CoF

I'll take a guess at Roberts. A late fitness test less than a fortnight after what looked like a horrendous injury sounds too good to be true for the player and the club.

Yep, found an article with Luton Town's managing director from last year - they have a playing budget of £7m a year and operate a £6k per week salary cap and that's one of the lowest in the league. Our total staff budget in May 2019 was £4m (no idea what the playing budget is). Going to a lower / mid table championship side will still see a player multiply their wages quite a few times over.

Where'd you get that impression?

Official site has him out with a calf injury - wouldn't make much sense to be up here, away from family and teammates etc when he can get treatment at his parent club. There's every chance the loan deal is signed but crewe are the ones getting him fit.

The major difference is both joined us when we were 11th - Alexander now has us sitting comfortably in 9th with 4 games to go and we're 5th place in the form guides. Barraclough took us to rock bottom at one point then scraped into the play-off spot. Different squads with different problems, but I have far more faith in Alexander than I ever did in Barraclough.

Maybe, but they were satisfied with Kamara's account and not Kudela's. I doubt they operate some sliding scale of punishment based on the probability of the offence having happened. Uefa are satisfied it happened yet only banned the guy for 6 weeks. That's poor.

I think we need to accept that from now to the end of the season, when there's an injury there will be players forced into our starting 11 whose heart simply isn't in it. Alexander said in this weeks press conference that when he joined, half the squad wanted to leave. Derek Ferguson on sportsound (for what his opinion is worth) kept describing last nights game as 'weird', commented quite a few times on the lack of urgency and application from us and felt it looked like a squad with big problems. Alexander looks like he's got a ruthless streak, hopefully he's astute enough to get the right players out the door and the right players in this summer.

No idea - Kamara's solicitor said they submitted a dossier of evidence.

There's definitely a direct correlation between how shite we're playing and how annoying that constant noise of someone fannying about with the mic is.

Massive opportunity missed this week with what amounts to a 6 week ban. Poor from UEFA.

That's incorrect. Alexander has said he's free to leave in the summer. Nothing more, nothing less. The fact there isn't a clause, doesn't mean there wasn't a clause. That's the rumour, and the club and player have been vague in their response to it. Alexander's comments today doesn't offer any further clarity. If anything, his vague comment about being not being privy to "something" at the start of the season just adds a bit more fuel to the rumour. Personally, I'm indifferent to it all now. Given the club, manager nor the player have been completely transparent suggests there was some contract wrangling, yet they all remained on good terms which suggests it's nowhere near as sinister or underhanded as some seem to believe. The board have proved in recent years that they're no mugs so if they're happy, I'm happy.

A few posters have covered my thoughts already already. Given Alexander's comments when he first came in that there we do have a decent squad but it's fuckin massive, and the fact he's got us sitting 5th in the form table tells me we'll keep the core of this squad, reduce numbers and try bolster with some quality instead of quantity. How the academy fits into this I don't know.

Fair play, that's a really good signing. We all know we've not seen O'Donnell at his best for us but you can say the same for just about every player in the last 16 months. Looking forward to seeing his performances in an Alexander styled team.

It's been going this way for years, but it's definitely a loss to the game that the preferred model for players and clubs is now short term contracts / make a few quid along the way. We've been lucky enough in recent years to have had 3 players who immersed themselves in the club - Craigan, Lasley and Hammell - who had something like 1300 appearances between them. The club were criticised by a few on here for what they saw as the 'jobs for the boys' mentality when they were each offered positions after hanging up their boots, however I don't think we can underestimate the importance of having people around who have a genuine affection for the place. Hopefully the club continue to find ways to keep the heart of the club alive - I expect the academy is going to be one way to do it.

Exactly. And behind those stats is a much improved defensive setup even when it's with makeshift personnel, and a striker who is now scoring goals (9 of Coles 10 goals this season have come since Alexander came in). Those changes don't happen by chance.

I see someone enquired about safe standing in the twitter replies - Alan Burrows has replied saying it's not possible to install safe standing in the Hunter due to the narrow rows however they are looking at installing it elsewhere in the stadium.

I get what your saying, but we're not talking about gossip among co-workers. The fans are the backbone of the club and we're talking about an initial allegation that the club captain wasn't happy with his contract situation, then the bizarre theories about him faking an injury right in the middle of a relegation fight. Taking aside the injury nonsense, the allegations about the contract and all the rumour surrounding it go right to the heart of the captains commitment and / or the clubs competence to make watertight contracts and / or competence in dealing with 'difficult' players. Either that or the clause has never existed or it's been a simple renegotiation which has left both the club and player happy, which I'm sure most the fans would be content with. Personally, I've got confidence in those that run the club and I think it's likely the situation is nowhere near as complex as folk are making out, so I'm not sure why the club or player don't quash those rumours. Your right that club are under no obligation to make any comment, yet they regularly do. Contracts are made public when players are first signed, often with details of extension options. The club regularly release statements via the site or via the manager that a player has been offered a new contract, or is in talks about an extension, or that the manager is going to speak to them about an extension. Let's not pretend contracts are top secret.

I think the faking an injury stuff is nonsense, however it seems highly likely that there was a clause and now there's not. You just need to look at Alexander's comments when he first came in "I’ve read about Declan’s situation and we’ll assess it." Then when asked about the extension clause in February "I’m not going to get into details of contracts". The club was vague in their response at the AGM and the player has been vague in his responses on social media. They've all had ample opportunity to provide clarity and for some reason have preferred to let bizarre rumours do the rounds instead. Fans don't expect to see contract fineprint, but a simple statement saying a "mutually beneficial deal has been agreed" would put an end to the idea that our club captain has shafted the club during a relegation fight. Its a strange situation.

What's this story?

That's my thoughts. There's hasn't been a mention of the clause removal in any article since - only statements that he's out of contract in the summer. There also seemed to be some back-tracking by the record in an article mid-January - "Reports suggesting that Gallagher has been reluctant to trigger this clause appear to be inaccurate with the Scotland international displaying admirable professionalism despite the rumours." However, and this is the weird bit for me. - both the club and the player have responded directly to the rumours, the club at the AGM and the player on twitter quite a few times, and at no point have the actually stated the clause didn't exist. They've chosen instead to give vague answers. I don't think he's been faking an injury, but I think there is more to this situation than just a newspaper making shit up.

Curtis Main, Shea Gordon and Joe Chalmers all hitting the net last night for Shrewsbury, Partick and Ayr. Bigiramana with a man of the match performance for Glentorran.

I'll start by saying I've no problem with O'Donnell - I think he's been mostly good and I've never doubted his commitment on the pitch. However I think for many, including myself a wee bit here, it all comes down to perceptions about commitment and attitude towards the club. There's a perception, rightly or wrongly, that O'Donnell signed for us in the summer window because we were a last resort. He wanted a bigger club, it didn't happen and settled for Motherwell. He was then offered an extension in December and didn't sign it till the last day of the window - again, the perception was that he was expecting something bigger then had to settle for us. We all know that players come here with aspirations and no-one would begrudge a player weighing up options first, but I think if you give the impression that you were expecting bigger things to come your way, as opposed to just hoping they would, then you better show on the pitch why you had those grand ideas in the first place. Unfortunately O'Donnell hasn't really done that.

Last game was 24th August 2019. 19th months ago. He had his operation in September 2019 - I can't recall if there's been further setbacks, or what the current position is now.

Alexander has commented on the size of our squad so I anticipate he'll be looking at improving the quality over quantity next transfer window. He's hardly covered himself in glory with the his signings so far however managers frequently talk of how difficult it is finding quality in the January window and I can only assume the signings of Smith, Nolan and Foley were desperate measures due to the injury situation at the time. He needs a decent shot at building a squad.

That's it for me. Definitely not as shambolic a performance as the St Johnstone and Hamilton games. In those games we looked completely clueless whereas yesterday Killie at least had to play their part in nullifying everything we tried.