Kmcalpin

I don't know either Greg but there are ways of dealing with unsettled players as we've done in the past.

Given that Carson has 2 1/2 years left on his contract I'd hope that we have some say in the matter. The bottom line is that he's contracted to us. Our support will be up in arms if our player and Celtic agree the deal and agree what fee has to be paid to us. Whilst our Directors have a duty of care to their employees, including players, their first priority should be the club. He will be difficult to replace at this stage in the window. If Celtic aren't prepared to offer a ridiculous fee then our club should say he goes nowhere.

Maybe, maybe, but we also had his services for a few months longer.

Absolutely. According to the Rancid, we've rejected the offer and rightly so.

He's worth a lot, lot more to us given that he's under contract for another 2 1/2 years. Say 2 or 3 league places a season which would equate to about £600-700k. Anything less they should be told to get lost.

That offer would be easy to turn down.

I agree with most of what you're saying, but things haven't evened themselves out for us over the past few seasons. That was never a free kick at Pittodrie and in any event we should have had a penalty in thel lead up to the goal. Nuff said though.

Did they also confirm whether or not we should have had a penalty?

Any sign of some midfielders departing?

Pretty much agree with that Minty. I'm not one to place too much store on precise statistics but the possession figure of 59/41 should show us that some improvement is required. Ok Hearts have a far larger budget than us and have always been a physical competitive team but some improvement in our ability to fight, battle and hold the ball wouldn't go amiss. To those of you who bemoan our lack of free flowing good football though I'd say that we're limited, to some extent by our budget. I thought that Robbo picked possibly the best starting line up he could have done yesterday. Who else in the squad would have added to our creativity? Bigi, who came on with 18 minutes to go or Ross MacLean who wasn't on the bench? No overall, I think Robbo and Keith and, of course, the players did their part in putting in a dogged well organised performance at what is a difficult venue. In short, we're doing ok but of course there's room for improvement.

The ball was definitely well over the line going by photo evidence earlier on this thread. Can't understand why anyone would question that.

No sign of Dom Thomas at Aberdeen. No harm to the lad but he doesn't seem to have set the heather on fire at Rugby Park.

Absolutely. Tanner was carrying an injury and may still be. We will need fresh options up front if and when Cifti and Main tire. Hearts will play a physical game and we have to match them. As Robbo says we have to win battles first before we can play football.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at Joe. I'm not critical of Robbo for punting Fisher, but hopefully it will make a difference to our season by freeing up a wage to enable us to bring someone else in. At least Robbo has accepted early on that Fisher wasn't a success and it was time to move him on. As for the wider pricture, Petravicius was signed as a long term prospect. Grimshaw looked good in his first spell with us and it wasn't unrerasonable to sign him again...on a one year deal. Plummer and Griffiths haven't worked out I grant you but all managers make their mistakes in the transfer market and Robbo is no worse than many of his predecessors. At least he's proved willing and able to move failures on quickly.

I think it was a left wing/full back.

I wouldn't go quite that far but yes I don't quite understand the number of posts calling for Dunne to be dropped. As with Andy Rose, Robbo must be selecting him for a reason. Why would he select a player if he didn't think he was the best for that position or for the team? Yes he has his faults ie his distribution but he is fast and is a good defender.

Thats the big question for me. Tanner is not an out and out striker, neither is MacLean; and Sid is a winger.

I was thinking along the same lines, although it didn't occur to me that we might have found a taker for him. When the team lines were announced I thought we were a striker short and wondered what would happen if Cifti or Main had to go off early or even if they tired, as they did. If we'd been trailing Ross County with say 15 minutes to go we could not have put on another striker. Fisher might just have been injured or ill of course but his absence hasn't been mentioned anywhere.

No he's now served his 2 game ban.

I plumped for him too. I think he's better than either and he'll only get better. He also cleared a net bound header off our line.

Those tactics were effective enough to win us the game, although I admit we played the ball in the air too much. Agree about Cifti and Tanner and indeed Main. As Robbo says though before you can play football you have to battle to win the ball. Its hard to score if you don't have the ball. Our tactics will change against better teams, but we are limited by the players we have.

My view too. Given the players we have and our budget we're not going to play flowing open football anytime soon. The important thing last night was that we won and halted the pre break slide in the process. Look round about us and which teams outwith the big city clubs can win consistently and play good football at the same time? Last night we won because we didn't make any critical errors and produced a fine footballing move which we finished off. Ross County didn't do either. Our failure to do exactly this before the break is the reason we lost so many points. Last night was never going to be a classic given the weather and our opponents style of play. I was quaking in my shoes when I saw the size of the Ross County team and I wasn't playing. Owen Coyle obviously likes very big physical teams. 8 of their players last night were 6 foot or over with 4 of them being 6-3 or over. That instantly tells you a lot about how they'd play and how we'd play. Over the 95 minutes (where did the 5 come from???) they outfought and outcompeted us. They had the bulk of the pressure but didn't look dangerous apart from high balls. It took us all of the first 8 minutes before we could get out of our own half. I felt sorry for the likes of McHugh and Campbell who simply struggled to compete against guys far bigger and heavier. As a team we played well and importantly, solidly. Cifti and Main are linking up well, with the latter looking to be a find. Tanner had a reasonable game but suffered from our tactics. Cadden stuck to his task well, despite not being fully fit, and snuffed out Gardyne, who has been a thorn in our flesh in the past. The last thing we wanted last night was him pinging cross after cross into our box. The defence looks good with Kipre and Aldred doing well. I liked Aldred's attitude when he went off. We got our tactics, which were geared to nullifying County's strengths, just about right. My only concern was that at times we played too much in the air and that was never going to be successful. Maybe Soutar's late signing caught us out; it certainly caught out McCarey! One final gripe was Kevin Clancy. From start to finish he was overly picky and totally inconsistent.

My thoughts exactly Allan.

Its ok it wasn't on the BBC.

I suspect the video will have taken a good bit of time to organise and shoot. Well done to our media team.