RicoS321

It boils my pish. It's noticeably better on sky etc than the red TV coverage it has to be said, and foreign football is largely unwatchable. Every dead space filled with a close up of someone's face. Why on earth do we need to see close ups of a player's reaction? We want to see their actual reaction on the pitch, whether they chase down an opponent, get back into position or whatever. I want to see who's moving where when we get a throw-in or goal kick, not a replay of a nothing event, or a fucking close up of the fourth official holding up a stoppage time fucking board! Fuck the casual watcher, it's always somebody's team that's playing.

Nae 3pm English games maybe? Can't be arsed to check.

Just back. Wasn't great, wasn't terrible. Utd got what they came for, were really cynical and sucked all the joy out of fitba for an evening. When they actually tried to play football, they appeared capable. Complete domination, doing very little, until we make a rudimentary catalogue of errors. All our goals against come from the initial error causing a domino of further fuck ups. Today it was Aouchiche with a tragic attempt at a header when he should have controlled it, the defence gets caught out and Devlin loses a header he would normally go through first time and Milne doesn't read the game and cover, leaving Mitov rooted to his line for an easy finish. We then dominate up until our goal, with some fairly attacking subs. Those subs are then screwed for utd's fifteen minute spell of actual football until Thelin finally realises he needs to make a sub again. We finish the game on top but with little opportunity to score, save for one good run and cross from Milanovic. Shinnie ran his arse off the entire game, constantly making the space down the left and was my MOTM. Knoester decent too. Armstrong was terrible in the second half, as was Lazetic. Aouchiche worked really hard but his passing was woeful, and Polvara worked hard but once again gets caught in possession in the most schoolboy of fashion (think he might be a centre half). Karlsson did really well for the goal but just needs fired into the sea. McGinn was never the fastest player in the world, but he could drop a shoulder and send a player into a different timezone. Karlsson hasn't taken on a player since he arrived, and he's very easy to defend against. Nisbet perhaps looked poor on the TV, but he did a lot of work as the number nine and did stretch them a good bit in the first half - significantly more so than Lazetic. Kjartansson shored things up nicely and should have been on earlier. Bilalovic tracked back well but isn't the player you want in the wingback role. Keskinen was actually okay there, I think people forget he's the fullback with a player in front of him, but we missed Lobban.

That isn't correct

I think Armstrong is a marginally better player, but we're not getting four years out of him (I wouldn't be surprised if we only get one), and Hibs got a player with a good three years, at least, left in him. Just another bit of bad business from us. I think it's fairly clear that we had no intention of signing Armstrong until he happened to be a free agent at the end of the window, so it's another case of how poor the squad building has been. Imagine we had let McGrath leave and missed out on Armstrong too? We'd have been left with nothing. Or worse, Milanovic.

Jambos on the end of a tanking by Jamie McGrath.

This. I'm actually fairly comfortable with our current position and performances. Thelin has shown a fair bit of pragmatism in the last few months to get us some points on the board. That's exactly what I'd expect a manager to do when he's not got the players to execute his preferred plan. It's not long until January when he can hopefully clear the decks a little and get one or two in that could help. Hopefully we see some intensity and energy at least after our week off. I expect we will. Not sure what to expect from them, they have a few good players. Think we'll win 3-1. Aouchiche and Polvara seem to be the preferred midfield, which is fine. Get Armstrong further forward and hopefully we'll see the best of one of our strikers too.

It's 17:45 kick off, so you could be in bed by 20:30.

The Cure's Perry Bamonte.

Stephen Glass is still kept in his basement.

Come on. Who hasn't watched a child being murdered and thrown in a river? It was the eighties, everyone was doing it.

Ange and Brendan?

The font on that certificate hasn't been used since the Magna Carta, so I suspect it will be worth a fortune.

He's in the same league as Ange and Brendan

Judas bastard

You set them up.... Driving home for Christmas.... I'll finish them off. Just in case anyone didn't get your joke.

Winning the cup Buying shite players Playing in a fucking awful tournament

Some goal for the second. Decent game, the Moroccans look like a very good side.

Yes, the performances have all felt that we were just trying our best to get through the games. Including the ones we've won.

He fucking should, the Hun cunts. Although I still think Fergie is a Judas bastard for leaving the Dons.

Agreed. He's actually not terrible with his feet (better than Joe Lewis was for example), but some of the passes he's attempting are wild. The one to Lobban today is a difficult pass by any standard. If he was told just to keep things simple, I doubt we'd have issues. Keepers get a lot of hassle for their kicking, but most folk fail to take into account that they're often the ones making the longest and hardest passes that would go wrong 9 times out of 10 for an outfield player. Even worse when they've just had a pass played onto their wrong foot, or right into their feet. It's not an easy game for a goalie.

I agree. Sort of. I don't think our squad is that good though, and the luxury of resting Aouchiche and Armstrong isn't a given. There's not a team in our position that hasn't struggled after European games, it's a big factor. I think Thelin got the balance wrong over the two games, but I also don't think it's a glaring error given the difficulty.

Don't get me wrong, I thought we played terrible, I just thought there were mitigating circumstances. We've struggled in all our post European games, and we just had more of that jaded flatness that we saw against Killie. I also don't buy into the narrative that the Tims are pish. They've got 5-6 very good players and struggle against teams with an aggression that we lack. They'll put 4-5 past someone shortly and everything will be back to normal. Their manager will be being hailed as a breath of fresh air for Scottish football by the end of January.

Ach, it wasn't the worst performance. The timing of the fixture was pish. It wasn't the best approach, but quite a few of those players looked like they were struggling. It looked like they were content dropping deep rather than necessarily tactical. I still think the Tims will win the league. They've got enough good players in that team to go on a long run of wins.

"Gamalfi". Come on Rowson. That's also the second time the commentator has said "diag" instead of diagonal. Drowning offence.