sbcmfc

One thing I've found incredibly frustrating is that the club only ever go public with the negatives. 2 years ago they were talking about the lack of cup runs, but failed to mention that we had a live TV game at ibrox with a crowd pushing 40,000, which from a financial point of view was surely better, or as good as getting to the semis without playing either of the old firm? In the Scottish cup we played Aberdeen, away and at home, again on TV (can't mind if the replay was on tv?) with a total crowd over 20,000 for the 2 games, again, how many times would we need to play Stirling Albion, Morton or Inverness to generate the same income? I can understand the negatives around the trips to Krasnodar, maybe even Athens? But surely we broke even with the income they generated, the payment from UEFA are 6 figure sums, we also got a solidarity payment for Celtic reaching the last 16 I believe... With all these things being either unexpected positives or neutral, where are we making the losses? What are we budgeting for? Champions league group stage, and beating both halfs of the old firm away from home on the way to the cup final?

Hopefully not a sheikh or a Russian....

I'd guess the Celtic game will be lunchtime on Saturday, possibly Sunday. They play away in Europe the Thursday after, so I'd imagine they'd favour Saturday.

Not really, no, but he's a right back or defensive midfielder (from Alfreton town) according to all the info I can find on his career before he arrived, and McCall has tried to play him in right midfield or central midfield, even up front, all positions he played his brother in.

I agree that Vigurs is a luxury, that at the moment we can't afford, with us having quite a few players who aren't the most mobile. McCall can't seem to get his head round the fact that just because they are brothers, Josh and Nicky law are not the same player.

I'd agree with that assertion, but to flip it on it's head, the last 3 seasons we have done so well by consistently being marginally better than the teams beneath us. This season we have slipped to be marginally worse. With the exception of a spell in the second half of the 2012/13 season where we were brilliant, certainly the best football since the mid 90s, we've been grinding out results by being slightly less shite than the opposition.

We are a bit like Hibs just now. Such an easy team to beat. Having watched on bemused as a decent; on paper, hibs side had their arse collapse time and again and eventually end in relegation, I hope we don't go down the same route. (Even as far back as the 6-6 game hibs lacked any character, but that's certainly not something we could be accused of; on league business anyway, before this season)

I think a lot of weaknesses McCall (and mccoist at rangers) exhibit were traits of Walter Smith that they have picked up. Smith got away with them because he was successful.

Just to be devils advocate, as much as I love faddy, he's probably not the easiest and certainly one of the more frustrating players you could manage.

I think if Willy McRandom had been appointed General Manager nobody would have thought a thing of it, or questioned what they were doing or how. Because a lot of us know Alan personally, or consider him "one of us", he's apparently open to criticism. I'm sure he's good at what he does, and a lot of the more personal abuse is based on jealousy. (I know I'm envious of him myself, I'd love to do his old job or new one) Give the guy a break, it's nothing to do with him that Zaine Francis Angol has no football intelligence, Sutton and McManus run like they're pulling caravans or ainsworth is better at hiding than Osama Bin Laden.

My wee boy got his scarf, a letter from Keith Lasley and other bumph a couple of weeks after he signed up. You could email them and ask if you haven't heard anything, might be a good reason, surge in members, or run out of packs.

Just picking up on your comments on the pitch, I had always thought folk complaining about plastic pitches were just whingeing, given most of the players will have been brought up on plastic pitches these days (rather than the red ash the older generation would have started on). I also thought they were meant to be really good these days. However having watched the game the other night, there were several mistakes and misjudgements from both sides that were down to the pitch. It was perhaps also to blame for the "safety first" attitude, again both sides adopted. Ones that spring to mind were Vigurs losing the ball on the edge of the area when the ball was cleared back out to him from a corner, the accies keeper melting the ball straight in to the main stand when he appeared to have time to take a touch, ainsworth and Ojamma both running the ball straight out the park and several occasions players jumped to header a ball in midfield and it bounced over their heads.

Ojamma hasn't had a lot of game time.

It was a 2nd yellow he got, but I don't remember his 1st one?

Thought Jack Leitch was our best player, Craig Reid had a decent game too. Ainsworth, Kerr, Vigurs, lasley and law all had a bad game I thought.

Was faddy at the game last night? I thought I saw him come in with some kids just after kick off.

I was wondering about that. Hit the penalties in front of the majority of the paying customers, or 100 yards away towards Sainsburys loading bay?

I'd imagine about 1000 'well fans tonight? Similar to Livi last season. Ive only been to NDP once for a friendly, but going tonight, as it's the cup, reasonably priced, just up the road and not been to a game in a while. Imagine others who don't always travel will head along for similar reasons.

I don't think there was a foul in the box, but the advantage never materialised as he fell over in the box as a result of the initial challenge, as I see it anyway. I think a free kick for lasley challenge would've been the correct decision.

Referee presumably played advantage for the Lasley challenge, in which case he should have pulled it back for a free kick outside the box when Brown lost his balance in the box.

Seems like a good idea from the fans point of view. Something that would definitely interest me as someone who has had season tickets on and off as work and now family commitments have changed. From a club/business point of view, it would be instead of a season ticket, and would make it easy to miss less appealing games. (For those concerned about the ticket collection, seems you can pick out games in advance, so not a problem provided you know what games you want, theoretically I don't see any reason why you couldn't just use the voucher at the turnstile for 90% of games? Otherwise it's a winner for me.)

Think his cousin signed for them last week too.

I don't remember Stevie Woods being bad consistently, he seemed to have one off nightmares or bad spells that lasted a couple of weeks. The rest of the time he was ok, never brilliant, but decent enough. Michael Fraser is the worst keeper I've ever seen for us, the last game of the season v Dundee utd (?) was so bad it was funny!

I think it's slightly tongue in cheek on the most part.

http://www.plzsoccer.com Live commentary here for those who can't make it.