David

Obviously it's early doors, but I get the distinct impression that the majority of our new signings will turn out to be nothing more than average at best, with most of them eventually moving on without making much of an impression here. A bit like last season. I've said it before, but I thought we were supposed to be concentrating on bringing through players we've developed or lads that we've signed at a young age? Of the guys we've brought in I can understand the signing of a 22 year old in Ben Heneghan & Carl McHugh who seems like a good young prospect, but the likes of Tait, Clay and Blyth seem like signings who aren't really making much sense. Is Blyth really that much better than Craig Moore? When we send young players away on loan we always hear about how it's to give them game time and allow them to prove themselves, don't we? Didn't Moore play something like 25 games and score 14 goals or something for Ayr? What more can the guy do to prove himself? He goes away and plays regularly whilst scoring goals and gets sent on loan again? I'd rather we employed a system where rather than bringing in guys in their mid 20's and older from the lower leagues of England we instead concentrated on bringing in one or two really good prospects who the manager deems first-team ready, and also concentrate on picking up exciting young prospects in their early & mid-teens that we can put into the youth system for a few years before drafting them into the senior side. This policy of signing the players we have this summer and last season isn't going to work in the long term I don't think.

Well, I suspected we'd get hammered and we did. It didn't help matters that McGhee set us up to defend, which usually ends in one way unfortunately.

Let's make sure it is, eh? This taxi chat is getting tedious, and it's clogging up the thread. If anyone else wants to discuss it then maybe best to do so via PM.

They not improved now they brought in Toure? I've not seen them on the telly yet, but reports are that Ambrose is a memory and Toure is shoring things up? I hope i'm wrong, of course.

I can see us losing this one quite handily to be honest. A shame that it looks as though our league cup run is coming to an end so soon.

The contrast is startling to be honest. No warnings or repercussions for either club.

This is his fourth move since leaving us mate, I very much doubt it.

Game over. I'm not sure why, but that performance doesn't really get me excited for the new season.

This Rangers mob are pish. We should be 2 or 3 up by now.

Chalmers? Fucking hell. It's a new season, a fresh start and all that I guess. Hopefully he surprises us all.

I never knew that. What did he say was the reason behind him not going?

Did he actually say that?

Despite him being able to come away relatively unscathed, I hold that honour for "sir" David Murray. That cunt cheated his way to a number of titles and fucked over the rest of us in the process, so I'm gonna say he's worse than some tobacco-chewing twat with anger issues.

The options up top look pretty decent now, and it'll be interesting to see if Moore has it in him to push for a starting slot. If not, hopefully he's a useful option from the bench.

mate, I'd happily staple my head to the living room carpet if stopped you moaning like fuck.

So, two games this weekend then. Anyone heard anything about what kind of lineups we can expect over the two days?

Not quite the tooth fairy, but we're going to see a bit more money from the end of next season I think from a new TV deal. The shortfall was always going to be from now until that point, and any money we bring in from the Pearson move, possibly the Leitch move and the Ben Hall move will help to bridge that gap and will allow us to extend the contracts we've extended, as well as bring back McDonald (surprised he would want to come back right enough, considering we "reneged" on his contract) and sign the players we've signed. Everything seems to be ticking along reasonably well though from what I've seen, so I'm not sure why you're losing your shit on a regular basis.

He'll make more money in India most likely, and we're getting a fee for him. Given how the coming years finances have been described we're probably just happy to get something in the bank.

This the same Ben Heneghan who was supposedly drawing interest from the likes of Blackburn, Hull, Burnley & Brighton earlier this year? Not too shabby a piece of business.

So, after all the retweets and suchlike did any of our out of contract players actually attend that out of contract players thing in Airdrie or wherever it was?

We can only really go on our own experiences, and as someone who's experienced how fans are treated in US sports stadiums and also in Scottish football stadiums, I know where I feel I was treated better.

I'm not talking about the pricing, i'm talking about the general experience. I've also been on holiday in the US and been to sporting events. The way you're treated is miles apart from how you're treated at a Scottish football game. In fact, the way you're treated at a football game in Spain, for example, is miles apart from how you're treated here. Sometimes I actually wonder if the people running our game are deliberately trying to turn fans off to it.

Yeah, but the US sports teams treat their fans as paying customers, not over-loyal mugs.

Until then we'll continue pouring money into getting all of the season books printed and assembled every year. Makes sense.

Lasley.