RicoS321

I remember Kpedekpo deein audit for KPMG in the early century. He was a decent laugh. Gave up fitba entirely, didn't even play juniors or such like to keep his heed in. Played against him at fives from memory. Doesn't really count as someone who gave up playing early, more that he didn't make it. Gary MacDonald stopped playing in 2008 aged 26 after a spell at Oldham. Don't know if it was injury or whatever, but he just disappeared.

It's a very good point. At some point - and I'd have thought it is around the time you're considering spanking £300K on Eoin Doyle - you have to take stock and decide whether you're just signing a player because you absolutely need to rather than if they're any good or not. Hopefully more become available in January.

Not sure about this one. Specifically the loan element. We've done this quite a few times over the years and many times it hasn't worked. I suspect this is happening due to the various other targets not being available for whatever reason, so it's understandable. This is a massive position for us, and this guy needs to be good - and consistently good. Even players like Maddison dipped in form for us in the time that they were here and still had a lot to learn about the game. At 22, he should be reasonably well up to speed with the professional game though, so it's not completely like we're fattening up someone else's product at the expense of our own. A little bit more experience than Cosgrove and Anderson. Hopefully he'll do the business, although only 2 appearances since January is a little bit worrying for such an important signing. I think that we still need another midfielder. I'd hold off on getting a defender in and take the risk that we can cope until Hoban and McKenna are back. I think that with Logan only being out for another game will hopefully be something that we can cope with. No sense in wasting our time getting someone for a couple of appearances. Although if a good left back comes out of nowhere then maybe it wouldn't be a bad thing.

I think that they will have paid the loan back already. I expect that the Europa league will be closer to £10M in revenue given the size of Ibrox and dependent on the draw of course. I think it'll see them through to the end of the season. Either way, it saves them facing a huge problem quickly.

Not really. They had loans to last until season end. They make a huge chunk of money off season tickets (£10-15M). Historically they've spent that up front and then gone hunting for expensive loans come January. This season they've speculated enough to get them Europa League (you would assume) and so they'll be - for the first time - on a very good footing for the remainder of the season and into next. Over the next few years they'll have traded themselves into a position by which they can qualify for the Europa league every year without too much difficulty (very difficult draw aside).

Ha ha, I assume it's just a joke. It was certainly the most ridiculous person I could think of. Although when you wrote "phuq" spelled like that, I thought it reminded me of "plug" so it was subliminal. For what it's worth, I think he'd be the worst possible signing anyone could have ever thought of.

Is it just me that's concerned that we're going into the season with Ball as a starter every week in midfield (perhaps Hoban will replace him I suppose)? He's been okay in midfield (especially in the Burnley games) but he is lacking in the "comfortable on the ball" department. Gauld would be a good replacement for Christie, but I don't see him replacing the need for Ball in midfield. Edit: Is it Diamond? That'd be interesting....

I don't think it is view fortunately. I think his view is that it "can" take a player from another league setup longer to settle and that there are more similarities between our game and the english game that makes this less of a roulette. He'd have no problem with signing a foreigner who has been in the British leagues for example. I think that he'd be more likely to take a loanee from a foreign league if offered (like Hibs did with Kamberi) than make a full time signing due to the risk involved. It's all about risk, obviously. The important thing to note is that we'd be talking individuals that are offered to us on recommendation rather than us taking up scouting in country. As no-one as managed to come up with an example of a Scottish team that has/had a succesful scouting network outside of the UK, regularly returning players, then we have to assume that this is the correct approach. In terms of Snoyle, we're ignoring the silent evidence here. Snoyle came to us as a result of a tip off. As we drifted into what can be described as a more permanent Dutch network (jimmy's brither) we uncovered Touzani (decent), Daal, De Visscher, Bus as well as various other trialists. Apart from the fact that Snoyle was blatantly average (and for some reason gets held in high regard), he was also an anomoly in our largely unsuccesful foray into the Dutch market where we found that targets were basically amateurs. There's nothing one-dimensional to McInnes' approach, it's rational and fact-based. He has never ruled out foreigners, its just that the main target of our scouting network is the one where we have the most succesful return throughout the history of our football club outwith Scotland. Anyone outwith that scouting network, logically, will be based on a recommendation or a punt with little to lose (Uchechi, Chalali). There is probably an argument to say that we could go a little more international with our punts, but I think that the better approach would be not to bother at all.

Maribor and Apollon were our two chances to get to the group stages and we fucked it (or at least the ref did vs Maribor). I don't think folk realise just how much of a disaster it will be for the dons and the rest of Scottish fitba if the hun qualify for the group stages (which they will). That's a massive pot that will open a gap. We're heading directly towards the 2000-14 years again of helicopter Sundays and sideshows.

Good interview though. I hadn't realised that Clancy (I think it was Clancy) won't be reffing this weekend. I came away from the game thinking that the ref did well, got most decisions correct and kept up with play etc. Stubbs gets everything spot on in that interview, especially where he asks for some clarification. The lack of transparency is shocking. As a famous man once said: "who are these people?"

I thought MacLaren looked pap against us, and Kamberi was decent. Aussie caps are not widely relevant in my books. I call it the Zdrilic effect. We have £1M of DNA scam money to spend. We're about even in that regard. Although you're right about midfielders being more widely available. I think we'll struggle to get a striker better than Kamberi for £500K.

Okay, so Kamberi for Devlin then. Both equally as important and equally as likely to have an impact. Ferguson cancels out Mallan and Ball cancels out MacLaren (both average returning players). So we're left with: Bogdan, Hyndman an Agyepong versus Hoban, Gleeson, Forrester and Cerny. I've no idea who's best from that bunch (although Bogdan clearly strengthens them whereas Cerny was only ever a backup). I'd say it's about even and I expect neither team is finished. They desperately need a centre mid and we desperately need a striker. It'll certainly be an interesting match up when we face them. I also see your point to an extent because they've signed a striker and a decent forward player whereas we've not managed to land a striker. We should at least give McInnes until the end of the window before being too harsh though. A hell of a lot riding on our striker signing I'd say, and I expect McInnes is well aware of that.

Who have they actually signed that wasn't already there? Mallan*? Has Mallan had more of an impact than Ferguson? Devlin**? Arguable. What about the rest of their signings? We've had two successful signings, one who looks an upgrade on O'Connor (Hoban) and two questionable in Gleeson and Forrester. Above 50% is decent for us I'd say. *I think Mallan is a good player who I'd be surprised if we weren't in for. That said, he probably wasn't in a priority area for us and not an area where we'd have wanted to spend a large part of our budget which we seem to be saving for the elusive striker. **I'm including Devlin as one of this seasons signings as it was clear he was going to be out for last season.

The risks are that we lose the game, or the youngster isn't ready and it effects his confidence for a while if he has a poor game. We need to go with our best available team as we really need to win to get off to the best start this season. We can't afford to lose a single game against a bottom 6 team if we are to finish second. Being "early in the season" makes no difference when losing three points. The problem is that we're not nearly at full strength. I like youngsters getting an opportunity, but that opportuntity - for me - should happen when we're playing confidently with our best team to give the youngster the best possible support and the best possible chance of success. Wright coming on for McGinn or GMS in far more games would be an obvious one. I think that our half arsed midfield from Sunday - worse so if Shinnie is at left back - would offer zero support for Anderson and I'm not sure that'd be beneficial to him in anyway. There were so many players (in midfield) in that team on Sunday who were still finding their own feet, it'd be harsh to bring a youngster into that. That said, I think that if we get a decent left back in before the weekend there would be good reason to play them both. Playing Harrington would allow Ball into midfield and thus Shinnie and Ferguson a lot more freedom to get up and down the park and support the striker(s). If we have Ball at right back and Gleeson in midfield then I think we should forget Anderson too. Gleeson is very much still finding his feet and he clearly doesn't have the coverage to allow others in midfield to support the striker without leaving gaping holes (very evident on Sunday and against Burnley). In that regard, we'd probably be better with Cosgrove to allow the game to be played higher up the park. If we don't get a left back in and Shinnie has to play there, then we might as well not bother with a midfield and play Cosgrove, May and Anderson.

He's 31. Played for Man City, Sunderland and QPR and is the current co-uk-record-holder for triple jump at under 15 level. He's out of contract, so is probably akin to Swansea stalwart Alan Tate.

Hemmin, nae cunt in the world kens fa the fuck Nedum Onouah is, and nor should they. Nor would they know whether or not his wage demands would be out of our bracket because naebody has heard of him. But don't worry, I'll look up the internet and let everyone ken that he plays for QPR, who are in the Championship. He's a centre half, that can play left or right back. Fuckin basic forum ettiquette. Cunts.

Why would it be grainy?

Surely it's about grassroots and kids and such like? In which case, plugging it to 40 year olds on Facebook is probably nae the best route.

Motherwell semi final, we injected Ball into right back, Nwakali into midfield and the speedy Adam Rooney onto the wing. That threw them.

My apologies, I thought it was McKenna that played him on when I saw it, but he was on Morelos. Aye, that was fucking awful, I stand corrected. I thought we were shite, but I didn't see anything from them that made me think they would horse us. Mainly down to them not being that great up front.

Precendents are generally set on a per-season basis though, so it remains to be seen if consistency is applied. Logan's incident is entirely incomparable, it's a totally different set of circumstances (a fuckin nonsense as well, of course). I'd hope Gerrard wouldn't be either, he said nothing of note. It was all about pandering to the filth whilst showing complete lack of individual thought. The only thing I would say is: "what would VAR have done?". I fucking hate VAR, I think it's shite, but it's an interesting thought. If that incident had occurred in the world cup and Clancy missed it or just wanted to check it, what would he have done? I am 100% certain that if Clancy had missed it, then the VAR staff would have asked him to review it. I am 100% certain that if he'd seen it, or was asked to review it, then he would have watched the incident back and the red card would have been given. Especially if they had (ridiculously) shown the slow motion incident (which made the incident look much worse than it actually was).

Interesting use of language. I agree with the "soft" comment, but Ball's error wasn't a major fuck up, it was a very ordinary mistake in losing his man after a deflection; one that Considine, McKenna and Devlin could all have made in the circumstances. The was no evidence that Morelos would be the difference between us drawing and getting horsed. You downplay one incident, yet deploy hyperbole in describing another. That's inconsistent at best.

I'm actually very surprised. Astonished to be honest. Obviously, I'm only going on the clips below as I didn't see it at the game but it seems very clear cut to me as per the existing interpretation of the law. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/45112507 That said, I don't actually think that type of offence should be a red card (it is, currently, going by any law of the game that exists). It's petulant and unnecessary, but not particularly aggessive or dangerous. McKenna barged him and he responded and I think that it should be a yellow card. That's how I'd like to see these types of things refereed in future, and hopefully now this will be the case (yeh, right). I want to make very clear for those of you unable to digest a point, that I am not saying that Morelos shouldn't have been given a red. The interpretation has been very clear for a number of years now (see Beckham vs Simeone all those years ago) that this type of incident has always been a red card. If this forms part of a new leniency on that type of incident then I'm all for it, but I think that needs to be explained if so (it clearly isn't the case as we all know).

Considine played well alongside Devlin when McKenna went off. If we get a left back then we're sorted. The problem will be right back for the weekend again, and Harrington has to be the preferred choice if fit.

Hemmin, if you're going to name some no-mark English player at least gie us some background! He's a left back from Manchester Utd for those of you who were equally appalled by the lack of information supplied by Slim. Hopefully he can play right back.