DC92

Competed well first half and had a few good chances, 2nd best for the first 15 minutes of the second half and then a complete rabble for the last 30 after all the subs had been used and square pegs were being shoved into round holes to give everyone a game. Taylor was encouraging. Has a good touch, a burst of pace and put two chances on a plate for Tagawa.

If for some reason you're excited about seeing any Spurs players in the flesh then I'm pretty sure you're covered with that line-up. I'm not paying any amount for a pre-season friendly but it's been a decent watch. Probably should have at least a couple of goals and Taylor has been impressive so far.

Where did you see that? Got to be a reasonable chance that comes in. With Sibbick and Atkinson also leaving I'd say we're at least one defender light now. That could be either a left-back or a centre-back depending on how we're planning to use Kingsley this season. A physical midfielder and a striker are also still required, although that might require moving Grant and Tagawa on to make space. I also wouldn't mind another winger but we've got plenty of bodies in that area.

That was one manager, and they had a relatively crap squad at the time. Avoiding an Iceland moment is a point in his favour (though he was very close against Slovakia) but it's become a bit of a myth that England always made a joke exit from the tournament pre-Southgate. That game was an exception. Most of the time they take care of business against the diddy sides and then get dumped out by the first properly good team they play in the knockouts. Even in 2014, they went out in the groups because they lost to Italy and a very good Uruguay team. Southgate has essentially carried on the usual pattern, just with more favourable draws.

100%. That Italy team wasn't as good as this Spain one, but they were a really good watch, especially before Spinazzola got injured. I'm guessing a lot of the people saying otherwise didn't watch much of them and are defaulting to stereotypes about Italian teams.

Unfortunately I did catch it on a stream. We got bullied physically for most of the game and the 2-1 defeat flattered us. I think the two teams used 47 players between them which tells the story. Clark, Shankland, Kingsley, Penrice, Baningime, Nieuwenhof, Taylor and Vargas weren't iinvolved, nor were Cochrane, Sibbick or Atkinson. Sounds like Nieuwenhof has injured his hamstring again. Of the new signings: Oyegoke and Dhanda looked ok, Spittal was pretty anonymous in a midfield two, and Musa looks like he'll need time to adjust to the physicality of the league. If you can take anything away from a game like this, it would be that another CB is required. Halkett looked lightyears off the pace and I wouldn't be banking on him getting back to 2022 Halkett.

Yeah it's a nice bonus. Last summer worked out ok eventually but it was pretty clear we went in half-cocked. The summer before we similarly got plenty of business done early but then struggled to add the further quality we needed. The difference this time is that extra quality is a bit less critical and we'd be reasonably comfortable starting the season with the squad we have just now. I still think we could be stronger in a couple of areas. If we can shift Sibbick, Atkinson and a couple of others (Grant and Tagawa?) then that might give us some scope to add 2/3 more.

Coincidentally there are rumours that Cochrane is away to Birmingham and won't be involved in today's friendly. I guess we'll find out if that's true soon enough. I'll be pleased to get it done and get the cash in early if so.

Penrice would be a bit of a strange signing if we were put off accepting a reasonable 7-figure fee at the risk of having to play him. Especially when we'd be faced with the same situation in a year without the financial compensation. There's also a good chance we'll see Kingsley or even Rowles at LB in a 4 a fair bit, as well as the likelihood we'd invest some of the cash in a direct Cochrane replacement.

If Cochrane isn't going to sign a deal then we should absolutely sell him this summer, even if we have to accept a bit less than we'd ideally have liked. He's a good player but we can cope without him and we need to start making money on player sales so we can grow. Shankland is different because he's completely critical to the team as it stands and his market value isn't inflated by age/potential. A sale needs to be on the table but it's quite possible his value to us still exceeds what another club would be willing to pay. It might be worth gambling on him helping us to the European money again and then using that to replace him next summer.

Not really, given the multiple mandates that the SNP won were not acknowledged by the UK government or by Unionists as a whole. Unionists were always going to present this result a vote for the union, as they have done in previous elections where the SNP didn't receive over 50% of the popular vote.

Exit poll had it as a 99% chance of going Tory

This is along the right lines. If you have a 40% chance in 10 seats, the chances are you'll win about 4 of them, even if you aren't favoured to win in any particular one.

Assuming Taylor signs, I'd say the only obvious gaps are competition in defensive midfield and up front. Grant, Sibbick, Atkinson and one of the strikers look to be surplus. My concern at this point is whether Taylor and Oyegoke solve the right-back problem. Taylor will likely take time to settle and Oyegoke didn't seem to set the heather alight in League 2. I'm well on board with signing younger players with potential, but it's probably an area where we could do with an experienced option. I'd also say Spittal/Dhanda for Grant/Fraser is the only position where we've clearly upgraded the starting XI so far, for all the business that's been done. Still early days, though, and even if most of the new signings don't work out, we're heading into pre-season with a squad that's inarguably bigger and stronger than the one that finished the previous season. That's a big positive and gives Naismith time to assess the players before finalising our business in August.

As well as the other examples, Australia's squad is mince and they got out of the WC groups with 6 points and gave a good account of themselves against Argentina in the knockouts. Lack of quality is not an excuse for such a pathetic effort.

I'd say results in the other groups so far have slightly boosted the chances of 3 points and a crap goal difference being enough to scrape through if we finish 3rd. Outside of our group, the big nations have all won so far and none of the others have picked up more than a point. A Croatia/Albania draw on Wednesday would be handy as, unless they beat Spain and Italy respectively in the last games, that would mean the 3rd place team in that group gets no more than 2 points. England getting at least 7 points and at least one of Serbia v Slovenia or Denmark v Serbia being a draw would also cap the 3rd place team at 2 points in that group. A Poland/Austria draw and them not beating France or Netherlands is another avenue.

You can say any old guff on here and it'll get greenies if it alludes to diddy club bias. Most Hearts fans would happily admit to not being arsed about Clark now, let alone 2 years ago when we had clearly better options (Gordon, Marshall, McLaughlin). "They're both shite!" from Well fans is its own form of bias given it's an attempt at obfuscation. Some options are shiter than others.

The squad contains two players, Jack and Hanley, who are both in the twilight of their careers and have hardly played this season, particularly in the last few months. They have both been picked based on performances from over a year ago and the same question marks exist over whether they are still as good. In fact, there are probably bigger question marks over their fitness given Gordon has been fit and available since December in contrast to the repeated breakdowns we've seen in the other two. It doesn't seem a big leap to suggest Clarke would apply the same logic to Gordon, particularly when the drop-off in ability to the alternative is so drastic. It's a bit more complicated than that. Firstly, since Gordon has returned to fitness Clark has done basically nothing to deserve being dropped. Naismith was also explicitly aware that both players had ambitions of getting into the squad and implied that he'd be dividing their game time to maximise their chances of both getting in. The compromise was that Clark would continue as the league goalkeeper and Gordon would play the cup games. This resulted in Gordon starting our biggest game of the season against Rangers at Hampden, something he was very unlikely to do if he wasn't confident in his abilities. I'm certain Gordon would've also started the final if we'd got there. Anyway, it's done now and there have been rumours that Clarke was leaning Kelly's way for a few weeks, so it's not a massive surprise. Hopefully we don't need him.

Any chance it's the usual formation with McLean at LCB?

Right. He might do something he's never done before. I don't see why you're so confident that he will.

When have McTominay or Christie played as "false 9s"? When has Clarke used a "false 9" in preference to an actual striker? When was the last time he selected a squad with fewer than three strikers in it? A third striker is much more likely to see action than a seventh CB.

It's a 26 man squad. Taking a 7th central defender instead of replacing Dykes, ensuring we are one injury away from being massively reliant on one striker, would be mental. There's no evidence Christie or McTominay or whoever can lead the line better than the reserve striker options, and moving them there would further weaken us in areas already weakened by the loss of Ferguson. Surely Clarke is just taking the extra time to consider who that replacement is.

Of the results I mentioned, only the one-off win over Zagreb in 2009 (which barely made the list) could remotely be considered to be in the "Lance Armstrong era" I'm afraid. We've only been humbled by lower level opposition once ever and usually get beaten by better opponents despite some notable exceptions and near misses. That's mediocre, not terrible. Feel free to articulate an alternative view.

That's how I see it. The work he's done over the last few years should ensure we're less reliant on individuals. Hopefully the club have known for a while and we can get someone in quickly.

That's Joe Savage away apparently. Disappointing news and disappointing timing unless we've got a replacement lined up. You'd have to say he's done a very good job overall, although it's hard to gauge how much of that is down to his day-to-day management abilities and how much of it is down to him modernising the recruitment structure when he came in.