parsforlife

He got caught where as the 'rangers' pundit he felt he had to offer an argument,  he's now fell down a rabbit hole and can't get out.

It is a relentless pursuit of cash,  and it will only end if players/management/fans actually stand up to it, and I don't mean moaning in interviews,  I mean going on strike, be willing to negotiate max number of games and length of season with a recognition that you may need to agree to less money hitting your bank account, and fans just simply not paying out.  Do that and the money pursuit stops, or at least slows down but if your not going to do that you don't really have a leg to stand on.

1 hour ago, Al k said:

Making money at the detriment of fans and the game makes him a clown in my book. 

Depends on what you determine those terms by tho I guess.   

Though my eyes I find it hard for someone to call themselves a fan when they come from the other side of the world and watch a few games on TV when you've got folk going to every game traveling hours and spending what they can supporting their hometown club.  From their eyes the two are the same.

1 hour ago, SanguinePar said:

I don't think anyone was implying that, were they?

The issue as far as I can see it is the Boring Milner account not just being a fun series of tweets but actually being run/owned by a company working for bookies, and also pushing links to bookies without disclosing the link between them. Seems pretty unethical.

The Rovers guy being involved just adds a bit of extra interest for us, of course.

I think the article mentioning the win on rovers losing was a nudge towards match fixing, probably just to boost views tho.

The boring Milner account was originally just a 'fun' account, but it got a bit of traction and at some point it was bought over, ultimately if a social media account gains traction you'll either start or gain direct financial motivation to push brands and play their tune or you'll be offered a good amount to hand the account over.  I did become aware the Milner account was sold a few years ago but I can't remember the details, I just struggled it off as expected business. It's the same motivation which involves paddy power making fun videos which keep them gambling high on people's agenda.

Should these links be open, yes I agree, it's a ****ing long process tho. How long were news media doing fluff pieces before they had to put a small sponsored note on links? 

I think implication of match fixing might go abit far, 

In terms of pushing gambling with the suggestion of winning, I’m not sure there’s any particular line here that’s been crossed that the entire industry haven’t been doing in various forms since day one.  Maybe like in other areas of social media it will become required to note that tweets are sponsored.

Tipster accounts have always looked dodgy, you can genuinely beat the bookies, it’s about finding where they’ve got the maths wrong and it’s bloody difficult to do given how much is put into getting it right. If you can do it the bookies have plenty staff/software looking out for someone with an edge on them, if they even suspect it they stop taking bets from you.  If you have found an edge then sure as **** you don’t share it publicly just out the goodness of your heart

1 hour ago, Grant said:

Aye. He asked three questions on the trot. 

Verbatim I'm sure it was

"Have you heard of a high press, James?" 

Followed by 

"What about playing with wingers" 

The last question was about playing a striker with genuine pace like Burrell. 

Tbf to McPake he gave an interesting answer to all three of the questions. The essence of the questions was fair, we are very bad at pressing, we haven't played with wingers and our strikers aren't quick. The questions themselves were just very short. 

Having not been at the meeting but seen your summery I am quite impressed my mcpake’s reaction to these sort of questions when there must have been part of him that just wanted to laugh at them.

Did he not end on of these meetings saying something like being disappointed nobody asked him about bringing everyone back for corners. ?  get the impression he just likes talking football

Donations
Should any supporter wish to make a further donation, all monies raised will go towards the maintenance and enhancement of KDM Group East End Park”

Possibly provoked from the toilet question at the supporters meeting?

Last year was an incredible improvement on the year before, but as grant suggests,  win and fans naturally feel more connected with the club, don’t and cracks begin to show.

Overall, I don’t think the BoD/de facto owners thought their vision would need much of a sell, they’ve fully bought into it and I think they thought fans automatically would buy in too, that’s not transpired and I think that creates a bit of tension, start winning more and that tension will release and fans will buy into the project.

2 hours ago, Piracy said:

I remember the former board saying about how much of a burden maintenance costs were, it's a big facility. It really is about prioritising what is statutory in relation to legislation compliance against a wish list of upgrades. The tannoy system is horrendous, that should really be a necessary improvement. The NW toilets are a disgrace being honest, but it doesn't bother me, and probably high on the clubs priority list. 

I thought the tannoy had been replaced? Certainly a lot clearer in the main stand now, maybe that work hasn’t been completed in the rest of the stadium.

Best way to get the toilets replaced is to give that section too Falkirk or rovers for a game, annoyingly we’ve payed for their toilets too be replaced when ours are in need of an upgrade 

18 minutes ago, Rossmcno1 said:

 Secondly the resale of tickets from the North west for reserved seating for games was mooted, and was completely shut down and termed that it’s not possible.  Well that’s completely untrue, other clubs do have resell platforms in place so fans can resell seats if they can’t go to games, and surely there could be a commercial benefit to the club done this way, if the want was there.

If the want was there yes,  but there isn't as if someone can't sit in the NW we have several thousand others we can offer them, all which would be a bigger commercial benefit than a cut of a resell.  Clubs that do have resell platforms often don't make these available until games are nearly sold out due to this. 

22 minutes ago, Piracy said:

I've said often enough on here, big consecutive losses are an issue because it isn't sustainable and by David Cooks own admission the club will have to arrest the overspending 

I completely agree, but there's a nuance here that I haven't ever seen cleared up, losses doesn't automatically mean overspending and that's where the sustainability element comes in.  If they plan to put in £1 million one year, £500k the next and £250k the following and that's what happens then they haven't overspent, they have covered projected losses. 

If on the other hand they only projected a £700k loss a £250k loss and break even next near but have had to cover beyond that then we have overspent,  even if the expected loss remains the same.

Overall I still find it very hard to believe any losses or overspending have been due to first team spending. Bigger, more experienced and frankly better squads of players have been funded with profits posted at this level in the recent past.

That leaves the additional spend as part of the fussball project and if I'm being honest I think every single penny poured into the project should be funded by those who have started it, which I don't mind them taking back should the project succeed 

32 minutes ago, Tartan Army Par said:

I see Partick are on the verge of signing Robbie Crawford who's out of contract at Morton. Proven good player at this level Hope we are going to make our moves a bit quicker this year. 

We were apparently in for Crawford last year but he wanted to stay in the championship.

TBH I’m not too bothered by him, he’s part of that large group of meh players that make up the majority of the league, and we’ve pretty much already fulfilled our quota with those remaining under contract, it’s match winning quality we need to add.

1 hour ago, Piracy said:

The training facility was paid for by Grants and a loan from Gmbh Fussball, not from the clubs cash reserves. So the playing budget wasn't competing with the training facility. 

If the playing budget hasn’t been impacted by the training facility/academy/off-field staff/paying compensation so we can bring in young players that fit the vision or anything else that’s been brought in since fussball  came then why the **** are we being told to accept arsing around in the championship much closer to the relegation playoff than having a promotion capable team?

5 minutes ago, Grant said:

You are correct, and it's what annoys me the most tbh. 

Next year there's every chance we'll have the highest amount of ticket revenue, we average over a thousand more tickets sold than most sides in this division, this should also mean that commercially we meat parity, if not more revenue than the other sides? 

So why would we not have one of, if not the biggest budget in the league? If it's about money then why are we not challenging for the title? We can't even claim it's due to financial doping by rich owners if we're posting seven figure losses, where's the money going? 

The only positive argument on where’s the money going is that we’ll suddenly have a world class academy which will fund itself as well as a good first team.

I’m far from convinced that will work.

1 hour ago, Superally said:

still think had we not had the injuries to key players we were within a good chance of the play offs but we ran the risk of a thin squad and were found out. There are areas  all over the pitch that need to be addressed and waiting to see what is left like we did this season wont be tolerated again. 

The 7/8 points for the play-offs could certainly be achieved without injuries which were edging on the side of unfortunate(I say that as I believe early season we were too small of squad and probably made wrong decisions but even so had a shade of bad luck) however that's entirely different from the 30 point difference we need to bridge to be a potentially championship winning side which is where we need to aim. 

Time to prove we're a team determined of success and not one happy to hang around in this division.

Best results would be an alloa/montrose promotion and no relegation from top flight, but regardless there's no reason to limit our ambitions here.  Lets go for it and try as best we can financially to put a promotion winning squad together, there's absolutely no reason we can't do that and if that means restricting the money put towards the pet project then fine.

Edit- Remember that failure to achieve promotion this time will be the longest ever since automatic promotion was introduced upon the merger between SFL and central league that we've been outside the top flight. Pressure to be embraced coming up, lets take and enjoy that and not run away with ****ebag excuses.

8 minutes ago, Superally said:

Looks Like Fagan-Walcott is returning down south and has said his goodbyes on Twitter

That's what I took from it, shame I'd been happy for him to stay.  It would be unfortunate if he's decided to continue in youth football, he's at an age he really needs to be playing regularly if he's going to make a career of it, I would understand if he's got offered a decent first team contract in league 1/2 but anything other than that(return to scotland -us  or national league etc) i'd be a bit frustrated that we couldn't get a deal done.

57 minutes ago, Al k said:

 

Any word on Memhet?

He apparently walked into the ambulance and was seeming more alert, there’s absolutely no chance he’ll not get taken to hospital and given the full works to check for anything underlying.

Concussions of this nature can be incredibly serious, hopefully he recovers well and that’s nothing to do with when he can get back playing football.

After he slipped at the 2nd he wasn’t moving right but it looked like it was more his leg and I think that’s what the physio was sent round to ask him about, there was certainly no proper concussion check done.  Again when he went down prior to his first poorly hit goal kick he appeared to be trying to stretch and again nobody was that concerned he was concussed. 

When he went down after slicing the ball maybe 30 seconds later things escalated very quickly.

3 hours ago, SanguinePar said:

150%

He was the most exciting player last year, he made things happen regularly when he was given a run in the team, but he needs to be on the wing, with a fullback behind him. It seems so obvious, but it doesn't happen 

 Think we’re still chasing that form in a league below which he did from wingback, ignoring that the quality of opposition has gone up, he’s having to do too much backwards and as a result isn’t getting on the ball high enough up the pitch too cause damage.

I don’t actually have a problem with him defensively at wingback, he does a reasonable job at that, but our big issue is creativity and releasing him from those defensive duties should hopefully improve that significantly 

30 minutes ago, Secure Par said:

As for my lazy players statement I will take that back BUT then I would say there are certain players that are League 1/lower Championship level in our team then? MOH is capable of a lot more on the pitch but doesn’t work hard enough…. Could be a formation problem🤷 Is the manager playing the right formation? Is he getting the best out of the team? 

I would say yes, there are a quite big percentage of our squad that are lower championship,  that's why we need to get our recruitment right over the summer.

FWIW even the best sides in the division are carrying a few that are lower championship.  80% of the division are a broadly similar standard,  its having the 3-4 players in your squad that's going to win you games that matters. 

Again on MOH, probably his biggest issue is not being having his head up and releasing the ball at the right times,  your not going to change that at his age.  Probably the thing that would make him look better is having other options that mean teams can't afford to just swamp around him.

With the GPS kit players wear there's absolutely no hiding place for a player to not put the running in or even just not run with the same intensity the should,  do that and that manager will know within 30 seconds. 

Chalmers is another that got called lazy and I can't remember the exact quote but mcpake said at some point his stats were in the top 3-4 in the team, covering over 10k a game. 

1 hour ago, SanguinePar said:

Thing is, the squad we have got us where we are right now, despite being too thin to start with and absolutely decimated with injuries.

That same squad, with a bit more luck in that regard (surely it can't be that bad again!), would have picked us up at least 3 or 4 more points and probably more than that. 

I'm not saying we don't need to make changes, and add depth, I've been saying that since this time last year in fact, but I think Allan is starting to show promise, and I wouldn't be looking to move him on yet (last year, I probably would have been).

I agree with injuries, we were slightly unfortunate with them, but even if you attribute 10 points to them we are only scrapping into the play-offs at best, we must do better next year, there's 30+ extra points we should be chasing next year, that's way more than just injuries can account for.

1 hour ago, SanguinePar said:

I think it's harsh to consider Benjamin a failure of a signing, he's barely played

The fact he's barely played is part of why he's a failure. There's no point in having guys around who can't get on the pitch.

16 minutes ago, Legend85 said:

Has Kane not recently signed a contract with St Johnstone?

Todd isn't scoring what else does he offer. We need boys with flare and energy.

We bit imagination with recruitment would be good but not over board with boys from lower league England I don't think that works Inverness had plenty of them and it's not worked.

Kane only signed a short term deal with St johnstone until the end of this season.

I agree Todd's biggest asset is goalscoring but he also offers alot of energy.  Flare is badly lacking, summers and moffat were meant to be that but they just get bullied and cancelled out. 

The english market,  we don't just need to look at inverness, we can look at ourselves, Benjamin, holmes, fagon-walcott. 1 in 3 isn't a good enough success rate.(ignored moffat as he was known entity as a youth player up here)  even fagon-walcott mcpake had a previous look at him in via mckpake. 

3 hours ago, Rossmcno1 said:

I do think there is a cultural issue at the club

Aye that's maybe true,  there's an attempt to put this laughable sportsmanship thing forward and a push on youth,  but I don't think we've properly developed a cohesive culture.

For me fundamentally we need a relentless pursuit on winning to be at the heart of things and that seems very far from our focus right now.

I will always be happy with a winning team and always unhappy with a losing one, I don't particularly care how either is achieved.

Never heard a successful teams fans complain about boring football, nor a unsuccessful team's happy that their team are playing in a so called entertaining way.

Mcpake will be here next season guaranteed, If he doesn't look like were fighting at the top end of the table at any point he'll face alot of pressure, The board will too, especially the fussball element. 

Is there anyone who needs to be offered a deal? fagon-walcott and kane would be reasonably good additions should we get them in permanently.  Everyone else? nah lets try and freshen the squad up as much as we can.