RicoS321

My daughter gets a few years out of hers as she likes wearing them. She usually buys the goalie tops, and nobody seems to care whether they're current or not. She got the purple one the other day, which looks ace, and the long sleeves means she'll wear it for longer.

No surprise. I'm not sure it really does a whole lot for us him having a good spell there, but game time is definitely beneficial. I'm not convinced we'll see much that'll change Thelin's view between now and January, I think he'll take a few years to get to his peak.

I think it's Adidas rather than the club. We're a relatively small fish. Hopefully the mizuno lads will recognise our sleeping giant status.

Fuck the coefficient. That is a spectacular document utd have provided. This is the equivalent of the deadco soliciting advice from the lad who made porn films. Thon ZLX firm have clearly come in and promised to reduce their tax bill and Utd's directors have given them carte blanche to do so, without any basic due diligence. I don't think that incompetence will be a possible defence for the Utd board like, they'll likely face fines. I don't agree with the taxpolicy blog's assertions that players, chefs and analysts couldn't apportion a good chunk of their salaries to the various projects, but that is totally irrelevant as "projects" such as nutrition and analytics are clearly an operational cost of a football club, and definitely not R&D. You'd have to be a con artist to suggest that they were. Which will probably turn out to be true in the case of these consultants. Hope Utd didn't pay them a fortune.

Good luck to him. A good time for him to move on, and a good deal for us. Much like Duk previously, he could be a very frustrating player, but extremely useful on his day. Had we kept him a year longer, I could see the fans bemoaning the frustrating side a lot more. He turned it around from the horrendous first season, and despite some excellent goals, I'll remember his final performance when he worked his arse off and played for the team (The cup final. Which we won. On penalties. Against the Tims).

Aye, short of being red, it's a good effort. Better than the abomination and the North sea ones.

I think your point, overall, is a very valid one, I slightly object to Miller for the reasons @BigAl states, that's the only disagreement. I think including him in the list of players missed out on is harsh on the club, unnecessarily. The other two, definitely. I think the club are looking further afield perhaps because there is no real advantage to looking in this country if the player isn't Scottish? Not sure. I keep thinking the same as you, but then I struggle to name any good targets from other clubs either! Perhaps I'm just not paying attention. Devlin was obvious, as was Penrice for the diets. There wasn't an obvious candidate last season.

Miller? As in Lennon? There was never an opportunity to sign him. The other two are only missed opportunities in that they are Scottish, and we need Scottish players. I think if we were looking at Hale, then Bruce Anderson would be a better bet, as he's Scottish and came through our youth system. Hale perhaps marginally quicker, but Anderson uses his body better. Both would depend on us offloading Sokler though, as I don't think either are any better than him. Sokler would score as many as Hale playing regularly for County. Both Anderson and, to a lesser degree, Hale are comfortable coming off the bench and finding the net instinctively, which would be worth having. Sokler needs game time to develop the habit of scoring - his movement and getting into the right position are not in doubt.

Aye, would think so. I'd be very surprised if he was looking to leave. He'll be on relatively decent wages here, and he's done nothing at either loan to suggest he could make it with us. If he can get a good loan deal in the championship then he might manage to get some interest elsewhere in January or at the end of his contract with us.

Fuck sake @BigAl

Fairly certain we have a 100 year contract to play St Johnstone every preseason.

Ah, I must've missed that, I assumed Gueye was injured?

We won't get a choice on whether or not to give him more time, we spent a decent wedge on him and I doubt we'll get anyone willing to take him off our hands. As you mention, the loan option would have been best. You say he was signed as a project player, but I don't remember that being mentioned. He was 22, and I expected him to be in the first team, given that we were very skeptical of both Gueye and Sokler. In fact, I remember saying that we needed to immediately sign another striker after seeing Ambrose play, and not long after we were forced to get Nisbet in on loan. Similarly, if Yengi turns out not to be great, we'll have to get another in the door before the end of the window. Which is the biggest issue with retaining Ambrose, for me. It's okay if he was just last summer's error in the transfer market, just as Yengi might be this season's (too early to tell etc etc). What we can't afford to do, though, is have players piling up, rather than offload when we believe we've made mistakes. Gueye, Ambrose, Yengi and Sokler creates a fair backlog in the one position (or two). I don't think I could make a good case for giving Ambrose a chance ahead of Sokler or Yengi. The loan would certainly solve the problem.

Impact sub that had a very large hand in winning us the cup. The problem that we have is that without him coming off the bench, we have very few other options that can change a game. His pace buys him the chance to get several cutbacks in per game, which were vital last season. Milanovic and Keskinen, inverted, don't offer that, and neither do Boyd, Duncan etc. The ability to change tactic is basically lost without him. If he goes, we need to replace him. Not necessarily with another winger, but another player who offers us a chance to switch things up. We're well stocked with guys who can play plan A.

He looks very slow. Agreed, Polvara in if nobody arrives

Aye, that was gash, glad I didn't go. Only watched from 38 minutes, so large pinch of salt required with my opinions (which is the case anyway). I didn't really warm to any of the new signings. Thought Aouchiche wanted far too much time on the ball, Yengi looked very slow, and positionally not that great (Ambrose looked better when he came on...) - a big drop off in that role from Nisbet. Milanovic looked okay, but seemed to be way out of position defensively for the most part. Thought Polvara and Boyd were a big upgrade when they came on, and great to see Polvara tick Left Winger off his list of positions played for us. We were very weak in midfield, as expected. I think if you're playing Aouchiche in number ten, you need something stronger in behind. I suspect we'll see Dorrington back in for Milne against Hearts. Molloy at left back didn't quite work for me, he looked too conservative, but if the new lad isn't available then it's an option I guess. I was going to suggest in the transfers thread that I didn't think that we'd strengthened our first eleven from last season, and until we get a number 9, I think that is the case. However, players like Polvara, Boyd, hopefully Keskinen having another year of improvements under their belts will certainly progress us. It's just a pre-season. Will make a full initial assessment over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully the defence will be a little less leaky against the Jambo scum.

Just as I was about to start watching too. Anyone got any streams available now that fawa appears to have departed?

More worrying is that Ambrose is on the bench. Despite having the option of a free ticket, I couldn't be arsed with the preseason friendly. Might watch on a stream.

I believe it's spelled: fastcunt.

I think you should keep quiet during the final

I think Thelin might be fairly flexible in that, depending on who is number ten. He seems fairly happy to put Gueye (or Yengi) in there, leaving space for a number nine just to roam the box. Probably not as a starting tactic, but certainly during games.

I don't think he's as good as Nisbet, and I think we should be aiming for someone as good as, or better than, him. Hale would be a great addition if we didn't have Sokler and Ambrose, but I'd like to see us shift them on first. I'd have him as our second choice, basically, with the view that he can do a very good job if the guy we that we sign as our actual number nine turns out to be pish.

Agreed, it's a funny one, he seems a likeable guy, but it wasn't that long ago that we were lamenting his attitude and constant diving. I had my doubts about him fairly early into his time with us. He never looked like the level we needed, and didn't have a lot of space to grow into as a player. A nice neat technical player, and a good finisher, but was never quick enough to get the space to make things happen. Reminded me of someone like De Visscher, just a level below us, and without the physical attributes to make something of himself in this league. He essentially replaced likes of Matty Kennedy, but he wasn't as good as him. I think that would be his ceiling as a player with a few years of experience behind him, which isn't to be sniffed at either. Overall, I can see the thinking behind his signing, and it's such a difficult position to get right, as things like just being slightly less pacey can have a huge impact on the return. Good luck to him.

In fairness to Robson, he wasn't given much time to do a complete overhaul, and outside the first eleven we were very weak. It was his inability to change tactics that fucked him, as much as not using the squad.

Pressley off to a flyer.