Digs

I never said we’d played really well. I said they’ve been nowhere near as bad as some would have you believe. Over the piece, given the injuries we’ve more than held our own in most games and been unlucky in quite a few, due to the errors/missed chances I mentioned.

To be fair, it could be counted on one hand the number of times that has been the case this season. Team performances haven’t been the issue, it’s daft individual errors defensively and not taking chances that’s cost us. If we’d reduced these even by half, we’d be in a far more comfortable position. The general performances of the team, overall, haven’t been as bad as some would have you believe.

Arbroath 0 v 2 Airdrie Ayr Utd 0 v 2 Dundee Utd Dunfermline Ath 2 v 1 Morton (37/4796) Inverness CT 1 v 0 Queens Park Partick Th 1 v 1 Raith Rovers

The club can’t really win regarding transfer activity though. They keep their cards close to their chest whilst working on multiple targets. Fans: Why aren’t we signing anyone? They let it be known who they are after. Fans: Why can’t we attract these players? They're damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

That figure isn;t accurate. It was some boy on twitter who 'worked it out' himself based on god knows what.

I was wondering how you’d managed to post your own obituary GG, that would have been impressive.

You’d need more than one as several teams play on the same day. My dad does it as a volunteer.

That has always been the case as far as I’m aware. When my laddie was in Fife Elite, I was all over the place. We do have mini buses though but lack of volunteers possibly? My dad does the training runs, picking them up from school and taking them up to Michael Woods, but he can’t do weekends. I don’t know how many others there are.

It was in relation to a specific question about the board backing the manager and the answer, from the manager, that he has money but he’s also not going to spend it for the sake of it and he thought at the time he was happy with his squad. That’s how he’s answered it every time I’ve heard it asked. Obviously, that situation is changed but I they’ve budgeted for a squad, they’ll have also budgeted for the window, but it will obviously need a bit more and he’s come out and said what he wants. To use your logic, why would he say he wants a defender and a striker before the end of the window if he knows there’s no budget for it?

Money has never been an issue, both Cook and McPake have said that in multiple windows. There absolutely budget there. He's also said he wants a defender and a striker in before the end of the window.

Sat 27th Jan Airdrie 0 v 1 Partick Th Dundee Utd 2 v 0 Dunfermline Ath P (28/7258) Morton 2 v 0 Arbroath Queens Park 2 v 1 Ayr Utd Raith Rovers 1 V 1 Inverness CT

Am I thinking of the same player that was at the Rovers? Big striker? If so, I always liked him, a handful and put a shift in.

I can and I will 🤣 Half of that isn't even football related, integrated into the community? You mean he bought a house here? The achievements are not the same, not even close. We'll never see a situation again where we go from the bottom division to the top in successive seasons, and Winker was an integral part of that, just as much as Norrie and several other players from that time. As I said, Cardle was a decent enough player, never said he was bad but sorry, never legend status. Anyway, let's agree to disagree because I would die on this hill. That's the beauty of fitba, it's all about opinions.

Joe Cardle shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same sentence as John Watson in this context, come on now. He was top goal scorer in Scotland with us, he scored goals that took us on back to back promotions from the bottom division to the Premier League after being paid for with a set of tracksuits with a signing on fee of two pints of Guinness. He 100% deserves his legend status.

Agreed, and I trust their judgement...generally speaking, their reputation for players up to this point gives them that latitude. It doesn't mean I still wouldn't disagree vehemently with this should it happen. Which it won't.

I genuinely hope Joe Cardle isn't a realistic target and I can't see how he would be given our approach. Yes, experience has to be mixed in but he's 37, hasn't kicked a ball for 6 months, and when he did it was at the level below the championship where he didn't exactly set the heather on fire previously. He also has a fairly successful coaching business to run so I can't see how he would want anything other than PT, even if it were true. I don't buy into the whole Joe Cardle 'Legend' status personally. A decent player who always did his best but he is another player like a few before him who benefit from rose tinted specs from fans. He was very hot and cold, and only had two really hot periods with us, neither of which were very long. After the last one, when he was absolutely flying, he got an injury and was never the same player. He got about a dozen games to recapture the form when he recovered before he eventually got dropped which was the right decision at the time. A decent enough player for us but if we are pinning our hopes on a 37 year old out of contract part time ex-league one player, then we'd be as well packing it in and turning the lights off.

I get that mate, not saying your post was ambiguous, just that it was clearly past my bedtime and the brain wasn't fully engaged. I get what you meant now. Apologies for the misunderstanding 👍

That's what I'm saying though. It's not as simple as saying they don't rate him. Giving a kid who has just turned 18 and who has less than 5 first team appearances a start and asking him to get you goals is a huge amount of pressure. It would be unfair to chuck him in like that regardless of the situation. Also, the other one is probably a fair comment, it was late and I wasn't 100% on what he meant.

Done 👍

Done 👍

It really does need replaced, it’s so out of date and costly to run. It’s on the list of things that need attention according to DC at the last fan group meeting I attended, but like you say, it won’t be cheap. I think it was just bad luck. If something isn’t on all the time in cold weather, which we’re never going to do either from a cost or need point of view, it will expand and contract with the temperature and when you start running hot water through it. Old seals will eventually give out. It’s 15-20 years old I’m sure.

To be fair, we’re limited in our ability to have contingency plans due to lack of options. He’s one of our fittest players generally speaking so if you’re counting on any players being a safe bet, he’d be in that list. Also, my reading of that is he’s sitting in and being the ‘auld heid’. That should have protected him, for want of a better word.

I think it’s far too simplistic to say they don’t have faith in him. They actually have high hopes for him. They may not want to lump the pressure on him or feel he’s that the way we need to play just now won’t suit his game and it be detrimental to his development? I don’t know, I’m just guessing but it’s leaping to conclusions to say they don’t rate him as that is incorrect. He’s still quite young, only just turned 18 a couple of months ago. That’s a lot to put on a young boy and they will be managing him carefully.

Game will be on. Pipe is fixed I believe, faulty seal replaced and I’m pretty sure they won’t have just left the water to sit on the pitch. Temps will be well above freezing with a good few hours of sunshine on Friday and warmer again on Saturday with rain.

Going by what he's said, it sounds like Bullen told them to ram it as he'd had enough of the abuse. Why else would they go on to praise him like that? Seems odd.