Yoss

Davidson gave Tadé a lovely through ball for his one-on-one at Stirling. But agreed, Simmons is going to be key for us in the middle this season.

A Hearts fan has just started a thread on the second division forum saying we might be getting Gary Glen on loan, initially for a month. Edit: I see it's been moved.

With Williamson on the left then. Ta. Walker seems to have started the season brightly, maybe he will yet turn into the player we hoped for last season, but I don't think he's a right-winger. Might be interesting to see how a Simmons / Walker partnership in the middle would fare.

For thoe who were there on Saturday - did we play 4-3-3 or was it 4-4-2 with Walker playing out on the wing (and if so which side?)?

Longmuir wasn't in a position to make the decision as to what was going to happen to you, that could only be done once a full meeting was conveded and it would be wrong - indeed it was wrong - of him to try and second-guess what they'd decide. And that it's happening so close to the season is Livingston's fault and Livingston's alone. And yes I know that was Massone and there was nothing much you could do about it, but nonetheless.

Nothing at all to disagree with there.

Fair enough, up to a point. Most businesses, especially young businesses, have to borrow to get anywhere and that's true of any industry including football. That's not quite the same as living beyond your means though, there needs to be an adequate business plan to back it up. These things are never guaranteed and there's some element of luck in the short term as to whether your business plan is up to the job and you can create enough business and revenue to cover the investment - but in the case of Livingston it's not going to be particularly difficult at this stage of their existence to calculate your approximate income for the coming season and to budget accordingly. I suspect that's going to have serious implications for your playing staff but I see from the statement there that any decision has been deferred until after Wednesday.

"no choice" but to live beyond your means? Is that what you actually meant to say?

Whether £10K is a good effort or not is a bit beside the point in the context of a debt something over a million and a half.

Don't think Duncan has said anything about losing money in Gretna. Perhaps someone has confused him with Alibi.

Okay. Having had a day or two to digest what happened on Thursday, I've changed my mind a bit on the question of ownership rules, maybe I don't have a problem with it. In fact, maybe their intention all along was to twist Massone's arm, to let him know they would change the rules if they really had to in order to get him out of Scottish football, and if so it worked an now there's no necessity to actually do so. Which I hope they don't because it would create an uncomfortable loophole. The real issue to emerge from Thursday's meeting was not so much about that but the assurances that the new regime gave to fulfill the fixtures. It now transpires they didn't give any such guarantee at all, but only guaranteed it on the specific condition that Livingston remained a first division side. Even if that were within Longmuir's power to grant - which it isn't - that's not an adequate assurance and should have ended the conversation there and then. There's already precedent there, last summer Gretna's administrator made it clear that the only rescue package on the table was subject to them being in the first division - that didn't deflect the SFL from taking the action they felt was necessary, and nor should it have. While the reason for (potential) demotion here is different, there's no reason for them to take a different line. It's difficult to avoid the conclusion that the only reason for treating this situation differently is because of the fixture issues and possible financial losses involved given the proximity to the new season. In which case not only are Livi being treated differently but they're being allowed to benefit fro their intransigence in prolonging the situation over the summer rather than dealing with it timeously. While I agree with most others that the SFL have to accept some degree of culpability for that intransigence, this nonetheless should not be allowed to happen. In fairness, I'm not particularly having a go at Longmuir. I think he misjudged it a bit this week but ultimately that doesn't matter, it'll be down to the full SGM to make the decision and they're the ones who should be judged on it. As to what happens from here, in spite of everything in their history I don't want to see Livingston knifed for the sake of it. If they really are going to live within their means as a responsible club from here then I'm happy for them to do so. Some scepticism remains on this point, and first up I'll be interested to see what happens to their full-time playing staff, starting first thing Monday morning - but providing this is genuine then fine, even though it means a CVA and another batch of unhappy creditors (which looks unavoidable now in any scenario). Like most of us I do think they need to be given a pretty stiff punishment, both to protect the integrity of the game and to serve sufficient notice of deterrent for malpractice: if I was thinking of self-interest then a points penalty would suit us better, but to be honest I think relegation, of one league, would be fairer: insofar as they cheated by spending beyond their means then the teams who suffered by it were their opponents last season while those debts were being racked up - principally Airdrie in the last relegation spot - rather than the likes of ourselves and Ayr who they'd be up against this season. That's just my opinion, I'm not bothered if other people and indeed the SFL themselves come to a different conclusion - just as long as that conclusion is made for the right reasons and in the fairest interests of the game rather than because of short-term concerns over the consequences. The new Livingston owners must not be allowed to railroad the SFL into softer penalties by holding them to ransom with threats of what the consequences will be if they don't get their own way, and I'd urge anyone who feels strongly about this as I do to email their clubs to make your feelings known on this point sometime before the Special General Meeting is held and the vote taken. I'm still pretty hopeful that the meeting will make a fair decision on this point, judging from public reactions there seems to be enough of a feeling prevalent to make sure they don't get too easy a hand, but we'll wait and see. I'll watch the next few days with interest.

There's got to be some ways and means and caveats to that though surely? I couldn't just transfer any debt I might have in a company to a different company [woohoo! another wicket!] with different owners, where the creditors might have less security or the other owners might just disappear altogether. Or whatever.

Surely you can't just unilaterally transfer debts from one company to another? How would that work?

It's not pish. I'd sooner support a reformed Raith in whatever level of non-league than have the rules bent for us like this.

The short answer to that is no, no I wouldn't. I'm not so blinded by club loyalty that I'd a solution that put the interests of my club over the interests and reputation of the wider game. Still less would I ask or exepect the SFL to do so. Sorry. This just stinks.

I've mostly defended the SFL up to now but I'm very concerned about this. I'm struggling to see any justification at all for this afternoon's fuge. Anyone going to volunteer to attempt one?

I assumed the point that was being made was that Shinawatra would fail the test now, both because of his subsequent convictions in Thailand and because they stiffened the test largely in response to him.

I'm not sure I see how. (Trusts and myclub are two very very different beasts, in any event.)

I thought it was the switch to four leagues of ten we had the casting vote on, the ground criteria weren't introduced until later were they?

We could do with another forward in the squad anyway. Thereafter I obviously want McGlynn to judge players on their merits, if I thought for a minute he was judging them by some other criteria and favouring and SPL striker over a homegrown player just because they were from the SPL then of course I'd be annoyed. I've not seen any reason to suppose he'd be that daft.

Well for a start it's got SFA to do with the SFA. Assuming you mean the SFL then yes, it's easy to say something different should have been done, much less easy to come up with concrete proposals for actually what (that wouldn't also have scunnered a number of other clubs that found themselves in difficult but ultimately rescuable positions). It's something that needs to be looked at pretty seriously though. Probably they should have acted more strongly over the late wage payments, that's something they'll need to consider now for future situations.

Bryce hasn't been a sensation, but he's done enough from what I've seen to deserve his chance.

The £70K (if that's what it was) would have been in addition to the £25K - the latter is just for the shareholding and didn't affect his rights as a creditor, should there be a takeover and resultant pay out. But since the takeover was dependent on him selling his shares he's knocking back both sums if he allows the club to go out of business, it's not a question of thinking he can get more money one way than the other.

He'll get precisely nothing if the club is liquidated because there are no assets. There's no way he can not be aware of that.

Yeah but that team was still costing more in wages than Livi had coming in, any new owners would have to slash the playing budget much as Clyde have. Edit: And there'd be a points deduction too.