weeyin

I'm involved in recruiting at the moment. While I'm not a football club, we always estimate about 3 months from start to finish to get someone in. Less if we hire someone currently out of work.

I think that was the longest game I've ever seen. Exeter did incredibly well to take it to pens, but not too hot in the shoot out.

I just like to help out in case the correct information is in a book that's banned in Texas.

Meanwhile, at Fir Park...

It's been less than two weeks. If they found the right man on day 1 it could easily take 2 weeks for lawyers, agents, managers and the candidate to hammer out the contractual details.

Liverpool built a dynasty using that approach. With no insight whatsoever, I suspect it will be a new face. Frail always strikes me as someone who much prefers assistant roles or coaching roles to being the man in charge. (So you can expect the "Frail signs for 3 more years" announcement in a couple of hours)

Brief progress update: Filtered the 100 applications to a short list. Started talking to the candidates. Not in a position to announce yet. Can't set a timeline because it depends on availability of people for interviews and how long it takes to sort out contracts. More important to get the right person in than a person in quickly. I just made that up, but that's the kind of progress report you would get. Saying nothing, because there's not much worth saying until a contract has been signed.

Was expecting to see Queens Park captain Dom Thomas play a part in the Rangers debacle. Didn't realise he had signed a 2 year deal at Derry City a few days ago - that's what happens when you don't bother following the transfer window threads.

Maybe we could hire Callum Davidson as a cup tie consultant - he knows how to win those games. His St Johnstone team was brutal to watch, though, so wouldn't want him as a gaffer. On the same topic, glad to see Tommy Wright wasn't mentioned as an option this time. There were many East Stand experts who said he was the man for our job just before he applied his eye-bleeding brand of football to steering Killie into the Championship instead.

And we lose to Airdrie in the replay. Same pain, different method.

Wonder if he'd already applied for our job. Between Rangers and Liverpool today, our loss away to same league opposition only looks poor now instead of abysmal.

Media money seems like a great way to go, but for lots of ex-players and ex-managers, getting involved in the day-to-day is obviously a habit they can't kick. That's why you see many commit thousands of thankless hours to worse than average lower league clubs for long spells in their career.

You can be dynamic, enthusiastic, have an encyclopedic knowledge of lower league players, and still be Jim Gannon.

And Sturm Graz only paid £4 million for him - an absolute steal in today's market - and they made about 10 million when they sold him on. I hope all our youngsters picked up on how much continuous effort it takes to be a top player, regardless of how much footballing talent you might possess. A shame Dunne robbed us of a few more games from him.

I'm fine with disrespecting both of them as managerial candidates

Given Arsenal's well-documented search for a goal scorer in recent seasons, I'm surprised they didn't give him a chance rather than offloading him.

Ian Murray and John Hughes!

New manager and his assistant on Sportscene right now?

They'll be falling back on their normal recruitment strategy and hiring SK.

I'd be amazed if we had someone in that quick. If we offered them the job today it would likely take them more than a week to agree on the contract details - and we won't have finished interviewing everyone yet.

Is there a link to where they "hammered all the supporters"?

Would be ironic if we hired a guy who resigned from his last job because he needed a break.

I imagine a lot of these "applications" are from agents who submit them on behalf of their clients to every vacancy that opens up. And most of the time without having any clue about the club or its operating environment (or the salary on offer).

Will be interesting to see if the new gaffer can sort that out the defence or whether, as I suspect, Gordon is the only CB that is worth keeping. That has been our biggest issue since SK took over.

I imagine that SK was not entitled to a pay-off due to resigning. An unusual situation for us or any other team. So that will have saved us a few bob. I know we have always avoided paying buy-out fees for managers in the past, but the same was true for players. However, in recent seasons we have broken the player rule and forked over some cash on a few occasions. If the right manager is willing to join for a fee we can afford it might be a more viable option. Having said that, there are way more managers than there are jobs, so there is a large an active unemployed pool. There are also currently employed assistant managers and coaches who used to be managers, and they are often easier and less expensive to poach.