vikingTON

I think it's giving Yousaf too much credit as opposed to an adult political advisor who has been able to apply Politics 101 over the past week. The same applies to Forbes' public vote of confidence: she doesn't need to try and play 4-D chess when Yousaf's genuine authority is pretty much toast already. He might well get lockstep MSP support but absolutely none of it is for him personally. Beholden how exactly? Last time I checked, the memo wasn't that the SNP would create a new BHA with Ash fucking Regan. The SNP ran the country with nowhere near a majority at Holyrood for four years. While they're now on the other side of the government cycle, offering either a compromise (e.g. Budget items) or staring down other parties who don't actually want a collapse of government and election (Greens) is entirely viable IMO.

Did they actually though? Because your official attendance for last Saturday's dead rubber was an obvious work of fiction. Agreed incidentally that Gayfield looks great with the investment put in over the past few years. I viewed Station Park as a benchmark for a well-kept, traditional 'wee' ground (as opposed to the three big terraces left in Scotland) but the investment at Arbroath is clear and should presumably see you through without too much further outlay.

Aye because if only the game had been played earlier this season then Strathspey would have surely used their famous catenaccio approach to great effect instead.

Swing and a miss, champ.

I think your club should reflect on your own efforts at doing enough over a season to avoid being flushed down the pan. Not least given that the only reason you're still in contention on the final day is down to three points provided by, err, a ten man Arbroath team just three weeks ago. Or maybe you think it's unfair that every other club gets to play the only team worse than you too.

French's pace is more obvious in recovering defensively (often from his own mistake) and for that reason alone I can see why managers would want him in their back line. Critics of French overlook just how gubbins our centre back pairings would have been without that help IMO. I'd much rather have Jamie Brandon back once Livingston go down/into admin again, but other than moving O'Connor across to play right back for a while, I'd avoid going back out on the open market looking for a different option.

As for the pre-match discussion about referees and the disproportionate yellow card count for Morton, Colin Steven's display today summed up why statistics do not reflect the reality of a football game. For whatever reason - quite possibly the 'reputation' built up by a parade of opposition managers - his default option was simply to award a stoppage or foul whenever a Raith player went to ground. Which Raith defenders quite understandably used to their advantage to take off any pressure, but some of the decisions made were utterly laughable. Ironically the clearest foul on a Raith player in the entire game was overlooked halfway through the second half, leading to a breakaway that Crawford should have done much better with. I don't think Steven's display had a major impact on the outcome of the game but the final foul count will reflect the predisposition of that clown rather than either high pressing intensity or dirty b*****d play shown in today's game. Neither of which were on display - with the singular exception of Broadfoot clearing out Rudden in the first half.

Our season in a nutshell today. Played pretty well, created the better chances (without a draw actually being unfair though) but didn't have the cutting edge to get us over the line. Difficult to judge too much given the lowered stakes involved but I thought the defence did well throughout. In the big picture we've had a decent season - excellent in cup competitions, both financially and in performance terms. The club has turned a substantial profit in back to back years after losing money like a sieve for the past 25 years - these are not minor things. Given the loss of key first team players last summer I'm not surprised we had to just consolidate our position in the end - I'd have expected that before a ball was kicked. But with both Airdrie and Partick sitting on entirely achievable points totals, the sense of a lost opportunity can't be overlooked either.

If you're Forbes or her allies then absolutely. Not to mention being able to give a public show of loyalty to The Party after the Greens have been emptied, which is the obvious smart play before taking over in a couple of years and packaging Continuity Nicola as the problem. But with the numbers literally balanced it does only take one or two MSPs to take a leaf out of the UK Tory party book, decide a change of leadership is needed now, and it's game over for Yousaf. I think the sight of assorted Yoon parties launching VONC will prop up party discipline that wouldn't have necessarily been there - with the removal of Slater's fruit loops placating the most likely rebels too. The alternative of letting a handful of weirdos in sandals debate for weeks and then choose whether the SG is quite shite enough to leave remains the worse of the two possible options Yousaf faced by the start of the week.

Livingston will be struggling to field a team at tier 2 unless their legal saga about ownership somehow works in their favour. Absolutely no chance that their Walter Mitty model could be relied on to maintain a B team outside the top flight.

If so then I would wholeheartedly applaud this long-form shithousery as the best thing to happen in Scottish football since Rangers died. Frame and hang the notifying letter of Buckie's ineligibility in the Louvre.

I'm sure this 10th hot take of yours in the past 24 hours will pan out better than all the previous ones.

Scenes.

NHS GP practices. Today is the second time this week and what feels like the 17th time this year that the GP practice has called and left a voicemail that contains... err, no worthwhile information other than to 'contact the practice'. Cue ominous music. Then you set time aside during working hours to call back and wait on hold as the automated message runs through all 800 variants of trying to palm you off elsewhere. Then you get through, confirm all your details with the receptionist, who then discloses from Fort Knox... a completely routine update about a appointment/prescription that would have taken 0.04 seconds to fire off by email - with an option to respond at your own time too. The term 'Byzantine' doesn't work because theirs was the height of organisational skill in a world of dungheap barbarians. The NHS is run according to the whims of stupid boomers who have had 25 years to learn how a computer works but demand that everything still revolves around their ignorance.

Who needed last week's title decider when this duel of minter club statements between Buckie and Brechin could have been served up instead.