RicoS321

It's the way they drag in guys like Souness and Dalglish to suggest that this game is too important for regular Scottish pundits to be commenting on. These guys have no involvement in the Scottish game, so even if I was a supporter of the scum I wouldn't give a fuck what they had to say. Pair of fucks.

I don't know the first thing about the donalds, but my first thought - as always - is one of mistrust. Probably unfounded of course, but there seems to be little question of their motives for some reason. My immediate thought it that they'd been promised to be contractor on the training ground and stadium. I have absolutely no reason for thinking this other than natural/unnatural suspicion. No evidence, or no suggestion that I'm right. I'm interested to know why you think their motives are entirely philanthropic? Obviously, there's copious amounts of evidence for not entirely trusting Milne.

Hayes and McGinn. That drop of the shoulder is sublime.

Aye, I don't disagree. Although much of that debt was run up by the dithering incompetent before Milne, Ian Donald. Some whilst Milne was CEO, of course. I think you're giving him a bit more credit than is due also, I don't believe he went into the AFC gig with a up front plan. I think he saw an opportunity once invited in the door. I also think he's changed his mind a bit over the years to the extent that I'm not sure if he even knows what he wants with AFC. If there was a masterplan, I don't believe we'll ever see it come to fruition. I think he'll can AFC soon, as I don't think he has the nuts to follow through whatever he initially intended.

Regardless of whether Milne is pish or not (I tend to agree with you), we've got a good budget. One that allows us a good first 11 and some good squad players. The budget was clearly there for a £200K signing in January too. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect McInnes to provide within those parameters. The biggest problem with our budget is room for error. The tims can afford to make numerous mistakes in the transfer market. We can afford a couple, with Motherwell/County/ICT etc affording less. Goodwillie re-signing, Quinn (to an extent), Parker and McLauchlan were all errors. You can't make 3/4 errors in the transfer market as dons manager and expect to get away with it. But actually, McInnes did get away with it and was even given cash to spend in January. That we failed again in a transfer window has a lot to do with availability as much as McInnes' failure, especially as the damage was done prior to this. I don't expect McInnes to make the same mistakes again in the summer. Overall, I think our budget and the rest of the league is correct, and us losing to Hertz is exactly what should happen in a competitive league - which is what I'd rather have than us winning every week. I think chasing the Tims is a pipe-dream, and something we shouldn't be breaking the bank for. Milne's biggest failure - and it was criminal - was not taking the opportunity to hammer the Tims when the Huns were out of the picture. When the huns went bust, I suggested that they should be allowed to come back into the top league. In exchange we should move to a 16 team league, equal prize money and sharing of 75% of european revenue across all the clubs in the league. At the time only one team in Scottish football wouldn't have benefited. I thought that increasing equality was more important than hammering the huns for a few seasons without systemic changes (of course, we could have done both). Instead, Milne sided with Lawell and retained the 11-1 vote which will be used against us from next season. He took short-term relative success (if you can call 2nd place success) and profit over long-term equality, fairness and competitiveness. I think it'll prove to be his biggest failure, because unless he's willing to spend the type of money that could actually see us challenge the Tims and Huns (which he won't, and arguably shouldn't), within a short period we'll return to the inevitable duopoly and scraps from the table in front of dwindling crowds. If he's clever he'll get out soon, while we're at a high point, and leave someone else to carry the can.

Pish flaps. Speith going to shite. Westwood just nails an eagle. Great finish to what I thought was going to be a simple conclusion. Great viewing.

Not really, it depends entirely on the teams. If the dons were 8 points ahead the race would still be on, just as if Man City/Arsenal/Chelsea were 7 points ahead it would be over.

I'd hope not. Despite having a bit of a poor run, Jack is still a very good player. I thought Storie was a bit of a weak link against Hearts also, just not quite there yet IMO. I think Storie could turn into a very good player though.

Jesus, glad I didn't come on here last night. Fucking melt down. We got beaten by the team in third place at their ground - it really wasn't beyond the realms of possibility. Given that the goals came from two stupid errors, and we created several very good chances, it's not as disastrous as some are making out. We've not spent the amount of money that can guarantee us beating every other team in the league - it's unrealistic to expect so - we need to rely on luck, and 0 errors. The difference between our performance last night and the one earlier in the season was two converted chances. If we'd been 2 or 3 up in that first 20 minutes we'd have walked it. It was a very fine line. The goals were very bad. The first was classic Brown. I still don't believe he's an improvement on Langfield, he's pish, but we all knew that as did McInnes. I think it was a gamble worth taking, which hasn't paid off (although not getting more outfield cover was very poor - Souttar for example would have been an obvious signing). The second was entirely avoidable, and absolutely wouldn't have happened to Hearts. Their players would have been screaming at the ref to stop the game and their centre half would have been rolling about like he'd been shot. Taylor was injured, and our players should have the nouse to get that game stopped (look at their player going down to waste time when Souttar was off). What the fuck Shinnie was doing going over to help him when the ball was in play, I've no idea. It perfectly highlighted the difference between Jack and Flood for me too. Flood was so unaware of what was going on around him because he was staring at the ball and getting dragged toward it. Jack would have looked up, realised his defender was down and dropped in to cover, he wouldn't have made a challenge, but slowed the play down and allowed players to get back in. As it was, Reynolds was left with a 50-50 split-second choice and in the end probably made the wrong decision to go with the winger rather than stay central. Finally, a better keeper would have noticed that no one was tracking Juanma, that he was going to get a free header and so would have hedged their bets by being a few yards off their line in order to be right in Juanma's face when he got the header. Brown was clinging to his post. He had to gamble. We lost our shape a bit after that second goal, and we never looked like getting back in it. But it was a game we definitely could have won had luck gone with us. There is plenty of evidence in other games of us getting lucky and getting the win, we're just not good enough (read: don't spend enough money) to be able to win games with that many individual errors. The tims can afford a few mistakes in games. We only had one usable attacking sub on the bench yesterday.

Nevermind, mistake on RedTV page, it's McLennan on the bench. Well done young loon, hopefully get ten minutes when we're three up.

Fa's Francis Ross on the bench?

Me too. Then I had a massive shit, and it seems to have gone. You should try it.

Yep.

Church had a decent game, I'd be inclined to start him even with a fit Rooney. It'll give the HIVs something different to think about given they haven't played against him before. Although I do think that a single chance in front of goal would be more likely to be converted by Rooney! Give him a run out for the last ten when we're three up. I'd go with the same team and similar tactics as Sunday. Flood was very much the sitter and not asked to do much, and it worked. Jack played higher, and I thought he had a decent game too. He got in the box on a few occasions which was good to see, and I reckon with a bit of composure through experience he might get a few goals in that role. Shinnie has to be left back though, that's a certainty. Get him and McGinn or Hayes running at Paterson and get him booked early doors.

I hope Motherwell tank the scum at the weekend and, in turn, we beat them after the split to win the league right in front of McGhee's miserable coupon.

Aye, yer probably right about the BBC reporters in the main, although I'm virtually certain guys like Andrew Neil and Evan Davies don't have the economic nouse to ask the right questions on monetary policy. Saw Varoufakis, he's always on the ball. Just bought his new book, will try and get round to it in the next few weeks. It was disappointing to see the Labour representative being interviewed and saying that Dave's dad's dodgy tax-avoiding was a personal matter. A total cop out, and I'd expect better from a Corbyn party. It's hugely important that the public knows whether or not Dave knew about his dad's tax affairs when he attended meetings to create new legislation in Europe - it absolutely isn't a personal matter. It's deception on a new level and should be called out. With the right pressure it could, and should, be a resignation-level event for Big Dave. Exactly the sort of "pretending it's not happening" whilst "pretending to be appalled" that Varoufakis pointed out regarding tax evasion, bailouts and lack of migrant plans.

It's no the standard at the BBC that's in doubt, it's what they actually cover these days. When they actually investigate something it's generally pretty good but they basically take their subject matter from the Murdoch/Rothermere press or the government as a starting point. Any investigation they undertake these days is largely ignored by their daily news coverage and opinion pieces, instead of being the centre point that all their news feeds from - i.e. their investigative pieces are completely undermined by the shite quality of the rest of their programs to the extent that they're as cynical and useless as a Murdoch press piece. A simple example would be the coverage of the huns going bust. The Mark Daly report was a fantastic piece of journalism that was simply thrown to the bottom of the pile as their sports journalists and others took an entirely different - political - line that mirrorred that of the non-free press. It was the biggest waste of effort in Scottish sports journalism history. Similarly, the BBC did a documentary on currency and economics before the referendum that was entirely ignored in their debates and later coverage. It was entirely impartial, well-researched and should have been the back-bone of their discussions with all correspondents and hosts briefed in order that the conversations with politicians wasn't allowed to stray from the factual narrative. Instead we got - from both sides - re-reported tabloid scare stories and nonsense political chat that should have been stricken from interview. That's without getting into the neo-liberal acceptance, the refusal to discuss where money comes from, global warming, resource pilfering, large scale tax avoidance, automation and unemployment, lobbying etc etc etc. All things where the BBC takes the red-top line, and it's correspondents remain wholly ignorant of the facts rendering them useless to asking questions that don't already accept the current neo-liberal paradigm. Things that I guarantee they've covered in documentaries and investigative pieces before. I'd go further and say that the BBC is worse, and more harmful, than the Murdoch press as no-one is under the illusion that the Sun is representative of reality.

Played well today. Should have had two.

Just back. Tanked them. Would have been nice to see Storie and Ross a bit earlier, but can't complain really. Not sure why Taylor came off, perhaps an injury? 5-0 would have been a more realistic scoreline I'd say.

Looking forward to this one like. Be good to see us put on a decent performance. Slick conditions, plenty of shots on goal. Could see McLean grabbing one from distance. Heading along shortly, due to crippledness I can't go for a beer first as I need the wife to take me there and collect me. No pressure for the remaining games, just get out there and win them and hope the tims fuck up along the way.

Good article by David McWilliams http://www.davidmcwilliams.ie/2016/03/24/the-west-finally-needs-to-admit-all-radical-roads-lead-back-to-saudi-arabia

Fuck Cruyff, Miller or Jess for me.

Aye, that was a surprise! You'd think that at the rate he shits names into conversation, he'd have mentioned it before. It leads me to think he made it up for the interview.

Beautiful tribute.... http://www.heraldscotland.com/sport/14383239.Jimmy_Calderwood__I_loved_trying_to_man_mark_Johan_Cruyff_but_I_had_no_chance/

Here's the highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EXM14mooWY