weeyin

All that means is O'Brien was a cheaper option after Barnsley were relegated.

For those wanting O'Brien back, in the last interview of his I saw on telly he said that it was McCourt that was keeping him out of the team.

I don't think so - I think it's more about shaking fans out of their complacency. Not that it's anyone's fault, but the Board has done a great job off the park keeping things running close to budget and the team has performed relative miracles on the park under increasing financial constraints. As a result, it makes us all feel, to a greater or lesser extent, that everything is fine. In reality, we need to be continually looking at ways to boost finances. If nothing else, it might have given a kick up the arse to fans like me who intended to throw some more cash at the Well Society on an installment plan, but never quite got around to setting it up.

Unclear, but the gist of the Well Society email today seemed to be "no". Instead the Society would still be involved in the running of the club.

Total speculation and over-analysis of a throwaway phrase, but I took 'moderately' in excess of 5 figures to be between 100 - 150k.

And track back.

They have set up payment plans recently that mirror that idea. However, I believe at the time of launch the legal advice they were given was that, due to the financial regulations surrounding a Trust, payment plans were not allowed.

Count me in for 20 quid.

It's hardly doomed to failure given that it has already been a success, allowing the club to borrow funds from the pool when it was needed. Even if we don't raise another penny, having that line of credit available to club of our size is pretty important. It might not be as large a pool as we hoped, but that is mostly down to the lack of business investors rather than individuals. From what I understand, the Board and the Society are working on ways to address that include offering businesses alternatives to 'Well Society investment. I think we should have been pursing that approach anyway, in parallel to the Society. Derek Weir talked to this point at the last Society meeting.

Snatched from the Skrill Conference. That will please all those that didn't want to touch First Division players. He's got a much better haircut than his brother.

I thought McCall was joking when he said that, in response to the fact he had just found out it was Reid that scored the winner. I think the contract discussions take a wee bit longer.

I wonder if we'll use some of the freed up cash to play Dom Thomas. He seems to be the creative spark in the U20s, but the fee we owe Celtic might have prevented his appearance in the first team.

I don't think so. It was pre-split when McCall said in an interview that they would be taking the new approach so he had a firm idea of his squad as early as possible.

Probably end up somewhere in the sunshine to help the new turf on on his heid grow a bit quicker.

Seems like McCall's strategy of earlier contract offers (and terminations) and hard deadlines for responses this season is up and running.

Aye, given our financial constraints and small squad size, Faddy definitely falls under the "luxury" category.

Accies if they are promoted.

Aye, it's sad that the football on NBC often has better analysis than MotD. However, it still has a long way to go to match the 'home' sports where they spend hours breaking down everything to the smallest detail and generally treat their audiences as adults.

All Doncaster has been doing is waiting for Rangers to return to the top flight. Even if that is the case, a creative businessman could have structured some kind of deal with escalating payments year on year or similar so that the value of the final year could set a baseline for future contracts.

The English lower non-leagues even have sponsorship, so for us to have none is pathetic.

Guys like McCall talk up our game far more than Doncaster. I can't see how the top tier think he is doing a good job, but I can see how the lower tiers are fine with it as they have probably seen some benefit from the new structure and financing.

TBF, the first 2 on that list had the talent - unfortunately, they are complete bangers (even by footballing IQ standards).

I'm no Doncaster fan, but to be fair he had some sucess with Norwich. However, I'm afraid he came north with a fairly typical (or stereotypical) English view of the Scottish game as being diddy, where only the OF were important. We really needed an evangelist, but we ended up with an apologist.

MBA, solicitor, Chief Exec at Norwich when they were promoted to the EPL and board member of the FA and the Football League.

Is that a real 6ft or a "height for the official stats" 6ft that keepers have been known to tell porkies about.