RicoS321

Just get Jess back. Fuck everybody else.

And since then, Yogi is turning county into a feared set of world beaters. Goodwin is probably the only manager I'd consider in Scotland, however I wouldn't pay the money st Mirren would want as he'd still be a risk. I'm surprised that Maloney hasn't been mentioned. Probably not big enough to make it in management.

There's a young assistant manager at Stockport county who's been touted for big things. Probably be a bit of compensation, but in my opinion would be worth the stretch. Exactly the type of guy that could take us forward. He's interested in another job, so we'd need to act quickly.

Aye, I saw that after I posted. The Collins malkay dream team.

Good stuff. He can have no complaints. Did his best, with a lot of professionalism and has left the club in a significantly better position than when he started. He wasn't a disgrace by any stretch, and the club did the right thing by him, giving him every chance to succeed. Collins has just expressed an interest in the Tims job, so expect we'll do a McGhee scenario and offer him the dons job once he's heard back from them.

Possibly, I'm wasn't really talking about a manager though. In Romanov's case, I just meant that he was willing to speak out against the scum on occasion, but he didn't have a deep enough understanding for it to hit the mark, which was frustrating. It meant it was easily batted away, and filed under "crazy foreigner". As a dons fan, Cormack has enough experience of Scottish football to make a strong, evidence-based case, but it'd have to be a sustained, consistent attack on the setup backed with some of the ideas that exist in yank sport. Unless you attack the structure of the game in this country, you won't do that, that's the point. Tinkering with the manager isn't going to change that (I'm not saying: keep McInnes), we have 36 years of evidence spanning hundreds of managers (across the SPFL). We can see where we are on our current budget, with our best total of 76 points (when everything went right), low end 62ish. To get to 80 points consistently you're probably looking at double our budget, realistically, over several years. To do that, you either need a benefactor who you're beholden to in the English style, a massive intake of new revenue from all the hidden dandies out there waiting for a new stadium or whatever is holding them back since before Fergie was here, or Europa League football regularly at group stages (creating a three tier system in the SPFL as opposed to the current two). Once you're at that 80 points, you review the options then to see if there are avenues to take that up to 90, which might guarantee a few league wins. What it isn't, is an overnight project, and it's certainly not something a change in manager will bring about, it needs far more than that. We'll see what happens in the coming year with the shitey European changes, that could offer the new manager opportunity, but it will be through good fortune of timing rather than ability.

He is just a part of a board. He's responsible to shareholders. The one/only good thing about Romanov at hearts was that he was sole owner, and was willing to say what he thought. Unfortunately he was a charlatan too, with little understanding of Scottish football.

It's interesting/bizarre that you have stated zero managerial attributes. I personally think we should be looking at blonde hair, to get away from all the brown and grey haired managers that we've been employing lately. I mean there must be some good albino managers out there? It's not like we're moving to summer football anytime soon.

It is pathetic. If only someone in the game would actually mention it. I'd buy a ten year season ticket if Cormack started holding that shite to account.

I would doubt that there is any mutual agreement in place, it'd be very unusual. It'll cost us, significantly, and that's a big part of why Cormack will be holding out. Quite rightly so. He'll take into account the effect on season ticket sales and act when the time is right. With Hibs making more of a cunt of it than us yesterday, third isn't strictly done yet, so he'll likely allow McInnes to fail as per the club's strategy, which might give them more leeway in any sacking (probably not). I think it's fairly important to allow that for the sake of the next appointment too, you really don't need any: "if we'd just given him a bit more time" opportunities (especially when McGhee returns for his glorious second spell). I'm assuming it'd be gardening leave for McInnes and Docherty, so we continue to pay them until they get work elsewhere, at which point we'll pay the difference between their current and new salaries for the season. I've heard varying degrees of speculation on McInnes' salary, but I don't believe them. I'm guessing, all in, we'd be looking at £300-500k for the pair of them. A couple of very good players, like Ojo and Forrester.

Fuck sake, I didn't notice Hibs had prolonged matters by making a cunt of it too.

That was turgid stuff. Very difficult to watch. First 20 minutes, being generous, you could see us winning by two or three, they work us out and slow the game down completely and we're out of ideas. Too frightened to take off any of his big name midfielders, he decides to play McLennan in a position he's proven unequivocally shite in. He's got one fucking position, and it's right side of midfield as wing back or winger. It took away any momentum we might have gained from the sub. Then he takes nine fucking minutes to take on Kennedy, before a three minute cameo for Ruth. Just recognise the fucking urgency with half an hour to go and if you intend playing Ruth then get him on as part of a double sub. It's like he thinks: I'll try McLennan up front and when that fails and his confidence is lower, I'll move him wide where he prefers to play. Being fucking awful at changing things is completely fine when you're grinding out points, but as soon as you actually need to make game changing moves to win points or even just score goals you're absolutely fucked. Third place almost mathematically gone, no point in holding out further. He's been given time to fail on his own terms, and has failed.

Not too bad, they just look frightened to score, which is understandable given recent weeks. They're not giving us any trouble. Hendry not been great, maybe take Anderson off their bench for the last five minutes. Expect us to win this.

Going for the 3-5-2 by the looks of it (McGeouch in for Campbell), with a ridiculously one dimensional midfield. McGinn and Hayes in the wing back roles. Should be enough to beat accies.

Shows how far removed I am, I assumed they had a few weeks before they could win the league. Gads.

I put that to the side years ago, although it regularly comes to the surface if I'm ever engaged in conversation. Football, for me, is just a microcosm of life in general with the exact same properties. The one percent in Scottish football are the cheeks, who are deferred to as "wealth creators". If you ever wanted a simple illustration of capitalism, Scottish football is perfect. I'm completely aware that our game is fixed in any meaningful sense and completely aware that we're living through the worst period of Scottish football ever, which runs parallel to the wider politics. I'm more interested in the minutae of the dons tactics and seeing players improve and get worse watching live fitba than who the manager or whatever happens to be. In fact I think that the McInnes out chat, for example, simply detracts from the wider issue (if I were being conspiratorial, I'd say that's the thing they want you to be talking about) of inequality. I've long ago accepted that equality can only be witnessed and not discussed or acted upon. The chairmen are our WEF, we're the consumerist masses. With a compliant media doing their role to sell their rags. The only thing the media should be talking about is how a new club could spend their way to a league title, and if that's the only route to success - which it is - then our system is broken. Cormack's antidote is more of the same. Forty years without a non-cheek winner is quite a record to look forward to. I'll go 2-0 the dons.

We'll put you down for a 3-1 victory.

It's not embarrassing though, that's the point. It's probably not even embarrassing for the Huns, who are only now getting a return on their couple of hundred million in a decade. St Johnstone haven't done anything noteworthy, they're a statistical blip. If they were running away with three or four trophies then you'd likely ascribe it to something worth talking about. There had to be one team picking up a second trophy at some point, it just happened to be them. It's a catch 22 as I see it. McInnes isn't a great cup manager, in that he doesn't react to situations quickly enough and is too cautious in his approach, but his consistent ability to win league games puts us in Europe and gives us the money to compete in the cup with any degree of significance. Our budget isn't enough to guarantee us cup success, because as soon as we get two or three injuries we're at the level of a Motherwell, killie or saints and then it becomes the lottery that saints have won twice. I actually quite like that degree of balance, that's how it should be, not the abomination that is the cheeks and what is about to happen after Europe in the next season or so. If everything aligned for us with injuries and the draw, we'd likely win in any given season. Just as it will for every other team.

McInnes is the manager of the second (equal) most successful team this decade? Or are we both missing the point, in that it's an absolute indictment of Scottish football? I'm sure Craig Brown is telling somebody somewhere about McInnes' excellent "number of games won" record in the cup competitions. Saints seem to have managed to find themselves a couple of different ways to approach games that work, they're doing well at the moment, well done to them.

I'm not defending it, I thought it was a shite sub, merely trying to explain it. I agree with HD, his last five minute subs are frustrating. The McGeouch one was actually comparatively sensible, as it's a case of hoofing it to the big guys and hoping something falls, fine for a five minute spell when all else is lost. It's the introduction of a tricky winger or a small striker (Anderson) that he usually does which is most frustrating. The ones where the player clearly needs 10-15 minutes to get into the game, but McInnes decides to make the sub in the 82nd minute, taking a further 6 minutes to actually get the player on. I'd love to see the stats around McInnes substitution tactics. You'd see a very clear line around the time for the first sub (a good, early, attacking sub made yesterday to be fair), and another around the second, and they could be clearly plotted against scoreline. He's nothing if not predictable. So, actually, all things considered maybe the McGeouch one was okay - something different.

I thought McRoree was poor today.

Was it not done to put another defender up? McGeouch effectively sitting in as last man, and no need for McGinn as we were going long and high? I assume he thought there'd be more than two minutes stoppage, which seemed a bit light.

Yep. McGinn to score a hattrick and not celebrate any of them. Interesting lineup, probably about right. Didn't think Hendry was up to much despite his goal.

I expect that if you applied that logic to everything you consume in life you'd be asking the same final question. The answer is - as always - yes, you're expected to, but you don't have to. Those are your choices. Are you expected to use Google whilst your every move is gathered and monitored? To go to a supermarket and not be subjected to targeted marketing/product placement? That's the world we live in, and if you want to be an AFC supporter then you have to do so within the existing system. You could even say you (we) are complicit. But be very wary of painting it as an AFC issue, unless you believe that there is some sort of moral exceptionalism applicable to AFC, that Hibs, Motherwell, hearts, Kilmarnock etc are incapable of.

Miles writing a storey at tinkcastle