Ya Bezzer!

McDonald signed a pre-contract with Celtic in March that year. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/t...ell/6495029.stm In the next match after signing for Celtic he scored the two goals against Dunfermline. Since Dunfermline were eventually relegated the match was a old fashioned 6 pointer.

Why are we complaining against referees again? We've never had so many penalties and opposition players sent off. When it comes down to it, how many mistakes by referee's have cost us points this season and how many mistakes by the manager have cost us points this season? But, hey, your not allowed to criticize the manager unless you've been in the game! And for the record I don't think referee's should be immune from criticism and if they consistantly make mistakes something should be done but the problem is that the referee's are an big easy target. I can't think of one stonewall match altering decision that has gone against us this season (Jamie Murphy? We got well and truly humped at Easter Road!) but the players and manager have thrown away so many points in the last couple of months its not true. This whole thing is a deflection from the fact that multiple times we've thrown away leads, struggled to beat a mid league 1st Division side at home, consistantly couldn't beat 10 men, or even 9 men and have 1 win in the last 8. If we'd won 6 games in a row none of this would happening. This Gannon crusade is phoney baloney bullshit that parallels exactly a long winless streak, starting at Accies since when we haven't won a single game despite being in the lead in four of the five matches.

I think that might have been the only time I saw 'Well win at Ibrox. I was staying with friends who lived in Ibrox (the area, not the stadium!) and when I got back to their place and I told them the score they wouldn't believe me. There was no internet then so it wasn't until the next day when I got a paper that I managed to convince them!

You play your best team. O'Brien has probably been our player of the season so far, or at least until a couple of weeks ago he dropped to the bench, made two poor sub appearances and then dropped out completely. If, if being the important word, O'Brien can play to the level he had been before being 'unsettled' then he should play. Remember Scott McDonald played on in the team after signing a pre-contract with Celtic and even although lots of fans wanted him out the side he scored the goals that basically kept us up that season. You don't cut off your nose to spite your face.

I think this is a bit unfair. A lot of those young guys in our team are 18 or 19 years old and are still developing physically and they have been thrown in at the deep end against strong experienced players. Ideally most of those players would have had at least another year at U-19 level before stepping up but as we all know circumstances dictated that wasn't possible. U-19 football is played at a completely different pace from the full team and you have to give them time to, quite literally, grow up. Take someone like David Clarkson, he was obviously a much stronger and fitter player at 22 - 23 than he had been at 18 - 19.

I've not tried running about in cold weather since I was a kid but as I remember it took a lot more out of you than in normal conditions. He might also have a cold, a lot of people don't have two operational nostrils at the moment! It can also be difficult for substitutes to get to come on and get to grips with the pace of the game and it was quite a high pace today. Could be a combination of factors.

How are they going to do that? Today was one of our biggest home games of the season and there was just over 7,000 at the match. The corresponding fixture 5 years ago had 11,000. Both OF games have failed to clear the 10,000 mark and other than that we've only had ONE 5,000+ attendance against Hibs (5,221) all season. That's 12 home matches this season and THREE 5,000+ crowds. Our crowds have been dire this season. Here's the 8 home league match attendance aggregates and a comparison with the corresponding 8 fixtures from the last two seasons... 09/10 - 45,903 08/09 - 47,038 07/08 - 52,711 We could probably bring two players on that lost revenue of about £150,000. If the trend continues we might be £300,000 down on turnstile money over the season.

Jutkiewicz did well, I really like Hateley a lot he's an excellent player but you have to go for Ruddy, although it was a close run thing between him and Hateley.

A top 6 finish would a good achievement (maybe not great) but we are as close to team above us as we are 11th right now - 7 points in each direction. 7th placed Hamilton Accies are only 4 points behind us and we are at Ibrox next week - not a happy hunting ground. Meanwhile we have 1 win in the last 8 league matches. We need 4 points out the next 9 at least or we will likely fall out of the Top 6.

We had a good spell after we were gifted a goal but really apart from that we didn't do much but hold out. I reckon we played well for about 20 minutes and once again we came out in the 2nd half and did virtually nothing.

I enjoyed the match as entertainment, even though we lost and I applaud the pluckiness of what basically amounts to a school team holding out against a team of internationals for 80 minutes or so but seriously Gannon's line ups, tactics and substitutions are rapidly becoming a liability. By all accounts Pollock is a good young player but to leave Sutton on the bench when the Celtic back line was so ropey today just seems like sending out a statement about him rather than doing the best thing for the team. And poor Steven Meechan, you felt sorry for the lad being thrust into that as a debut. Basically the two goal keepers keep us in the match Ruddy for keeping them out and Boruc for letting them in! Ruddy :8: More performances like that and he'll be away in January. Moutaouakil :5: Did OK other wise but his crossing is woeful and that's an important part of being a full back Reynolds :6: Never looked secure today but there wasn't much help in front of him Saunders :5: Inexperienced showed today. Hammell :5: Didn't get forward. Hateley :8: Reading will regret letting this guy go, looks like a player who can go on to the top level. Jennings :6: Carrying a lot of weight but did his best by putting in tackles Meechan :5: Tough match to make his debut Murphy :6: Looked our most dangerous player in the first half but didn't feature much as we went deeper and deeper and deeper... McHugh :6: Tried hard and did reasonably well considering we didn't do much attacking. Jutkiewicz :7: Really developing into a good player, you can see why he's at a Premiership club now. Forbes :4: Almost equalised. Pollock :2: Not much impact Coke :2: Just not doing it right now

Seriously is Gannon having some kind of mental breakdown or something?

TEAM NEWS IN Jennings, Meechan, McHugh OUT Coke, Forbes, Sutton Huh!!??

Yep, live close to Fir Park and its pretty foggy but you can see the length of a football pitch. I've only got an hour and a half to find my woolly hat though! It's freezing!

I think we'll either win or get gubbed but I can't see a draw or a close defeat.

Surprised he's still only 31. He might still have some life left in him but I doubt if he's as good a player now as he was back then.

If he wants to talk about the team and not referees how come he's done nothing but talk about referees for weeks and all the while we have to wait 5 days to hear about the last weeks game? I've said it before but Gannon simply didn't understand the level of media focus that goes with being an SPL team. There might be side in League 1 with three times our support and three times our income but we have three times their media coverage. Gannon's been used to dealing with local news and now he's in with the big fish and he's not handled it well. Hopefully he's big enough to get on with things and try and normalize the situation again. Anyway he said 'he'd have to consider his position' if the referee situation didn't improve and then said it "was a tough question to ask" when asked if he was disillusioned and didn't in anyway deny it. Good luck re-signing the loan players after that interview!

Aye but that doesn't count on his record! I think he missed another penalty at the Davie Cooper end if I remember correctly, might be wrong though. The point is he's not been a regular penalty taker like Forbes, Clarkson, Foran, McBride etc and none of his goals have come from the spot (far as I can remember).

Sutton has scored 16 times in 44 starts. Decent for a club like us especially when you consider he's not a penalty taker. In fact I don't think a single one of them was a penalty.

As ol' Johnny Lydon once said "anger is an energy".

"Premiership standard"? Did you see Liverpool paid several MILLION pounds for Sotiris Krygiakos?

He can easily say he doesn't want to talk about the referee like most managers do but he can less easily say he doesn't want to talk about his continually baffling tactical decisions. Instead he'll put out a statement where he decides what he answers and what he doesn't answer and put it out on the Pravda website. Most fans seem to support him at the moment, but just wait until we suffer a dip, or we go through a bad month or 6 weeks of results with back to back defeats and the man in the ivory tower still isn't talking. Things will change believe me. Gannon is only damaging himself right now.

Adam Rooney is a decent shout as a squad player but I've always wondered why he's never really established himself at Inverness even though he's probably been there most potent striker.

Rubbish. Gannon has had the opportunity to give live radio interviews and has turned them down. How can that be twisted? Apparently he's contractually obliged to talk to Radio Scotland as part of broadcast deal, as are all SPL managers, if he continues to boycott the media, the media might start asking for their money back.

So by all accounts we put in our worst performance of the season today after a tactical blunder, yet again by the manager, and he shouldn't answer any questions? Jim Gannon should be answerable just like anyone in public life should be.