RicoS321

Sounds like he might have had it on the burner for a few weeks. Apparently Motherwell were helping him with his ongoing family situation whilst there, so it'd make sense that he would have put feelers oot. There are always plenty of gigs going in fitba.

Hope it's an image of a giant seat being aimed at the Tims.

McTominay scores for Napoli in their title decider.

Agree with all that, apart from the Clarkson part. He's been very good for the last few months and he's getting fitter and fitter. I think we're going to have the player we all expected next season and he'll definitely be one of a pair of midfielders, rather than advanced. On your other point, you missed the part where it suddenly flips and foreign players and managers are a problem. It took us years to get over Skovdhal, and it remains to be seen whether Scotland will have shaken the Vogts memories post Clarke. There's probably a cyclical wave form somewhere. It's frustrating, because we arbitrarily segregate managers (players to a lesser degree) into these ridiculous groups, and then suggest we appoint on that basis rather than attributes or abilities. We need a foreign/young (always preceded by "hungry")/experienced manager as if they are three homogeneous groups. In a similar vein, we had many comments on here about all the foreign players we were missing out on when McInnes was in charge, where foreign was simply synonymous with good. I think you're right about Thelin's foreignness buying him time, but the actions of Cormack have helped in that regard too. He has been clear about "the project". The most frustrating part about that is that he could have done exactly the same with the previous three managers to buy them time too, but he chose not to. Both Glass and Robson had fairly clear ways in which they wanted to play football, but it was never labelled a project from the very start, which all three previous managers were. The erratic approach to transfers and the lack of support team consistency (still no technical director) clearly indicated a wider project. I still don't think we've got it right off field, and I'm still not convinced we have the budget to make Thelin's plan a success, and I don't think we'll be any closer to finding out by the time he moves on and we follow Hearts down the route of experienced (I think it is experienced's turn!) manager, to "steady the ship".

What I had in mind was Clarkson sitting in behind Shinnie and Palaversa and going direct to Gueye, with Shinnie and Palaversa picking up the scraps. A throwback to Robson era, without the back three. When they have the ball, Shinnie and Palaversa drop to form a block. If we get caught upfield, Clarkson's job is to slow them down until the midfield gets back, rather than engage. The only downside I can see is Palaversa not lasting 60 minutes.

Sounds like the perfect ruse. I'd say that half our squad need a proper preseason at this point. I think you might be right about lack of changes, and I think that'd be a mistake. Their tactic of having a player on the touchline with a lot of space to run at the fullback needs to be counteracted. They draw the fullback in narrow by overloading with a fullback and midfielder centrally, so that the winger has a free run, one-on-one with Shinnie (or whoever). I'm thinking a 4-5-1 might be the best bet. A midfield three, with McGrath and Keskinen the wide players. A thankless task for the one up front, but probably a necessity.

Strange, I could have sworn I didn't hear you say "get fucked, you Hun cunt".

Hopefully last week gave him the chair in the face that he needed to get back to his best.

Yep, that wouldn't surprise me. Jensen isn't very good at left back. I'm not sure why the manager doesn't see it. You basically lose out on his best bits going forward, whilst making him worse in defence. He'll get torn to pieces down that side if he plays there. It's almost like we've been told that he can play left back, so that makes it true, rather than evidence. A bit like Dorrington being brought in as left centre half.

I hope you mean Nicky Maynard and not Dons legend Nicky Low? It's very easy to sign poor players. As long as they're swiftly kicked into touch. Don't still be giving Ambrose minutes in May.

That's what I'd do if Shinnie is up to it. Palaversa can't finish 60 minutes of football at present, so there's no point in starting him there. Polvara hasn't been great when playing there either. Maybe play him in front of those two, with McGrath and Keskinen on the wings, and perform a nice bit of shitefesting. None of the mask pish for MacKenzie though.

Unless MacKenzie joins the Huns....

At the head of the Conga line?

You could be right, I don't imagine these fixtures offer anything to any of our players who've just had a long season, and I'd expect drop outs.

Bowie, Conway and Wilson is wild. I'm not seeing it with Wilson at all to be honest. Bowie might have something about him, and Conway is half decent. Three right backs and one left back is an interesting concept too. I'm intrigued by the young lad Hanley at Birmingham too, it'll be interesting to see if he gets an opportunity with an eye on the competitive games. Don't get me started on the goalies though. Edit: for some reason, I didn't notice Robertson in either of the above posts! Fine with the fullbacks. Apart from Ralston, who shouldn't be invited

Getting rid of Doc to employ an inexperienced former Utd favourite would be tremendous banter.

Exactly. Unless he joins the Jambos. They clearly had a problem defensively, but I thought - like us and St Johnstone (under Valakari) - it was because he was being too open in an attempt to be attacking and "play out from the back". Certainly, Dundee from a couple of seasons ago, played some really nice football. They lost McCowan, which was a key component of that style, and it doesn't seem unreasonable that they might have an off season whilst looking to work out a new way to play. That said, it's probably not too dissimilar to Robson with us. He played good direct football, underpinned by two relentless midfielders, but when one left he just pretended that hadn't happened and continued to do exactly the same things. Thelin can count himself very lucky that he's foreign, and announced a "project" before this season, because it strikes me that Docherty has done exactly what he has this season (not learning from mistakes). Get him back to the Dons as setpiece coach I say.

Was he not once friends with a good manager though?

That's a shame, I thought that he might have turned out to be a decent manager. Wonder if he'll get the Hearts assistant's role? On one hand, it's decent of Dundee to have given him the season, but on the other, it feels like they could have then offered him the chance to have a crack at it next season. I do think that having a poor season shouldn't be enough for a manager to lose their job if at all possible (if they're not spiralling). I don't know enough about Dundee's position though.

Can't believe that the Jambos have taken our bottom six champions title though. Devastated.

Finished a draw for County. I reckon Livi might beat them.

Maybe saving Nisbet for the final. To be honest, we had lost the game by that point, and Nisbet had already missed a good chance and looked frustrated generally. Earlier in the season, I complimented Thelin on numerous occasions when he made proactive subs that stemmed the opposition after they'd come back into the game. He's reverted to type now though. What is it with every single manager in the world not making subs until ~65th minute? Is there some sort of training manual? As soon as we started to get shaky, about 5-10 minutes before the goal, the subs should have been on. Disrupt the flow, make their manager think, and maybe one or two of their players will be hesitant to push on until they get a handle on the sub. Keskinen for Okkels, a lamppost for Gueye, does it really make a difference taking those two off ten minutes before the alloted time? It should have been very clear that we were going to be losing a goal shortly. It was to me.

It might be that we see them when they're a bit older like Milne and MacKenzie. I'm assuming we'll get some money from the actual good ones that go down South before kicking a ball too.

I don't think he'll ever play for us to be honest. We're spending far too much money in the transfer windows to have time for these lads. I don't see a route for any of the lads at Cove, or Bavidge.

I thought Emslie looked a little Connor McLennany