Kmcalpin

Aye, the archetypal midfield playmaker. When he was on his game, which was more often than not, he made the team tick.

You must be of the same era as me. I first saw Pat play in 1959/60ish. He was very talented and a great passer of the ball. Very sad news.

Surprised but quite pleased with this announcement. It gives us some continuity and something different to Watt and White. Its essential to have a mix of striking types.

On the assumption that we aren't allowed crowds back into Fir Park until January, then here's a back of a fag packet calculation. We miss 2 "Old Frm" home games and perhaps lose gate income from 16,200 fans in total. Say they pay an average of £16 per game that brings in £259K gross. Deduct VAT and that gives us a net loss of about £207K plus extras like catering and hospitality. A bit of a hit yes but not catastrophic.

My thoughts too.

A wise decision. Alan Burrows also makes mention of spending more time on our medium to long term projects, which can only be good for our club.

We’re all just speculating now. The club will know the figures very well and I doubt if they’d shoot themselves in the foot needlessly. Would there be some benefit to this kind of deal to save on VAT?

Sorry, I was referring to our home game against Hibs. It would be nice to watch it on TV without having to pay Sky. Hopefully we can a pay a one off fee to some party (I'd much rather it was Ross County) for the game in Dingwall. On another tack, I assume our away game to Celtic on 29 August will be rescheduled?

Suggestion on P & B that we could come to some arrangement with Wigan over Kipre's sell onfee if thats possible. Seems a sensible suggestion.

Hopefully season ticket holders who don't or won't subscribe to Sky will get access to this game?

Absolutely. Going back to our spell in Administration, big Terry had the final say about who was transferred and who wasn't from a football perspective. However the administrators decided what fee was acceptable for any leavers. Dundee United offered "to help us out" by tabling an offer for Stuart Elliot which was about 10% of the fee we eventually received from Hull City. United were told where to go in no uncertain terms. Kipre is worth more than £1m.

This. A lot is going to depend on the formation we play. I'm no tactician, far from it, but I wouldn't class the likes of Hylton and Hastie (and Seedorf) as strikers, more wide midfielders. I believe we're still looking for another striker to complete the jigsaw. One of our attacking problems last term (yes we did finish 3rd), was that the lone striker was too isolated from the wingers and central midfielders.

Seems fairly clear now that there's more to this story than meets the eye.

You'd think that, in their position, they'd be careful about spending money.

Interesting......

I don’t know about Jake Carroll but I’m confused about the lockdown guidelines. Plenty of shops and businesses are too.

Absolutely. Many fans have expressed disquiet because we can’t compete with the wages on offer down south. Now we know one of the reasons why. I’m happy with our approach.

Its not just footballers. I'm sure most of us could produce a list, the length of your arm if not longer, of those who have broken lockdown rules.

Should it be front page news?

Well, that would certainly split opinion. Maybe I'm wrong but he seemed to be less effective before he left. Was that because his mind was elsewhere or other teams had him sussed?

Yes. Was never 100% sure he’d stay until the official announcement was made. This will give us more continuity going forward and will help our preparations for the new season.

Maybe they want to pay £22 to help the club?

Thats ok if we have these young lads, but as far as I know we don't. We're ok in central defence with David Devine and Yusuf Hussain pushing on, likewise with central midfield with Dean Cornelius and Jamie Semple but thats it I think. It would be great to see these 4 young lads break through this coming season but they need game time, and I hope they get it. We seem to be light out wide (defensively and offensively) and up front just now.

Tabloid press is reporting that we've offered Robbo an improved deal to try and persuade him to stay.

According to Alan Burrows twitter (Captain Oats P & B) we're looking for another couple of players up front. Probably no surprise to most of us.