capt_oats

Scenes when Ricki Lamie replaces Gallagher in the Euros squad btw. In all seriousness his wee run of being alright kind of highlights that for the role he was signed for (ie: covering for injuries or suspension) he's...fine? The problem, as has been said a fair bit, is he's been asked to play far more than we'd have expected and certainly under Robinson he just didn't fit. I'm not sure how long Alexander needs in order to get any sort of appraisal but fair play to him. I still have no idea what a Graham Alexander team looks like or will look like but he's taken a starting XI that Robinson couldn't get any sort of a tune out of and is now P 7 W 3 D 2 L 2 F 8 A 8 Pts 12/21 = 1.7 PPG. That in itself is something and there's also a semblance of an identity about what he's doing, It feels like we're focussing more on ourselves performing as a team than second guessing the opposition. I mean he's went into all 7 games (including Rangers, Aberdeen and Celtic) with a 433. It's a world away in terms of approach compared to Robinson's 550 at Ibrox and the 0-0 against Aberdeen before Christmas. Given the situation he inherited on a run of however many games without a win the obvious move would have been to try and "make us hard to beat" and shitfest our way through it. He's kind of gone the other way in that respect - he's getting more out our forwards and it's hard to argue against the points above about the defence. Still heavy cautious like but I'd say Alexander's start has been pretty positive.

I'm curious to see if the ST plan is discussed at the AGM tomorrow. I'd imagine it will be. As far as the revenue the ST sales generate I've always wondered exactly how much it is, clearly it's a substantial amount and provides cashflow through the summer etc. However as there's never actually any published split (as far as I'm aware) that amount could be vary wildly. When the club are promoting their sales (and credit is due to everyone involved in the % increase we've seen year on year) I'd imagine that the free tickets and youth tickets are incorporated into that figure. IIRC this season's sales were in the same ballpark as 19/20 - which was 4,488 according to the Tweet the club put out. Going by Jim McMahon's statement re: ST refunds had every ST claimed it would have been north of £130k. So assuming the split of ST sales was roughly the same this season as last.some very rough arithmetic means that £130k/4 (home games left) = £32,500 x 19 = £617,500 as an approx. value of ST for a season. Depending on how the club have budgeted for this season and honouring the 19 games there's a fair chance Div Turnbull could be paying a lot of folk in Given there was a VAT benefit to leaving the balance of the 19/20 ST as a 'donation' I wonder if it'll be an option to do the same. FWIW, as I've mentioned before I'm not a ST holder and never have been but given the circumstances I'd be happy enough to make next season my first.

This is weirding me out as well. The pearl clutching about a fairly nothing incident, in a fairly nothing game, that had no discernible impact on the outcome or the player is just odd. It's 100% not something that's worth revisiting after the fact.

I'm a +1 on being very for Jock Brown on comms as well. It hits the early 90s nostalgia sweet spot for me.

I've no dog in this fight but his lowest finish was 8th. You only finished 7th in one of the seasons you didn't get top 6. He finished 8th in 17/18. It doesn't change your point like...a club the size of Saints should be delighted with 8th.

Aye, I'm another who'd have been absolutely fine with Wright getting the gig but your point about him being perceived as an automatic success was the main reservation I had. Fixing problems of his own making at a club where he's in with the bricks is an entirely different job to being parachuted in to fix someone else's mistakes. I've been trying to imagine the strand of the multiverse where Wright got the Motherwell job and what we actually look like. It's still an incredibly small sample size for Alexander but while he's just about hit every mark in terms of what you'd 'expect' a post-Robinson Motherwell manager to be saying the one thing that has (genuinely) surprised me is his straight up focus on us. Where Robinson had hit a point where he was simply trying to stop other teams playing (see the 550 at Ibrox and the 0-0 against Aberdeen at Fir Park) barring Kelly Alexander is using the same players Robinson had and he's stuck to a 433 regardless of opposition which has included Rangers, Celtic and Aberdeen, which when you consider where we were seems...bold. As for this game, the whole new manager thing gives me the fear a bit tbh. At the same time, while I don't entirely trust this team either there have also been incremental positives to be taken from all 6 of Alexander's fixtures to date.

Ironically I think that with Keyes/Nelms seemingly willing to continue to throw money into a massive pit Robinson would be very interested in what they had to say (before he was overlooked for Bobby Geddes). Especially if the Campy project ever actually happens. In fairness to RG what he's saying is pretty much how Robinson's set his stall out since he resigned. To the surprise of absolutely no one he's been very much focussing on how he'd taken Motherwell as far as he could - hence the 3rd is Motherwell's ceiling line - and less so on having Motherwell sitting 10th in the league without a win in 9 or whatever it was. You're right though, what he says he wants and what's offered to him are two very different things. I wouldn't go as far as to say you've "no chance" but I think he'll definitely give his next job a lot of thought given his relative experiences at Oldham and Motherwell. The main difference between him and TW (IMO) is he probably has better options and a shot of getting a gig in England with more of a willingness to take it. Bearing in mind local press down there were reporting that a completely different Tommy Wright had interviewed for the Motherwell job I don't think it's a stretch to say that the actual one doesn't exactly have a profile down there. Though he's distancing himself from it now through his time at Motherwell Robinson was constantly being linked with English jobs - Bournemouth, Huddersfield, Luton etc I don't think those links were quite the "surprise" he was trying to present it as when he was on Sportsound the other week. It wouldn't be a massive surprise to me to see him pitch up at a Preston or a L1 side with promotion aspirations like Ipswich.

In fairness to Burns he's said 'No' to a very specific question.

It's worth a re-visit...

Agree it's 100% the obvious choice and easily the most sensible appointment Killie could make. I'm sure he'll be absolutely fine. The one reservation I had when he was being touted for the Motherwell job was that it's presumably been a while since he's actually had to come into a new club and turn things around. Like, he had poor runs with St Johnstone and invariably fixed their problems and his record with them speaks for itself but he also had the credit in the bank and a strong core of his own players. I'd imagine how he deals with a new club/culture is the acid test.

See, normally the whole conceding early thing goes a couple of ways. Either we completely go to bits and find ourselves on a 5,6 or even 7-0 doing or we get back into it but concede immediately after pulling one back and get a 4 or 5-1 doing. Pressing in the last 20 minutes and having a potential equaliser cleared off the line in the closing seconds isn't how I saw the game going after 2 minutes. Especially with a 433 and Ricki Lamie in at centre back.

Aye, when Robinson was doing his wee tour of the press after he resigned he was talking about how he felt he'd taken us as far as he could, that 3rd was Motherwell's ceiling and how he had been frustrated that we weren't able to get infrastructure projects off the ground. That's before you get to the stuff about not having the energy for another rebuild etc. I mean, all of that is fair enough but while I don't know how you square that with the Killie job (especially if the Aberdeen gig is about to become vacant).

Well, quite. I think it's fair to say had Celtic been chapping our door then he wouldn't still be with us. Equally, it's safe to assume that Celtic were not one of the clubs he kb'd.

That's SOD saying he kb'd a couple of clubs during the January window before signing his extension. Right. Give him the captaincy permanently (I'm only half joking here btw).

Mine is slightly different to @well fan for life purely because I honestly can't remember seeing much of Vadócz etc Anyway: GK: John Ruddy (Everton) - he was a very, very good goalkeeper RB: Liam Grimshaw (Manchester United) - Initially loaned in by Baraclough as a midfielder before later making a permanent return and ending up a right back. CB: Tom Aldred (Bury) - As said, Bury fans absolutely fucking hated him but he was absolutely outstanding for us. CB: Peter Hartley (Blackpool) - Arguably his initial loan spell before he signed permanently was the best he played for us. Everything after was hampered by injury. LB: Tony Straker (York City) - Apart from being the ML1 icon he is, he's a default choice as the only other option I can think of is Stephen Hendrie. CM: Conor Grant (Everton) - Another part of Baraclough's January trolley dash, scored on his debut against County and was generally a very tidy, technical player but didn't really break into the side ahead of Pearson. Ended up being nominally shoved wide right. CM: Alan McCormack (Preston North End): Ended up bouncing around the EFL Championship, L1 & 2 with Southend, Brentford and Luton. Over 500 career appearances. CM: Ross McCormack (Aston Villa): His loan spell was a disaster and lasted 4 appearances where he looked like the side of a house...however if we're talking about the player in general then peak Ross McCormack is definitely in there. FW: Lionel Ainsworth (Rotherham) - The legend himself. The human highlight reel. Another who was initially here on loan before making a permanent move. FW: Lukas Jutkiewicz (Everton) - Apart from that goal he was/is a smashing all round centre forward. FW: Gboly Ariyibi (Nottingham Forest) - The best fun in a million years. Honourable mention to Nadir Ciftci (Celtic). Conor Ripley (Middlesborough), John Spencer (Everton)

Aye. That angle doesn't really do it justice. The ball starts wide but swerves towards the bottom corner really late. In other news I see that's Rowett all but confirmed it was Millwall who had the "substantial" offer for Campbell kb'd. I know Bienkowski's "understanding" will have been legit given who his former work colleagues are but putting 2+2 together from the quote below and the speculation through the window isn't hard:

The Liam Kelly for Scotland hype-train officially starts here...

Aye. He got the #18...before Charlie Dunne signed up again.

It's Diarmuid O'Carroll. He had been brought in to look after the u18s and assist with the Reserves when O'Dea left - Link. Fair play if he's got a gig with Northern Ireland.

Just popping in to say that it fills my heart with joy that it's 2021 and Rangers fans still get bent out of shape by Bad News Bowman and his elbows.

Alexander seems to still be wide-eyed and innocent. He's not been ground down by the crushing inevitability of these games and Scottish fitba' in general yet. I can see us approaching the game in the same way we did the 1-1 against Rangers. Fully expecting a standard 3-0 Celtic win, like. Turnbull's a stick on to score. The only positive is that this is us done with Rangers and Celtic for the season after this, unless there's an improbable Top 6 situation after our games in hand get played out.

Nah, we've done it before. McCormack got #44 from Cornelius who in turn took Alfie Agyeman's number.

I mean...

Aye. 99 was cursed no less. Fair play though, smart 'brand management' wheeling him out to do press after he's scored a (very decent) winning goal.

Scenes when we sell him for another club record fee in 6 months as well.