RicoS321

He replied to a comment that said "spineless foreign shite". That's the very definition of xenophobia. It's perfectly acceptable to call it out (even though I'm sure the OP didn't mean anything by it). There's equally as much spineless Scottish shite passed through our books this century as a percentage, and there's nothing specific about Scottish players that makes them likely to understand Scottish football, or care more, or whatever. Hence why the league champions have consistently got a majority foreign representation. The opposing debate existed when McInnes was here. We never signed enough foreigners. You're right though, there should be a happy medium, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with a Scottish football team (or its fans) wanting to be majority Scottish and being rooted in Scottishness. I don't think anyone has argued otherwise (personally, I'd be all for the three foreigners rule to return). It's completely possible to want a Scottish identity without claiming that there's something unique about that Scottishness, that foreigners simply can't comprehend or aspire to because of their foreignness.

Yes it is! A good illustration would be Shinnie himself. The accusation when he has an off spell is that his legs have gone. It's never that he's lost his bite or is shirking challenges or not trying. It's a tacit acknowledgement that what makes Shinnie's game is his ability to be in attack one minute, and the last man back in the next. I remember Johnny Hayes playing in midfield for us against Jim Goodwin, and absolutely destroying him the entire game. Goodwin's nastiness and bite couldn't get near him. In my opinion, what we're actually looking for in a midfielder is relentlessness. Phillips for St Mirren - formerly of us - showed exactly that last week. Whilst I think he lacks quality, he did, on numerous occasions, show that commitment and fitness for us, and it definitely added something in those games where the opponent is better and expected to have more of the ball. I'm not suggesting we sign him again, of course, just using him to illustrate.

Aye, I think you're right. The problem was legs in the middle today (I only saw the second half). Shinnie would have done better in there. Palaversa would have done okay for 45 minutes probably, but it's a new signing we likely need. I thought overall we just looked really tired. We started the season full of energy and ran ourselves into the ground, we had our second wind at the turn of the year(ish), and now we're out of steam again. A couple of injuries and a lack of momentum and we struggle. As soon as the first goal went in it was obviously game over. We really missed Dorrington today, who's partnership with Knoester has been very good for the most part. Tobers was miles off it. Why on earth he didn't read the first goal and come across to allow Knoester to move across I don't know. He was all over the shop for the second too. I'd be tempted to start Milne ahead of him until he regains sharpness. Devlin didn't look great, but then neither did Jensen when he came on. As everyone else has said though, the game passed us by in midfield. I disagree that we need someone with bite or whatever, we need somebody that is fit and athletic. Lewis Ferguson and Ramadani both excelled due to their athleticism, rather than their nastiness. Clarkson, Polvara and McGrath struggled because they don't do the miles. It's a bad combination for that reason.

We had Shinnie.

Big Papa coming on?

Got the time wrong for this one so missed the first half. Sounds like we're miles in top and the cheating establishment and their corrupt refs are preventing us from being 0-3 up.

I genuinely can't tell if you're being serious.

I think they'll both lose midweek and it'll go to the final day that way. As those decisive fixtures swing from Saints to County, the BBC will bring us a two hour special on the ups and downs of Barry Ferguson's tenure at Ibrox.

Cove Huns make the playoff final versus Airdrieonihuns.

County make it 2-2 in what appears to be a cracking game. Although pales into insignificance when you hear that the Tims are going through a routine win live on air. Amazing stuff. Imagine being there. Like Pat Bonner. Edit: Hale offside by a testicle. 2-1 Saints.

Game of the day today? BBC live commentary game? Any guesses? @Panda? It has to be Saints v County doesn't it? No way that any objective, impartial broadcaster would show anything else. Which the BBC is, of course.

That wasn't the merger I was expecting.

Pish game. Think Livi will have too much for them. Both teams looked fucked tonight.

He's a good manager. He's good at getting points. He's pragmatic. It's a good move for him, as hearts are performing below expectations, and he's undoubtedly a better manager than the Critch and Wee Naisey. Two of the last three seasons with us it was beginning to be clear that Cormack was having an interest in the transfers and the wider running of the club. Hernandez wasn't a McInnes signing, for example. Certainly his last season can be entirely discounted, as it was clear he was being set up to fail (no transfers in the January took us years to recover from). It was also a frustrating thing for me that we never really worked with McInnes to try and get the new structure in place with him here. But perhaps his salary covered the director of football (how is that going?) and recruitment director roles anyway. I think he'd have worked quite well with his hands off recruitment to a large degree. Guys like Storey, Tansey, Morris (Callum), Main etc just wouldn't have happened had we a stronger recruitment role in the building at the time. We'd have made other failed signings of course, but there would have been the opportunity to learn from those errors too, where McInnes just kept making the same mistakes (and has continued at Killie). Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how Greg Stewart gets on up front for Hearts next season.

Agreed, it's shite. But consumerism etc etc. If we don't do it, others will, and then we might not be able to retain our top six status because they'll make billions while we do right by our fans. Personally, I think strips should last a decade. If I was throwing out a perfectly good garment every year, I'd be ashamed. I can get twenty years out of a t-shirt. The one I'm wearing right now, for example. Footballers should be forced to wear a strip until it has big holes in it in my opinion. Adidas can go and fuck themselves. I like the new away kit though, might get it for my daughter.

You'd get a great view of the 400m race though

Looks more like a strip stained with seagull shite. Which would be a hilarious from the club if they went for that.

Agreed, think Airdrie will comfortably deal with Cove though. The plastic at Balmoral will suit Airdrie, and it's a nice big pitch too, which I think will favour them. Airdrie, in general, though, are probably just a bit too easy to play against in that league. They try and play through teams and don't have the quality to do so, so end up giving away numerous chances stupidly. They're like St Johnstone, and us when we're not at full strength (or playing St Mirren). Frustratingly they have quite a likeable manager and aren't a dirty side, but are still fucking Airdrie.

I'm not sure it's lack of ambition to be honest. Maybe more like self awareness. If he knows that he doesn't have what it takes to reach the levels of our first team, then a payday for a couple of years is probably something that appeals. He might not get the opportunity again, and in a couple of years time, he'll still have age on his side to go and play for County or whoever for another 4-5 seasons and fight for a starting place. Goalie is a very unique position, it's completely different to some of the young players joining them to sit on the bench as we've seen in the past. Or maybe it isn't. But I think it is!

Getting tickets for Hampden via the club site has always been shite. I do it on the phone, because Firefox on the laptop can be variable, but you can't expand the view of the seats on the phone so you just have to sort of guess. The "Pitch This Way" bit is useful, I guess, but it's difficult to read the row numbers, and difficult to click on the actual seats you want. As I've done it quite a few times now, I can do it without too much bother, but it could be significantly better. It's like nobody from the club, or SFA, have actually tried buying tickets themselves. Don't get me started on the Hampden app either. What's the fucking deal with the QR codes being tiny, and along the top of the screen? Why can't you click on it to expand the code for quicker and easier scanning (like at Pittodrie, for example)? That said, the transfer of tickets is quite straight forward.

A club statement to the effect that we won't be offering down payment in future should be forthcoming, hopefully.

Tom Ritchie on the bench. Mitov never gets injured anyway.

We need him back for the cup final so that he can nail that other good Japanese lad.

Nice one. Apologies, I would have said earlier if I'd thought it was a universal problem.

Obviously I looked after myself first by buying a ticket before coming on here to remind everyone else. It wasn't working for me either this morning, so I went to the season ticket renewal page, then clicked on tickets from that page, then away matches, and then scrolled down to the cup final from there. I assumed that it was just me having issues.