Goggles & Flippers

A big hole in the books will be Hutchison, his improved deal a few years back was no doubt linked to selling him on for decent wedge. He'll be leaving in the summer for nowt now our last chance to sell him has passed.

Do you know what, if we can't increase our fanbase significantly in these past 5 years of relative success then I could quite understand Celtic fans telling us to whistle for their money. They (both Old Firm) have money because they were successful early on, that got them a following, no doubt helped by religious affiliation and geography, that then draws fans from other parts of the country and overseas, quite a few glory hunters and here we are now. Same shit happens in Spain. To ask the fans of these teams to give up a fair whack of their income to benefit their opposition seems very utopic and socialist in theory, in practice and reality its an absolute nonsense and bears no resemblance to where we are now or what is a realistic solution. If the shoe was on the other foot and we attracted a huge following back in days of black and white newsreels (and maintained them before anyone jumps on that statement) and FP had 50,000 seats and Celtic and Rangers were playing in front of a lowly 7,000 a game, would I give them any of our cash? would I hell!

Not balls Shaka, pragmatism and business acumen tells me the mice can only goad the cat so much before it snaps. Your opinion will get plenty of support as it is popularist. Don't get me wrong I hate that football club, its cretinous fans and its position of being eternal victims without any shame. I'd love to punt them at the earliest opportunity.

To think we'd even have a TV deal anywhere as "lucrative" without the unwashed in it is crazy talk. Unfortunately they are the draw for audience numbers and consequently advertisers. May as well suck it up and accept the reality.

If a quirk of fate resulted in Dan being our keeper in the first 5 games of the season then I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be regarded so highly. A lot to be said for standing behind 10 players on their game. But point made earlier was a good one, we weren't overly good on Saturday, both goals were clinical and taken well, but quite a lot of under performances.

Milo, can I just ask what your English team is? If its anything other than Carlisle then I'd love to hear your reasons for not supporting your local team. As Johnstone says, this is a complete non-debate and cringworthy pointing out the irony as you see it. That sign is possibly aimed at the bus loads that leave the NE every weekend and head down to Ibrox and Parkhead.

If that is the case then it is lazy and disproportionate. However I do expect something to come of the Celtic behaviour in due course .... actually based on your post ..... I'll rephrase and say I hope something comes of it.

I suppose its a head scratcher as on paper he has a decent pedigree in terms of where he's been (surely the Man City scouts must have seen promise) and he's also tall which would allow him to cherry pick crosses. The issue appears to be in confidence and decision making, the Achilles heel of a keeper if its lacking. We have committed to him for 2 years I think so he won't be leaving before summer 2015, that just a symptom of our financial position. Hollis didn't do much wrong and he was stood behind 10 players who hadn't gelled as they appear to have to a greater degree now. My memory casts back to comments such as (I'm paraphrasing as I can't be arsed scowering through pages of posts from August/September) "get Nielsen in right now McCall, he at least looks like a keeper" and "I don't fancy Hollis at all, why is McCall persevering with him?" and "Get him on the bench and Gunnar on". With the difference between 2nd and 3rd being £250k its a gamble to shell out and bring in someone else in an attempt to push for that second place. Things that will be on the minds of the management at the club will be our record against top 5 opposition hasn't been great and we face 5 games at the end of the season against them. I accept ICT have nosedived with Yogi taking over and Dundee Utd's kids are needing R&R bless em. Aberdeen are a better team at present and there are no guarantee's in football. While that extra cash cold make up for our awful cup exits I don't know if speculation to accumulate will win.

Erm, just a reality check here, but in the 4 games played since McInnes took over, Aberdeen have pretty much had the beating of us in every one of them. We were schooled in the first, stifled in the second, nicked the third and we looked like the away side for significant bits of today. The result at Pittodrie was very welcome but the general consensus was we rode our luck. Aberdeen today were again the better team even if our two goals were clinical, other than Faddy's effort how many other times did we trouble Langfield? FYI that fan base allows them to have a much larger wage bill. They are leaving delighted as they scrambled a goal late in injury time that gives them something from the game and didn't have up leapfrog them by 2 with the potential to go 5 ahead. I can't help but feel the those two points dropped today will be regretted in mid May. Last year the final prize money was as follows (I doubt there will be much change this season): 1 £2,405,000 (-£315,000) 2 £1,718,000 (-£682,000) 3 £1,460,000 (-£60,000) 4 £1,289,000 (-£71,000) 5 £1,203,000 (-£77,000) 6 £1,117,000 (-£83,000) I don't think its presumptuous for most of us to think we'll be competing in or around the top end of this. The difference between 2nd and 3rd is £250k, that would go a long way to make up for expensive trips to Russia, missing out of a cup semi and 3rd round exit of the Scottish Cup. As I'm sure we all agree, treading water opposed to further cloth cutting is what the management require.

I think there are some ironic comedy voters on here c'est soir

My take on it was that because Carswell was floored immediately afterwards that caught the intention of the ref. I think in his head he intended to book the player responsible for the first challenge but because he was behind the game then he got confused and booked the second challenge. Some particularly bad refereeing and poor consistency throughout. As for the game, Aberdeen had more about them, our two goals were with the exception of Faddy's effort pretty clinical as we didn't really threaten outside of them. A draw was a fair result but I would have been thrilled with a smash and grab. Our second goal was a pleasure to watch. Now onto the negatives. Lets start with the keeper, in a told you so moment I'll refer back to Celtic last week where I pointed out I felt he parried too many opposed to gather them in. A fair number of our issues today centred on that carrying on. The ironic cheer when he grabbed a ball around 75 mins highlighted that. Also, with Carswell dropping back to RB I felt there should have been more effort from Ainsworth to track back, I found myself getting increasingly annoyed at his apparently laziness as the game progressed (the fact he walked off with white shorts tells me didn't get involved enough for me). I can understand him sitting deeper if we were going to exploit a quick break, but going back to Nielsen, his distribution and speed of releasing the forwards with a well thrown ball or punt was awful. As a result Considine was unmarked repeatedly giving the players in front of an out ball. Ainsworth's forward sitting was a contributory factor to their first goal.

Isn't there a chance that the Motherwell cops got their targets identified quicker as it was a smaller number and were able to make their targeted arrests while the plods in London Road nick are still compiling their list due to the sheer number (and fact that they will have to apply advanced techniques to clean the photo's with the unwashed in them)? It's just precedent suggests the rozzers prefer to do this in one fail swoop. To facilitate a combined arrest would require a serious number of cops on duty early one morning only after a fair bit of intelligence is done as to where they can apprehend them. This whole Celtic get away with murder stuff with respect to that Friday would may be better reviewed in 6 months time. If there isn't any news about it then I'll be the first to hold my hands up on here and then compose a letter to the chief plod, for all the good it'd do.

Sure you're not overly influencing that opinion based on the run of results we had when he was here? Also, from what I've seen so far this season, I don't think its fair to group Hollis and Gunnar together as being much of a muchness, Hollis for me did have much more about him, but granted quite a bit less than what we've been used to. I'll reiterate, the only way we'll get a player under contract is if we swop someone we don't value and they do. It's evident that the trade off for his emergency loan was "you give us him for a month and we'll sling you Bob and Cummins", only the rules prevented that from happening.

duplicate post

I mentioned in the Celtic thread that I felt a lot of outside circumstances aligned to make his perception among our fans particularly rosey. So I'll summarize: * We had an under performing team off the back of two horrible results * He came in at a time of need * We had a successful run, best in 77 years apparently * Mostly against bottom 6 teams * This turnaround was no doubt off the back of some serious soul searching, arse kicking and return to form I think he would be a welcome addition to the squad at present as Nielsen hasn't impressed me, I felt Hollis did OK but has a PR mission to convince some of our fans otherwise. To get him while he's under contract (granted as a third keeper) we're probably in a position of maybe doing a swap for him, anyone happy to welcome him in if Scouse goes the other way permanently? Because I reckon that is what we'd have to do to secure him.

Be careful of wikipedia, if you search under your name it says you're a member of MENSA ......

My first away game was at Parkhead in 91, Dougie got a brace. However I'd never set foot in the San Giro now for various reasons. Beating anyone else doesn't come close

A lot of the unwashed from phone in's and their forums seem to think Keith Lasley is particularly dirty especially when it comes to them (bear in mind they are both the world's best fans and the victims of establishment conspiracies). You wonder if any of this paranoia seeps down to the players and influenced Stokes' behaviour so late in the match when the game was won. Just when we're on the subject, I fully expect them to appeal on Monday. While the SFA can retrospectively punish someone for aggressive behaviour, does anyone know if that extends to diving to win penalties? I've always wondered why handball by an outfield player on the line or the last defender bringing down a striker through to deny a clear goalscoring opportunity are immediate reds however a striker diving to try and deceive the ref and win a penalty with a fair chance of the defending player also being booked only ever gets a yellow.

When I played it Chris Humphrey used to get 30 assists a season and 10 goals. During the game his little amber dot didn't run to the corner flag and make an arse of the subsequent cross.

On the money weeyin, all this talk of being at our best and Celtic at their worst nonsense, ICT under Butcher went there and repeatedly gave them a game. McCall's caution vs this mob hasn't really worked on their turf

Twardzik no doubt benefited joining a team where the two results prior to his arrival were awful, that in turn spurred on a few under-performers to start showing why we signed them, against sides mostly in the bottom half of the table and no doubt aided by the fact that Hollis haters quickly added Gunnar to their repertoire so anyone new was going to be welcomed. He didn't have the physical presence in goal I'd become accustomed to (granted we were spoiled with Ruddy and Randy). I didn't see the penalty decision, was he at fault?

I will never like a keeper who insists on punching and palming shots when gathering it in is a better if slightly trickier option. All those who bemoaned Hollis at the end of August and called for Gunnar's inclusion, any red faces?

In hindsight nope, bit of heat, quite a few sarcy comments and an hour of my life I'll never get back compiling everything. Lesson learned

Now there's around 50 votes, an no doubt being influenced by the age and memory of those who did so, here we have the worst XI to step onto the Fir Park pitch and also be paid to do so. There are no doubt much worse guys out there but this team would struggle to beat a bunch of schoolgirls (wouldn't you agree Sydney?). The midfield and defence were pretty much clear with the attack more skewed, Derek Townsley for example looked like a shoe in but was overhauled in the past day and now doesn't even make the team. It goes without saying some players would be better placed within the formation but its purely an indication. Manager: Maurice Malpas Assistant: Harri Kampman ---------------------------------- John Gardiner ----------------------------------- -- Eddie Forrest ----------- Bobby Donnelly --------- Danny Murphy -- - Shawn Fagan --------------- John Davies -------------- Trevor Molloy - Paul Keegan - Esteban Casagolda - Calum Elliot - Abel Thermius Subs: Colin Meldrum Yassin Moutouakil Ange Oueifio Bob Malcolm Brian Kerr John Hendrie John Reilly

Only fannies do shit like that