bloo_toon_red

Jess was a wonderful, wonderful player. All this talk of "potential" made my blood boil - all a media ploy at the inferiority complex within Scottish football. He did the business for AFC and that's all that matters to us. In any case, wasn't he top scorer one season with Bradford in the EPL?

I wouldn't worry about any of this, it's standard procedure to hold a public consultation when you receive more thana handful of objections. The community council chairman will only have any clout if he has his local councillor on board - it is the committee of councillors who make the final decision, and Milne "the property tycoon", whatever your thoughts on him as a football chairman, will have done his homework beforehand.

I read the four of them earlier this year, I found them pretty compulsive. 1980 in my opinion being the best of the four. They only made three of them for the TV adaptation which was strange. Casting was very good for it though. I then went on to read Peace's GB84 which is a good read but the narrative a little bit cumbersome in places. Story surrounds three characters during the most intense time of the miner's strike. One is a hitman, one is an MI5 agent masquerading as a govt chauffeur and one is the treasurer for the NUM. I considered getting his Tokyo: Year Zero, but I decided not to bother.

Pretty much sums up my own feelings and amplifies what I said in the goalkeeper thread last week. Diamond has never grown up as a footballer and his performance yesterday, especially in the second half, was very very poor. What a pity we are so ravaged with suspensions and injuries that we probably can't drop him. On a positive note, I continue to be impressed with Folly, he looks to be a very impressive acquisition for us, and on the whole McGhee's other new signings look to have improved the team. I think Vujadinovic looks like he could be a classy player. The jury is still out on McArdle while he continues to be played out of position.

Got Screamadelica going in the car just now, how the hell can you get angry at some wifie cutting you up when Come Together's going at full pelt!? Doing wonders for my blood pressure! One thing though - but Screamadelica is so heavily "produced", that isn't performing it "live" a massive contradiction in terms?

I agree. With full-backs who aren't going to contribute to much going forward, we're relying on our back four to absorb a hell of alot of pressure. In Diamond and Ifil we have a central defensive pairing of two reasonably similar "siege" defenders but with little football intelligence or command of the back line, we're going to have to expect one horrendous mistake from either of them in each game. If one of the defenders isn't going to take charge of a situation, then Langfield will have to. Mistakes are going to be made until we have a decent calm experienced central defender to lead by example, and to my mind this is why Zander Diamond would be a wrong choice as captain. He's an experienced player by now and yet doesn't show it.

Also agree, the frustration is that the formation McGhee has us playing doesn't balance with the playing staff he has at his disposal, and there's going to be alot of disappointed faces in the forward positions when (if) everyone is fit - hence Paton, in allegedly turning down his loan move, can't afford to sulk about not getting a game, and needs to force himself in wherever he can. Disappointing though it is for Paton and the others, the goalscoring exploits of Vernon is giving us something to be positive about. Whisper this very softly though - is Vernon the goal-grabber we've been waiting for?

The whole situation with Paton is very disappointing. He looks like a talented, fairly intelligent player and I really expected to see him kicking on this season yet it looks like he's very much out of favour with McGhee, for whatever reason. But if he did refuse to go to Dundee & Morton on loan, then he needs to show a positive reaction and force his way back into the team. Has a golden opportunity with Aluko out for months and it could really be the making of him if he can break in. He's definitely more comfortable out wide than Maguire or Mackie, even though my personal opinion is that he'd make a very good second striker in a Teddy Sheringham style off Vernon, Velicka, or whoever has the jersey at any given time.

Spooks in series 9 now. It had been in danger of falling off a cliff at the end of series 6 until the introduction of Richard Armitage's character and since then it's gone a bit Robert Ludlum, a bit darker, which in my opinion is a good thing. Speaking of Armitage, I was quite disappointed with Strikeback which was on Sky One a couple of months back. Had a pretty good cast but something was really lacking - maybe the direction and production, but then do Sky really do good original programming?

It was pretty rough going like. I reckon the shock comes from the fact that not much had happened in the series up to that point, and I wondered if it was in fact going anywhere at all - like you say seemed like a vanity project, but probably more likely one for C4 than Meadows himself. Personally unsure that the improv style has translated well to TV (so far) - the slow pace of the first two episodes will probably have seen many people switch off, maybe a film sequel might have been better, but I do suspect that Combo's return will probably signify a pretty good final episode next week. TV on the whole is not bad this week. Return of Spooks on Monday, going to give this Seven Days a look tonight and then An Idiot Abroad with Karl Pilkington on Thursday.

How about McGhee shuts his fuckin dinghy-lipped pus for five minutes and starts to turn on some of his own form, that's assuming he has any good managerial form to speak of?

So, let’s get this right; last time out, 18 year old Mitch Megginson gets publicly berated for his mistake that led to Kilmarnock’s goal, and this week, McGhee decides to put his arm around the goalkeeper who punches the ball into his own net. Howard is a decent enough back-up keeper to have, but I’m inclined to argue that Langfield is one of the top 4 or 5 keepers in the SPL, with Allan McGregor, Neil Alexander, Lukas Zaluska and Paul Gallacher. Having a good quality keeper like Langfield on the bench while Howard contrives to cost us points in consecutive games is a luxury AFC, and ultimately Mark McGhee, cannot afford. Some of McGhee's decision-making of late makes Jimmy Calderwood look like bonafide MENSA material...