RicoS321

£376,816

Ahh, understood. That makes sense. That means that Scott Brown has never actually played for Scotland and the rest of the Tims are on negative caps apart from James Forrest who is the only one who actually regularly turns up to the squads without actually turning up on the pitch on match day.

Fit's this? Are you saying that those who were picked for the squad get a cap even though they don't turn up (I've nae idea like, I'm not being critical)? I'm not sure who's being penalised here? Do the replacements nae get a cap anyway? Caps should go to those who play minutes in a friendly. It does them a bit of good, gives them a bit of confidence and something to put on their CV. Huns should not get caps.

You're going to have to be more certain please. I'm looking for something definite.

For those of you who have watched the above, then you should move onto Skies over Scotland (link below) if you haven't already seen it. Despite the annoying voice of the presenter, talking to us like we're fucking idiots, it's a very interesting program. If you have not watched the above then you should probably consider giving up on life. https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09vk9qx/scotland-from-the-sky-series-1-episode-1

Yes. O'Connor had some above average games for us and some fairly horrendous ones. What we saw in those good games was a player playing at his peak in my opinion. Given his lack of pace and his massive one-footed-ness - areas that are unlikely to significantly improve with age - there were few areas in which he could develop. His reading of the game was okay, but not to a standard of even Reynolds or McKenna. His main attribute was his strength and aggression and that should suit down south. I think we've seen what we can get from O'Connor and I don't think it's worth pushing the boat out to retain that. His inability to kick with his left foot means that he's not a great utility player for a squad either, as he can really only cover a single position. Things seem to have gone quiet on Naismith from County, but he'd be more aligned with what we should be looking for in a squad player. There is a lot of shite in that league that really isn't suited to the Scottish game, which we've seen in the past. There are also a lot of players who have the attributes (skill) required to play in Scotland that struggle down South and vice versa. It's not necessarily a case of how many games you've played, it's about the way you play the game. It means that there are a lot of gems to be plucked from the lower tiers of England that can really fit in up here. The reverse of this is known as "Ifil's law", where a player can be fantastic in an English league and be the first name on sheet for a team down South only to come up here for us to find that they've never actually kicked a fitba before. It means that the scouting has to be a bit more than just "good on paper", and that's where we've fallen down under every manager this century. Hopefully this chap will be the start of something different.

Sounded like they were surprised by it, so I reckon it was his own choice. Leaving on a high. Seems logical in the fickle world of management.

Jonathan Meades on Jargon. Get it watched, fuckin ace. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09xzsbp

Against the hun in the cup. You'll have undoubtedly seen it afore https://twitter.com/BBCNorthEast/status/1001150870929727489

I think Cooper fell into the "if you're good enough you're old enough" category though. I think that the question is "would he have been better served by playing less games in his early career". He could easily have had all those medals whilst only playing 20-30 games per season. I suspect it's entirely different for every person though, and probably only easier to evaluate in hindsight. There's no doubting he had a great career.

That threw me as well. By that logic you'd support the Tims because there are too many huns in the North East.

Aye, shame like. Nice guy, very friendly.

It was the shittest hatchet job I've ever seen. Barely touched the guy, and it was his shoulder that hit the ground furthest from Ramos that had the "suspected dislocation". Doubt he'll even miss the world cup, looked like he was fine. Pawlett re-appeared for the dons in the second half against Utd a few seasons back after dislocating his shoulder and just had it flopping about, thon Egyptian just ditched his team for a wee bash. Probably went to burger king for some nightfall ramadan feast. Looked very much like he could have played on. Bottler. Anyway, hilarious performance from thon keeper.

He could definitely do a job in league one, and possibly low end championship. He won't be guaranteed a game for us next season with Devlin in the squad, so he could be right about it being better for furthering his career. When it comes to career, in modern footballer parlance, I think he's referring to: "how much money I can make", rather than opportunity to win trophies (second place trophy for example) or play in Europe. His ability to hoof the ball means he might fair okay down South, however he doesn't have the physical presence of even an Ash Taylor so he may just struggle a little if it came to somewhere like the championship. Good luck to him, I'd rather he was elsewhere.

This: https://genius.com/Carol-an-duffy-mrs-faust-annotated Never read it before. Good if you have a spare few minutes.

Watched the last few episodes the other night, you were right. Terrible ending, like they couldn't be arsed, or ran out of budget or something. Could have had a lot more depth to the whole thing. The "gated community" (not really relevant for most UK citizens), could have been used to far greater effect than just the "it exists, we'll use it later" approach to give a far more nuanced and thoughtful show as an example. I stand by my recommendation, as long as you never watch the last three episodes and never find out how it ends. Watched Kiss Me First on all 4 last night, t'was good. Maybe not a lot of folk's thing, but I enjoyed it; as original as can be expected these days.

He did play two up front against Hearts and Hibs and in part against the hun and it worked well from a ball retention aspect. It was May who got the nod however. Understandably too, as he scored a shite load up front for St Johnstone in that format. I'm not sure on which planet Rooney is going to reach a flick on though, it's not his game. He'll get knock downs, but that means you probably need a 4-4-2 with high wingers. With the better teams switching quickly to a 3-5-2 to counteract this, you're left completely exposed, and either your winger has to come back the way, or you sacrifice Rooney to the wing in a 4-2-3-1, which invariably happened (this was usually down to our lack of midfield option that would allow Shinnie to play left wing back). Rooney needs us to hit the byline, and that happens best - for us - in a 4-2-3-1, with plenty of protection and McGinn and another hitting the fullback at pace. Rooney is great over 5 yards at getting his body in front of the marker and getting on the end of everything. Do you genuinely see Rooney playing the Mackie role of the Miller/Mackie partnership* alongside Cosgrove? *this is light-heartedness, clearly Mackie shouldn't be on the same pitch as Rooney

Of course he would. The question is, would he be snapped up by someone better than us? I don't think so. That's why I'm highlighting his limitations. I agree with a lot of what you and CvB say, and I would rather we got rid of May than Rooney. I spent several months defending him when others on here were questioning him whilst going through a poor patch a while back, and he came good again as expected. Whilst I think May has some better attributes, I think Rooney is a better penalty box striker. We spent a couple of seasons working a team around Rooney, and it worked very well, and he banged in a heap of goals as a result. That said, it was blatantly obvious in the European games and the games against the Tims that we couldn't afford the luxury of the penalty box striker - it's a function of creating significantly fewer chances. We're not going to get to the next round in Europe with Rooney up front, for exactly the same reason that we didn't in the last few years (Rooney was injured this year, but his replacements weren't up to it either). That's why Rooney barely features in games against the bigger teams, and when he does he's often anonymous. Not just anonymous though, him being there actually has a negative effect as he doesn't bring others into play or take the pressure off. His fantastic work-rate means he can regularly be seen way back in our own half attempting to catch someone. When we get the ball back, he's then unavailable for a good twenty seconds while he gets back in position (obviously that could be coached out). McInnes, in attempting to play him alongside another striker, ends up moving him out wide - as better teams have worked out that all you need to do is play a wide 3 at the back to force Rooney out of position - rather than just sub him as he doesn't want to lose the option of his best scorer. Rooney's a 20 goal a season man because we have/had the providers in our team that were better than any others in the league. He's the first person to do it since Shearer because he's the best striker we've had since then, but we've also got a better team than every other team in the league outside Celtic for the first time since Shearer.

I disagree, I think striker has been issue for a long time, and will continue to be next season as May clearly isn't an improvement on what we've got in Rooney. Striker is the one position that has prevented us from getting to the next level in Europe and taking more points off the tims. Rooney's limitations have been obvious for a few years now, despite having a phenomenal scoring record in general. Cosgrove provides something different for those types of games, but I doubt he'll be good enough to do that consistently and to the level required. I'd say that striker is equally as important as midfield right now and we should be spending the biggest portion of the budget on those two areas. That said, I'd class Shinnie as left back within that opinion, so really we'd be looking at two good midfielders. If we start next season with the same strike force as this, I think we'll struggle to improve. If it was a choice between a striker and defender then I think we could cope with a back four of Considine, McKenna, Devlin, Logan against opposition at Appollon's level (for example), but I think if we had to play May, Rooney or Cosgrove up front we'd be likely to lose again. Obviously, the answer is to be looking at 4 good players to fit straight into our first 11, but if we were putting an order to it I'd be saying midfielder, striker, midfielder, fullback/winger.

If they're anything like the cheap-shite Roth I picked up at the airport, they'll be missing many pages, which just seemed to fall out at will. Annoying as fuck like, and one of the reasons I use a kindle these days as it happened to quite a few books I bought in succession. The plot against america definitely worth a read like, even just from the (un)historical perspective. It's an alternative history of course, but it's believable. Read The Sellout by Paul Beatty first though. It's imperative that someone other than me does.

Have you read "The Plot Against America"? A good read like. Surprised there's not been a film of it like, as it'd fit well in cinema format. Not read American Pastoral, will maybe make a space for it on the kindle at some point.

The article didn't say much. However, there is clearly - and obviously - precedent for coldness, the/my term should have been "unexpected". If the usual number of days below zero is 70 and the figure hits over 100 then that would be unexpected I think it's fair to say, regardless of anecdotal experience.

There was actually another news story on the BBC this morning suggesting that Aberdeen had an unprecedented >100 days below zero this winter and that the cooncil spent £600K over on their budget for road gritting, so it probably isn't nonsense (if gritters are required, then I'd expect road building would be difficult). Here's the EE take on it: https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/news/local/plan-for-20-large-scale-community-grit-bins-to-help-with-severe-winter/ What's interesting about the Guardian story, is that it doesn't say who's liable for the cost. It looks like it's just the company informing their shareholders rather than an increased debt of the Scottish government. In which case, excellent contracting, for once.

Yep. By virtue of anything after season 2 being fairly pap, the last season was quite good. I only still watch it to see how long they can keep it going. It's impressive in that respect. Should have finished after season 1 really, maybe 2.

I can see why they have a place in the lower leagues. The number of called off games and the absolute state of pitches for 50% of the season makes for pretty atrocious fitba. The ability to train and play on them is vital with decreasing public space, and the added revenue from hiring out the surface. The weather even affected us for three months this season, when the pitch was a disgrace after a heavy winter. I think that there are grades of pitch too, Hamiltons was definitely worse than Killie's for example, and also whether or not they decide to water them (or water them too much) which has a more radical effect than it would on grass. In terms of injury, it'd be interesting to see the stats. There is the odd player who struggles - for whatever reason - to run on the surface, but very few. On the opposite side, I suspect you see far less wild challenges on a plastic surface as people are more wary of throwing themselves into tackles on it. Any time I see it mentioned, I here anecdotal evidence (Fyvie is one that still gets mentioned, which is a long time ago to look for a correlation) but it seems to ignore the fact that people get injured very regularly on grass too. Looking to the future, it's clear that a lot of kids will have grown up playing on these surfaces more regularly than their senior equivalents, so perhaps the injuries will be far less likely. In general, I'm with you though. I think that a good grass pitch should be possible for the top flight teams all season round. However, us, Hertz, Hamilton, Killie, Motherwell and probably others have all failed in that regard this season and very regularly in recent years. Hopefully the hybridisation of pitches will assist in future years, but our own delve into that has been fairly non-productive in recent times, so I remain fairly sceptical.