always puts us 2 weeks behind everyone else who isn't in them, there's still clubs only just releasing updates in the last couple of days despite their season ending over 3 weeks ago. Of course, moving up a league probably adds more complexity with who is staying and going plus the terms of their contract.

That was League 1 though, if we were still in League 1 I could see McMaster doing what you described, similar to Devenny. But to make that jump from where he is now to someone who can contribute in the Championship is a much bigger ask. I think he did a good job this season when he played, and wouldn't be against him staying in a squad role. But I'm not really convinced he'll be at a level next season to offer us a huge amount.

By any objective measure Cove were obviously the best team, but I never felt that was due to particularly good coaching or having a style of play. They won because they had a solid group of experienced players who, for the most part, were very good players for that level - Fyvie, Megginson, Logan, Vigurs, Milne and a solid back line. They also had depth in their squad that no-one else had with guys like McAllister and MacIntosh coming off the bench in most games. They seemed to score a lot of late goals with contributions from the bench. To a large extent they were flat track bullies so I wasn't surprised at all to see them struggle this year up a level with Milne leaving and as you say Megginson, and a few others, showing that they are good League 1 players but not Championship quality. I guess the lesson is that good recruitment covers all manner of sins. Equally, you can be the best coach in the world but if you recruit like Falkirk have in recent seasons you can forget it.

Context has to be taken into account for the red card. If Akinyemi had just walked up to Muirhead and done that I'd say it's a red. However he's being held around the neck and it's clearly an attempt (albeit a slightly aggressive one) to get him off and away from him. It's not as 'never a red card in a million years' as people are making out but there's enough mitigation there to be a yellow. It's all utterly irrelevant anyway, Ayr were 4-0 down and looked hopeless, it was already game over. It would take a brass neck for Bullen to use it as an excuse.

I'd agree generally but definitely this season I've seen nothing to suggest that Rhys struggles to maintain that kind of professional distance from the players and he's certainly not afraid to make tougher decisions. I remember early in the season he subbed Lewis Jamieson 2 minutes before half-time at Dunfermline as he wasn't happy with how he was following instructions. He could have waited 2 minutes until HT but I assume wanted to make a point to him and the players. Even last week after the Hamilton game he came out and publicly criticised Craig Watson for getting sent-off (when most fans were saying how harsh it was), a player who he played with last year and is mates with. He's done that a few other times too. The caveats would be that we have a very young squad and we don't really have anyone who has had a better career than McCabe. So there is that respect and they look up to him, plus he's one of the better players. We also have a small squad so there's not really any tough decisions to be made, the team kind of picked itself, so there's not really any players who are going to cause disruption. Next season will be really interesting. We'll presumably have a few higher quality signings and 'bigger names' who may challenge McCabe a bit more. We'll be losing more often which affects morale. And it will be much more debatable whether the management team are worth their place in the team. It may well force his hand into deciding whether he wants to keep playing or whether he wants to give his full focus to management. Given he doesn't have any pace to lose and his technical ability he could easily have played League 1 for another 2 or 3 years, it would be a shame if he retired early but it's a choice I think he'll be forced to make pretty soon, particularly if we manage to stay up next year.

Economics must be part of it. McCabe and Fordyce will obviously be on more money than last season but I doubt very much they'll be getting the equivalent of a manager's salary plus a player's salary, so we'll be saving quite a chunk of money on both management roles. There's also the added benefit of them potentially being sold on like a player for profit. I also think it's a complete lack of obvious potential managers. If you look down the league this season there are still a few of the old heads like Duffy, McGlynn and Rice. But there's not many about that have a good track record, and if they do then most clubs can't afford them. Given that, clubs are looking for new managers like McCabe, Gibson, Bartley, Maybury, Potter etc in the hope they strike it lucky. I suppose the next logical step is appoint a player/manager and save a bit of extra money. It's high risk as Queens found out, you can end with someone well out their depth and you won't know until they've ruined your season. There are obvious drawbacks with it, but I think one unseen benefit is that you are likely to get a more united group as there can't really be that divide between the players and management team (especially when your assistant also plays) that can sometimes happen if results go downhill. I think we've seen that this season with us, there is clearly a real bond between the whole group but McCabe has still managed to retain that respect/fear from the players which must be a very fine line to walk. I do think if you're going to do it you need to be one of the better players though, even if you had great managerial skills it would be hard to manage if you were then going out onto the park and having a stinker every week. It will be interesting to see how McCabe and Fordyce manage that next season at a higher level where they may be the weaker players (depending how much we strengthen).