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Rangers manager Derek McInnes gets a more lenient sentence than (ex) Motherwell's Elliot Watt - despite saying much worse. There's a shock.

Aye, that's simultaneously above & beyond, but arguably the least he could do. Well done Brian.

I emailed the club after the Genk game to complain about the new pod seats, i subsequently received a phone call this afternoon from Brian Caldwell who explained the difficult choices the club faced in the pod to get the stand compliant for the HB game. He explained that for a host of reasons mainly the limitations of the pod in its current form it was a straight choice of either not using the seats in their old form, for the Euro games, with the resulting loss of revenue and relocation of ST holders that involved, undertaking extensive remodelling of the pod seat profile and reducing seat numbers to get new flip seats or go with the seats we have fitted now. So it seems that what we got was the only viable option open to the club, given the timescales and limitations involved. I think that the "new seats" will be with us for a while, but from what i was told i suspect that replacing the pod on the current footprint may be the preferred option, as i say thats my opinion, so i could be wrong. Having said all that it was nice to have some personal feedback on a complaint raised from the CEO, thats a good way to run a business so long may it continue.

Nervous anxious and hopeful. C’mon the well! 3-1 to the Well. Cookie Fadinger and Said with the goals. This side will be sharp with good connections and a strong familiarity. To my mind the game for Said to give them a problem. Beat the first man and lay off a pass into the space caused as other opponents move to close him down. hopefull and positive

Aye, that's mental. I certainly feel it if we lose. Anger, disappointment, a sense of what could have been. But embarrassment? Why would I be embarrassed? That suggests it's somehow your fault? That you did something that caused us to lose?

I think there are a lot of fair points being raised in this thread, and I'm certainly not suggesting summer football is a silver bullet. The reason I'm open to it is that none of these challenges are unique to Scotland. Norway, Sweden, Finland, Ireland and similar nations have had to deal with transfer windows, scheduling, transition seasons and international tournaments, so there are clearly workable models out there. And looking at some of these nations, it's clear that whatever they're doing is working. For me, the weather isn't really the driver. It's the competitive and commercial side. If there was no serious financial or European advantage, I'd probably agree it wouldn't be worth the upheaval. But if being match sharp in July, having more settled squads and not competing directly with the Premier League for TV attention for part of the year gave clubs a better chance of reaching league phases and bringing in a few million euros every few years, then it's at least a conversation worth having. Take Hearts against Sturm Graz. Getting through that tie wouldn't just have meant another qualifying round payment. It would have guaranteed Europa League football and around €5 million from UEFA before you even factor in ticket sales or performance bonuses. That's the scale of the fine margins we're talking about. Being a little sharper or having a more settled squad wouldn't guarantee they'd win that tie, but it might just improve their chances enough to make a difference. As it is, they have a new manager, a brand new squad and they got wiped out before they even really got going. I'd also separate why some countries originally adopted summer football from the advantages it gives them today. Norway may have done it because of the climate, but being halfway through the domestic season when European qualifiers come around is now an advantage regardless of the original reason. As for European games in December or February, that would be an amazing problem to have! If Motherwell are still playing in Europe at that stage, we've already had a very successful season and the financial rewards would probably outweigh the inconvenience. The thing is, I don't think there's a perfect calendar. Every model has its own trade-offs. The question for me is whether another model would leave Scottish football in a stronger position than the one we've got now. I'm not convinced summer football is the answer to everything, but I do think we've been following the same approach for decades without really asking whether there's a better one. And I'm sure we'll all be shocked and dismayed when us or whoever else gets pumped out by a team that's fitter, more cohesive and settled because they hold advantages over us. We'll blame it on slow transfer business, the board, the manager, but the truth is, it's just a result of the model we operate with.

Sales sound great, really exciting. Brings back memories of Nancy game when we had about 11,500 fans, those inflatable sticks we banged together, fans in full voice, place jumping............then ref blew to start game and it all went downhill 🤪🤪

To be honest when you predict us to draw or win then it does become panic stations 🤣🤣

The only tickets left in other stands seem to be single seats. Hopefully we can sell a good few in the McLean to make it worth our while and more importantly, improve the atmosphere.

Just noticed as well they have put tickets out for sale in the middle section of the lower south stand. That’s brilliant that we’ve sold almost all other tickets. Something like 100 tickets left in the POD, cooper and East.

The manager does seem to have a wee but of an obsession with Mikey Booth? He’s mentioned him personally in 3 different interviews. In all honesty I thought there were better youngsters on show on Friday.

The closest thing we've got to a clash is Dundee Utd. This doesn't clash with them so we'll either wear this or the 3rd kit. Against Hearts we'll wear the home kit unless there's another agreement between the sides to both wear away kits like we've had previously. Other than that we'll probably wear it in every other away game bar Aberdeen and probably Dundee or Rangers.

It’ll probably be the opposite of when we have a white/non claret away kit. We’ll wear it against sides who we wouldn’t normally change against ie. Hibs away where I fully expect it to debut a week on Sunday. Against the sides we would usually have the away kit on such as Aberdeen and Hearts we will wear our home kit when we visit them. And then there’s the anniversary blue kit which will probably get a run out against Dundee Utd. Having seen it up close in the shop this morning it is a nice jersey, but I feel it would go better with the white shorts of the home kit and likewise the home jersey would suit the claret away shorts.

I suspect, like JBA, he's playing his cards close to his chest. If we haven't got a clue about our line up neither will HB.

Each to their own. Personally speaking as a passionate supporter who wants nothing but the best for the club then I do feel embarrassment when we get bad results. Maybe I just care more than you

Alfred’s silence on injured players at the presser suggests they must all still be fkd or extremely doubtful which is not great but it does sound like the burton Albion signing will be straight into the first 11. he did mention that HB are in a good run of form so it’ll be a tough game. I’m expecting a draw or a narrow loss and we can hopefully turn it around next week. Time will tell.

It looks nice but when are we going to wear to when it's more of a clash with most of the teams we would normally wear our away kit against?

They could beat us 4 - 0 and I still wouldn't be embarrassed. You need to try and separate other people playing football from your own self-esteem.

Most of the summer leagues are trying to avoid their unplayable winters. Ireland is the exception, but they wanted less competition from their more popular sports. I remember on a different thread I put together a list of all the challenges of playing a 10+ month season with off-season being the winter. I won't repeat them all in this thread, but a big one is the ever-expanding Euros and World Cups taking place every other summer. So teams with international players are going to be deprived of key team members for 5 or 6 weeks in alternate years. If the intent is to be more competitive in Europe, the Conference League for example, has ties scheduled in December and February. The Europa League has ties scheduled in December, January & February. So any level of success would mean a 12 month season including winter. Logistically it might be easier if there were less games in our season, but I don't see clubs voting for that either.

This...

Streets better than the new home kit. If the colours in this one were reversed it would make a great home kit.

The gaffer said

... his big team got pumped last night

I see what you did there. There was somefin fishy about it.