Kmcalpin

How much are we short of sponsoring a third player Iain?

Come on folks - this Board has several thousand members. I know the vast majority of you are lurkers but surely a few of you could donate £5.00?

There is also the raffle, which I forgot to mention. This is due to be drawn in August........which reminds me I'd better start selling tickets.

They have. There was a bucket collection at the St Johnstone game and a quiz night was held on 9 May. In terms of overall fund raising, Welldaft has hit the nail on the head, as he often does. To quote him " Hearts got 8000 fans to sign up for their appeal. But that was because their club was going bust. We sign up less than 1000 because we did not appear under any real financial threat or pressure." I'm confident that if we are in real trouble our fans will respond.

Good to see us sign an attacking central midfielder. Welcome on board Josh. My only question is how he will fit in with the existing central midfielders. Encouraging though.

Think the sell on figure was about 15% Jim. Don't know that the situation was purely about money, as some sections of the media have suggested. Of course money comes in to it and had Stuart McCall wanted to keep him as a priority I'm sure we would have done so. However probably his injury situation and performances were also important factors.

In June / July you could be looking at 42 degrees C in somewhere like Mostar. That's hot.

Sad of course but I'm with others in that its the right decision. Good luck to him wherever he ends up. Stuart McCall has a limited budget and he obviously feels the money can be put to better effect in another part of the team. He will know what personnel changes he wishes to make for the coming campaign.

£20 from me Iain.

A good idea and one which I back. The devil is in the detail however. How would the £75 be split, given that some clubs charge more than others for entry? MFC raised this idea several years ago and discussed it with other SPL clubs. One or two agreed (Kilmarnock and Dunfermline come to mind) but many opposed it - mainly the city clubs. The issue would be trying to get agreement between club representatives. In the SPL that was virtually impossible, with bickering, squabbling and the usual horse trading going on.

Ditto. An intriguing encounter. Hopefully both clubs will have gained financially from the play off games. Of course we can't just sit and wait for the English bubble to burst. I think that will happen anyway but the Scottish game has to be proactive and come up with progressive initiatives to boost the game north of the border. Pricing, media coverage and facilities all need to be looked at.

My feelings exactly. Its been decades now since Scottish teams could compete with the best in Europe. I don't ever recall Well competing with the best in Europe to be honest. The current rich V poor situation is all down to media hype, overexposure and brainwashing. How often do folk want to watch Barcelona V Manchester United or Chelsea V Barcelona? The same goes for the EPL. Eventually the game will return to its roots and fans will have more realistic expectations and the game as a whole will benefit.

Well it was your good self that raised the issues of the terrible standard of football and lack of competition for the league title. I was merely responding to the points you yourself raised.

You obviously never watched Scottish football in the mid / late 60s. When was the last time we had 3 or more teams challenging for the league title?

I don't agree with you about Lee Hollis, but do on the other points you make. Good post. I was prepared to give Lee a chance but he has never inspired me with confidence. Even at Pittodrie last Sunday he looked very shaky at times, although fortunately nothing came of his errors. His distribution in the first part of the game, culminating in that throw out directly to an Aberdeen player meant that my heart was in my mouth. That could easily have resulted in the loss of an early goal and our game plan would have been blown before it had hardly started. Your take on the goalkeeping situation is probably right. I'd be surprised if Stuart McCall doesn't retain Gunnar as back up and brings in a new keeper.

When Stephen McManus re-signed earlier in the week, Stuart McCall mentioned that he expected to see some other out of contract players do likewise in the coming days. No news yet but I hope we hear soon. When that happens it should clear some of the current clouds of uncertainty and clarify exactly who is stalling or moving on. Then SM & KB can move to target any players on their list. This year I'd like to see a reasonably settled squad in time for Euro preparations.

Like many of you I don't like the power that the TV companies wield over football or the distribution of their cash, which I think has only served to damage the game by inflating the vastly bloated and obscene monster that is the English Premiership. However I don't blame the TV companies as they are doing the best they can for their owners and shareholders. The bottom line however is that the interests of their owners may not coincide with the interests of football outwith the EPL. I've said before and I'll say again if fans don't like the situation then they should unsubscribe from the TV packages. Hit these companies where it hurts - in their accounts. They might be pouring cash into the likes of Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal et al but it won't be my cash. I rarely watch EPL matches and go out of my way to avoid them. Years ago Scots fans would be happy to watch their local senior side and perhaps local junior/juvenile teams but this is becoming increasingly rare. Expectations have risen enormously since the late 70s and we frequently read about our team and other Scots sides being rubbish. Rubbish compared to what? The EPL or La Liga? That's totally unrealistic! It saddened me to see two elderly gents (70+) dressed in Barcelona / Arsenal tops discussing the merits of reserve players of those two clubs who I've never heard of. If these two daft old duffers can't see sense what chance have younger fans got? Me? I'll stick to following the Well and local clubs. That's where the future of football lies. We have to go back to our roots. The EPL is totally unsustainable and I'll be delighted when it rots.

In part you're right. Firstly a decent goalkeeper would add some stability to our defence. We have been guilty of losing too many goals at set pieces despite having two big guys in the middle - why is this? We do seem to suffer from lack of organisation at the back though - too many needless corners conceded. On too many occasions our central midfield has failed to protect the defence. Is this down to the mix of players there? We certainly suffer from a lack of pace there as we witnessed at Tannadice. SM also likes to pull our two full backs into the middle when we're under the cosh and this gives opposing wide players a bit more scope to do what they want. Why is this? In terms of our defence, something somewhere is not right. It might be that we have good players at the back but that some don't play well together - this can happen. Anyhows, it should be a priority to sort out our "defence", however that is defined, for next season.

Does anyone have comparable figures for the English First and Second Divisions? From what I can glean they are way in excess of our own SPFL.

Great post Goggles. Given that we will want to avoid the possibility of a large turnover of players in 2015, I hope we can start tying up players that SM wants to retain on longer deals this summer. That would minimise any disruption. Does anyone know Jack Leitch's contract position?

Glad they enjoyed themselves. Well done Iain for starting to kick things off for the new campaign. Count me in when you organise it.

An educated guess / informed opinion.

Lee Hollis, Hutchy and Ainsworth all certain to move on. Cummins, McHugh and Faddy??? Hopefully Craig Reid will agree to join permanently. Not sure what SM will think of his central defensive options ie whether he'll want to replace Hutchy or not. Lee Erwin - will he make the step up in Craig Moore's absence? All a wee bit uncertain at the moment. We do need pace in the side and to shore up our defensive play. For starters I'd say we'll at least bring in a new winger and goalie.

A good bit of business that will hopefully herald others to do the same. We do need a settled squad with perhaps some adjustments here and there to address weaknesses.

That was my reaction at the time too. I've seen so many near things in years gone by and was nervy he'd some spot kind of infringement, but he didn't and the rest is history.