wee toon red

That’s how pain-free my Christmas Eve has been

If the last 18 months, which included an enthralling unbeaten run at the start of last season and a first scottish cup win since 19-fucking-90 just seven months ago is “painful”, then what word are we using for the 24-odd years that came before?! It’s been a weird 18 months, at times a frustrating 18 months, but attendances are up, the connection between the club and fans feels stronger than ever and - I repeat - we’ve won the Scottish Cup for the first time in 25 years. I’m certainly not feeling any pain.

I was just the right age for getting into football as Jess was breaking through. What a player.

Andy Considine is a proper hero. A fan who grew up to play over 400 games for the club, even winning a trophy. And topping it all off with a Scotland debut at Hampden, at the age of 33, helping the team to a clean sheet in a meaningful game. Seems to be a genuinely good guy and a hugely loyal servant who played wherever his manager asked him to. He's basically the manifestation of the dreams of every kid who grew up wanting to play for the Dons.

Cormack should just stop paying for our share of the bill.

The new guy has been calling McGregor over and showing him one of those wee magnetic tactics board. Sure sign that the coach is a diddy.

Unless the sign means something I’m not seeing, we definitely shouldn’t be throwing stones at other fans.

First two games in Boston/Foxborough and the third one in Miami. 2am kick off for the first one and 11pm for the other two. Rubbish times. Worse world cup than Qatar for TV watching.

A player or two in January and a less burdensome fixture list and I reckon top 4 isn't beyond us yet.

England pumped again. Glorious.

Just saw the goals and I think Mitov's getting a bit of a hard time. I'd have the second and third firmly in the "could've done better" category and on a good day you'd have hoped he'd save them both but they weren't exactly clangers - like the St Mirren keeper's for Lazetic's first (and Mitov's attempt at the disallowed goal). The defending around both the open play goals was way more of an issue than the goalkeeping but players have off-nights so what can you do? Lobban, Devlin, Milne and Knoester all need to - and will be - better in other games. I just wonder if it's a coincidence that in the game we score three we also leak like a sieve...

So the saviour of Scottish football and the King of Hearts Tony Bloom might be in a bit of betting bother? Oh my!

I think you and others are right: it only changes when the players change. So hopefully January but it likely won’t be great until the summer at the earliest. Pragmatic results beat sacrificing points for pretty passes.

I've said it before so I'll say it again: Miovski was good for us, not great, and any love for him can only have been because of how shite the majority of the rest of our squad was rather than him being any kind of special. Compared to proper heroes he was and remains a nobody. Shinnie deserves 100 times the love and respect that Miovski got but somehow he doesn't seem to get it.