renton

Having said that, the SNP haven't had much luck with parliamentary officers holding to convention of late....

SNP would only need Regan + one other to join to win, but assuming they didm't it's hard to see how the Tories or Labour could coalesce around each other in a GE year to kick the SNP out, and if they couldnt find one in the time required before an election were called? Would Labour necessarily want a Holyrood election now to be followed by the GE?

Yeah, for Yousaf it's a chance to reset and blame any amount of issues on the Greens laps. He probably thinks that he's mounted the kerb in terms of where Scotland lies socially and wants to avoid getting killed in a culture war with Labour. He'll wait a while then convince Forbes to come back in, try and bump his numbers up a few pc and see how it flies. Not a bad gamble assuming the GE is this side of the next Scottish budget.

I doubt Yousaf could have risked letting the Greens dump his government without having umpteen other column inches talking about weakness. Also, eaiser to reconcile the Forbes wing of the SNP now you'd imagine.

Assuming we stay in the championship, a shopping list for me would look like: New contracts for Easton, Byrne, Matthews New LB, new RB, 2 x CBs*, 1x winger, 1 x forward. *if I thought Watson had more in him I'd be happy to keep him around, but point is we need to be running with at least 3 specialist CBs. The winger should be a proper speed merchant.

Scored one and set up one against Ayr, scored the opener against Dundee United back in February. Set up one against ICT in the loss at home.

Nah, the Scottish Greens are socially liberal. They'd have chucked Bute if Forbes had gotten the gig over Yousaf in the first place. My guess is that the Greens would support a minority Labour government if they came out the biggest party, but it'd be a bit of a tightrope electorally to say that, given their principle vote comes from SNP constituency voters voting for them on the list. Mind you in a world where the SNP might need list votes for once, the Greens could well get squeezed anyway.

It might be the Greens who bin it.

Yousaf is looking increasingly time limited now. I suspect a lot of the Murrell damage is already priced in, but if polling does take a further kicking then the SNP will need to do something and the unfortunately styled "continuity" candidate will be in the firing line. Actually think the Greens reaction to recent events around Cass, Puberty blockers, the missed environmental targets and also CT reform will be interesting. Their grassroots are hopping mad and given how the SG party internal democracy works, if their disgruntled elements can push through an EGM it's not unthinkable that the Greens end up being the ones who break the Bute House agreement. I think that would end up being really damaging for Yousaf and he'd look for all the world like a lame duck. Then it'll be a case of how long until a GE and whether or not the SNP think it's still a recoverable situation. If it is, they'll coronate Forbes as a social conservative who can avoid a lot of the culture war issues and who will look like a decisive break with Bute House, the Greens and previous continuity. A lot on the progressive wing won't like it (and I sure as hell don't like social conservatism) but they'll swallow it if it gets them over the line. If it isn't they'll let Yousaf take the kicking and he'll take down the previous continuity with him. The party will then engage in some soul searching and I reckon it'll be one of the relative newbies that takes over.

Be interesting to see how much fresh damage this can do, and how much was already priced in for the SNP.

So, any fun shit from the Q+A?

Ah, so it was. We're gonna win the play offs some day.

Two epic failures dropping into, then failing to get out of league 1 between those.

Who do you want instead?

Nah, not having that. At no point have we been the complete package but that's not the same as saying we havent had brilliant games. We've probably seen some of the best attacking play from a Rovers team in a very long time. The fact we haven't defended leads very well is a feature, not a bug of the system. We swashbuckled our way into a good position, and you do it once - it's a fluke. Do it ten times and it's a product of superior fitness and gameplan. We obviously should be looking to rebalance a bit in the Summer, regardless of league but to turn your nose up at some of the attacking moves that have picked apart more than one side in this league is daft, in my opinion.

There is going for it, and then there is chucking the kitchen sink at it, and sometimes he's guilty of ripping put the kitchen fixtures too early.

Anyway, what's done is done and it's the play offs for us now. On the one hand it's a sign of progress that I'm feeling dissapointed at the prospect when the last two seasons I'd have bit your hand off for it. Murray will get some flak and rightly so but he's managed to keep a defensively limited side going all season through some good attacking play, boldness verging and sometimes crossing into naivety and generally some entertaining chaos along the way. Would not give you odds on how the play offs will turn out. Liklehood is that we are a championship side next season. Would be happy to get Matthews, Easton and Turner tied down if possible. Huge rebuild in defence required.

Arguably naive of Murray once again. Left no margin of error on the counter. Was there really nothing else he could think to do to get us back in the game without leaving ourselves wide open?

Pretty much aye, a win tonight only get's us to the starting line. Anything less and we won't make a race of it.

It was more of a 4-4-2, verging on a 4-2-4 as you had Barr hugging the touchline on the other side. Vaughan coming in off that wing was our principle threat, but even then he wasn't being asked to so much defensively and that kinda worked in league 1 then but even at that we looked over run in the middle.

Should have been last week's lineup.

Aye, by and large the switch to the 4-1-3-2, away from the 4-2-3-1 is what has restricted Connolly's ability to get inside as often. Less space in the final third to cut inside and less freedom to drift up front with two strikers on the park and less defensive cover behind that he has responsibility for.

Yeah, we know.

To be honest I'm expecting us to collapse like so much wet cardboard.

Aye, absolutely no doubt we shat the bed there. Murray got the team line up all wrong, the tactics wrong and has thrown away the best shot we've had at this level in 15 years.