weeyin

I think the Wigan match was planned before the club received the advice about leaving the playing surface untouched for as long as possible. Boyle seemed pretty adamant in his interview that, based on the advice given, no games would be played until the first league fixture.

I agree about the lack of opportunity for the youngsters. However, I doubt the ones that were let go would be McGhee's decision. I imagine that was based on advice from the guys in charge of the youth development and U-19 teams.

Shug's link works well. Just be aware that you need to run it in Internet Explorer. If you use Firefox, you'll need the Internet Explorer tabs plug-in to run it. Looks good though.

With so many changes to the team, and comparatively few games, it's difficult to gauge how good we are. The youngsters in the team don't remember when Steaua were at their peak, so won't be too worried about history. I think we will lose in Bucharest, win back home and go out overall to the odd goal in 5. If we manage to keep it tight in the first leg, however, we could sneak it. So there you have my prediction. We'll probably lose, but we might win. You heard it here first

I think the UEFA Cup rights are a bit more complex with some involvement required from the individual teams and national associations. At least it used to be that way; not sure if that still holds true.

Interesting. I know it's a completely different game, but this is the same philosophy that Bill Belichick adopted with the New England Patriots that led to a lot of success. I also remember the Red Star Belgrade team he talks about. They were one of the best and eventually won the European Cup in 1991 (albeit, they decided to approach the final very negatively that year).

I think that's always good advice. People often let their guard down when they are on holiday, but if you act the way you would in Motherwell or Glasgow, you'll normally do just fine.

You would think so. However, I keep reading posts about how we should be signing up this player and that player on long term contracts, as if all the club needs to do is shove a piece of paper in front of them. Does anybody really think the club isn't trying to secure the services of it's best young players? It's our business model to develop and sell, so it will be our top priority every year.

The bottom line with any contract is that you can offer them, but if the player doesn't want to accept, there is nothing the club can do. Also, as good as the young players have been, as Craigan said in his interview, let's see them over 100 games. While there have been some outstanding performances in the past couple of matches, let's not get carried away yet. For every McFadden and McCormack there is Paul Mills and John McKeever. Of course, that's not to say we shouldn't be trying to hold onto them.

That's likely the main problem. The Beeb and STV (and other UK boradcasters) will have planned and budgeted for not showing these games. Now that the contract holder (Setenta) has gone under, there will undoubtedly be a lot of legal shenanigans to be sorted out before anyone new can pick them up.

If an agent can't get a big cut, he'll not be interested in moving

Surely that would only be a problem if he was a defender? Plenty of good (and short) midfielders that aren't strong in the air.

A number of players in our team (including some of the younger ones) have experienced playing Rangers and Celtic, so they will be used to big crowds and biased referees.

If it's deep stack, you could still be playing when the game kicks off.

I see the Hearts fans aren't too happy about the schedule. They play their first Europa game on Thu 20th August and ESPN have moved their first league game to Monday 17th August.

Not because they both play "nice football on the deck" ?

Good man. I'd hate the Romanians (or Albanians) to think we were boasting

Is the number a clue? Was it Mark Reynolds?

And maybe correct the score in the first sentence.

I think a lot of us liked what he did for the team, but didn't like what he did in the way of touting himself around for work. It's like supporting the troops, but being against the war. There were people who wouldn't give him credit for anything he did, and that is when pelters were dished out (at least by me).

Gannon didn't have much choice in playing the youngsters or in having to buy new players. I agree, however, that he has done a better job then McGhee in doing both. Time will tell if he has assembled a squad capable of competing in the SPL, but it has started to look promising. I'm glad McGhee didn't make any major investments in playing staff once he knew he was moving on as that has given the new boss a chance to build things exactly the way he wants to.

And if we do beat the odds and get through to the next round, we could end up playing Aston Villa.

If we somehow end up playing Everton in the Europa (a long shot, I know), will he be left out the squad?

Clarkson's work rate is first class, and that's probably why his new boss is tempted to play him a little deeper. Personally, I think he is more valuable playing in the traditional front 2 role, but I imagine that will also depend on the shape that Johnson is wanting his team play. I think it's fair to say that McCormack has a more natural talent that Clarky and Clarky is a much (much) harder worker and more of a team player than McCormack. Opinion is certainly divided among the 'Well fans as to which one was better.

Cheers!