weeyin

Went to work. Sat at my desk and checked the text commentary on the BBC website. Went home and had my dinner. Feel free to remove the more controversial parts of this for publication.

It depends what exactly is in McGhee's contract. If it says he can only leave for a certain amount of compensation, then JB can hold out for that. If that isn't reached, and McGhee resigns, then JB would be able to sue him for breach of contract and get the money from McGhee directly. I think.

By today's standards, McLean had a fortune to play with in the transfer market during his time at the club.

Not forgetting Bobby Watson at Fir Park.

So basically you agree with me, as I'm sure you don't earn a player's respect by telling them to pass the ball to each other.

If that was true, why not just hire me for a quarter of the salary?

So putting 2 and 2 together, McCall is in negotiations with Partick. During the negotiations his agent leaks a story to the press (via Keevins) that he is being headhunted by an SPL team. Partick gives him an improved offer. Result.

Presumably the newspaper has to print the retraction rather than the individual as it's the newspaper that was being threatened with legal action.

The only proven track record he has though is his highest finish is 10th in Division 2.

I'm a man of many talents. One of which is plagiarizing meter from cult songs.

Aye, wee Tommy did a great job of developing his First Division winning team into one that challenged for the SPL title. On a small budget, he managed to slowly turn his 'safety-first' approach into a good footballing side with players like Cooper and Russell etc. He was a pretty shrewd tactician too - a bit like his crabbit big brother. It shows you what can be done with a small budget if you give a manager some time. Mind you, these days I can't see any boss sticking with us for 10 years.

In case anybody is interested, it's because you qualify for the play-off if you win one of mini-leagues that take place. So you can finish 17th, but if you have a good run over a 6 game period, you can still qualify for the play-offs. "The competition is divided into six periods (Dutch: periode) of six matches each. The winner of each period (Dutch: periodekampioen) qualifies for the playoffs at the end of the season. If the winner of a period has already won a prior period in the season, the second placed team in the period is awarded the playoff slot. If the second placed team has also won a prior period, no winner is called, and the playoff slot is decided by league standing at the end of the season." And I thought the split was too complicated

Probably means our shortlist only contains out-of-contract names - so no tapping required.

Good stuff. As my mate said after the '91 Cup Semi and Final - "I guess we're just a 4-goals-at-Hampden kinda team".

I can't remember who posted it, but they were saying they aren't too worried if we don't have new players in place for the start of European Tour. I tend to agree with that. I'm not too fussed if we don't have new faces the first week in July if we end up with 2 or 3 decent players in place by the start of the real season. I think in the current financial climate, there are going to be a lot more players available than club's needing them over the summer, so I'm not ready to panic yet.

Only worrying if we didn't sign any players ourselves.

I was working. Need to fund my gadgets somehow.

Bizzarely though, thanks to the weird way the Dutch league works, that 17th position has taken them to the playoffs, while the other spots in prior years did not. I haven't had time to research why.

I'm with you Eddie. He took over Telstar in 2005. I'm not sure when he left, but the club's league position since then has been: 2005/06 - 16th 2006/07 - 10th 2007/08 - 14th 2008/09 - 17th LIke I said in an earlier post, the hard stats are none too impressive. He would obviously come in on good terms with the fans, and might be successful with a passing game, but it sounds risky to me.

For all the mistakes JB has made over the years, it seems that he at least learns from some of them. After pumping a load of cash into the club and spending it in the wrong places, for example, he has managed to get the finances on an even keel. Similarly, with managers. He has tried a few approaches and his biggest mistake was Malpas (although there was some logic to that too). Credit to JB that for his next appointment he brought in experience with McGhee and had a lot more success. I'd be surprised if he didn't try to build on that approach and look forward to seeing the real shortlist when it's eventually leaked to the press! On a complete tangent, whatever happened to the Scottish press referring to a 'short leet' of managerial candidates? That was always the preferred phrase when I was a lad

Actually, there was an interview with Brown in one of the papers recently where he said he'd be happy to come out of retirement.

Read this in The Guardian today: I wonder if the Scottish footballing authorites were smart enough to insist on the shareholder guarantees.

There are more decent managers than there are jobs. Of course there are also more bad managers than there are jobs. As long as we go for one of the decent ones, I don't really care who it is. It's that simple

I wouldn't dismiss Nijholt out of hand, but according to Wiki, if you look at Telstar's league stats during his reign they are, at best, less than average.