Goggles & Flippers

Jesus, I'm sure this is closed doors with the club having its hands tied buy the H&S brigade and over caution (I'll point out there were cones all the way from Strathclyde Park to Flemington roundabout .... WTF overkill). Some right shanner comments on this thread so far (don't know why it comes as surprise though). If we got through Starjnan then we would be playing tonight, we've missed out on two games and the associated revenue so I think the club's done pretty well to get this game arranged with a La Liga club as short notice. Just another case of you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. Makaveli, your distinct lack of even a rudimentary knowledge of how the club is run, the constraints it finds itself in and your half baked sums on the back of a fag packet are getting boring.

All for using a VPN? You sure you haven't walked into a George Orwell book?

No need, there's been plenty of other posters who have done it for me .... Einstein indeed.

Erm mid May to mid August is 3 months. March to November as already outlined. However I applaud your creative maths skills, you should get a job with the No campaign

Pitches will be poorer? Surely the issue we have in the winter is the pitch doesn't have sufficient exposure to sunlight to recover between matches. In the summer we have up to 18 hours of daylight and the degradation would be much less. During the winter the grass would merely be maintained, not replanted. I've yet to find any evidence where a footballer cites they prefer plastic pitches. Clubs like them as they allow the facilities to be used potentially 24-7. I accept there's still a chance games can be called off between a summer season of March to November, however the risk of that happening is a fraction than the status quo. The chance of a game being called off in late November is small. You're citing minor faults and giving no credence to a number of benefits.

In the past year, 4 poor performances (3 against lower opposition - 2 Starjnan and Albion Rovers) and one against a team who were reduced to 10 men after 5 minutes. Versus Going to Pittodrie on the last day of the season, won against the odds against a team who on paper had more to offer. So thats: 4:1 £700k:£250k Maybe a bit tasty to pick one game out of a whole season as the games preceding that obviously are what allowed us to compete with Aberdeen on the last day.

The motivation for summer football for me is not for Euro games (that would merely be a fringe benefit). It would be: Going to a number of games in a t-shirt, Avoiding fixture congestion late in the season due to Jan/Feb/March weather, Pitches staying in good condition throughout, More ball on the deck than hump the ball because of the surface/conditions, Less chance of postponements (if at all), Less chance or need of the spread of plastic pitches, Increasing crowds (potentially however I accept that's a bit of an unknown), Parents being cool about their kids going due to the majority of the season in lighter nights, Savings in costs for the clubs (floodlighting, undersoil heating, etc), Potential of greater exposure on UK wide TV, Televised games for a fair bit of the season not clashing with Premiership games (so no more 12:30 Sunday kickoffs), Not watching Ross County at 7:45 on a Wednesday in a howling gale in mid Feb, And finally just because its different and our game needs something different to survive, if anyone thinks its not on its last legs and needing an adrenalin/defib jolt then you need to explain why. Sorry, but a sentence with "traditionally" in it doesn't trump what I've listed above.

What do you mean you'd get properly reemed?

A good way to circumvent is to download google chrome (if you haven't already), install adblocker and then zenmate. This works for all our foreign based fans too. This allows access to BBC iPlayer, TVcatchup.com and youtube content from anywhere as long as you select which country you want to pretend you are in.

And how many games are postponed compared to a standard season here? I'd be interested in that ratio, because it seems that one you describe was a bit of a freak. Playing through a winter in Scotland you can expect a lot more. Not to mention the fact that our football may become attractive again to broadcasters looking to fill up summer schedules full of re-runs of Transworld sport.

Will you accept that £5m would put a dent in it? Or you alleging Mr Thomson syphons a little here and there?

Surely its not speculation to replace our squad now a number of our high earners (Hutch got renewed terms a few years back, well discussed McFadden was financed by a director and we got a return for Arnier considering we had him for a year). My premise wasn't that he was looking at a few games but the whole season. We will face 5 league matches before the transfer window shuts. When we have game(s) that could being in a decent return before that, why not have any targets in place before rather than waiting to till the 11th hour? You would think we have a wee bit of cash available now we have a few players off our books, even if Arnier's fee goes into shore up other costs. Maybe he thought (along with 99% of our support) we had enough in the tank to get through the Starjnan tie. What is evident we don't have enough to get us through a league campaign and maintain the status quo. I do agree he is very cautious, I've posted before saying I think he's the sort of manager who is more concerned with damage limitation than inflicting damage, with the former he doesn't appear to have the players and the latter he doesn't appear to have that many ideas to our opposition pay when we have the upper hand, either in numbers or level. As you said, McCall seems to rely very much on his Bradford, Sheffield Utd. connections, which must be stretched a tad now as he's been away from that neck of the woods for quite a while. So that begs the question, what's happening with our Scouting network, surely Kenny black must have some insight in our lower leagues. Dundee Utd have shown what you can do if you pay attention, I'd hope Flow see's this as a potentially beneficial and lucrative revenue stream. Dundee Utd have effectively paid off all their sizeable debts with two players who stepped up in the tangerine in the past 12 months. However I accept that was no doubt helped by the BBC wankfest every time they were mentioned.

It would have made sense as that game would have been worth a tidy penny and if we progressed you would think we'd at least do the same again. I suspect if there are any signings it'll be after transfer day as they'll be cheaper. Otherwise why wait?

Good points Andy but I can't see any significant additions otherwise I think they would have been in place to play in Poland ...... As for the league table I expect what Judge Jules put down is pretty much on the mark for me.

Sorry, my bad! brain fart

Can anyone see us bringing anyone in before deadline day? I think our best chance of adding to the squad based on that result is picking up a free agent or two in the days after the dust settles and Jim White can get a kip. Can only see us pick someone up who's at a lose end and looking for a gig. Don't know if its a club policy of late not to bring in Loanee's but we haven't had any since Juke/Ruddy unless someone wants to correct.

I thought our league placing was very flattering based on some of the performances, too many losses and some of them humbling from those around us. Therefore this season, for the first in a while, I'm very pessimistic. I don't think we'll have much to play for come the split. I think Aberdeen will give Celtic a run much deeper into the season and Dundee Utd if they don't have another lull or two like they did last year will fill in 3rd. I can see some distance between us and the top three. I can't see any improvement in cups, unfortunately a marker was put down last November and a number of players and the manager stressed there would be no repeat and here we are. Why should any of us believe there will be no repeat now.

Probably go onto imdb.com and slate it on an online forum

I with you on about 50% of that Shaka. I think what McCall brings would only fully be appreciated when he left unless we got Louis Van Gaal and I think he's got a gig.

One of the commentators mentioned how they were filming Superstars and when finished filming offered Ally Brownlee a space in their transport back to the hotel, "How far is it?", about 12 miles, "I'll meet you back there, I haven't trained enough today" 100m sprint 800m running javelin throw 50m swim archery kayaking cycling (hill climb) gym tests Different mindset. If young footballers enter an environment where their peers expect a certain amount of free time, then they learn to expect it too ..... along with the trophy WAG and Aston Martin. If what the subsequent posts to mine confirm that Motherwell and Starjnan train roughly the same number of hours per week, however one team holds professional status and the other part time. Then you have to ask where is the significant difference? Is it purely we are in a country of 5.5 million and they live in one of 320,000 and therefore have a smaller pool of players to, select and less revenue streams? Whereas our are larger on both counts so to secure the top talent you have to offer professional status and the benefits that come with it here? By all means keep pro status but actually have them earn it after lunch, letting them hone their PS4 skills or heading off to Nando's for dinner doesn't count. It's only a fine balancing act to implement if you permeate past behaviour and traditions. As I said, John Collins is one of the few I've ever heard of who's approach to the game on and off the field was akin to how a top lawyer would approach a big trial, doctor prepare to give a lecture or a novelist would research a book.

Chances of her asking you to give up posting on online forums?

Definitely an element of the Ibrox class of the 90's about Fir Park. But it's a large factor in how we attracted McManus, what Ainsworth cited in his interview on the homepage, why Higdon said he'd be keen to return etc. And no, I'm not suggesting we go part time, don't know why you would default to that conclusion from my post. I'm suggesting the whole team would benefit from having something closer to a 9-5 like the majority of the punters that pay their wages. Know there's a chance of burn out but gym work, community interaction and standard training along with tactics etc. would be more like it. I know John Collins tied to implement something similar at Hibs and had a boardroom revolt from Scottish players who prefered going down the bookies and snooker halls in the afternoon. Watching the triathlon and seeing about how the Brownlee's train and I think Jesus. I know its a different discipline but having stamina and an engine like them surely can only benefit a footballer. Look at what McGhee achieved in his first summer.

Aye that's it, hit it on the head, well done

With respect to the topic title "where do we go from here" How about we stop wringing our knickers out like a bunch of little bitches? Look we've missed out on a bit of cash, not the end of the world, just no more opposition at a much lower level putting us out please Stuart. Out of interest, a lot has been made of our professionals playing part timers. When I played amateur in my youth I trained twice a week for 2 hours, if I played junior it would probably be 3x. As far as I understand it our players get Sunday off (based on 3pm Sat KO), Monday to Friday 10:00am for 10:30 start and done by 12:30 so 10 hours a week, hardly a huge gulf. Maybe I'm naive but past lunchtime do most Well players have the rest of the day to themselves?

Exactly this, in times of precarious finances cup games = prizes. I calculated that beating Albion Rovers, then Stenhousemuir? (both within our capability)and getting to Ibrox was probably worth £200k+. Add to that your figures and why not recall not being able to tuck away a team of 10 men in 85 minutes, leaves us looking at a major deficit.