rocket_scientist

With a news headline saying that the EU and England are getting closer in the Irish border issue, I don't understand the issue. Maybe I'm looking at it with the requisite simplicity. If the tories go on about "taking control of our borders", and they do, and yet don't want a border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, what prevents anyone flying to Dublin then going to Belfast/Larne and entering mainland Britain that way?

And AFC's inability to mount a serious challenge in the last 20+ years isn't just coincidentally when Milne took over. It's 100% down to the managers he employed not being fucking good enough.

Nobody's disputing that the financial disparity is unfair and stifles competition. But the source of this short sightedness is much more UEFA than SFA or SPFL, even as it affects our league. You're shooting at the wrong target for the biggest fish... even though the pilchards and the dogfish who are the authorities in Scotland are cunts too. As is Milne. Everyone's a cunt. Including me. And you x x x

Wolves have surprised me this season. I watched one of their first games and they were pedestrian and lacking in quality. Only one defeat in 8 is brilliant for a newly promoted side. Nuno Espírito Santo kens fit he's deein. The team directly above them in the EPL right now also benefit from a good manager. Howe has done a cracking job at Bournemouth. They're both ahead of Jose Mourinho after less than a quarter of fixtures played. Cardiff are rock bottom. I've never rated Warnock. Entertaining for sure - as a man rather than opinion on his style of play - but a total blustering charlatan, full of shit. Mark Hughes once again faces a season-long fight against relegation and like Steve Bruce, it wouldn't surprise me if he took them down. They remind me of each other those two, not just cos they played for Man U. A good manager makes ALL the difference.

And this is the bit I don't believe for a second. It's not fact that we can't mount a serious challenge. That we haven't is totally down to our own shortcomings and failings. Where you seek to blame the "league set up" for our repeated failures, I look closer to home. There's no point in fans trying to be heard if we can't agree on the facts. Milne is right to put the issue on the table, the crazy decision that cost McKenna a two match ban. Everyone needs clarification in order that insanity like this can't go unchecked and unchallenged. But framing it as it's all fixed etc. is totally counterproductive to getting any sort of result. Effective dialogue only happens with an open minded approach. Successful negotiations start with knowing your enemy.

Nobody fails to appreciate the sickness of the west coast bias in Scottish football. But much more influential in the revenue argument is the fact they average four times as big a crowd as we do, and more than a tenfold factor against the likes of Hamilton, Smurren, St Johnstone, Kilmarnock etc.

I'm not sure what I said that you don't believe? I would like to discuss it but I don't know what is in dispute? If you are disputing that the majority in Scottish football are incapable of mounting a serious challenge, a position that I'm sure almost the whole of Scottish football has come to accept - including tragically, many of our own fans - then why would you argue that "the game is set up to ensure this"?

The McKenna two match ban is not the straw that broke the camel's back, it's the beacon that shone light upon the festering sores of the Scottish institutional psyche. Doncaster isn't even Scottish. The clue was in his name. But he's been brainwashed by the pre-existing sickness. Of course competition is good for the game. A Celtic running its way to twenty in a row would be a predictable bore. The authorities and pundits who espouse that "Scottish football needs a strong Rangers" are trying to say that the league needs to be competitive but implicitly they're saying that the rest of us are incapable of mounting a serious challenge. And they're probably right. This doesn't mean that the authorities can bend the rules and ban a man who never committed a foul. Since when does getting the ball first and momentum carrying through constitute an infraction? The ref and linesmen didn't see it so the authorities taking action is them facilitating the OF showdown that they anticipate will raise interest levels. That it's Aberdeen, who came second 4 in a row is exactly who they wish to punish, to get all the inconsequential provincial teams oot the road. They're sick men in these places and Doncaster is no leader of men. He is a follower, a politician, a career quango-ite, a fud, a spekky guffy cunt with no talent.

Not buttery but bakery-related. Was in the new Lidl yesterday. In Tullos. Not only were the prices (for everything) so excellent, their bread counter was superb. We only eat bread at weekends but when we do, we want it to be good.

I echo the distaste for McGregor. Give a thick cunt with no class money and we see a special type of crass. It can be reduced to algebra actually: - tc + nc + m = c (s) thick cunt + no class + money = crass (special)

He was awful the few times he played for us. He scored an amazing goal yesterday. Those are facts. If he was promised game time from his former manager, and he clearly wasn't given more than three starts in one year, the only fact of interest here is why our club lied to him or otherwise led him to believe he was good enough to be a regular starter. Given the previous relationship between manager and player, I can't think he's making shit up. I don't care what the fuck the bearded Hun promised him. He was fucking shite up here. Given McInnes's awful record of recruitment, it doesn't matter who said what. He failed. Whether McInnes recruited a dud or whether McInnes was incapable of getting anything out of him is neither here nor there. If he does succeed elsewhere, it will suggest the latter but whatever the fuck he does, let's not lose sight of our own manager's strengths and weaknesses.

On Cosgrove, I did post after the Burnley home game that his attempt at a simple shot was rather alarmingly inept. I'm not sure pundits and managers and "football men" use terminology like that but it's what it was. He's useful. He's strong and as stated, he holds and links well. He's pretty clever and can see movement around him but he will never be a goal scorer. He's just not technically capable of shooting. That's a pretty serious flaw for a professional striker but for digging into Scott Brown on his debut, he got my immediate respect. Hope he comes good but I suspect what we're seeing is all he's got to give. I'm at the Dunhill this week so will miss the game. Would be surprised if it wasn't a comfortable win.

Just played on 6: - This is still one of my fav tracks from one of my fav artists. Good music never fades with time.

Your quest for fairness is certainly both passionate and admirable but "enjoying" McInnes signing shite is revealing. You sir, are a freak. But you are also an intelligent man who didn't explode at this, where the average fuckwit sees red at a perceived sleight. Being different from the crowd is of course necessary but your difference is typically (and possibly uniquely) North East. I've always said that the best quality of this part of the world is it's integrity. It's painful to watch at times, and almost manifests itself as naive gullibility whereby we can understand how we lost our whole country to skilled and sleekit professional political classes but being so committed to fairness that you enjoy our own failings is wow. The NFL draft is brilliant, how the weakest teams get the first picks. You're right about the need for healthy competition. A level playing field is essential for maintaining long term interest. I just never considered it a good thing that our own manager being a fuck up helped the cause. As interesting a post I've ever read on a fitba forum. Thanks for being a freaky outlier. I like outliers.

I've never understood this either. They are Scottish (even though they think they're Irish on one cheek and British on the other) therefore they play in Scotland. The fact that they are big clubs doesn't mean they should play with the big clubs in another country. Plus, how hollow would it feel winning the Scottish premier division without the two biggest Scottish clubs? The only thing driving this argument is money and greed. Plus delusions of superiority of course. And weak weak Scotsmen who whine and bitch that "we can't beat them boo hoo hoo".

Financial disparity is a fact of life, albeit very badly managed by UEFA in particular, the concept of "financial fair play" being a hollow joke. But we saw under Deila and we are seeing this season - despite coming off two straight trebles - that Celtic are not invincible and never have been despite a huge and disproportionate fiscal advantage. It is the ambition to compete that is relevant here. Our chairman originally proposed a 12,500 seater new stadium "with expansion possibilities". I just didn't get that. How about building a football team that people want to watch, thereby upping the revenue streams and getting more competitive? Without the will to win, an individual or an organisation won't. It sounds like you've given up hope of winning the league. That's a dream and aspiration that has never left me. In fact, it is my - and it should be the club's - biggest goal at the start of every season. The financial disparity gives Celtic a massive advantage as they can afford to pay bigger wages and therefore a better class of footballer but it's not an insurmountable hurdle, as I'm sure someone will prove if not this season, next.

I don't understand your argument that "the league is set up..." and I don't see the "fact" you're stating. You should care what McInnes thinks. When a manager doesn't strive to win and arguably is only here for the wage and looking to use AFC as a stepping stone, we can't expect the players to overachieve. When his boss, the chairman is more interested in pursuing his own agenda and doesn't give a fuck about the football, we get the inevitable results, which may be good enough for many, the securing of the coming second trophy (which isn't happening this season).

Nice speech. You're the bigger pessimist however. You reckon it's over before it starts. I don't think Levein thinks that. I don't think Lennon thinks like that. I don't think Ranieri thought like that. Until Saturday's result, I hoped we had a chance although given our manager, the one you think is the best we can get, I really wasn't expecting anything. Victimhood is common in Scotland and referees and the authorities are the cheap easy targets. They're no worse than they've always been. We need to be looking closer to home if we want change. Over 20 years ago, our chairman pressed for us to move to Kingswells. Didn't you find it strange that so soon after him building the RDS that he was proposing relocation? Didn't it smell bad, how he used his supplier and creditor status to usurp the hapless Ian Donald and get on to the board? If you didn't stand up against the chairman in the late 90's in the infamous AGM which basically cost John Stephen and the AFCST any influence and authority going forward, you can't complain that AFC don't stand up for you now. Your personal preference not to relocate to Westhill went when you didn't stand up to the chairman and his patent agenda. As I said, you need to be looking closer to home.

Now that the league is over for yet another year - before the end of September - what are your hopes and dreams? Is it ok that our league campaign is finished after this few games, two thirds of a year before the SPFL gets won by one of our competitors? We have not even played four teams yet this season! Do you have a wank over the prospect of winning a cup? And how likely is that going to be? I have no idea what AFC wants, neither the club nor the fans. The last AGM I bothered to attend was 10 years ago where they revealed that the financial plan was to finish 7th. Maybe we are overachieving already? Fuck knows.

Greg Stewart was outstanding again today. Clarke is getting the best out of him. Under McInnes, he was shite.

Considine AND May start. Seriously, I give up. McInnes is a cunt.

Surely not. That's fucking madness.

We can't "behave"? Like Rangers can? I don't recall AFC fans creating major havoc like they've done so frequently, including this/last month in Europe and Manchester being on the biggest scale in recent years. He's right that we fucking detest them but if he had half a brain or was capable of critical thinking, it's really not "staggering" at all. It's his inability to examine the question why (we hate them) that leaves him perplexed and yet no-one likes them and they don't care apparently. Boyd is a grade A fuckjob, a horrible disgusting human being.

The one thing above all others that needs to be addressed is the crowd. They go on and on about the great atmosphere. It's a fucking awful, contrived "atmosphere", full of stupid costumes, public schoolboy and corporate types who never got into football but who always wanted to be, to feel the communalism and tribalism and the sense of belonging their privileged little lives never had. It is my recommendation that anyone singing "Ole Ole Ole Ole" etc. or being so sheep and lemming-like to get involved in "Nordic" clapping - a rip off of Iceland in the fitba - then these people should be shot. As for those ya-whoos on the news singing "US are terrified, Rosie's on fire" etc., these cunts should be publicly humiliated by severe deep incisive sodomology by sharp implements with rusted and jagged ends. And then burnt to death live on telly.

Staggering momentum shift this afternoon. 16 - 2 in holes won. Just realised I was punting on Day 2 correct score. Cashed them all out. Doh!