Kmcalpin

You can only beat the team in front of you. Well done to the Ladies side though. A great result and performance. Their team is doing us proud.

Agreed but oddly enough we finished 11th with that team, but perhaps thats an oversimplification.

Agree with most whats been said. Although he can be a bit erratic he's a real asset to the club.

Absolutely. Not quite sure what he has achieved while with us.

Absolutely. Don't know about old fuddy duddies though - are you advocating that we set up an old Hibs style Psychos section?

I asked this very question when renewing my season ticket a few days ago. The Play off situation delayed the renewal process including arranging the Early Bird offer and sending out letters. I renewed before my letter was sent out. You also need to take into account that staff are on holiday and in any event there aren't a lot of staff in the ticket office. I asked that my letter be removed from the "out box"to save incurring postage - seems a logical thing to do. However we should bear in mind that there are over 3,000 letters being sent out and if ticket staff were to trawl through that lot to find a letter, little else would get done. The amount of money actually saved is more than offset by the amount of additional time involved. If queuing punters were delayed because staff were trawling through boxes of letters they would not be best pleased. Its quite normal to receive your ticket weeks after actually renewing and I've no problem with that so long as it arrives before the start of the season. When I renewed staff couldn't have been more helpful.

Yes we have a branch covering Fife and Tayside. PM me

I know its a bit academic but does anyone know if ourselves and St Johnstone have managed to reach agreement about John Sutton signing for them early? Supposedly the clubs were "discussing" the situation. As you'll all know Saints need to strengthen their squad earlier than most sides and are getting a wee bit desperate from what i hear.

Ian Baraclough will make mistakes in his new signings but every manager does. Wee Tommy is rightly credited with being a great manager who was astute in the transfer market but few remember he signed quite a few real lulus in his time at Fir Park. The trick though is to sign enough to fashion a decent team. We shouldn't forget either that those who have left were part of a squad that finished second bottom of the league. Some players will be harder to replace than others admittedly. If Bara can improve on the likes of Gunnar Neilsen, Adam Cummins, Mark O'Brien, Iain Vigurs, Paul Lawson, Stuart Carswell and Bob McHugh and ZFA then he'll have made a decent start.

IF he moves on, I wish big John all the best - a decent guy. However he doesn't fit in with our preferred style of play and he'll be 32 in a few months time, so his best years will be behind him. In short I won't be overly concerned. Had Ian Baraclough really wanted to retain him, he would have re-signed.

Not a game on which to judge him. The lad is a right back who can play centre back and played left back as there was almost, but not quite, no-one else. In the games he played he looked nervous and wasn't great but over the piece didn't do too badly. Someone else on here wrote that Stuart McCall hung him out to dry and thats an accurate assessment. The time to judge him is when he's played a fair few games in his natural position. Over the years we've seen far more experienced players play poorly when asked to play outwith their comfort zone (Keith Lasley left wing; Steve Hammell midfield; John Sutton wide left midfield).

Agreed. We need at least 8 players. Possibly more if Sutton and Ainsworth leave.

In a way Ian yes. In order to get compensation a club has to offer a player a new contract and we did.

Even Dundee United are struggling just now - they are desperately trying to move on Cifti before his contract expires.

Actual costs incurred seem to be a major feature of the calculation including the number of trainees on a club's books. I also think years before the age of 16 are counted at a lesser rate. All very complicated. If someone can post up an accurate calculation then good luck to them!

Just checked out the guidance on calculation of development fees. In short its impossible for the layman to work out figures. We've seen figures of between £200 and £500k mentioned in the media. My hunch is at the lower end somewhere between £200k and £300k. We'll probably never know.

A lesson there for Lee Erwin. Alan Martin took a big gamble and it didn't work out. Next season we are going to have to sign a couple of mobile strikers in the Erwin/MacDonald moulds at the very least. Craig Moore has a big season ahead of him - maybe make or break. He's been unlucky with injuries but didn't impress at all at the back end of the season when given his chance. We certainly can't rely on him being first choice. IF he comes good he'll be a replacement for MacDonald / Ojamaa not Erwin.

Compensation/development fees are liable for VAT.

I think he'd be better to stay another 12 months to develop himself but its all about money, money, money.

I'm sure I heard it mentioned a few years ago at a club AGM. A seemingly huge transfer fee didn't seem quite so big once VAT and a player's cut were deducted. These are the kind of issues fans don't always appreciate when they question where all a club's income has gone. That said I hope we get at least £300,000 for Erwin. Its annoying to think that if he played with a club like Walsall or Tranmere he'd be worth double that.

Sadly any fee will be somewhat less. Even if the gross fee was £500k, £100k would be siphoned by the Treasury in the form of VAT.

I'll be surprised if Marvin Johnson is still with us by the end of 2015 - didn't think it would be long before the vultures began circling overhead. The key question is can we secure a decent fee for him.

When does pre season training start this year? If our first friendly is on 7 July the players must be starting back pretty early. Last season our first publicised friendly was 9 July against Fulham with the Stjarnan games coming in Mid July.

This. Our team of the mid seventies was the best side I've seen in all the time I've been going to Fir Park but I didn't like the sash strip. It should stay in the past. Stick to our traditional hoop.

Whilst that is undoubtedly true, there were quite a few players who hardly featured for one reason or another after the January sales, or even before. ZFA, Vigurs, Cummins, McHugh, Lawson, Reid, and Nathan Thomas. Their wages would amount to a few hundred thousand over the course of a season. We did have a bloated squad but in reality many were simply names on a wages sheet. Next season I'd expect a smaller but more settled squad with hopefully less passengers and injuries.