RicoS321

He's a good manager. He's good at getting points. He's pragmatic. It's a good move for him, as hearts are performing below expectations, and he's undoubtedly a better manager than the Critch and Wee Naisey. Two of the last three seasons with us it was beginning to be clear that Cormack was having an interest in the transfers and the wider running of the club. Hernandez wasn't a McInnes signing, for example. Certainly his last season can be entirely discounted, as it was clear he was being set up to fail (no transfers in the January took us years to recover from). It was also a frustrating thing for me that we never really worked with McInnes to try and get the new structure in place with him here. But perhaps his salary covered the director of football (how is that going?) and recruitment director roles anyway. I think he'd have worked quite well with his hands off recruitment to a large degree. Guys like Storey, Tansey, Morris (Callum), Main etc just wouldn't have happened had we a stronger recruitment role in the building at the time. We'd have made other failed signings of course, but there would have been the opportunity to learn from those errors too, where McInnes just kept making the same mistakes (and has continued at Killie). Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how Greg Stewart gets on up front for Hearts next season.

Agreed, it's shite. But consumerism etc etc. If we don't do it, others will, and then we might not be able to retain our top six status because they'll make billions while we do right by our fans. Personally, I think strips should last a decade. If I was throwing out a perfectly good garment every year, I'd be ashamed. I can get twenty years out of a t-shirt. The one I'm wearing right now, for example. Footballers should be forced to wear a strip until it has big holes in it in my opinion. Adidas can go and fuck themselves. I like the new away kit though, might get it for my daughter.

You'd get a great view of the 400m race though

Looks more like a strip stained with seagull shite. Which would be a hilarious from the club if they went for that.

Agreed, think Airdrie will comfortably deal with Cove though. The plastic at Balmoral will suit Airdrie, and it's a nice big pitch too, which I think will favour them. Airdrie, in general, though, are probably just a bit too easy to play against in that league. They try and play through teams and don't have the quality to do so, so end up giving away numerous chances stupidly. They're like St Johnstone, and us when we're not at full strength (or playing St Mirren). Frustratingly they have quite a likeable manager and aren't a dirty side, but are still fucking Airdrie.

I'm not sure it's lack of ambition to be honest. Maybe more like self awareness. If he knows that he doesn't have what it takes to reach the levels of our first team, then a payday for a couple of years is probably something that appeals. He might not get the opportunity again, and in a couple of years time, he'll still have age on his side to go and play for County or whoever for another 4-5 seasons and fight for a starting place. Goalie is a very unique position, it's completely different to some of the young players joining them to sit on the bench as we've seen in the past. Or maybe it isn't. But I think it is!

Getting tickets for Hampden via the club site has always been shite. I do it on the phone, because Firefox on the laptop can be variable, but you can't expand the view of the seats on the phone so you just have to sort of guess. The "Pitch This Way" bit is useful, I guess, but it's difficult to read the row numbers, and difficult to click on the actual seats you want. As I've done it quite a few times now, I can do it without too much bother, but it could be significantly better. It's like nobody from the club, or SFA, have actually tried buying tickets themselves. Don't get me started on the Hampden app either. What's the fucking deal with the QR codes being tiny, and along the top of the screen? Why can't you click on it to expand the code for quicker and easier scanning (like at Pittodrie, for example)? That said, the transfer of tickets is quite straight forward.

A club statement to the effect that we won't be offering down payment in future should be forthcoming, hopefully.

Tom Ritchie on the bench. Mitov never gets injured anyway.

We need him back for the cup final so that he can nail that other good Japanese lad.

Nice one. Apologies, I would have said earlier if I'd thought it was a universal problem.

Obviously I looked after myself first by buying a ticket before coming on here to remind everyone else. It wasn't working for me either this morning, so I went to the season ticket renewal page, then clicked on tickets from that page, then away matches, and then scrolled down to the cup final from there. I assumed that it was just me having issues.

Reminder to all of the super fans that tickets are now on sale. Lesser fans can get there's around 11am.

Aye, I'd go Keskinen at number 10 I think. Pace and gets stuck in.

Ross Doohan for me.

She couldn't do the accent. Too weegie.

There's no goal line technology in Scotland. I think it might have been in, going by that picture and imagining it swung round, but on field decision has to be the call every time.

And yet all we hear about is fucking Lockerbie and all its victims. Where's the six parter on the sailing club fiasco? Typical fucking Sky TV. They only give a fuck about two teams and a plane bombing.

I'm assuming, then, that if we sell out our allocation this season, having done so last season, that next time we'll be trusted just to sell our allocation rather than have to provide up front payment? Or do the Tims require up front payment too?

£50 a ticket is absolutely fucking horrendous though.

I disagree. The correct move would be to withdraw our team from the final unless as even as possible a distribution of tickets was provided without clause. Our job is to appear at a cup final instantiated in fairness, not to provide the SFA with a guaranteed income stream. There's enough bias in the game in this country, I don't think we need to be pandering to it. Tell them to get fucked.

To be honest, it seems like another case of a lad with a pushy agent, being punted across the UK. I'm assuming he's over here on a study visa or some such? I doubt Tayport would have got international clearance otherwise! Good luck to him, must be difficult for a young goalie in a foreign country, and more so given the route he appears to have taken. I suspect he'll face a lot of rejection on his path if he does every make it.

Then you'll surely have immediately put the money on him being second goalscorer?

I've seen them do it once or twice before, when they are highlighting a particular player and showing several of their opportunities, some of which might not have made the cut, but never seen it when discussing a whole team's performance. When you saw some of the chances shown from other games too, it just adds to the evidence that it was a poor edit. In fairness, it's a very tight turnaround to get a pigeon with a VHS strapped to it to Glasgow for 19:15.

Would be a great signing, especially if we finished third. However, I'm not actually sure what we're looking for in a number ten either. Are we looking for a McGrath replacement, or someone who can improve on the role that Gueye is performing? One of each?