tarapoa

How much could Cormack have conceivably 'interfered' in such a small space of time and in what manner to bother a guy like Warnock?

To be fair St Mirren aren't completely unknown beyond these shores. Their imprint on European football seems to be getting called out by Ruud Gullit for the worst racism he has ever faced.

League positions in 2013/ 2014 - Motherwell 2nd, St Johnstone 6th, Inverness 5th League positions in 2012/ 2013 - Aberdeen 8th, Celtic 1st, Hearts 10th What's your point caller?

"It's a bit chilly up there." His 'bit of fun' ended up with him being a figure of fun, and not this much-loved figurehead by fans and media alike that he perhaps hoped. He probably thought it would be a lot easier than it is. Whatever incentives he was on probably depended on a now unattainable league position and/or Scottish Cup progression. Only the latter part is slightly confusing, as the ludicrous experimental line-ups have stabilised into something approaching a solid competent side in the last couple of matches.

"Technical Director to support the Director of Football" sounds like a pointless extra wage. Also reading between the lines - I think there's only one candidate for the manager position and he's currently in a job.

Sounds like a low budget Australian drama set in a women’s prison.

One angry bloke swearing near the commentary box usually gets an apology. 5,000 of the underclass of our nation displaying their ignorance - I’m sure the SFA will take a hard line in ignoring that completely.

Good points, well made. Now the frothing seethe at the prospect can recommence.

Some of our fans apparent intense dislike of Neil Lennon seems disproportionate to the amount of offence he’s ever caused us. That will make him a non-starter presumably as Cormack’s twitter account is still likely to hold more influence than anything else in the selection process. He probably ticks as many boxes as any feasible options right now, but I feel this one will be a hipsters’ choice from overseas due to the Phil Clem factor holding sway with our chairman. Warnock’s line on Willie being his assistant was actually quite amusing, but still think the sooner he’s gone the better.

Shame they’ve binned replays - had two enjoyable midweek trips to Ayrshire in the Scottish Cup in relatively recent seasons. Anyway, the club clearly already think this is basically the final.

Levein's tactics are the reason FIFA wants to introduce "blue cards". Take-it-in-turns cynical fouls to break up the game - ref will always ignore the first few early in the match. Problem is that if a team sets up these kind of obvious traps - you can be guaranteed AFC will play right into their hands.

I saw that from the highlights. If it was something he occasionally did, it probably would have passed without comment. It's just that he uses that option every time now - classic Ron Atkinson 'dodgy foreign keeper' stuff. We don't like keepers that elect to punch in this country, and its's exacerbated by several other recent mistakes that have contributed to destabilising the whole defensive setup and losing easy goals.

If you try to imagine if peak Brazil 1970 had got the chance to play peak Netherlands 1974. This will potentially be the extreme antithesis of that. That was often the case when both sides were comfortably in the top half for a few seasons a decade or so back - now we have the current shower of imposters. Important three points for someone though, just to avoid sphincters getting too twitchy and ensure the alternative of a benign nothingness to end the league season.

Rubezic is raw, but at least he is happy enough competing for basic defensive headers. Gartenmann and Jensen both look like they need to be alongside someone of that ilk. Even top class defenders sometimes have bad chemistry eg Miller/Hansen 82. I think these two are both potentially ok players if they have the right partner - that is clearly not each other. Haste ye back Slobba

Very few managers will have a flawless recruitment record and its the easiest thing in the world to try and prove a point by naming the duds and not successes. I think darker forcers were at work by the time we recruited the three amigos. Even then, I actually didn't think Callum Hendry was that bad, and Hornby had pedigree at U21 level, plus had been at Everton and Reims, so seemed worth a shout too given the predicament. The less said about Kamberi the better. Maybe signing known quantities that are tried and tested in this league is a better formula than whatever it is the likes of us and Hibs are trying to achieve. We have bigger budgets than most, but I do often think that £1-2K-a-week players that get themselves solid and organised must love playing against £2.5-3K a week players trying to play open expansive 'stylish' football from the back etc. That is why McInnes, Robinson and Docherty will all likely finish in the top half and a couple of them will have summer continental sojourns - whilst us and Hibs can play a really entertaining bottom six dead rubber at Easter Road in early May and look forward to Peterhead or Methil in July.

Happy to. I made a comment about Jimmy Calderwood getting sacked for being 4th and playing apparent 'dull' football - and got jumped on regarding a completely different manager, for whom I partially agree with your comments.

I know it's a dull polarising subject (in an era of them), but there are two sides to it. We were 4th (in the empty stadia season), which was being talked about as "failure", "disappointing" etc etc. They had played some really good stuff with the Hedges, Wright and Watkins triumvirate being anything but 'stone age' in style. All three of those players ended up being unavailable and then the Scotland U21 Covid thing took Ferguson/McCrorie out for a while too - whilst Joe turned into the 2024 Roos. Yes, there was that series of dire games, the three deadline day amigos and the feeling things had run their course - but the fact the four years since have been like this has come as no surprise to many of us. The 'philosophy'' has gone from open expansive Atlanta-ball to watching a mid-70s Neil Warnock come up for a bit of giggle. A couple of poor results in the coming weeks and McInnes'' bitchslapping of Cormack will have reached new levels. Hopefully that can somehow be avoided.

Right now we seem to be employing very open tactics that will play right into McInnes' hands............not helped by comedy goalkeeping and defending. However, we have so much ground to make up, that it feels past the point of even bothering trying to $hitfest a result. It just won't work and is unfair on those that make the 380 mile round trip. It surely can't be any worse than that effort earlier in the season. I know the wisdom was that Sundays after European matches were likely to be a struggle - but the team was ragdolled from start to finish that day with the not unusual spectacle of players the club have been willing enough to let go looking like world beaters against us. Think there is some historic bad blood between these managers after 'The Battle of Bramall Lane'. Makes for an interesting watch on YouTube.

Still not sure we got a big enough sample size to judge properly. Some clubs in our league seem to get a lot out of these big target man types. In fact, there have been a few AFC defences 'bullied' by them over the years. Our fans, clearly due to being connoisseurs of the beautiful game, seldom take to such players. Maybe he is just mince, but he scored more goals in the Belgian top flight than Shankland.

Sacking offence at AFC that was.

A lot of our fans will be happy with these basketball style matches we’ve started serving up given the moans about entertainment levels over much of the past decade. It’s as if there has been acceptance that Europe and even the Top Six are now out of reach, and Warnock has come up for a bit of a giggle and some fun for the supporters (if you classify losing easy goals as enjoyable that is).

Head to head?

Good - normally much prefer the Friday option and hate lunchtime ko's - but will be on a plane home on the Friday evening, so feared I'd miss this.

The jekyll and hyde tends to be within games as much as it is in terms of inconsistent results in general. Very few teams will ever dominate for 90 minutes, but my worry is how bad the drop off can be. Maybe the team tired themselves out coming back on Wednesday after really good spells either side of HT, but it was a bit of a mess by the end with Well looking much more likely to snatch a winner. This might be quite an entertaining game, but the fact that neither side here is as good as the sum of their parts means there's a fair chance there's a post-split bottom sixer at Easter Road still to come in a few months.

Shayden Morris and Senior Toilet to come off the bench and turn a tight game in AFC's favour with a masterclass in wide play.