Thistle_do_nicely

My heart cant take this tbh

Sound asleep at that, great ball in tbf, Mitchell flat footed too. All to do again.

Old Man Alston

I wonder if this is an unfortunate side effect of elaborate tax dodges, attracting folk to charitable activities purely because their accountant advises them they can grift £X off their tax liabilites on their returns.

Oh, I can mind back in college - just remembered woman went round the class (not staff but one of the students), a good 20 of us, took money off everyone to put in a card, as one of the guys had become a dad during the course after his mrs gave birth. Later claimed she'd "lost the card" and rocked up to a lecture one of the days shortly thereafter, wearing a brand new pair of expensive trainers. Pretty much universally agreed that she'd just bumped everyone and treated herself to them. Didn't help herself by pleading poverty to everyone wanting a refund either, promised she'd do it but went through the Big Book of Excuses for the rest of the term. Another guy (on the same course) tapped £50 off a fellow student with a big sob story... then withdrew from the course and blocked him/ghosted him so he wouldn't have to pay it back. Edit: this wasn't me, thankfully, but I did get stung to the tune of a fiver for the baby gift. It's genuinely a bit soul destroying to have to constantly be on your guard against these utter chancers that live life like they're complete goblins out of an Irvine Welsh novel or something.

Oh, hadn't realised she'd passed away, but vividly mind this - https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/jan/07/camila-batmanghelidjh-obituary Depher reads a bit more open-and-shut, but that excerpt reads more like that Casino scene. "You're either in on it, or your incompetent, either way I can't have you working here anymore"

Amusingly (and idk if the cameras would get the required coverage to gauge it unless there were dozens of them) I reckon you'd get more value out of goal line tech at the *sides* of the pitches and at the sides of the goalmouth, rather than on the goal line. Would help the linesmen more because there's far more instances where it's hard to tell by the open eye if a ball has gone out for a throw in/goal kick/corner than there are actual goals. VAR wouldn't really intervene unless there's been a goal, I don't think? And then you have to decide who the ball has come off last if it does go out, nothing for that except a referee's judgement. Just remembered our blatant corner against Raith that somehow got given as a GK after cannoning off a defender, so yeah, trust that as far as you can throw it...

Think the fact theres even a formal vote in England bodes well up here, going to ramp up the pressure to do the same here and with the greater reliance on season ticket income it'd surely have a good chance of getting passed. Not really sure whether tv fans are that arsed about it, in fact they might actually lap up the "Ohhhh is VAR going to let this stand or overturn it?! I'm so excited!" drama of it and its a godsend to half-arsed sports journalists that can just spend a few minutes picking away at the referees, rather than analysing games in a way that would either bore casual fans, risk upsetting a fanbase or worst of all, involve applying a bit of thought or effort into actually fucking reviewing the match. Loathsome as he was, I kind of liked Andy Gray picking the bones out of a defensive/attacking shape at goals e.g. pointing out that a full back was too far away from a centre half at a point in a phase of play, and showing where the defensive culpability was. These days unless its a keeper chucking one in or a player having a Gerrardesque slip on his arse I dont think theres as much of that? I suppose the athletic/tifo try to cater to that audience, but imo they sometimes go too far in the other direction (bit of a "so you want a relatable, down to earth TV show about everyday problems... thats swarming with magic robots" now that i type it out, but surely pundits dont need to underestimate their audience *that* badly and can cater to midwits like me as a happy middle ground) They might try a Yes Minister style whitewash "lets vote on a consultation to hold a review on how VAR operates in the fulness of time" knowing that, right enough.

I'd be tempted (assuming it hasn't already been tried somehow in training and just straight up doesn't work; Doolan's the professional here at the end of the day ) to try - GK: Mitchell RB: McMillan CB: Aero (if fit, if not then Neilson) CB: O'Reilly LB: Milne CM: McBeth CM: Bannigan AMR: Fitzpatrick AMC: McInroy AML: Robinson ST: Graham with Alston as backup to come on for McInroy once he's burst in the 2nd half, Diack an option if we're chasing the game. McInroy is fine at passing and can shoot, but he's not quite quick or skillful enough out wide, McMillan/Fitzpatrick down the right should hopefully combine better than McMillan/McInroy, in theory getting overlaps to win corners (albeit no quality takers there, Alstons deliveries were a marked improvement on McInroys) Need to work hard to get quality service into Graham. Robinson down the left as a kind of inverse Lawless; again, imo Fitzpatrick and Milne were shut down pretty well by Raith. Not having Adeloye, Wasiri or Lawless makes it a fair bit harder; end of the day Raith have finished well above us on merit, had the beating of us all season and are clearly a better side than us, so it's a tough ask whatever 11 we put out. I'm still praying to the Football Gods giving us the blessing of a narrative whereby last season we have a better side on paper, blitzing the playoffs only to chuck it away in the final game, and this time round we claw our way through every round by the skin of our teeth and just breeze through the final game.

Hrhm. Still in it technically, but bloody hell. Cant start with the same 11 in the same shape next week, but idk what we can actually do Obviously slated him right before the goal but would be tempted to start Alston next time out, or if he does come on as a sub to do it earlier if the midfield looks fucked. Far and away our best threat, decent set pieces too. Graham unlucky a bit, hopefully more of an impact from him on Friday. NO MCINROY WIDE RIGHT. Hes not got the close control or agility to replicate what Lawless does. Think we had to win tonight but just hope its not a gut wrenchingly shan way we go out of the playoffs on Friday like the Livi cup game earlier this season or, well, us last season.

Oooohhhoo here comes The Ghost Of Rico Diack to haunt Raith oOoooohhhoo

Ngwenya playing like its pre-season, so slow to react to everything. ooooOooooohhhhhh here comes The Ghost of Blair Alston to haunt the Rovers defence OOOoohHhhHHhHhhooo Edit: YAAAAASSSSSS IVE DONE THE THING! OFF TO PUT MONEY ON NGWENYA HATTRICK PLEASE

Waaaay too many problems all over the park. Tie not quite done but one more for Raith here and its curtains tbh, might be a total arse collapse and all. Best case for us is somehow nicking a goal out of f**k all late on for 2-1 and change it up next week. McInroy wide right isnt working, which isnt helping McMillan who doesnt know what to do if hes wide right with the ball, Milne is having to try and do it all himself because Fitzpatrick looks fucked, Neilson and Stanway already on bookings and have a feeling we'll be lucky not yo get a red at some point. some job to sort all that out in a halftime break tbf, we're there for the taking if Raith keep going for it

Would have liked us to sign him, still happy enough if we keep Diack in as understudy to Graham all the same. Only basing it on some of the Friday night TV games but he puts in me in mind of Steven Craig and some of the goals he got for us in the title winning season. Having someone you can just bloot the ball up to and they can still make a few goals from it is really useful, have seen plenty of powderpuff forwards through the years fail to do anything of the sort; Graham doesn't typically do that for us although I think he got one from a mix up against Arbroath this season.

Did they not get a reasonable, if not quite eye watering, fee for Akinyemi? Might still have some left from that.

edit: can't stress it enough but we lost Kevin Holt, Kyle Turner and Ross Docherty from last season - replaced them with Wasiri Williams, Lewis Neilson on loan and latterly Luke McBeth (from Glenafton, albeit he looks like the Terminator at the back a lot of the time, absolute machine & could be a brilliant find given how quickly he's adjusted to full time football already), Kerr McInroy on loan, Blair Alston on a free, Scott Robinson and Adeloye on loan. Ngwenya is another in on loan. I really don't think we can be accused of relying on funding/spending particularly heavy this season tbh, would have been a bit of a heavy risk to take given Utd were always going to be hard to properly compete with at the top & we needed to fix the mess we were in with Low eating up all of our cash reserves. Doolan's had some flaws with the occasional team selection/substitutions (in my opinion and sometimes just with hindsight, Livi cup game the side we had out for extra time had some questionable choices, think that game Diack was wide right and it just didn't really work, but with injuries & maybe due to us missing out on some transfer targets it's been square pegs in round holes) but there's not been many games where the players have looked like they've chucked it. Was some really rancid mid season form right enough from us, think after January we went a good few weeks without a win but mercifully the team was able to sort it eventually. Largely that was around the time Mitchell was still frozen out, once he came back in that played a big part in stopping the rot, so Doolan to his credit might have had to swallow a bit of pride on that score & admit that Sneddon needed dropped. You can't always legislate for a keeper going through a sudden catastrophic drop in form & killing the defences confidence imo.

I think - applying the scientific "how would I feel if it was given against vs. for my team" test - that wasn't a penalty, tbh. Won't criticise Collum too much for sticking with his original decision. Falls into one of those weird ones that seem to happen quite often in football where justice was arguably served by it getting saved in any event.

The odd thing is that I have a smidgeon of sympathy for Lundstram; it's a hospital pass from Hart which has enticed the tackle. He's probably got it in the back of his mind to make amends for the own goal. All the same - with where he's made contact its 100% a red card. Lucky not to have seriously injured Johnson.

3 mins 50 seconds for the full flavour, for the Faddy facepalm

At the risk of spamming, but its a whole separate point - about £800 for flights, acommodation (bed, breakfast and balcony), hold luggage, travel insurance (booked separately), shuttle service... For 11 nights my gut feeling is that's pretty good value and I've not been fleeced? It's the first time I've tried booking a holiday myself, only ever been friends/family/partner that has booked stuff before, was ridiculous getting lost among the dozens of similar websites edit: I suppose time will tell, but it feels like a hard kind of... tricky thing to guage & it's a pain in the hoop trying to do due diligence; tripadvisor generally says the place I've booked up is decent enough, but its a balance between too cheap and it might spoil the entire holiday by being an ant filled, mouldy shithole; too expensive and you risk overpaying for a holiday to the tune of a few £hundred which eats into your spending money...

Had also posted in the Euro 2024 travel plans thread, but have opted to just book up finally - 11 nights in Puerto de la Cruz during the Group Stages of the Euros. On my lonesome which will be an odd experience (anyone out of my limitied social circle I tentatively checked with either i) hummed and hawwed about going for that length of time as it'd mean using a fair chunk of their holiday time or ii) has family/girlfriend commitments that mean "aye honey im just going with my pal to spain for 11 days" is a conversation they can't be arsed with the hassle over, which I get), but tbh sunshine, dipping in the water and a few drinks while watching the group stages has a huge appeal even if its just me myself and I. Guy in my work that regularly goes holidays (sometimes group, sometimes wee single getaways) says it can still be great, basically just pick and choose whatever you fancy rather than potentially getting dragged to places/activities that you maybe can't be arsed with. This place is right near where I've gone for too, already doing my nosey on Tripadvisor at whats nearby! Iberian risotto sounds class, unf https://www.thefork.co.uk/restaurant/ibericos-gastro-bar-r819307

Just remembered as well; Brian Graham winning several crucial defensive headers in our own box I dont even think they were all from set pieces either, sometimes from open play and him going back to help out wherever he could. What a man.

Whew. Surprised to read that Graham was offside at the first goal, was sat near it and the angle made it look like it could have been one of those funny ones where he was somehow behind the ball as it was played. Fair enough if he was but it wasnt one of those where anyone near me held their breath for a flag. edit, trying to articulate it, but its a kind of almost vertical crossing position from in the box, which imo is harder to call for offside from the flight of the ball than a straight horizontal one past a last defender. Var can still sook ma rook. Also a time stood still one, thought for a second he'd Iwelumo'd it over the bar with the contact he got on it... Milne, Graham and Fitzpatrick all put in a fair shift, all of them had moments where they got in and about Megwa, stopped him from comfortably having an influence the same way he strolled the last leg. Considering we've no Lawless its great to still be in with a shout, fully expect Raith to pap us out - still, im all for us scraping by and somehow going up by the skin of our teeth in every single tie this time round vs. having a better side on paper last season and steamrollering every single game (except the last, most cucial one...) - a la the Peterhead playoff season where we were about 250 points behind Morton and somehow still went up instead of them.

Half expected Alston to be coming on for Graham there, full on Leveinball

Bannigan on for Fitzpatrick after O'Reilly on for McInroy. Hm. Cant actually fit where everyone would be, Graham up front with Robinson off him, back 5 and 3 centre mids?