monthefife

I was quietly hopeful that Tierney would be fit in time for this, seeing as it wasn't a "major knee injury". But now that's confirmed, it's a huge loss for the team. No other player can replicate what he offers to the team.

Gilmour thrives with good, hard-working players around him. Everton have very, VERY few good players. They're only just marginally better Norwich. Hope his ankle injury is not serious and keeps him out of the WC play-offs. He would be a massive loss.

FFS. We're just a John McGinn injury away from becoming an average team again.

The Welsh squad has been announced. Anyone heard anything about when our squad is announced? We already know about Dykes, Christie and Brown.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Sorry to see King Kev leaving but sadly he's not the same player he was 2-3 seasons ago so it's perhaps for the best. Age has now caught up with him but let's not forget what a fantastic servant he's been to the club. A true professional both on and off the pitch, and we wish him all the best for the future. Still zero confirmation from the club with regards to who's staying and who's departing. Which is pretty poor. Don't know about anyone else, but I get the feeling that whomever is contracted for at least another season may be negotiating with the club to try and rip up their contracts to start afresh and look elsewhere. The club and Stevie Crawford now have a massive task to try and entice a group of players to want to sign for this club.

Thank Christ this nightmare of a season comes to an end this afternoon.

The warning signs had been staring right in our faces for the past few seasons, yet we failed to act and now ultimately paying the price for it. And now it appears that a small number of our more promising, criminally under-utilized young guns are heading elsewhere at the end of the season. What a palava. Hopefully the younger lads take their opportunities this afternoon. Can't do that much worse than most of the senior squad. My only concern is that most of them look really small. Will they be ready for the physicality of League 2 next season?

Do grow up.

Can only recommend that people rank every single candidate on their ballot paper and "vote till ye boke". Yes, even if that means ranking your least preferred candidates from "least worst" to "very worst". My (limited) understanding is that if you only rank your preferred candidates and leave the rest blank, it is then assumed they're all given a "joint-last" score. You know, for the first time in a long time, I was very ready and open-minded to hear what "Scottish Labour" had to offer in these council elections, but they appear to continue to go down the road of taking the Scottish electorate for absolute fools and promising things they cannot possibly deliver at a local level. They're only showing themselves to be the Scottish branch-office of the what-is-now, "British Brexit Labour Party" and therefore, I cannot in good faith give them a vote in my top 4 or 5. So disappointing that they refuse to listen and to learn from their past mistakes.

I fully accept that some people have a dislike of Sturgeon. That is entirely your right. But to try and use this latest 'mask-gate' thing as some kind of a "gotcha!" moment or to try and equate it with what BoJo and his staff/pals have been up to with party-gate, completely and utterly reeks of desperation. It's absolutely pathetic.

I find it incredulous that in Scotland we have hardly any young GK's even close to challenging Craig Gordon for that no.1 jersey.

Quite simply a colossal disaster of a season. Getting relegated (deservedly so) is one thing, but when you consider the fact that we could be missing out on as many as eight money-spinning Fife derbies next season, it takes that disappointment to another level. So what happens next? Well now that relegation is confirmed, I suppose the board and Crawford will be able to start preparing for the new season, but I can honestly say I have very little, if hardly any confidence at all that we'll have a core group of players capable of getting us at least getting into the top 4. Wouldn't be disappointed to see the back of the entire team to be honest with you. Only ones worth keeping I'd say would be Smith, Murdoch, Higgins, Steele, Millar, Denholm, Newton and Healy. Swanson's a decent player but will be on far too high wages for League 2 so he'd have to go and the others are either loanees or simply not good enough. One thing that was glaringly obvious to East Fife fans this season was the blatant lack of physicality within the squad and this MUST be addressed for the upcoming season.

Going to be bold here. I reckon with the pressure off the players and with the despondent mood of EF fans, we'll manage to get a couple of wins against Falkirk/P'head completely out of the blue, and Dumbarton will lose their next two against Cove/Airdrie before the decisive last game of the season. Let's have it!

Just been thinking, if he still doesn't regularly get into the first team for Chelsea next season and that he'd be open to a move away. Which club do you think would be beneficial for his development?

Absolutely gutted with this. Tierney is arguably our most effective all-round defender and the back-line just isn't the same without him. Although still not clear what the full extent of his injury is, that Arsenal website claims he had "discomfort" which surely can't mean a ligament rupture/tear? It's absolute agony. The Premier League finishes on the 22nd May so if his season is definitely over for Arsenal, just get him focussed on recovering in time for the WC play offs in June. Fingers crossed.

McGregor will sort him out right enough. All seriousness though, that draw is superb. If that's not enough to motivate the players to get to World Cup, then I don't think anything is. What an unbelievable opportunity.

Yes, he did pull off some world-class saves in that first half against Austria but that was all undone with his second half performance. Really poor. I'm not excusing the defence but at the very minimum the keeper has got to make a dive for the 2 goals but instead just stood there ball-watching. He's a tall keeper and he should be able to get to those. As for when the ball is at his feet, he is a bomb-scare. Zero composure, he either panics and hoofs the ball far too early or takes too long and underestimates how quickly opposing strikers will close him down.

There is no question that we've made a vast improvement since Steve Clarke has taken over. However, I still can't help but feel somewhat deflated about throwing away what should have been two strong, convincing, clean-sheet wins against two strong opponents. That will have some effect on the players' confidence. Clarke and his staff needs to address this for the WCQ match(es) ASAP. At this rate I think we'd only scrape past Ukraine but get rinsed against Wales. The substitutions against Austria were completely baffling.

Just get this over with and put us out of our misery. Surely Airdrie will sell out their away section?

I'm unfamiliar with the term "hangers on". What does it mean?

I wish I could just say "Yes, ban these bigoted, hate-fests once and for all", but the more I think about it, the more I believe that banning them is exactly what the Orange Order imbeciles would love to happen, and that it would be playing right into their hands, thus making things worse. It would only put them further in the spotlight and they'll be crying out as if they're victims of being silenced/erased etc. I don't know what the right approach is to this issue. I'd have hoped that education and early intervention in schools (particularly in the Central/West of Scotland areas) would be a starting point, but ideology is passed down from family generation to generation and a "sense of belonging" trumps all of that. Having state-funded denominational (faith) schools is of no help either.

Agree. I think he would absolutely thrive in the current Chelsea squad. Once Kante, Kovacic, Jorginho all bugger off

If the 'superstar' you're referring to is Andy Robertson, he's not in the same category as Bale is. Robertson isn't the superstar sort player that can win you games or score "worldie" goals out of nothing.

I know social media generally speaking, is awful. But FB in particular is filled with utter guff and the only people left who appear to use it often, are mostly imbeciles.