weeyin

£10 million, addons + Lewis Morgan and I might pick up the phone.

If you're this side of the pond that Del Potro shirt is available for $80 from nike.com (Should probably have posted that in the All Things Claret and Amber thread)

Clarke already said he will consider anyone who wants to come out of retirement - but they will need to contact him; he's not chasing them. While I'd be delighted if Turnbull gets international recognition, I'd prefer it to happen after the summer. Don't want to have to manage his appearances next season because we tired him out in a couple of games in what appears to be a lost cause campaign.

The only surprise is Blackpool can sign players. I thought they were in financial meltdown and receivership.

Always the bridie, never the bride.

Glad it's not just me. (And let's not forget Humphrey)

See? No worries.

Did he not have the highest number of assists in the team before he was injured? He certainly offers more of a goal threat than Main did. I'm not sure what other people are building him up to be, but for a long time he was the only guy in the team that had a bit of football in him. If his head is in the right place, he should do just fine.

The friendlies might be meaningless in terms of consequence, but they let the coaching staff try a few things out and not have to worry about short term results in the middle of pre-season. The big challenge for all the teams is having to ease back on some of the high-intensity or endurance work for a couple of days during the build up to each tie, which interrupts the fitness schedule. Or, alternatively, don't change a thing and then tire the players out the day before and leave them with 60 minutes in their legs. And as fans, we have to endure the numerous posts about how poor we look, how unfit player X is, how the new signings are all a waste of money etc. etc. From Dunne to Gorrin, it happens every July.

A lot of players' contracts with their old clubs don't expire until the end of May. It's not unusual to wait until that happens before a deal is done. Regardless, just like any other legal shenanigans, sometimes it takes longer than planned to finalise things. Personally, I won't be worrying about signings, or lack of, until the end of August.

Does driving Jamie Murphy to training really count as "stopping" them?

One of the funniest things about the whole bigging up Rangers thing is that they only finished 3rd in the Championship that season (3 points behind Hibs and 24 points behind Hearts). A minor detail the media managed to overlook.

Maybe suffers from being too versatile, but otherwise, no idea.

Played in the Premiership last season with Cardiff. He was moved to midfield and then to striker and didn't look too bad any time I saw him.

It was a terrific goal. For all that we got wrong that season, Baraclough prepared the team perfectly. His tactics were right, his press conferences were spot on, and all he talked about was how excited he was to be playing this game and how he'd love to be on the park himself. It also helped that we had McManus, Pearson and Skippy in the team - all of whom were no strangers to winning at Ibrox. Would never want to do it again, but if we had to, you couldn't ask for a better result.

Two OF games that I'd like to see again - Brian McLair's hat trick to beat Rangers followed shortly afterwards by his double to beat Celtic. (1983 I believe).

I think the last time I was at Palmerston was when we were in the 1st Division and we won 5 - 2. Was a famously good playing surface - so obviously they ripped it up and laid plastic.

They did buy him for £12 million - they, and he, were just unlucky with the injuries as he did well at his other clubs. Crazy money of course, but is the norm for English football. I saw a graphic at the weekend comparing the value of the Championship play-off versus winning the various US sports titles. The NBA title was worth something like $3 million. The Superbowl was about $6 million. Baseball was the most with the World Series being worth around $30 million. Winning the Championship play-off was worth around $285 million. Mental.

The group format was tried before and failed fairly quickly. I know they tweaked it slightly, but the repetition of fixtures and the early scheduling certainly doesn't help matters. Of all the formats tried, I always preferred the single tie, guaranteed result on the night, approach.

Will certainly be interesting to see how we accommodate Tanner next season. I'm guessing sitting in behind a lone striker, but even that would be a change to our shape again.

There's no doubt Morgan is a decent player. His form dipped a little towards the end of the season, but always happy to see wide men in the squad.

I prefer avoiding the plastic pitches.

Wait until you reach my age when you see youngster playing and realise you have also seen his grandad play.

Is there any confimration he is actually signing for Aberdeen or is it still just paper talk?

The problem for Main last season was even when he wasn't loan striker (in the first half of the season) he only managed 3 league goals. You could see his confidence drain every game that went by. It was actually a smart move by Robinson, even it was partly forced by circumstances, to start playing him as a lone striker. We were fortunate that for the first time in years we suddenly had a midfield that could score goals. I thought Main did a decent job as far as hold up and linking was concerned, but ultimately, a striker needs to be able to score. In the end, he just ended up not taking the gambles confident strikers take to get into positions where he might score. I don't necessarily expect a lone striker to have the same return as one with a strike partner, but they need to be able to chip in more than 1 goal every 6 months. A change of scenery might get his confidence back, but I don't think he'll ever be prolific. Stick him beside a regular goalscorer again and he should make a decent contribution.