weeyin

Makes sense. The press release about Mazinga sounds like we were going to sign him a short while ago (before the chat about a first team starter), but there was a minor fitness issue that needed to be addressed by our physio.

Audio only. (MFC TV uses the live broadcast feed from BT Sport or the BBC that is being sent back to the studio - so we only get to see video when one of those companies is at the game).

"How do you spell your name?" - "C-a-d-d-e-n" "Is that a-n?" "No, e-n" "a?" "No, e" "Have you met the Queen?"

I'm still fighting the language barrier here.

It's nothing to do with the overseas players coming in. It's to do with the domestic talent that's being developed. Until 2019, the MLS teams didn't operate under any of the FIFA training/development compensation rules. As their local talent improved, and the quality of their academies improved, they started losing youngsters to overseas clubs and were receving nothing in the way of compensation. So in 2019, they decided that maybe this FIFA compensation idea was a good one and the clubs signed up for it. I think that's a pretty good indicator that the talent level improving. In the last 20+ years I have lived here, the standard has definitely improved and the number of people with an interest in the game has noticably increased amongst the people I know. It's still not Tier 1 level, but it's easily as good as League 1 that Cadden will be playing in next season. And while the US International team has an arguably easier route to qualify for the World Cup, they have performed much better there than our international team.

Johnson has been a bit unlucky. He obviously has an eye for goal, but our chosen formation never really suited him and he is never going to be a hard working, target man. I think a move is best for both parties (and we still have his opener against Rangers and closer against Celtic to look back on). Reading the press release about Mazinga, is does sound like he's not the first choice forward Robinson had talked about - of course, we might not be able to find one of those during the window.

We signed Willie Pettigrew from East Kilbride Thistle (a team he joined because he wasn't deemed good enough in a brief spell at Hibs).

Good teams will be. That's why scouts from the big clubs turn up all over the place just to keep an eye on things (and why we lose teenagers to clubs down south).

Us and every team on the planet.

Maybe he's decided it will be Scott.

The internet scouting gurus are out in full force, I see.

Lafferty bullet dodged.

If he isn't going to play there yet, it would be more trouble (and expense) than it's worth to arrange the correct business visa to fly over, sign a contract and fly back.

If nothing else, he'll be a fine addition to the long list of "Players Whose Names Our Fans Can't Spell"

We get a mention in an article in The Guardian today about the pros and cons of shirt sponsorship, gambling companies and iconic shirts of the past.

While I'm no big fan of the MLS it's certainly no worse than going to play for a mid-table League One side these days. And it's certainly easier to make a move like that when you're young and have no ties than when you're older and married with kids (much more complicated than a move to pre-Brexit EU countries). If he was planning on seeing out his entire career there, it would be a different story. Not sure I'd really want to go and live in Ohio, right enough. Columbus is an OK city, but there's not much else round those parts.

I think Ariyibi must have left him a DVD of his set piece technique. Semple's set pieces are usually OK, but I expect he'll be more a fringe player this season.

His average in the SPL is about 7 goals a season. He might be a decent target man, but not prolific scorer in our league. I'm hoping we are bringing in another player under the radar that is more of a 15 goals a season kind of striker.

What about teams (like Celtic) that bring in players (like Lewis Morgan) and then loan them out (first back to the selling club and then to Sunderland)? Or Liverpool, that loan out a player to Rangers to let them avoid paying a fee? Clubs do this all the time - the only difference here is the US connection where they are trying to make out they are Category 3 or 4 clubs. I'd also still like to hear how Columbus benefit from this. It seems a lot of hassle if all Oxford do is split the difference in the 2 potential fees, and they'd be crazy to do it for nothing. Plus it still feels like one of those situations where the tax man taxes Oxford on the value of the benefit they receive rather than on the cost of the deal. Anyway, I'll let the smart lawyers figure this one out. We might end up with a "Cadden" the same way we ended up with a "Bosman".

We got Porter for free, though, because it was cross border when, at the time, a move to an English team would have netted a transfer fee. Still legal though - and until proved otherwise, Oxford's move is legal too.

And Porter, I think. Cadden is a poster boy for our academy and we should be pointing that out has often as possible. 115 first team appearances. 12 Scotland U21 caps and 2 Senior caps plus the cup finals. And still only 22 years old. Instead, we get the usual "he's not that good" patter soon to be followed by the "why do we never get as much money for our youngsters" patter, without a hint of irony.

He doesn't really fall under the "someone we can improve and sell on" category.

Arsenal are famous for not chucking money around - but if they could have had Tierney for £3.5 million before preventative knee surgery, I'm pretty sure they would have taken him. But that is why I said we need to agree to disagree. Anyway, it's all moot as I fully expect DT to be in Celtic Hoops by the end of the season,

On a slightly different note, I thought it was massively unfair when Celtic signed Lewis Morgan in January and loaned him back to St Mirren where he was instrumental in securing their promotion. Seemed like St Mirren played the system there too (in a different, but significantly advantageous way). That barely raised an eyebrow in most quarters, so I'm not hopeful the Scottish authorities will back us in this one.

If Hastie gets loaned out to Falkirk for the season, nobody would bat an eyelid. It's the MLS component that makes this complicated, as they only started training compensation this year and tend to operate outside of FIFA rules when it comes to player transfers etc. So I suspect any legal battles will need to go all the way to the top, and likely take a while.