EdinburghLivi

Sadly back to Kenny Mac and a repeat of the Michael Beale interview.

It's an interview with John Ward, I'm not clear why it being published by the Scottish Sun would have any relevancy. All of the interesting stuff has come from Direct quotes/statements, has clearly been fed to them by Ward or was sourced by another newspaper (Scottish Daily Mail).

Very interesting article: - Court of Session hearing with Carolyn Sumner next week. I believe she is Neil Rankine's partner. Rankine was listed on the hearing previously. - Two bids to takeover the majority shareholding - 1 from the owners of Barnsley (who were also looking at Partick Thistle) in 2020 and one more recently from an unnamed American group. I am not surprised that people are looking to take us over (would be certain we will sell for less than other teams looking for new owners and we are in a relatively good position) so I imagine there will be movement on this if court hearing goes in our favour. - I'm more than a bit sceptical that making top 6 would be the difference between profit and a £800k loss. Would need to see the working on that. - The talk of going for budgeting on fighting for top 6 vs. being a championship team is puzzling when Martindale goes on every season about his budget being the value of 12th place in the previous season. That also doesn't reconcile before you even get into a loss as substantial as £800k. - Consultant hired by Opcco6 to sell their shareholding.

Decent performance but as has been said, the changes that Martindale made killed us. Maybe Nottingham can fill in at RWB in some games but not away to Rangers. Lunacy when you could see Matondo coming on at the same time. Not sure Welch-Hayes is up to much but he needs to be on the bench when fit rather than having 3 centre backs. Mackay for Kelly was also bizarre but probably down to the lack of midfield options on the bench. Would have to see it again but at the time I thought Balogun was very lucky to get away with a naughty challenge on Nouble's ankle. Referee should have been sent to the screen to look at that.

Looks like he fell straight on his side following the head clash without getting his arms down to cushion his landing. Hopefully we get an update tomorrow.

MacIntyre: "HAVE YOU GOT YOUR TEAMSHEETS? LET'S GET A COMMENT FOR EACH RANGERS PLAYER TODAY... BUTLAND?" Fortunately the pundit (Steven Smith?) realised how tedious that would be and said that no Rangers player got pass marks.

Great battling performance. Duk barely in the game after terrorising us last season, full credit to De Lucas for marshalling him. Jamie Brandon was terrific down the right and I thought Pittman was back to his best when he came on the pitch. Sangare looked good in the first half. Should have won it with Obileye's free header at the back post. Would have just about deserved it over the game. Hope Anderson is ok, that looked a very nasty injury.

Think they've done really well so far in this shape, Aberdeen have been limited to very few openings. De Lucas I'm not sure about but he may be in there to combat the pace of Duk.

Martindale said he'd waived training compensation for a nominal fee and sell-on.

Unless I misunderstood, £400k sounds like A LOT of unsold advertising. That's really poor budgeting from the club if they were banking on that much and didn't sell. Similarly we knew we had upcoming £200k in costs like VAR and repaying back the government loan. Why was that not part of the budget when we knew these were coming? Can't remember where he said the remaining £200k came from. Costs relating to wage rises and stadium overheads would make that a much more reasonable number.

Welch-Hayes apparently came off injured. Another trialist.

Favourable draw but I hope the Inverness debacle last season will keep us humble before this game. Akheem Rose will have a point to prove after the trial with us and Murphy and McGeady (if fit) are good players.

8 looks like Samson Lawal. Martindale mentioned he was a trialist this week.

We lost 800k last year, we're not 800k in debt.

If he does well, it's more likely we will stick him at a part-time team in League 1 or 2.

Lucas Stenhouse has been loaned to Boness United until January.

Wonder if we have finally had some solid interest in Nouble to allow us to spend cash on a transfer fee. 4 year deal apparently so it may well be spaced out in instalments like the George deal. Not playing in the same position but this is giving me Wes Hoolahan vibes. He looks really small and their coach has talked about him having a bad attitude. On the positive side, he appears to have a good delivery based on the limited clips I've seen.

Big fan of this.

Jon Guthrie.

Pete O'Rourke was one of the first to report our interest in Shamal George so he's fairly reliable.

The interview wasn't clear but we've had bounce games before at the Rangers training centre. Would imagine it being quite difficult to play the game at Almondvale with the fans on the hill.

Behind closed doors friendly against Rangers on Friday.

Sure he will have a number of targets already given we were already looking for options in that position. Not sure how I will feel about this until we know how much the bid was. It's a big life change for Anderson, I'm not certain he will go either. Edited to add: Theo Bair is a wild shout given we already have Guthrie. Should be a replacement for Anderson or a completely different option as a plan b.