weeyin

Seriously, mate. Take it Compost Corner if you like, but can you keep it out the match threads?

Their loss.

I think Shields will end up being the best replacement - at least over the next few months. He has been training with the squad all season and well up to speed now with our shape and tactics and looked decent enough in the games he's played. Unlikely we'll find a 10 goal/half-season replacement in the January market.

Can we maybe have one match thread without this nonsense?

If TW's goals help you move up the league an extra place or two, £100k sounds like a bargain. I'd be asking for closer to £200k.

Talking of which, I see Dundee Utd are about to sell Kerr Smith to Aston Villa for £800k plus add-ons. Smith has made 12 first team appearances. That might give them some spare cash to pay for Watt's early move.

A good article earlier today in The Herald does a good job breaking down Hastie's career to date.

I doubt there are many SNP votes in the 6 nations crowds.

2 - 1 to us with Shields opening the scoring.

I was trying to figure out who our last manager was that was resident in Scotland rather than commuted home to England/N. Ireland at the weekends. I think it might have been Craig Brown.

As an owner of the club, I approve this signing.

I remember when we tried to sign Çiftçi the first time, Stuart McCall said we lost out because Dundee Utd were offering literally double what we could afford. So it might not be too far off given he should be one of their senior players.

Talking (in the Rebuild thread) of pre-contracts:

Saw Campbell getting half an hour in his side's win today. Bowman unlucky to have a goal chalked off when the crosser was marginally offside. Trevor Carson keeping a clean sheet as Morcambe take a lead into half time against Spurs.

And Ben Heneghan about to lose to a National League team.

I haven't written off Shankland as a top flight striker, but until he puts together two or three seasons in the Premiership where he is comfortably into double figures I'm still unconvinced. When Craig Moore was his partner at Ayr Utd (and not injured) he had a decent goal return too. Likewise in his loan spell at Cowdenbeath. But he proved with us he couldn't quite hack it in the Premier League. I'm also unconvinced he can play the high press, high energy game GA required from his strikers.

I read somewhere that the possession stats that are often used actually count the number of passes rather than minutes/seconds in possession. The more passes you make, the more "possession" is allocated to you. If you see 50/50 though, I'd guess that just means they haven't kept track!

Did they not scrap that rule shortly after we took advantage of it? They won't be allowed to use their terraces, but might get away with just using their current seating. Would be a shame if they missed out on that basis.

While, of course, total points is the ultimate stat we focus on, there is no doubt other details can be useful. Most of the huge clubs track and crunch the data to their benefit. I saw one of the Liverpool data scientists on the telly talking about some of the things they review. One thing they looked at was how likely it was for a goal to be scored from play at every position on the pitch. As well as their own stats, they used the data from every other EPL team over the past few years. Based on that, they identified the optimal areas of the pitch they wanted to get into every time they had possession and then, in training, worked on tactics to take advantage of that. Then they went and won the Champions League and the EPL title, so their might be something to it. However, as I mentioned earlier, none of that data is freely available. Instead, we get glimpses of individual stats that don't really mean much in isolation.

Would love to see Arbroath get promoted - that would be some achievement.

I think you've just agreed with me. The only difference being you "don't give a flying fuck how ex players get on" - and I do hope the get on well because it means we have done our job and makes recruitment easier. If players that move on consistently fail, then the bigger clubs will stop being interested and it will make it more difficult to point to successful examples when we recruit.

I look at it from a purely selfish point of view. If players are struggling for whatever reason when they join us and we resurrect their careers, it benefits the club when we are looking to recruit the next players. If all we can point to are guys we bring in and then drop down a level or two, it's not a great advert for the club or our recruitment strategy.

I hope he goes on to great things at his new club, but his new club always finish below us in the league and win less trophies than we do. Win win.

I haven't looked for a while, but last time I did a search most of the good stuff that could be used for comparison is only available to paid subscriptions - which aren't cheap. There might some basic stuff available from the betting sites.