Kmcalpin

For Erwin's own long term benefit, not the club's, he would have been better to stay another year and develop. Short term gain long term loss career wise I'd say.

I don't even know if they fully own the stadium. They poured money in to the playing side in the late nineties to the detriment of a badly needed new stadium and ran up huge debts. These were paid off when Brockville was sold and there was about £2/3 million left over. Their new stadium was funded in large part by the Council who still own parts of it in a complicated arrangement. The South Stand was funded by a wealthy philanthropic supporter. I would guess that the stadium as is cost around £7-8 million with the football club contributing about 30% of that. Given that I can't see a 4th stand being built any time soon unless another schuhder daddy pops up.

Yes, it was. I suspect that the extent of the Grangemouth Blast Zone has contracted but it was most certainly a problem at one time. I'm not a great fan of Falkirk's stadium to be honest with its corner gaps.

I don't agree with a lot of your post but you are right about this. The current standard of football isn't the best but its better than quite a few Well teams I've watched in the past. In years gone by there was less competition from other activities and fans habitually turned up and were entertained, although they weren't always satisfied with the results. However for many now the yardstick is the English Premiership and perhaps top European football. Anything less is sub standard. We're being brainwashed by the media and wall to wall coverage of top English games. Its just not realistic.

This is situation is always a dilemma for the selling club. Should we have let Scott MacDonald go last week (if rumours are to be believed)? Presumably Frear did sign a legally binding contract. But yes, all this has to be balanced against keeping an unhappy player. If he takes the huff that might dissuade other clubs from pursuing their interest in him.

Cheers Iain

There must be an element of competition and scoring inherent in the proposals surely? What if say 18 academies meet the qualifying criteria? As Superward and the good Captain say however, the devil will be in the detail. We as fans, don't know the detail behind the headlines. If the proposal is put to a vote no doubt there will be the traditional SFA/SPFL horse trading and backroom deals with other totally unrelated issues being dragged into the negotiations. It would be interesting to get Alan Burrows' interpretation of the "revised" proposals. Does anyone know the full list of academies in the current 29 club set up? Can't seem to find it anywhere.

It now seems that the proposal on the table is a reduction from 29 to a maximum of 16 academies.

Congratulations Jay.

Good post. I agree with your conclusion about us being masters of our downfall. Our shaky defence is only part of the problem. If you are going to defend for long spells you have to have a very solid and mobile midfield to shield the defence. We've seen some good teams come to Fir Park and defend for very long spells successfully. They defended 40 yards out and we had to work damned hard to get the ball anywhere near the penalty box. Their keepers rarely saw the ball. Crosses really had to be earned. Thats what we're not good at. We really need to tighten up midfield first.

Visiting directors also receive half time hospitality.

A few reasonable and well argued defences of Mark McGhee's selection and tactics this morning. However the bottom line is it didn't work. I would hope a manager, after a defeat and maybe even after a win, would always admit he could done things better. As O'Neil wrote maybe his options were a bit limited and thats as may be. However Mark McGhee must know as most of us do, that when we sit back and try to defend we end up losing goals. That was always going to be the case on Saturday no matter how poor Rangers are (they are second in the league). He did have options - Ross MacLean could have selected; Ryan Bowman could have been used to partner Moult; Ainsworth could have been deployed on the left or right; Allan Campbell could have been used at some point to shore up a tiring and ineffective midfield. To me if a player isn't fit (apart from lack of stamina) then he shouldn't be on the bench. Now I'm not saying all or any of these would have worked, but they were options. If I was one of our players turning up for training yesterday, I might expect a bollocking or gentle ticking off (depending on who I was) but I would also expect my boss to say that he could have done things better and will work on it for Saturday coming. I just hope our players haven't heard Mark McGhee's interview - that would certainly demotivate some of them and wind up others in the wrong way.

Well hopefully, whoever is elected is one of those who could be contacted. Not sure about the post match boardroom hospitality debate but it is tradition for the home directors to entertain the away directors after a game. If this isn't done or the away party refuse to attend it usually hits the headlines.

Not sure what you're implying. Are you saying theres more to come or alternatively theres various versions of the story/rumour?

Rumours on the FPC site that MacDonald didn't train last week after taking umbrage at the club for blocking a move back to Australia. Just a rumour though.

I agree that that the Rangers player was given the time and space he wanted to fire over the cross but that was down to us defending too deeply and McHugh failing to close him down or hassle him in any way.

Any public news yet? Surely its been possible to contact all of the candidates by now?

Our season is far from over and we have plenty to play for but a plea to Mark McGhee - please don't play lads who are not fit and please set us up to compete and actually win the game.

I don't doubt that you're right Lobey, but who was meant to be our outball then? That makes Mark McGhee's team selection even more ludicrous.

I assume, given pre match comments, that he simply wasn't selected.

Pretty much my thoughts. It was not a game to play lads who were not fit (Cadden & MacDonald). I'd have gone 4-4-2 with Bowman or Ainsworth up front with Moult and MacLean wide right. Not perfect I admit. Also a case for playing Campbell along with McHugh with Clay/Lasley dropping out. The latter two seemed to be particularly out of their depth. So much for comments that after the break we had a fully fit squad! That really gets my goat. Two players definitely out and two not fit. At the end of the day we're out of the cup anyway (no surprise) with 2 players who may have jeopardised their recovery before a crucial league game. Not seen the goals yet but I'll be surprised if McManus alone is 100% culpable.

Spot on Allan. I don't go along along with the line that Rangers are rubbish. They're 18 points better off than us in the league and that tells its own story. Their players are quicker, better, fitter and more motivated than ours are...simples. Looking at our current squad, they do lack character and bottle and thats a huge disadvantage going into such a game as todays. I haven't seen any of the game yet but I'm fairly sure our midfield would have let us down. Players lacking pace, aggression and belief and perhaps being not being 100% fit in some cases. Irrespective of what Mark McGhee said to his players in the lead up to the game, his tactics said it all and the players are no mugs and would have picked up on that. You can't expect them to be up for a fight if the manager shows little belief in them. We were set up to stop Rangers and it just didn't work. In his time with us Mark McGhee's cup record is appalling and today was never going to change that. As we've said ad nauseum on these boards, if you defend deeply you'll always lose goals. Of more concern to me are Mark McGhee's post match comments...........how on earth is he going to motivate the players for next week in what is a far more important game for me? They are reminiscent of Maurice Malpas's doom laden and depressing post match interviews or Private Fraser's pessimistic outlook on life. Hopefully Mark McGhee will take Kilmarnock and Dundee's results to heart.....things could be worse. At least we have the comfort of a good pay day.

To be fair quite a few of our players could have played regularly during the break and it wouldn't make any difference to their lack of pace. Of our starting 11 only Cadden has any real pace.

Absolutely. Who is going to link up with Moulty? Lose the first goal and thats the plan out of the window.

Just as I feared a very cautious, defensive line up. Maybe only 2 or 3 offensive players at the most. I wouldn't be surprised if Moult hardly sees the ball or has to feed off long high balls. If Rangers can snub out Cadden thats our only viable attacking option nullified. Come on Mark its a cup tie!