harry94

Any talk of what's happening with Jones in the summer? Looks the sort that could step up?

We've had a bit of a disagreement over the laundry basket. My focus has been on fragmenting to keep dirty gym clothes and bleach stained cleaning stuff separate from anything else, protecting the laundry and allowing for efficient sorting. She just throws everything together and then once a month or so, has a tantrum when some piece comes out bleach stained. She also gets annoyed when the whole basket requires tipping to locate pillow cases. After an instance, she spends maybe a week following this protocol and then just goes back to the same behaviour.

I would argue McGhee is Dundee's most important player and the man to watch. If he gets to play in midfield, he's a brilliant box to box player and ties everything together. I don't think we've lost with him in that role and he makes Adam and even Gowser a lot more effective. If Fontaine is injured, he's back to centre back and I don't really fancy us winning a midfield battle. I think Dundee's whole game plan is going to rely on coming out 100mph and just giving Killie no room to breathe. I fancy us starting off strongly but think we'll be in trouble the longer the tie goes on.

Livi beat Thistle as well. United weren't far away twice either.

You could see by his face a minute in how uncomfortable he was. Was surprised he went a full 90.

In fairness to McCann, he come in and just gave everyone that little lift they needed and reset the clock a few months. The issues were just that he had this development philosophy that we went all into in the transfer market. The first summer it failed and he needed to change tact and return to our core of 'jobbers' (O'Hara for example wasn't liked by him but ended up being essential) and go more direct. The second summer, all those guys left and we were all in on that concept and had nowhere to turn when it wasn't working out apart from trying to recruit a new team in Jan. He may be a decent coach but I think it was irresponsible the level the club bought into everything he did with no b plan and were happy to chuck money around. I think the Dundee job at that time was probably a very poor one for a first time manager, there's an unprecedented level of control over everything and a bit of a void so you're in a situation where you arrive and are really beholden to those agencies and wyscout to get players in. I get the impression though that he's the sort who would only really take a full-time job up the ladder and wouldn't be prepared to chuck his punditry career to grind (which tbf, is much more secure). I can't see him having much of a management career beyond one or two caretaker jaunts maybe.

I got charged a 40p service charge at the Victor on Blackness Road for doing a click and collect of a sausage supper last week. Turned up and the place was empty.

I know the consensus is that demographics will always push indy closer but I do get the impression that the longer things drag on, people solidify on their viewpoint and the no of swing voters reduces. At the moment, those swing voters are only really hearing a vision from independence from unionist figures and the SNP are having a totally different argument and not really engaging with the specifics. The longer they go without a formal campaign, the attack lines on important issues are drawn without them. There's a lot the indy campaign has in favour right now and I'm pretty skeptical it'll ever be at a point where you're going into a formal campaign with 55-60% of people polling in favour for indy and feeling like it's a sure thing.

Not until another material change of circumstances.

Exactly. Right now, the indy parties aren't able to articulate much of a vision on independence so they are being attacked on all negative fronts possible. Once a referendum is called, there will be positions on everything that they solidify behind and can actually campaign on. Of course it can go the wrong way but there's been nearly a decade of learning in the background and I get the impression the campaign will be far better prepared and have a better infrastructure in place. Another couple of years will shift demographics more positively as well.

Government line re denying referendum etc has vanished this morning. My feeling is Sturgeon's referendum bill will be ratified.

Just because they are a new party tbf

I don't really think you can say anything about tactical voting until all the votes are in nation wide. It's very possible that a lot of older Lab-Con voters in the 2016 election pre-brexit have reversed back.

For the whole constituency? That's up 10% if so and a record breaker.

Crossed wires, I'm also slating McPake for the goalkeeper situation.

He said it after signing Legzdins and implied it was out of the clubs hands. Pretty negligent if it was a case of us only having one target in October IMO.

Whatever happened to the police being called in re the accounts?

He also said that Hazard was basically done but Celtic vetoed it.

On the subject of insurance, I had a ridiculous exchange with Admiral recently. I found their quote was the best and beat mine through the comparison sites so went ahead and bought it, same nonsense as you cancelling the autorenewal with esure and suddenly them getting a better deal. Everything processed in it's normal way and Admiral then sent an email asking for a bit of extra information on employment info etc. The drop down box on the comparison site didn't give an exact match for my partner so I picked the closest role. In the email, I was able to be a bit more specific with her job title (and couldn't remember what I'd typed in tbh). The end result was a slight difference like 'admin officer' becoming 'admin assistant'. This girl then phoned me up and started grilling me and told me that the insurance was subjected to a change fee and they'd need to recalculate everything on their end. I kindly explained that I picked the closest title I could see at the time and felt that each term was equally reflective and they they just kept repeating the same question. The girl sounded really flustered and wasn't getting it. Ended up just telling her to go ahead and cancel the policy then had them groveling back to me after a hold and the issue dropped. Never had to claim from insurance but dread the say having to go through their shite on the phone again.

In all honesty, the manner of us finishing 8th was a concern to me. We were a team formed around lightweight midfielders and our spine was weak as shit. We could look effortless in scoring 4 or 5 against a mid table side off their game one weak and then well beaten by Hamilton the next. For me, the first aim of a Dundee side in the top flight is to say we'll be the meanest defensive side in the league. You can build a defensively sound side in the top flight relatively cheaply based around fairly average players and sustain yourself to beyond 40 points. Motherwell broke the mould a few years ago with scoring an unreal no of goals but a solid defence is the top formula for teams of our stature in the country to consistently stay safe and have those odd good years. If we go up really reliant on attacking players who are a bit special and focus on playing a bit of football, we're in very big trouble the first bad injury or sign that they are off. That hammering by Rangers was the defining moment of Hartley for me. Plenty of striking ability to score goals and give them a game but we go there with Loy and Stewart on the flanks and Harkins off the striker to defend up against their young athletic speedsters. Just completely batshit going into a game of that magnitude set up in such an attacking way and expecting to play things on our terms and not even putting a single glove on them. I think he's probably a very good coach and great for certain players but just don't think he has it in him to be pragmatic and handle situations like that. In fairness he did have moments of learning and eventually understood in that last season that we needed a cheap target man and needed to shitfest but I just get the feeling every season would have been groundhog day where we worked ourselves up to that level of disappointment.

The summer McCann got the job full time, a reputable manager from Poland, Czeslaw Michniewicz was over in Scotland and had apparently expressed his interest. It seems we didn't even consider it and the guy is now in charge of Legia Warsaw. I just get the impression we're a pretty closed shop and the owners are pretty particular with how they recruit, I've heard that Archie Knox is a welcome guest at games and gets listened to. I could very easily see someone like Gavin Strachan get the job.

Ridiculous that there's no broadcasting of the semi and quarter final IMO. The play offs are one if our few show pieces.

Has there been anything said about TV for the ties?

Where is Gomis today?

I'm all for them moving on but I do think we should be very firm in demanding a reparation payment as a cost of departing and hurting our broadcast and sponsorship revenue. There's no precedence for this sort of thing and it would be a live re-writing of the rule book. The prize pot here is something like £25-30 million. If they are taking 2k fans a week to 19 away games, that's ~£2 million in gate money. Add in their Hampden appearances and that's at least £3-4 million. Getting to a group stage is worth at least £4 million in solidarity payments. They will be getting +£100 million each as top flight teams in TV rights alone - I imagine you double that at least with their own sponsorship and gates. You could see some foreign investor coming in and seeing the opportunity to put big money in. If they got to a point of being regular continental competitors or even just a plaything, they can rocket up the rich clubs list. It's a drop in the ocean to negotiate an ongoing settlement to 'bridge the gap'. I don't really see why one of the big English clubs would want them in there. They are too much of a threat for the Champions League places if they are inherited by a competent owner. Similarly they are taking up top flight space for other teams. They maybe add some value in having the OF derby branding and a bit of intrigue but it's not like the Premier League is struggling for income. Less risky to leave them poor and cold on the outside.