RicoS321

So, 2016 going to be the year of the collapse to end all collapses then? I predicted a few years back mid-2017 at the latest, but things seems to be bubbling (pun) up nicely ready for a big one. I think we're one big natural disaster (or Fukashima) away from a tipping point that sets the ball rolling. A random event that no-one's compensated for that collapses one area bringing the rest down. I'm going to go for June 2016 as the start. Consumer debt, house prices both at staggering levels far worse than 2007/08. The question is: will we bail out again? Who'll capitalise on the disaster - a swing left or will the press win and proper right wing nastiness get the vote? I think we'll go righter. Any thoughts?

What an exciting half of football. Poor from Reynolds, but the players turning (i.e. the defenders) seem to be really struggling with the pitch. Hopefully that'll help us in the second half. Felt a bit sorry for Goodwillie, as he seemed to be doing okay, but thankfully we didn't take Rooney off. Hayes looking good, although perhaps should have scored (looked worse in real time). Thought it was a bit of a dive from their player for Reynolds, I think he moved into Reynolds rather than the other way round, and looks like Logan played him onside, so perhaps a bit unfortunate. No complaints about the ref so far though, he got the big shouts correct I think. Irvine on for them. Should be an interesting half, hopefully we can keep up the intensity and running. Fantastic game.

I didn't say "just" a distraction, I said it was an unhelpful distraction. I was getting at the fact that it was unplanned and is removing focus from the areas that Deek would have been trying to acquire players for in a short transfer window. Not trying to trivialise in anyway, perhaps distraction wasn't the best term.

I'm on episode 5 and quite enjoying it. Makes you angry, unsurprised etc. Decent enough format, clearly drawn out as these things seem to have to be, but good building of the characters and with no commentary (any commentary in the form of subtitle and generally just factual) it leaves you to draw your own conclusions, which is great. The people interviewed aren't introduced as good or bad, on the side of right or wrong, you just have to take them as they come and draw your own conclusion as it moves forward - the lawyer for the nephew of Avery a good example. I'd recommend giving it a go.

Jack Andraka's paper test. Here's the link: https://www.ted.com/talks/jack_andraka_a_promising_test_for_pancreatic_cancer_from_a_teenager?language=en Not quite a cure, but as good as. The key to curing has to be detection, and I think we'll see massive strides in this direction in the next 5 years - either through paper tests like this one, or based on breath readings, there are a lot of ideas there that must be 2-3 years in development already. One thing that doesn't seem to have been created yet - and I can see it being the next massive thing - is a tool for detection, like a "detection kit". It'll take the form of a home-laboratory and be installed in your bathroom or somewhere and people will breath into a tube or prick their finger for a blood sample and it'll be tested there and then for a variety of diseases on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. It'll be the next iPhone, and will be produced by an apple-like company and cost a fortune for a start, decreasing over 5 years and everyone will have one. They'll design it in such a way as to become obsolete every couple of years and you need extra add-ons for AIDS and herpes and such like. In short, it'll be designed in the most crude and manipulative fashion possible and patented to death to ensure that it can't be copied and that people are locked in to one software or provider with only one or two suppliers to ensure the oligopoly continues. Probably.... I think that patent and profit in the field of medicine is abhorrent and should be outlawed. To think that cures and treatment are not provided equally based on need rather than ability to pay is disgusting. That a company can control the price of a medicine and deprive people of a cure because they paid someone to think of an idea first (backed massively by public funds through universities and charities) is shameful. Capitalism, free-marketism, does not work where the end user has no choice. All medicine should be open source.

Logan, McGinn, Rooney, Hayes, Taylor, Reynolds. Not a bad return. I would agree that our goalkeeper signings from there have been atrocious though, but then several teams have picked up a few awful goalies from elsewhere too. It's a specialist position that is very hit or miss. I think this guy is just a case of getting someone in before the weekend so that we at least have a sub 'keeper. I'm not convinced he'll even start. We had to do something I suppose, and quickly, so it's worth the gamble until summer. We need to focus on the other positions, the goalkeeper situation was an unhelpful distraction. Interesting move for Quinn, I have to admit I've never been totally convinced. His serious lack of pace (and slowness on the turn) should have been noticed well before we signed him and should have been a complete non-starter. Nevertheless, had a couple of good games when there's been a back three and seems to be a good professional. He's a squad player, and for that I'd like to see a slightly more versatile player. It was suggested he could play right back when he came, but I think that was disproved almost immediately and was a bit of a ridiculous suggestion. Hopefully we'll get one of their players in return as part of the deal.

Great post. Totally agree. Especially the chat show host bit, Ross is a man who stopped learning in his twenties. Shame, because he doesn't appear to be stupid. To add, how do we know Cameron's feelings on the subject, and why are we supposed to give a shite? Listening to radio Scotland yesterday and in the morning they were announcing the death before announcing the Tweets in the same breath. It was almost as if Cameron and Sturgeon's thoughts on it were as important as the death itself. On the way home from work they'd moved to Kanye West and some ither cunt. None of whom you'd immediately think "I wonder how XXX feels about this", just a not-even-tenuous bunch of no-marks. It raises a serious and sinister question of how these required opinions are decided and on what merit. Who in the BBC chose Cameron's comments as pertinent to the death of Bowie and why (Sturgeon obviously a Tim/Hun style inclusion in that you can't give one coverage without the other)? It gives them both a free airing beyond their own merit and relevance - like free PR, or to give the illusion that either should be held in higher regard than the society below them. A bit like when changes are mentioned in Scottish fitba. We're immediately given the opinion of Delia (previously Lennon, who was consistently given a platform for his opinions) and some hun on the proposals as if their opinion should hold more weight. Anyway, Bowie, loved a lot of his music and liked listening to him talk. Seemed a decent sort.

Cammy Bell isn't completely shite, but he's no better than Brown. He obviously has no inclination to play Rogers. I'd hate to see him take Rogers back to sit on the bench though, so if he doesn't feel Rogers is ready then I understand the attempted loan move. Obviously that means we ditch Rogers in the summer I'd hope, as if he's not good enough now then he won't be next season. like tlg, I'd like to see him be given an opportunity. It's difficult to tell if the predicament of McInnes' ridiculously cautious approach to games, or if he really doesn't rate Rogers.

Houston has gone up in my estimation since joining Falkirk. Used to think he was a total dick. Must be the Utd effect. Unless he thinks Rogers is pish like.

Good to know. Certainly has been good so far. Even my wife has managed to follow a subtitled program without complaint.

It's incredibly harsh. It clearly wasn't a case of shoe-horning Considine into the squad, it was a case of not having an option he was happy to start with in centre midfield ahead of Shinnie. That was where we lost the game, even though Hearts were very direct, their midfield pressed us high the whole game. We had no option to go direct, which has been our problem for a few weeks and something everyone who's been involved in Scottish football ever knows is required at this time of year when pitches are very heavy and bobbly. Considine was pish, yer right, but the reasons for playing him were justified. Justified by our lack of squad planning and the purchase of players to fit only one style.

Bottom line is that we now have no sub goalie, so we have to get someone in. Sounds like Liverpool have gone back on their word, cunts. Will be difficult for us to do business with them again. I'm assuming there's no possibility that Ward can just be recalled for a few weeks until they sort their goalkeeping position out (is their first team 'keeper injured?) and then head back to us after that? A few folk I've spoken to criticising the dons for not ensuring Ward was definitely staying before agreeing that Rogers could stay with Falkirk, but I think there has to be a certain level of trust shown, and Liverpool clearly have gone back on their word - I hope the club makes a strong statement about the opportunity we have given Ward and the lack of respect shown by his parent club (although I suspect they let him play the Hearts game and it was discussed before this). Anyway, we move on. I was surprised we got Ward on loan, because it was obvious for about 6 months that we were going to be getting a new goalie in the summer. It seemed strange that we had to go down the loan route. What it suggested was that there was either a dearth of good goalkeepers out there, or that the budget allocated for the position was too little, making the search harder. Hopefully it means that we are well scouted in that position, and that we have at least one or two options available to us. Obviously we weren't expecting to move before the summer, but I'm assuming that with two keepers out of contract we'd have been scouting for a few months now looking to tie up a pre-contract at worse. I'm guessing Ward came cheap, meaning that we replace him on the cheap. Assuming McInnes has a budget for the remainder of the season, do we divert funds that would/may have gone on another striker or midfielder to the goalkeeping position? Or do we stick with Brown, get in a cheap number 2 and continue as planned on our outfield spending? I think I'd take the risk with Brown and do the latter. I think Brown is/was worse than Langfield, but I think our outfield problems are that pronounced, and I assume something McInnes has been planning to address in this window, so we continue strengthening that area and hope Brown can do the business until summer.

Good player, would be a very decent signing. Probably get outbid from some championship pish though, so he can sit on a bench for a year.

Aye, Esson was our last youth team 'keeper to make the break through, but was pish. Can't believe Booth was our last striker to come through. Although the record in Scotland outside the scum in general isn't that great I don't suppose. Hibs had Fletcher, O'Connor and Riardon; Killie had Boyd and Naismith; Motherwell McFadden; Dundee Griffiths; Utd Goodwillie and Russell. Trying to think of others and can't. Most of our more successful strikers seem to be imported, or arrive after being ditched by the scum like McCormack. Maybe we're just not very good at breeding them in this country.

Why, what else will you be doing? I'm not trying to get us to agree, I was just interested to hear your point of view on what I said.

Good stuff, a big whoor, much required. I've said for a good few years now (and it hasn't been that bad for a couple of years) that at this time of year we need some added height up front. Our pitch was virtually unplayable against ICT and Partick, a target man would have cut out much of the requirement (although I wouldn't trust Taylor to hit a target man anyway). I think this year will be a lot worse than the last couple for our pitches, and I can see the long ball being useful. Perhaps my imagination, but Calderwood always seemed to get a decent return at this time of year! The Killie to ICT/Partick games were like night and day. Much as I hate the likes of Hamilton's pitch, I do think a Killie/Falkirk style pitch wouldn't be a bad investment for many of the teams in the SPL, including us. It was obvious against ICT that Hayes and McGinn's first touch was like gouging a golf ball out of the rough. Given their pace over ten yards is one of both their best attributes, they were both hindered by the extra effort required on the shitey surface. Perhaps the option of allowing them to make their runs without the ball, rather than with, by going direct and getting flick-ons will get them the upper hand again. Pawlett could be useful in that too, and it'd be really intriguing to see how Rooney works off a big target man. With the pitches in the state they are, I don't think we can be too righteous in trying to play the perfect passing game. Hopefully the loon winna be pish.

But Langfield wasn't a shite goalkeeper in comparison to his teammates. He was a significantly better goalkeeper than Ifil or Diamond were centre halves. A significantly better goalie than Mackie was a striker, Clark a midfielder, Young a wherever the fuck young played, Duff a midfielder, Vujadinovic a defender, Hughes a midfielder, Zdrilic a striker etc etc. I would also argue that it's simple and common knowledge in football that a 15-20 goal a season striker is required to win things, and a box to box midfielder that can score a healthy number of goals in a season too. I agree that our club has been mismanaged by Milne, completely. I just think you're overstating the goalkeeping element of it. I can genuinely only think of a couple of occasions where I thought we were being held back by our 'keeper (i.e. Langfield) rather than our batch of substandard outfielders. I don't believe I could look back at a Calderwood, McGhee or Brown team and say: "if it wasn't for that goalie, we'd be winning trophies". Our entire squads were simply incoherent. Which I suppose backs you up in a way! One of the problems I have always had with AFC is our lack of overall strategy and continuity planning. We are in a far better position than we were a few years back, but most of the improvement appears to be down to McInnes. I don't believe we have it quite right on the pitch yet, but the strategy appears to be there. We seem to have better sports science, better contract negotiation and possibly better youth team development and scouting (remains to be proven). However all those elements seem to be down to McInnes, so if he leaves then there's a chance that those will not be maintained. I think that those elements should transcend the manager and should be in place, bar a few minor changes, when a manager arrives. The manager should be assessed at interview on his ability to gel with the current "service providers" at the club and only his tactical ideas and motivational skills above that. Milne's biggest failure for me is that he hasn't put a structure in place at AFC that allows us to move seamlessly for manager to manager without massive disruption. I am not convinced that's borne out in our goalkeeper anymore than it is our other positions on the park. In honesty, I think over the last ten years - tragically - our 'keeper has probably faired better than defence, midfield and striker positions. It'd be an interesting exercise to throw up our starting elevens for the last ten years and pick out the seasons where 'keeper was worse than the players in front of him. It would probably be quite depressing!

I disagree entirely. I think it is solely the responsibility of the manager to prioritise the position(s) required - see my McInnes example above. I actually think that Langfield was about right for the quality of outfield player we had at the time (under Calderwood, McGhee and Brown). That is a criticism of the quality of outfield player we had rather than a compliment for Langfield. There was a point when Calderwood should have tried to replace him, when we were performing well. It coincided with Langfield's best spell, but the deficiencies were obvious and we should have looked to spend a decent wage on a better 'keeper. McGhee went into Europe with no central defenders, which was far more of a priority than changing goalie. He then proceeded to employ Ifil and other f'n awful players whilst dicking about trying to replace Langfield with pish like Brown and Gonzalez; arguably he'd have been better spent prioritising a centre half or a full back. Brown's entire spell seemed to be about us not finishing bottom. He didn't seem to have much of a forward plan. McInnes, as I mentioned earlier, held off on the goalie position whilst he sorted out the rest of the side - recognising that good ones don't come along that often in the SPL. If Milne had insisted that McInnes prioritise a goalie, then I think that would have set us back considerably, whilst completely over-stepping the mark as chairman. I agree that Milne has made some spectacularly bad appointments, but that doesn't mean that he should see it as a cue to get involved in team strategy. Once making his shite appointments, he has to put faith in them as a manager - he clearly thought he was doing the right thing. Anyway, I'm not convinced Rogers is the ready made replacement for Ward, but I would like to see him given his chance because I like the idea of us taking through a youth goalie! I'm going to assume that - given the impact Ward has made - McInnes knows that it's a huge position to fill in the summer and he's allocating an appropriately large chunk of our budget for it. To add: I dinna really rate Bain either. Only seems to look good against us - based on SPL highlights only!

It's hardly been ignored by the board. We had Leighton, Kjaer and paid a good fee for Preece (£300K was it?). That Calderwood brought in Langfield and, I assume, paid him well was a management decision - the board can't be expected to question the manager on the merits of signing a player that the manager had previously worked with and obviously rated. Langfield wouldn't have been on shite wages, so its down to poor management that he was never replaced with someone better on the same budget. That said, the state of our outfield playing staff meant I entirely agreed with McInnes's decision to give Langfield another contract when he did, as I simply didn't think we had the time and resource to source a good 'keeper whilst replacing several of the playing squad at the same time. The decision was made early on Langfield leaving, it had been known about for at least 6 months. It's telling/disappointing that at the end of the search, we could only come up with a loanee from the EPL (albeit a f'n good one) to take us forward. I'm not convinced Rogers is as good as this agent-leaked story suggests but nevertheless we're in the position that we know we need a new goalie in June and we've had a year to look for one. I'm hoping there's a huge amount of effort going into sourcing the next guy, with a keen eye on Rogers' progress at the same time. We need to get it right next season, and I'm certain the manager will know that. But it is the manager's job, not the board.

Fourth? Didn't Hearts have a significantly higher budget than us in the JC era? Kingston and such like. I think, on the basis of this thread, we should re-appoint Jimmy Calderwood in 2016.

3-0 after 16 seconds of the second half. Still no dons sub. Fantastic result obviously, but has to be McInnes' biggest failing. We could've easily give a youngster 40 minutes.

Or a step toward summer fitba? Either way, another undisclosed, without-consultation, exclusive bag of shite. Might work like, but can they not have these discussions out in the open, engage with folk? At least pretend you give a fuck about what your paying customers think.

I thought the worst thing about Benn's speech was the complete lack of substance. It was well orated, well timed (for maximum cuntishness) and emotional, but nothing new was brought to the table. I noticed a couple of Labour spineless fucks tweeted that they had backed the bombing after hearing Benn's speech. Really? What new piece of information did he bring to the debate that hadn't been discussed in the previous 10 hours. That sort of thing belongs in a debate down the pub, not in the decision making process for going to war. It should have been an analytical discussion that discussed - only - facts. Like was done by the very committee set up to examine the case for war (who were, obviously, ignored). Our f'n archaic system of democracy doesn't fuckin work, and that's why Jeremy Corbyn has no place in it. Labour need a personality, not a man with conviction or sense, because that's who our parliamentary system works. It's all left to chance. A "who can shout loudest" match. These cunts don't serve a purpose.

Did I imagine Foster being player of the season before being loaned to der hun? I thought he was. Remember he had a decent year that year. Anyway, I don't dislike the guy, and don't boo him, but he can still go and fuck himself. For being a hun, like.

I love how the argument has become binary - to bomb or not to bomb. I'm going to teach that Cameron a right lesson when I get the opportunity to tick a box in 4.5 years time.