Kmcalpin

Very vague statement by the club. Celtic will be treating him, yes, but has his loan been cancelled? If he's out for 2 months say he'll return sometime in April; if out for 3 months it'll be May. When he returns he'll be far from match fit. Stevie Frail has just clarified that Monty is still on loan with us. Situation seems odd. Are we still contributing to his wages? Unless recovery time is overestimated, how much more game time will he get with us?

Very vague and it tells us virtually nothing.

Aye, its time to lay off MJC and Steelboy. Everyone is different and there are extreme pessimists and extreme optimists in our support, and all shades of opinion in between. I often disagree with them both but at times they both write a lot of sense. Please don't throw the baby out with the bathwater folks. Lets get back on topic - by all accounts theres plenty of activity due later to occupy us.

Welcome Jack. Now we need an experienced striker a LWB and a central defender. A very tall order.

Eh? How many do they need? According to their offiicial site, they already have 8 (first team squad 27 players in total). As far as Brophy goes, does Derek Adams just want shot of him or will he rail at the player signing for a very close rival?

I'm very wary of anything the Scotsman writes about Hertz or Hibs. I recall a few years ago when Hearts were about £22m in debt and an article in said publication painted a very rosy picture of this debt situation. On reading it, I was almost going to ring Fir Park to plead with the powers that be to also run a £20m+ debt. What a great idea! If Hearts could do it why couldn't we? Then reality kicked in and I never did ring.

Absolutely. It smacks of the Dundee United situation some years ago, when some "philanthropic" fans gave United several million pounds out of the goodness of their hearts with no strings attached. Their fans vigourously, no in fact aggressively, rebutted criticism or scepticism from others, who were making the very points you're making now. We all know that the s**t hit the fan when the truth came out later......these so called philanthropists took a hefty cut of some big transfer fees that came in. Guess what? The United fans went ballistic when the truth came out.

That's my understanding. It doesn't matter how good he is, he's no use to us sitting in the stands. Any signing is a risk of course, but we need to minimise that.

Almost but not quite as bad as us for sacking managers. At least they showed Robson some patience.

Whoever we do bring in, its vital that they have a good injury free record. The last thing we need right now is more permacrocks. That doesn't guarantee, of course, that they won't get injured in their first training session.

Aye, and thats changing too. The days of cuddly wee junior clubs are well and truly over. Kelty Hearts and Bonnyrigg Rose anyone? Even the junior game has become much more professional and ruthless. Many of those teams are living well beyong their means.

Yes. Whats the next stage and there will be a next stage? The Dundees of the world will change their name to something like Burnley Scottish? What after that? Burnley become a feeder club for Manchester United and so on. An interesting footnote: Burnley's population is roughly half that of Dundee's.

Agreed. However, maybe a reduced offer is more realistic and reflects what he's worth? All pure conjecture of course. What we don't know we make up.

Agreed Sir.

Yes it is Grizzly. Couldn't have been better. Now it's up to us.

I'll go for Stevie Hammell.

I suspect that its a % of any profit over and above the base fee.

I'd say 2 strikers as an absolute minimum. Bair + one other is far too tight with our injury record. Maybe a LWB depending on Monty's situation, and a centre back?

I have no idea of respective wage levels in Paisley and at FP, but St Mirren do seem to have cash to burn just now, and wherever its coming from its not their gates.

P &B Rumour: Blair Spittal offered a PCA with St Mirren

Aitchison scored for Exeter.

Some, but not very many, would take issue with that. Part of the problem, and I'm not blaming him, is that Liam Kelly isn't good in the air. That means that his central defenders must compensate for him, which they cannot do. It doesn't help also that we're weak defensively on the flanks. As far as Saturday is concerned, it's hard to predict any outcome, as we may well see new faces arriving. Killie will score but we can score more; but will we?

The next few days could well go along way in defining our season. We need to bring in 2 strikers and maybe another defender. Easier said than done at this time of year to get the right men.

I get what you're saying about Spittal's positioning, but Considine is clearly nearer the line than our number 7. I can only assume that the VAR camera's positioning is not quite perfect or human error is responsible.

I thought the referee's performance and St Johnstone's antics warranted a separate post. Colin Steven was never in control of the game and quite bluntly St Johnstone took the p**s. He was too easily conned and made a constant stream of inconsistent and erroneous calls. How Phillips wasn't sent off I'll never know. The incident near the end when he went down injured, told to get up and go off and then fell down a yard or two from the touch line! Farcical. Craig Levein's influence all over that! Am I right in thinking too that players are not allowed to harangue the referee during the VAR process? Not completely one sided though as Butcher should have been carded. He spoiled the game and made one serious wrong call that affected the result. St Johnstone were as we thought they would be....cynical streetwise and physical. Gamesmanship started even before kick off. The piutch was bumpy and heavy. Why then heavily water our goal (the lowest part of the pitch and where water drains to btw) before 3pm? This sort of practice should be stopped by the SFA. Also one of the more eagle eyed members of our group spotted a wheeze with the ball boys several times. The ball goes out of play for a throw in; ballboy A collects it and passes it to ballboy B 10 yards further up the pitch who then throws/places the ball on the pitch for the St Johnstone player to take the throw in thereby sneakily gaining 10 yards. Rant over.