RicoS321

I wasn't moaning about McInnes not looking beyond the British isles, and I suspect many quietly stopped after the Hernandez incident! I still think England will be our busiest market, but hopefully the new recruitment guy will have a bit more about him. I think this guy is the right type of signing though, rather than Gallagher or Gurr types. A punt, perhaps, but one with potential.

Too soon to start the McGrath thread?

We're safe to go now he's confirmed. Quite a risk to take with starting a new thread, but has worked out nicely. So a college league player? What would this be the equivalent of, signing-wise? Taking a punt on a second division youngster up here, or taking a youth teamer akin to Ferguson when he signed? Could he be the next mark Gallagher?

I refuse to acknowledge this separate thread until I see him with the red and white scarf aloft.

He was pish. Another in the list of dud loanees. Hopefully we have the scouting in place now to properly replace him. Otherwise, just do without a Samuels replacement until summer.

Well, nobody could accuse you of being Glass half empty.

Have to admit, I don't get the "comfortable with the ball at his feet" thing. Lewis is way better than Craig Gordon in that regard for example. He's absolutely fine at taking in and finding a player or just dealing with it under pressure. Like all keepers in our league, he struggles when given the ball in a tight situation with nobody to pass to. Like all keepers in this league, there's a period between November and March where the playing and pitch conditions make being "comfortable on the ball" completely irrelevant, as you're last man and doing the safe thing is far more important than any defence to attack super-play (#glassball). Lewis was absolutely fine with the ball at his feet throughout McInnes' tenure and it only really became a problem when Robson and Sheerin started the obvious tactic of playing out from the back without mixing it up, continued temporarily by Glass too. Attackers work it out pretty quickly. I don't think there's a better keeper in the league at one v ones as Lewis and after a spell of poor performances and subsequent dropping (good move by Glass it has to be said) has recaptured is all round play, coming solidly for crosses etc once again. I think those fundamentals of goalkeeping are the absolute priority (as shown by hearts/Gordon) in Scottish football. We'll lose far more goals by sacrificing all round goalie skills than we'll gain from a footballing keeper. Not to mention the number we'll lose by dicking about with it at the back. It's not like we've got amazing ball players all across the back line who are being let down by a goalie. As soon as Clarke gives it out to McRorie in a tight spot and he takes three touches and loses it we'll have to revert to just having an average keeper. Even Celtic and Rangers don't have ball playing goalies. McGregor is worse than Lewis in that regard, and Hart is fairly honking too. We can see the mess Rogers made of it trying to implement at the Tims whilst trying to replace Gordon. I could be wrong about Clarke's general ability, but I think he's more Langfield than Ward.

It's cool, you missed the final point I was making, I probably didn't make it clear. I'm saying that, beyond this pandemic, there'll be the next thing. It might be climate change, as an example. The people who are the demons in that situation will be those with high "unnecessary" emissions. We know that actual real blame should be with the government (Scott Morrison in your case, without doubt) who have deliberately worked against the science. Once again, they'll single out different people or activities and really go to town on them, deflecting all the way. They'll be the new anti vaccers, the new scapegoat. Government failures will be ignored and the opportunity to increase mass surveillance and the crack down on all protest. You might just as easily become the next in line (more likely it'll be the poor again), because that's what happens when debate is deliberately dumbed down and nuance and discussion removed.

A good, reasoned response. I disagree, of course! The issue I have is that the 80 and 90% figures you quote have no basis in science. It's the point at which your government has decided to use coercion as a tactic rather than persuasion and, in my opinion, is a fairly rocky road to go down. I'm equally as unsupportive of the Scottish government's vaccine passport pish for what it's worth. The Queensland government could easily have just backed down and accepted its figures (nice round figures, coincidentally) were arbitrary and subtly changed tack. I mean, that's basically the one thing that politicians are good for (or bad for), changing their mind and pretending that's what they intended all along. But they're pushing ahead and letting a minority take the blame for a government mandate, doubling down on a random number. You're saying that these are fair government rules, but that is entirely subjective. Objectively, they are not fair, because they can't be backed up by anything. You then to back it up with rhetoric and division, which is likely something that suits a government in order to distract from other areas. It'll be interesting to see how climate change plays out with you guys. An anti vaccer equivalent might be those people who fly halfway across the world to visit family and friends. They'll (or you'll) be the ones that your government take the opportunity to demonise to hide their own failures.

Yes, it is demonstrably bollocks. Putting a figure on the number of people to be vaccinated before allowing travel, removing restrictions etc. is a political decision not backed by any science. At one point I heard an Australian politician say that they wouldn't open up parts of society until 90% vaccination had been reached (they were in the high 80s). Where's the justification for that figure? It's arbitrary. I think the Australian/NZ approach has been by in large excellent, and it shows in both their low number of deaths and economic performance. However, beyond the drive to get the majority of people vaccinated, what happens after is overtly political, demonising and clear in the language being used by you and haardon. I find it strange that you show sympathy with LA don, yet show such lack of compassion when discussing people who haven't been vaccinated as a whole. The number of people who are actually "anti vaccers" is exceptionally small. The overwhelming majority of people unvaccinated in both our countries are like LA Don, who have clearly expressed doubts and fears. They don't fit nicely into a box, that can be labelled "them" and dealt with in one way manner. They are not killing millions, spreading a disease that would be otherwise unspreadable or preventing people from seeing loved ones (the latter is entirely a government decision). Your language is something we've seen before, and that's why I have issue with it. In the UK, after the banks and the country's wealthy utterly destroyed our fictional economy, the blame was quickly shifted to the scroungers (not those bailed out by hundreds of billions of printed money I should add). Every tabloid was brought to the cause as the government labelled everyone on benefits a scrounger. Call me Dave Cameron could be heard in every single speech saying "hard working British families", by implication: the scroungers were lazy, feckless, scum. It was, and still is, indoctrinated into the public. When asked about the number of people on benefits gaming the system, the British public all thought the figures were between 30-50%, when in reality they were between 1-2%. They fell for the propaganda. The stigma of claiming benefits (a large percentage of claimants are in work) is very obvious today because language matters and government's language more than most. You're being tricked into blaming unvaccinated people for your government's decisions because it's politically expedient for them to do so. The overwhelming majority of unvaccinated people are like LA Don and not the benefit scrounger equivalent. Just as 99% of migrants are not in the UK/Australia/wherever to do anything other than work. It's all part of the same approach to debate and discussion, and just because it suits your beliefs at a particular time, it doesn't mean you should take advantage of it. It's exactly this dumbing down of conversation into thems' and us's that creates the doubts and fears in the first place.

It's obviously not all about the risk to just the under forties, but who they contact. The risk of all of the illnesses you state is negligible, and all are risks associated with COVID-19 too. In the u40s there is a 5 in 1 million increase of myocarditis after second dose of Pfizer (all other illnesses are increased by a COVID infection. Similar to LA Don's tragic family death he mentions above - the risk to a cancer patient from covid is far greater than the associated vaccination risk. Given that the argument is that we don't take vaccines (optional), increasing the speed of spread, without herd immunity there is - then - an assumption that everyone will get covid at some point. That means you can't look at vaccination risk on its own, ever. It always has to be looked at against getting covid. All in, I'd weigh up a slight increased risk in myocarditis versus passing on to someone else genuinely at risk and probably take the vaccine. I'd likely give any child over 14 those statistics and trust them to make their own decision. I'm not sure about under 14s, but once the yank kids have all been injected we'll know better! I'd say this has far less medical efficacy than vaccination. "Priming your immune system" seems mighty suspicious to me. Certainly vitamins are a fairly contentious bag. I'm with Tim Spector on this one: Vitamins I'm interested in ivermectin, I'm really not sure either way. I didn't like the way it was portrayed in the media (horse drug) which immediately makes you suspicious of the motives of those talking it down. I have a feeling that the eventual answer to whatever version of covid we're left with will require a medicine rather than a vaccine as nobody will be arsed taking a fourth booster and it'll be interesting to see if ivermectin is in the mix.

You're mixing up two things here though. There is a lot of data in the public domain from Europe, Israel and Asia (and US of course) that shows the efficacy of vaccination. It does reduce the risk of hospitalisation and death and also the reduces your ability to infect others. It does so in exactly the manner it was suggested it would. The evidence to back this up is provided by the fact that you need a booster after the effects wear off after 6 months. There was never any data that suggested you couldn't transmit covid having been vaccinated and hasn't been intimated since very early in the vaccination process (as soon as the data was available, it was clear that covid could still be transmitted despite vaccination). It's frustrating that people are still perpetuating the myth, and it almost always seems to be from people saying "you told us we couldn't pass on covid, what's the point in vaccination?", rather than from people advocating vaccination. It's basic straw man arguing, and it's deliberate. They throw up a "fact" and cite as evidence of manipulation or change, when it's not the case. By getting vaccinated, you reduce the likelihood of infecting others, you are not - for the most part if you're healthy - doing it to protect yourself. I think if you test yourself regularly, wear a mask indoors, socially distance among those you don't know and let those you do, know your vaccine status I think that's just as good as getting vaccinated in the main. I think forcing people to get vaccinated is wrong. It doesn't prevent spread (it slows it), and there is no value at which herd immunity from covid can be established. Our antipodean friends putting arbitrary percentages on the number of people who need to be vaccinated before certain measures are lifted is demonstrably bollocks, and it is their governments who should be held to account for this and not the minority of people who have chosen not to be vaccinated.

I think you're right. The difference in this reporting to that of McKenna a few years back is notable. The impartial BBC reporting the £10M figure, presumably from a Hun source (thought they were banned?). Whereas when the dons had a club reported figure of £6M offered for McKenna (the year before he was actually sold), the BBC insisted on reporting the lower (and probably more accurate) "in the region of £3.75M" figure. It'd be interesting to find out the source of their information. It seems they are more than happy to take a Hun statement at face value rather than us, which is bizarre given the last decade in Scottish fitba. The BBC are fairly good at just reprinting Hun statements as fact these days. I think £7.5M would be about right. They got lucky with the timing, I think had Ramsay been a year further on we'd have seen him in a Scotland shirt doing just as well. Bottom line is that Scotland needed a right back and he came in and did well. At 6ft3, he's got the athleticism and potential build to do well down there.

Good move for them. I'm guessing that any gardening leave he might have been on with us will be coming towards an end. Surprised nobody down south took a punt. Close to his family though, he might be hoping he can do a Clarke. Could work out well.

At least you got the party season over and done with. You'll be able to sit all day pressing refresh on the BBC pages waiting for the first big signing to come through.

I agree about Netflix, there's a lot of wading to be done. Very good was probably overstating, good would be better. The term "flop" is a strange one to use, I don't think the film is aimed at box office success. It's not really about narcissism as such, it's about ignorance and hubris. The president isn't narcissistic, just thick as shit and is so embedded in the game of politics for the advancement of politics, she doesn't do anything (she's a cross between Clinton and Trump). Mark Rylance is very good as the Musk/Zuckerberg/Jobs/Bezos character, who is narcissistic. The film doesn't deliberately punch down, but as a film about climate change, it won't reach people it portrays as those who "don't look up". In that sense, it's likely a failure.

Don't look up on Netflix. Very good like.

Just putting in a wee placeholder here for Maxwell.

To be fair to McLennan, he's not a sub. It takes him too long to calm down when he comes on. He didn't benefit from a good loan that would have helped I think. He's 100mph when he comes on, tripping over everything and not putting his foot on the ball. I can well imagine he plays well in training when the pressure is off.

I'd say Considine and Hayes are more professional than Brown, and McGinn always puts in a shift when called upon. Lewis has been very good since being dropped, but has always been professional (and generally very good). I have no issues with any of those guys, and I actually think that number of 27+ players is probably a requirement. Over and above that, you have McGeouch, Gallagher, Kennedy and Jet who are older and probably not good enough. I think I agree with you that the balance isn't there. However, Glass had no recruitment support in the summer, and I'd like to see what changes are made in January and probably the summer before passing too much judgement on that front. Regardless of Glass still being here, it'll be a test of the new recruitment guy and his overall strategy. I'd like to think he'd have vetoed guys like Jet and Gallagher (although Gallagher was signed before Bates, so hard to be too critical) in lieu of younger players with more potential. Let's not forget that McInnes was allowed free reign to sign guys like Kennedy and McGeouch in January windows where a recruitment specialist would likely have talked him out of it. Hopefully we'll have more out than in this window. I think McInnes would have been 9 points ahead of this Glass side at this stage, and the mythical "more entertaining" fitba is something that I'm certainly not seeing. I hope we stick with him beyond the summer and see how he gets on next season.

Nice touch from Ramsay, paying tribute to him today.

Good three points in the end. Very glad the winter break is here, we really need it. It must be amazing to have feet that are so far out of touch with your brain as McLennan does. Every kick is a surprise to him as he doesn't know what will happen, how hard he'll kick it, or in which direction. It's like a hundred little lotteries in every game, hoping that the defender will be more fooled than McLennan himself. Ferguson, Hedges both had good games and Hayes wins the most kicked player award. McGinn still offering more than the other subs.

Nevermind. Just got it on. Great timing.

Are you able to stream the game?

Oh well, as long as it isn't just me. Dundee fans attacking the server in protest.