steelboy

am i right to say that hearts are don't have kingston or nade for this one? we need to make sure that we compete in midfield as driver, stewart and aguiar are the only players in their team i'd worry about. on the first day this season they overan us in midfield but having maros in the team rather than big boab will help us compete better. hopefully aberdeen and united drop points tonight and we'll have everything to play for tomorrow.

i'd put clarky back up front. hearts have big physical centrehalfs and who would probably enjoy a battle with sutton. clarky will give them more problems. so fitzy or lasley (depending on which side he wants to play o'brien) for sutton

gonnae have to give this miss due to some dodgy bowels. roll on wednesday. we've probably got more chance of winning if i'm not there anyway.

success comes from winning trophies? so you wouldn't consider last season even finishing third under mclean as succesful seasons. being bottom in december and then going for europe has to do with the level of parity in the league, a 20 team league would have whipping boys and it wouldn't be possible for a team to make up so much ground. as for a top six match against aberdeen, it definitely floated my boat ten months ago. i'd argue that scotland has different circumstances from pretty much every other major european league. with two teams soaking up most of the fans, our small population and the premiership on our doorstep (and on the bbc, sky, itv and setanta) which weakens our posistion further. if you were to split the little money we have across more teams it would probably mean from our point of view no porters, hughes or klimpls and it would make it harder to hold onto decent young players. how lessening the quality of teams is good for the national game i can't quite fathom. accies and st mirren have shown that well run teams can get into the spl and survive and i don't think it's necessarily a bad thing that the first has st johnstone, dundee, partick and dundee fighting it out.

i'd say that the small imbalance in the split is managable, it's definitely a fault but the circumstances probably don't exist in scottish football for a perfect system. and as far as our two trips to the top six under big tel are concerned i recall both occasions as being good experiences. the first year we we're delighted just to achieve it with the squad we had and having lost faddy and pearo. we got pumped off the h**s and dunfermline and the united game was pish but the last games were excellent - a hard fought one each draw with celtic and probably the most entertaining defeat ever against hearts and a cracking day out. the second time round was even better. good performance and day out at tynecastle, loads of laughs and the jambos were beeling cause we owned them that season. a disapointing but entertaining draw against hibs and the small matter of skippy sunday. the downside was we got pumped at ibrox as usual but at least it was sunny! as i said it's not perfect but it delivers 38 games and adds drama, i haven't seen any better ideas.

honestly? i think the split is about the only good thing the spl has ever done. the fixture imbalance is the only problem with it but the benefits it brings outweigh that imo. it's there to provide the right amount of fixtures, add a bit of mid table excitement and provide dramatic end of season games all of which it does. an 18 team league is the daftest idea ever. there isn't enough depth in scottish football to have that many top flight teams plus the ones pushing for promotion. there are probably 4 or 5 clubs in the first who could be decent spl clubs but they should earn it through winning their league. an 18 team league would weaken scottish football by reducing the income of clubs meaning more good spl players heading down south for decent wages. the effects of an 18 team league would be less big games, less tv money for top division clubs and hunners of meaningless games. clubs would have 17 instead of 19 home fixtures which would mean less revenue. would it be possible to be bottom in december and challenging for europe in march in an 18 team league? no chance.you'd end up teams being well out of relegation and europe by xmas and having absolutely fuck all to play for 5 months.

lasley gave away goals almost every time he played at right back - against st mirren, at ict and against accies in the cis off the top of my head. he put in some good shifts there but it only takes one slip back there and we get punished. big boab was a disaster at hibs and united last season so it has to be saunders who played well in the few games he got back in december. majorly looking forward to this.

playing sutton rather than porter is the single worst decision mcghee will ever make at motherwell. porter had started to show a wee bit of form before the away tie and big sutton can barely run, never mind hold the ball up. allowing fat boab to wander around and not mark anyone didn't make much sense to me either.

seen it. quality, arrive home on friday, major away on the saturday i managed to find a pub showing the sellick game in cambodia on sunday but i cannae wait to get to a game. i'm gonnae be on better behaviour than last time up at ICT, my liver's on the verge of packing in right now so i'm going to have to cut back on the cargo.

is the cloudy express running for this one? i haven't seen the 'well in 2009 yet but the next two games are cracking away trips, just hope i don't bring the unbeaten spl run to an end.