weeyin

A lot of players at that age fail to see the benefit of regular competitive games, especially when they have an agent whispering in their ear about more money. It is a short career and while you obviously want to make a living you'll never hear a retired player saying "I wish had played less games".

If he goes, he goes. Would be nice if we could have kept him for another season or two and sold him on for a decent fee, but like Erwin before him, we'll cope just fine. If there is a development fee to be had would that be split with his Irish team?

Just watched the game on Alba - seemed pretty comfortable in the end. Been impressed with Alba's coverage this season. I like the format of the 1hr programme and it's good to see the "lesser" teams on there each week. Hope they pick up as many games next season as it's 10 times better than Sportscene.

Because McGhee said he wanted to give other players a chance? Or Maybe Ripley is defintely leaving at the end of his loan and McGhee wants to give Samson a chance to stake his claim?

Ainsworth and Johnson both starting. Interesting line up. (But thankfully nothing like the one at Tyncastle!)

Ripley is certainly a different personality type from Long and probably fitted our needs better in that respect. Long seems to have established himself at Sheffield Utd this season though, so that is another good example of the "come to us and enhance your first team prospects" story we can tell prospective targets.

If you believe the press, Moyes is lined up for the Celtic job.

Subtitle: Waiting for that big German Defender Hoping we are still looking to pay small transfer fees as that looks like it's paying off.

First game I went to was around my birthday in 1971. Don't remember too much about it except it was against Dundee Utd. Was more interested in the Chipmunk Crisps and Kia-Ora. Looking at the internet seems we lost 2 - 1.

Pride and extra cash to pay back Les. 1 - 1.

Well, that and the fact we might now finish 4th anyway.

Despite the media fawning over Rangers saying how far they have come, I think it further proves how far Celtic have fallen. They really are a poor team by their standards. I had little confidence in them doing is any favours and wouldn't have been surprised if Hibs had done them in the final.

I'm not sure if IB found Moult and Kennedy or our new scouting infrastructure (implemented by Les) found them. Nothing against IB, but I'm hoping it was the latter.

I think the 2000 members was in the hope they'd average 10 quid each per month, but it's still an encouraging trend.

Clubs should always be preparing for at least the next season. We should have transfer targets identified for every window, anticipate who might be leaving and how we can replace them, and gradually introduce young players as and when we can. If you don't, you end up in the situation where one sumer you have 14 players leave and have to start from scratch. It's no different in that respect from other buisnesses with 3 and 5 year plans.

That's where "mutual consent" comes into play.

I see Gunning has decided "mutual consent" means he doesn't have to leave after all.

But how do you quantify the lost opportunity of carrying on as-is and finishing 6th anyway? Whatever happens, if it doesn't work, it will be dead easy to say we should have done the opposite.

You must certainly be drunk if you didn't understand that the argument had some more complexities to it than that,

Stats and all that, but Fulham's defence was ranked 23rd in the Championship last season (83 goals conceded) and currently ranked 22nd thanks to an impressive 67 goals conceded so far. Not all Hutchinson's fault, of course, but he hasn't exactly shored it up.

It was Mark Reynolds that did us this season. Did us a favour I mean. Am I right??!!

Purely based on our Youtube channel, it seems Watt still blows a bit hot and cold. Not unusual at that age, but needs to be more consistent for the step up.

I think we get our ball boys from the local school.

In the U20s, Craigan has said a few times he doesn't think Thomas' final balls get the reward they deserve i.e. we don't score enough goals from them. So it seems he does have the final product, albeit it's much tougher to reproduce in the first team; especially when you are only coming on as sub. McGhee had talked about loaning him out to get first team experience like Cadden, but I guess that didn't work out. He certainly seems the type of player that would benefit from a longer run in the first team.

Right, but what if playing a few youngsters now means we can sell them on for more, and sooner? Then it's a short term loss for a long term gain, and that is the kind of balance the new structure needs to maintain. If we don't bring in any of them and still finish 6th, then it was a wasted opportunity. So, swings and roundabouts.