btb

Ultimately it's the government that makes the decisions, and that although easing the restrictions in July was the correct decision BJs justification was vacuous.

Must have confused you with some other team, I genuinely thought you qualified with ease - apologies!

For me the UK government has reached the point where it is prepared to live with current levels of the now endemic Covid (it's certainly not been licked) - there were strong arguments for relaxing Covid restrictions down south last month (and on Monday here) but BJs "if not now when" wasn't one of them just his typical laziness and inability to go the distance. You might be correct that we'll see a "fairly quiet winter in terms of Covid" I just don't share your optimism at this point.

Both teams are going into the match after comfortable group sections and relatively disappointing starts to the league campaign, it's a chance for one side to regain some positive momentum.

But this is the summer. It might be the case that the flu & the rona will be competing to kill the same segment of population in the coming winter but overall I don't share your optimism.

Genuinely don't understand your use of the gif in relation to the stats - is it meant to say we're on top of Covid? The drop in case numbers seems to have flattened out at 25-30k cases per day for now which will likely mean upwards of 50 deaths a day for the next month or so before schools then uni's go back and then the onset of winter.... It's pretty clear that the disease is endemic now and that although the coming winter won't be as bad as last years it is likely to be another bleak one for Covid deaths.

......but that battery factory Nissan are building surely proves Brexit is a triumph!

Re Alex Ferguson, if we go back in time to 78 Celtic had demoted Jock Stein and replaced him with Billy McNeill from Aberdeen who wanted Fergie as a replacement, we refused and the relationship between him and our then chairman Willie Todd went downhill quickly from there with Fergie being sacked for gross misconduct and then surprise, surprise being hired by Aberdeen a coupla days later. Fergie took us to an industrial tribunal but lost it famously being described as having "no managerial ability". We sacked him because he wanted to leave and decided to force the issue, not because we didn't realize he was a great manager. One way or another he was going and we'd have been better taking whatever compo was available from Aberdeen. the real pity is that relations between Fergie & the club were soured for years and never really recovered. ***************************** Worst decision - hiring a barely interested David Hay in the summer of 91 who was gone before the season ended and relegation an inevitability.

Yeah but I decided the chance to measure what (if any) progress has been made is more to do with the general nature of the season than anything else.

Free fleg of choice with each vaccine.

As ever the margins of error for us in the top flight are gonna be paper thin this season. I think Saturday's game against Livi will be significant as the continuity in their management helped them to leap ahead of us after we were both promoted inn 2018 but I sensed the gap was closing - statin the bleedin' obvious but a win on Saturday (any sort) will be significant to us for all sorts of reasons. On a more general note I was pretty happy with the business JG did at the start of the window but the end where teams are trying to fine-tune their squads by offloading surplus players and replacing them with similar from "bigger" clubs is also vital - I'm already looking forward to the buttock clenching last 48 hours...

Poor Andrew Neil, his career has never recovered from the halcyon days of the early 70s when he covered St. Mirren games for the Paisley Daily Express!

Instead we fielded an ex-Rangers keeper who threw the game to help fellow Weegie club Celtic - tough, but them's the breaks!

I see Swinney is dropping a heavy hint in The Grauniad that mask wearing in shops/public transport will be retained throughout the winter. He also predicted "many people" would adopt the east Asian practice of routinely wearing them outdoors - sheesh!

Heseltine summed him up when he said "He waits to see which way the crowd is running, dashes in front and shouts "Follow me"". ****************** On a more general note I see Sunak seems to be emerging from the current spat with Johnson as the heir apparent.

I see Scottish teams in terms of tiers 1 The OF 2 The big city teams Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibs then the diddy teams 3. The F/T teams ranging from Dundee Utd. down to about Ayr 4 The P/T teams including Edinburgh City who can't really be put in tier 2. ***************** I expect to lose more often than win against teams from Tiers 1 & 2, to compete on a reasonably equal basis from teams in tier 3 on a sliding scale, obviously I'd expect our H2H to be better against Ayr than Dundee Utd. and to win more often than not against teams from Tier 4. I've never heard teams from Tier 2 described as diddy teams before especially by one of their fans - perhaps I should have made this explanation at the start of my first post but I genuinely believed that most fans would see it this way. So in my lifetime, of the diddy teams, only the Fakes & Dundee Utd. have won more major trophies than us.

The only diddy teams, this is where we end up when one of us doesn't read carefully...

St. Johnstone

You'll be dead then, and posting from the grave...

Or Hearts in your lifetime I'll bet... Out of the diddy clubs only The Fakes & Dundee Utd. have won more than two major cups in my lifetime so I'm reasonably satisfied with what my club has achieved.

Mmmmmmmm!

Maybe phrased my post badly but I'd also have expected these guys to know what to do to get us max possible crowds ASAP.

I thought one of the outcomes from that was hiring a coupla guys who knew what they were doing, to prevent a repeat.

Um, perhaps I'm missing something but why couldn't we have used the Airdome for training, or like I say am I well off-track? I work every other Saturday so don't but a ST but if circumstances were not so and I'd bought one I'd be a bit miffed. I guess it'll be awhile before I get back in...

Only sorry I can green dot you twice!