wokinginashearerwonderland

It was not an insult, just a belief that what you say is not true. I really don't believe that the players would notice any significant difference between having 26,000 fans of each team in the stadium or 31,000 Celtic fans versus 21,000 of our own. I am not saying that it should not be a 50:50 split, just that it won't make any difference to the result. If it really made such a difference then our home record against them would be a lot better.

I don’t know why our fans place so much emphasis on the ticket split being such a great advantage. If you want proof of this just look at our record. At HOME, we have played Celtic 51 times since 2000/2001 and have won 5 of those games. Coincidentally we have also played them 51 times away in that period and have won 5 of those. If anyone really thinks a 60:40 ticket split for the final will make any difference to the result they are deluded. We might well win the final but the ticket split will make absolutely no difference to the result.

I cannot believe anyone at Brora would want the club to get into League Two. Apart from Elgin, who might even get promoted out of that league, every away game would be an 8 hour round trip. Not only very costly but would be extremely difficult to convince anyone to sign for them with all of that travel during a season.

Basically a Rangers reserve team. Should be winning this one.

Some result from Arsenal last night. Cannot make up my mind if Arteta is extremely lucky or a tactical genius as it was the first time in a while that I have seen Arsenal play. So many players to me looked like they were playing in the wrong position. The left back must have spent more than half the game in the centre of midfield, the wingers were each on their wrong foot, Odegaard was basically playing on the right touchline for half the game, Rice playing a left sided position and the guy playing up front was a midfielder. Bizarre tactics yet incredible outcome.

That’s right but if you have to have at least half your team as Scottish, there is effectively a limit as to how much of your cash you can spend. In the same kind of way as with Newcastle, they are the richest club in the world but they ain’t allowed to just buy up anyone they want to.

I see the abolition of the three foreigner rule as the point at which our league started to become ridiculously uncompetitive as far as the title is concerned. Historically the old firm always bought up the best players from the other scottish clubs and that will always happen, Dundee are never going to be able to hold onto a player that Rangers want to sign but the gap between the glasgow clubs and the rest was never un-bridgeable like it is now.

I might be in the minority but I like our current league of 12. 38 games for a season seems about right and I think the split works very well and have never understood the argument by people who think otherwise. This season is maybe slightly different but usually when the league splits everyone has something to play for. If you are say 10th at the split, you get the opportunity to play those around you rather than having to play less winnable games against those higher up the league. Those in the top six are normally battling each other for Europe so you can get some competitive last games and theoretically the top couple should be battling for the title. The main issue is of course that unless something massively changes, we are unlikely to have a new title winner any time soon but a bigger league would make no difference to that. Personally, I don't think playing Motherwell and Hibs twice instead of four times and replacing that with two games each against Falkirk and Ayr United would make the league any better at all. As for the idea of playing young players, that is totally counterproductive because that in itself creates meaningless games if no one is particularly bothered about the result other than giving a few young guys a run out. Pains me to say it but we need them. The TV deal would not happen without them and the other clubs need them to boost revenue when they host them. Distribution of TV and prize money more fairly is the best solution to making our game more competitive. You are starting to see it happen in England. For years the big clubs nicked players from the smaller ones because the smaller clubs had to sell. Nowadays the smaller EPL clubs get millions from the TV deals, the disparity between top and middle tier clubs is less therefore you are seeing clubs like Forest, Villa and Brighton shake up the natural order. The other option to making a more competitive league would be to have a compulsory amount of Scottish players in the starting line up. If you stated that six players in each side had to be Scottish, you would instantly cut the gap between the top two clubs and the rest. Of course it will never happen.

Could do a lot worse than Greg Taylor on a free to replace McKenzie at left back.

Let me correct that for you Panda

Makes sense. Those are the best 11 players in that squad. The whole Robertson/Tierney thing about desperately trying to get them both in the team is just stupid. With Tierney’s injury record and Robertson’s game time, just play one tonight and the other on Sunday.

That can’t always be the answer though, it’s just not sustainable to be spending £3-4M on players every year. What happened to actually making players better? You can’t just be buying a player, giving him 20 games then chucking him aside saying he’s not good enough. Thelin (presumably) was brought in for his tactical knowledge/coaching ability. We should be improving these guys, working on the training ground to make them better. He took over a team who did well in the last 10 games of last season and the first 20 of this season yet now he has had time to work with them, the results are worse! Has Thelin actually improved one player since he came in the door? Aside from Shinnie, Clarkson and maybe Morris, the others who will be here at the end of the season were only signed in the last year or so. We shouldn’t be gutting the squad and if we really need to, the people that recruited all these guys should be going too.

Might be an old school POV but Rubezic should be nowhere near the team sheet nor the subs bench after asking to come off last week. The ship is sinking fast enough as it is without including players that are not up for the fight.

Another case of be careful what you wish for. Motherwell are fifth, hard to see anyone taking them higher. They are 4 points behind us with their £5M wage bill versus our £12M wage bill. Eye bleeding shitey winning fitba v Nae wins in 13 fitba. Sounds like an old argument.

Davie C been in touch to discuss the strategy?