wokinginashearerwonderland

I'd argue Clarkson has been shite since we signed him permanently. Possibly a bigger waste of £1M than Paul Bernard actually. McGrath's a terrific player but you have to factor in that he had an operation in mid November. Can't be easy coming right back into the team after that but he's been the only guy other than Miovski who has consistently scored goals for us these last couple of years.

Wolves showing how you don't need to fuck about when sacking a manager. It doesn't need to take five months. O'Neil fired on Sunday, his replacement hired today.

He might be a tim bastard but gotta love Ange. He seems to be one of the very few managers that gets the fact people go to a match to be entertained. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/videos/c87x92g1jzvo

Not so sure. McGrath is quality and our best player by a country mile. Very under rated by our support. Everyone thought Liam Scales would not play when he went back and he was a first pick for Rodgers, Ryan Christie the same after his loan finished. Jonny Hayes also became a first team regular after moving across to the dark side.

Do wish Rob McLean would quit calling players by their first names like their his mates.

Ah, the Hun demise is massively over played. They are probably 3 points worse off than you would realistically expect to them to be at this stage all because of the loss to Killie. The Celtic defeat and the Hearts draw were not hugely unexpected. If you look at our own fixtures we are maybe 6 points better than we would hope to be if you had looked through the fixture list at the start.

Not sure where folk are getting this from. Dons are 14/5 to win this. Hunnery are favourites at 21/20 with the bookies.

McInnes incoming at Tynecastle surely

Our fans are getting a wee bit excited by very little IMO. The shitey stages of the league cup apart, we have played four proper games this season and beaten St Mirren and Killie at home and St Johnstone and Ross County away. I mean it's not exactly the European elite is it? Rangers have dropped five points via a draw at Tynecastle and a loss at Parkhead so are basically two points worse off than you would probably expect them to be at this stage. I'd like to think we will be a good bit better than last season but realistically we have only changed three or four players from last season and lost 25 goals out of our team by selling a £7M striker. We still have the nucleus of a side that was nearly hauled into a relegation scrap a few months back. To say we have suddenly a great chance of second place is a bit strong at this stage but fingers crossed.

The old slapper

I'm a little surprised by all that has gone in the last few days. It actually makes it look like Clarke is very unprepared. We have lost 3 first team players if you like, in Hickey, Patterson and Dykes and now it seems like anyone with a Scottish passport could get the call. He's known for weeks that it was likely neither Hickey nor Patterson would make it yet our replacement only makes his debut a couple of weeks before the tournament which is a bit mad. The right back slot, assuming we go with three centre halves, is arguably the easiest position to play on the pitch. Craig Burley played most of his international career there for Craig Brown and did a pretty good job. We could easily stick someone athletic in there and get away with it. I would be tempted to try McTominay at right wing back and Christie/Armstrong could replace him in midfield. The forward thing is a bit weird too. Dykes and Adams have always been our first choice forwards and Shankland has come on to a game this season. Not sure why we are ripping up the game plan a week away from the finals by calling up players that have been nowhere near the team in Doak, Morgan and Conway. If you want someone direct and with an eye for goal rather than a number 9 as such, then Forrest is the obvious solution.

Bring on Dons, Caley, Cove, Peterhead and Buckie. North East tour

Not surprised, 16 points from 11 league games is some going

I’m sick of hearing our fans claim we have a lot of good players, it’s total nonsense. 8 wins out of 33 games in the league tells its own story. If Ross County make up three points on us in the next four games we would be fighting for our lives at Dingwall in the last game of the season. We are still well and truly in a relegation battle regardless of what anyone says. If third is a realistic target next season (assuming we are still in the top flight) then we only have about four or five in that squad who are at that level, the rest need to be binned. McKenzie, Devlin, Miovski, McGrath and maybe Lopes. The rest should be shown the door. Good luck to this new dude but our fans need to get a grip on the expectation level. We ain’t got some divine right to be at the top end of the league just because we were a good side 40 years ago.

Yeah, as I said in my previous post it depends what your agenda is I suppose. You can dress up the stats to suit. I doubt many people would agree with you that O'Neill's achievement of qualifying for the Euros tops Lennon winning five league titles with Celtic but there you go. You seem to dismiss Lennon because he had a good group of players yet make allowance for some of O'Neill's poor results because he has a young team. He has not been "sensational". I don't think he has massively over achieved with Northern Ireland, but he has done well. Laurie Sanchez beat the likes of Spain and England when he was in charge. O'Neill qualified for the Euros by winning a group that had Romania, Hungary and Finland as the big teams. He then played 4 games at the finals and lost 3. He has had over 80 games in charge now and only Stoke have come calling which for me says a lot. As I said above, I am not against the guy but I think in this country we are far too quick to dismiss and write off others that have won trophies because they are not fashionable names.