fizoxy

Googled for someone who is agressive, strong and can hold his own when the going gets tough, but has a bit of flair and will go down at the slightest touch, and this guy came up.

Dalton Castle.

Two nice goals for us ruined by the softest penalty I've ever seen, but that ref will be getting paid to officiate another game next week and his colleagues will close ranks around him and defend that awful decision. Fans would have been pissed if that was given as a foul anywhere else on he pitch, never mind a penalty. If that's what you can get a penalty/foul for now, then the game's up.

I'm now waiting for this one to appear on Twitter, as a question to either flow or some journalist.

Look back to last January and you'll see that these signings tend to come out of nowhere, whereas in the summer there tends to be more in the way of rumours due to there being more time. Also the communication from the GM was that we had to clear out first, then we'll be wheeling and dealing.

Seeing mentions of clarkson to st mirren on loan on the Twitter

Twardzik is a possibility, and Faddy (if his deal in the states is still a goer). Other than that it will most likely be a couple of youngsters out on loan. So we should have the wages freed up from Grimshaw, Taylor, Robinson, and poss twardzik and one other to put towards a half decent midfielder or two. I'm guessing these will be loans.

To be fair, what someone "looks" to do and what other people will let them do can often be two very different things. But he does have experience.

Unless he has a clause in his contract, 400k seems a bit light. We have time on our side but it would help if there was some competition for his signature.

the only excuse for going with the same back four would be some sort of doubling down from McGhee on the idea that his selection wasn't the reason we got hammered. I'm confident that wont happen.

Law is injured

When we do well it is because we managed to keep our small squad fit. When we have done badly it's when we have more than a couple of injuries. This is the same for every other non old firm club. We simply can't afford to pay for quality bench players. With the money that was thrown at baraclough we should have went for relative quality over quantity. A single decent backup for each line is enough, with the youth there to cover in the instance we lose two players at a position. Hopefully we can manage to swing something to move twardzik, Robinson and maybe a couple more (Reid, clarkson) on this month and bring in a midfielder for cover, but realistically it looks like we will have to wait until the end of the season and reset, which is going to be interesting with mick, lasley, hammel, skippy, and Ripley all gone, and fletcher, Moore, Reid, twardzik and Robinson all following. I can see us trying to extend the oldies another year.

Ainsworth in for Grimshaw was a given, but it makes no sense to me that we played hammel, law and Pearson out of position and brought in a guy who just returned to u20s action this week, when we could have put one of our backup midfielders in midfield and left the rest alone. You can also argue that moving hammel also made Johnson less effective. I wasn't expecting anything today, and maybe McGhee wasn't either so decided to try some stuff again?

The settled back four conceded three at home to accies, our defense is not that good. Today we got horsed because our midfield was also not good.

Or maybe a marking job for chalmers?

My guess is Hammel to the middle and chalmers at lb

So, any ex 'well midfielders available for a comeback?

I presume they are also in midfield, making it 4.

Looks like Laing and leitch are in midfield for the u20s today.

It would be kind of shit sitting in the back row and having people leaning on the railing behind you. Seems like a fair enough request that really shouldn't bother folk.

one measure of the lack of quality in our game may be how few SPFL players are in the national team, which itself is hardly decent. Also, when did we (or our opposition) last have a player that you'd pay to see?

A lot of it is down to factors outwith our control, such as more football on tv and multiple alternative family entertainment options. However, I think there is plenty that can be done to make the game more appealing. I'd start with a bigger league because I have absolutely no desire to see us play kilmarnock or Ross county four times each, and neither do I want to pay over 20 quid for the privilege. Yes, this will introduce so called meaningless games, but I don't think the cut throat atmosphere of the smaller league is conducive to bringing in young players or attempting entertaining football. Also, it would be nice that if we were to introduce new fans to the game that they are not made to feel like children / criminals and have to sit in shitty seats and can't even enjoy a beer with the game. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of the whole SFSA manifesto that was published today, will we see some movement? or will it be filed with the Henry mcleish report and the other think tank recommendations from years past?

Is bara back scouting with them?

I love Lionel, but we can't have one of our highest earners (I would assume due to the recent new contract off the heels of his huge contribution on keeping us up) being an erratic bench player. I'm guessing this will be more about trimming the wage bill, but there should be some sort of fee. I am hoping that we use this window to undo some of the unnecessary moves from the summer. I'd consider extending Lionel as one of them since we had Thomas in the wings and were touting ourselves as a club that develops youngsters.

Doubt there's any significant money involved. I'm guessing this also allows him to play in the u20s if he isn't getting full games, and he'll at least get one more cup run out. If he is impressing in training, then this is pretty much a risk free move to get us through a congested few weeks.