Kmcalpin

You're obviously a lot older than I thought.

I don't get your point. Our playing budget allowed us to land Irvine on a higher salary than we offered or allowed us to offer him a lower salary and sign another striker. Talks with Irvine were at an advanced stage when Ross County offered him more and we then lost out as Mr Baraclough wanted to sign the additional striker rather than offer Irvine more.

Theo Robinson.

The defenders arm was in an "unnatural position" which is a yardstick for making a penalty decision. Given some of the penalties we've conceded in the past few seasons it was a stick on penalty.

From what I heard, the money which would have helped land Irvine was shelled out on another striker who subsequently flopped. We could not afford both.

Iain - what is the current position? If there is an odd amount leftover what about donating that to the Society as it would be matched by Les and therefore have double the benefit? Just a suggestion and contributors would have to be happy about it.

The broadcasters be it producers, commentators or pundits wield immense power in these situations. The SFA's Compliance officer and his staff put great store on what is highlighted during games. I too would have thought that this incident would have merited much more attention. Its not been a great start to the season for us in refereeing terms has it? A cast iron penalty turned down against Rangers; an erroneous red card and penalty awarded against us in Perth; and a cast iron penalty claim turned down and possibly legit goal chalked off on Saturday. All in our first 4 league games. Thats quite some going.

I'm not disagreeing with you. Presumably though in the case of Richard Gordon and Willie Miller banging on and on and on about why we should have sold Louis Moult to Aberdeen that would have been the producer's suggestion?

Yes this is shaping up to be my kind of team. We'll still get bullied physically but only by the top teams. Apart from height, power and fitness I like see a bit of decent football too. The two are by no means mutually exclusive.

What language is that written in?

A tad harshly put but probably true. He's a real trier and decent at crosses as you say but certainly lacks pace and far from the best defender in the world. Since Robbo took over the reins I've often wondered if Tait is his kind of player.

If Tait is struggling and Cadden leaves we'll be short at RB.

He's not floundered once this season.

I've rarely seen a centre back play for us with the same qualities as Kipper has. Big, powerful, accomplished and a decent footballer. He has a lot to learn yet but he's looking very promising.

I see McHugh and Campbell as being basically the same kind of player ie defensive/holding central midfielders although their personal qualities are slightly different. Do we really want to play 2 defensive central midfielders in the same 11? Ok maybe in some particular games but not week in week out. A midfield needs to be a balance of skills and types. I'm not sure about Rose but he is a different type of player to Campbell and McHugh.

Good post Greg. As of today we have short term options (Moult, Fisher, and Bowman); and possibly long term options (Hastie, Falconer etc) but no medium term options. The likes of Newell and Petravicius provide some succession planning. Our problem is if Bowman or Moult depart late in the window. They're different types of striker. if Moult goes we will need to repalce him with a goalscoorer. I'm not convinced that Bowman is an out and out goalscorer.

Much the same view as me. Alex MacDonald was a domestic version of Alex Ferguson. There are only 2 rules in football 1) Just do it and 2) Don't get caught. Hearts have always been a physical side but then again so have most of our biggest clubs.

Yes of course it would be. A tidy sum.

I'd heard 25% sell on. If true that would net us £400,000.

I don't know but is it possible he's looking scunnered because he's being asked to play in a role ie a lone striker, to which he's just not suited? If true, any scout watching him just now will know that.

So, what you're saying is that although he's played there in the past, his position is central midfield. I've not seen a lot of him so I'll defer to you on that. That being the case we only have one out and out winger in the first team squad.

After Saturday's game I'm wondering how many first team squad wingers we have? It seems to me that we have one who Robbo trusts - ie Frear. We seem to have a few last season but only one this season. He doesn't sem to think MacLean is quite ready yet, and Jake Hastie won't be appearing on the bench in the next 6 months anyway. At the start of the season I assumed Frear would be first pick, which he is; MacLean would be starting the odd game or two with some sub appearances thrown in; and Hastie would make the bench occasionally. Still, in Robbo we trust.

Does anyone know the 50/50 draw numbers from Saturday?

Saints were prepared to push the boat out fnancially for 2 players; O'Halloran and Scougall.

Absolutely. Yesterday in the first half we had too many square pegs in round holes; unnecessarily so. A touch of the Craig Brown syndrome where you play your 11 "best" players irrespective of their correct positions. Whilst I thought Tait had a very poor first half, in fairness for most of the 45 minutes he had no-one in front of him for protection. Louis Moult suffered from lack of support and was frequently left isolated or ended up behind his midfield when we were on the attack instead of being in the opposition penalty box. Fisher is clearly no wide left midfielder and his role reminded me of John Sutton's under Craig Brown. We were crying out for width and MacLean could have provided that. Pre match I wondered who was going to play in the tough holding midfielder role as there was no-one obvious on the team sheet. I worried that Ross County would steamroller us in the middle of the pitch and thats just what happened. Thats a role, for which, young Campbell is tailor made and he showed that when he appeared after the break. Finally a word on the referee. Again a poor show but fortunately no huge game changing errors. Totally inconsistent as was the POD stand side linesman. I still can't fathom out why Heneghan was yellow carded, unless I've missed something obvious. A hard barge from behind but just the sort of challenge you see every week sometimes punished sometimes not. I must find out from where the 4th official bought his watch as I certainly want to avoid that brand and shop.