capt_oats

Perfect time to announce that IMO. 6 pointer against fellow struggles tomorrow having been scudded 3-0 by ICT and dropped to 2nd bottom of the league. What could possibly go wrong? The fanbase are so warm and fuzzy towards the Well Society too. Tbh, as far as I'm concerned it doesn't really matter what the Society does/doesn't do as a body but rather how the club itself is run and that's specific to Alan Burrows who I've a fair degree of faith in and the current board of directors who I don't really know that much about though Jim McMahon seems to have his head reasonably screwed on. There's that weird idea that seems to float around re: fan ownership that they're just going to lift randoms from the East stand and get them to run the club (acknowledging that Flow is a fan from the East stand but you know what I mean). From what we've been told the budgets were restructured last summer and from Les Hutchison's interview in the Mail ages ago a cash neutral position was achievable. If that's the case then the sole function of the WS should essentially be to act as a bank. Ach, we'll see how it goes I suppose. The only period in my lifetime that he club has been owned by someone with "deep pockets" (not including Hutchison which was always a temporary thing) we ended up in administration so that's something I suppose.

Fair play. If that's how he goes about things then it's probably less of an issue, possibly even to be expected.

If I were a Dundee fan I'd definitely be concerned that it's almost November and the manager is still seemingly scrambling around the free agent market. Regardless of whether or not he lost Stewart and Hemmings he surely has an idea of how he wants his team set up with the squad having been put together with that in mind. There's surely a point at which he has to draw a line, work with the squad he's put together and attempt to get them playing rather than simply chucking more players into the mix. OK he may not have been intending to be relying on Yordi but surely it would have been seen as a possibility that Hemmings would leave? Equally it's a big ask for El Bahktaoui to step up from League 1 level to Premiership, I've a feeling that's why as many clubs were hesitant to take him on for the wages his agent seemed to want. McGhee basically said when MFC had a deal on the table that it was a choice between him or McDonald, we couldn't afford both. It's unrealistic to expect Dundee to bring in direct replacements who'll contribute the same sort of %s as Stewart and Hemmings combined but going into the season with Yordi, El Bahktaoui, Duffy, Loy and Wighton seems a bit...light. Especially when you'd be expecting 3 of them to take a bit of time to find their feet at this level. Looking back to McCall's ill fated final season at Fir Park his point when he left was essentially that he didn't know how to fix what was wrong with the side. It was a squad who had finished 2nd the season prior (despite being on the wane) yet the form just went completely off a cliff. There seemed to simply be hope and expectation that we'd turn a corner. On this date (24th October) 2014 we were sat 11th on 7 points P 11 W 2 D 1 L 8 by the time he walked on 2nd Nov we'd P 12 W 2 D 1 L 9, still 2nd bottom. Reading Hartley's post-match comments and hearing that he's looking at bringing Haber raises the question as to whether Hartley actually knows what the issue is or how to fix things. The 352 he played against St Johnstone just seemed like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, none of the players seemed to know what they were doing and tactically it didn't seem to counter anything. It was just a bunch of guys who had nominal positions on the park.

Decent effort.

Tune. Love a bit of Alvvays

It's not a league that I've ever given much attention to but I've been keeping an eye on League 1 this season purely on account of Johnson having ended up at Oxford and Stephen Robinson taking the Oldham manager's job (with Baraclough as his assistant!) and taking guys like Josh Law with him along with bringing in Connor Ripley and Lee Erwin on loan. There's such a weird delusional entitlement around quite a few of the fanbases, particularly Oxford who seem to take a bizarre moral high ground and have a far higher opinion of themselves than they actually warrant. I watched their game against Wimbledon the other week when it was on the telly and it was absolutely dire. Proper throwback hoofball stuff. For all the talk of the attraction of the game in England, their lower leagues seem to be utterly soul destroying; empty stands and generally poor fare with managers getting binned left, right and centre.

I don't disagree with the sentiment but apart from the obvious financial reasons I think it probably depends on how the manager sees his career developing. If he has genuine aspirations of managing in England and all that brings with it then there may well be a feeling that he has to start somewhere. Even more so if he has no real profile in the English game or experience of their league. I'd say Neil has probably been the exception rather than the rule in terms of relative success moving from this league to Championship and even then he saw his side relegated last season. Having said that I'd be quite surprised if Archibald swapped the relative security he seems to have at Thistle, unless of course he feels he's taken things as far as he can and this is an opportunity that benefits all parties. Thistle get some money and he gets to move with his CV showing he consolidated his side as a top flight club.

McGhee mentioned him the other week when talking about McHugh remarking on both of them suffering from delayed concussion. Other than that there's not been a lot of chat about him.

I'm not sure how much stock you can place in it but did both McGhee & Lucas not say that the club had asked him to be patient and they'd sort a deal out. As you rightly point out he'd been at the club for the best part of 2 months.

Shrewsbury approach for Archibald. http://stv.tv/sport/football/1370402-shrewsbury-town-approach-partick-thistle-over-manager-alan-archibald/

It's notable that Thomas hasn't played for the 20s the past few weeks, nor did he make the bench for the first team on Saturday. The fact he was in the squad to play Hearts suggests that his omission hasn't been injury related. Completely agree though, he needs to get a sustained period of first team football and see where he is after that. His deal's up in 2018 so he's still got a bit of time to salvage things but he's definitely in danger of being overtaken by Hastie who, just as a general observation, looks a far better fit for a McGhee side. Indeed it's fair to say that on the whole the 20s play McGhee's 433 far better than the first team. Even at 17 Hastie's a bit more solid, more of an athlete and seems to have an end product to his game. You can see him being as comfortable a conventional left mid as left wing, something you couldn't really say about Thomas or possibly even Johnson. Given he's naturally right sided I'd imagine MacLean will have been earmarked as next in line for Cadden's current role, whether that's after he moves on or whether Cadden moves into the centre of the park.

I don't necessarily disagree and definitely get the point being made but I think I'm right in saying that McGhee indicated at the start of pre-season that we'd be looking to run with a first team squad of 20-21, that is roughly speaking where we are just now. In January last season I think we had a first team squad pushing 26 after Baraclough's trolley dash. There was a similar discussion in the "Give Youth A Chance" thread over on Steelmen and having looked back on McCall's full seasons we were generally using between 22 - 25 players over the course of a season. Thus far we've used 23 though that will probably increase given we seem to have a decent pool of 20s to supplement the squad; GK - Samson, Brill DF - Tait, Heneghan, McManus, Hammell, Chalmers, Kennedy MF - Cadden, Lasley, Clay, McHugh, Lucas, Ainsworth, Thomas FW: McDonald, Belic, Blyth, Bowman, Moult, McFadden u20s: Mackin, Ferguson, Campbell, MacLean, McMillan, Hastie I have a feeling that the unknown element to McHugh's injury along with the unexpected (?) departure of Pearson has probably thrown things as much as Johnson's last minute move, we knew he was going as we were actively trying to move him on. Similarly as prolific as Mackin has been at 20s level he was something like 2 in 13 for Airdrie in League 1 during his loan spell so there's nothing to say that it's a given he'd hit the ground running for the first team should he be needed. It wouldn't surprise me if we saw him get the 2nd half of the season loaned out to a Championship club and see how he does at that level.

A few names I don't recognise there too specifically Agyeman and MacDonald. For what it's worth going by Craigan's pre-match interview there's talk of a bounce game for the first team tomorrow (3min 56) . Wonder who it's against? Some pointed words for players who bumped contract offers as well.

Both Belic and Blyth were training last week (going by the photos the club posted up on their socials). Lucas may have been as there were a few bodies obscured but I don't think their omission from the match day squad was injury related. I guess we'll see if they're involved with the 20s tomorrow. I'm inclined to agree re: Belic that he's someone we've taken a punt on and decided to have a look at. A cursory glance at YouTube or even (don't laugh) FM shows him as a right footed forward so it'd be genuinely surprising if he was brought in as a replacement for Johnson. If anything he looks to me like someone who'd fill McDonald's role though it's unlikely McDonald's every going to be dropped so it does beg the question of what's the point, though I was surprised to see him subbed off at HT on Saturday. Either way, assuming we're not contributing too much to his wage then I'm not hugely surprised that we've said "alright then" to the offer of "would you like to take this highly rated Serbian u19 cap from West Ham's academy for 6 months?". What does seem to be the case is that with injuries (McHugh specifically along with Hammell and Chalmers to an extent) & outgoings (Pearson, Johnson) we're almost through the 1st round of fixtures and still don't have a settled XI or shape. We know McGhee likes the 433 but it's looked an awkward fit with Bowman, Moult and McDonald as the front 3. Given how uncommon a shape it is (and more traditionally South American), it raised an eyebrow to hear McGhee suggest we went 4222 at the weekend. I was interested to see how specific McGhee was when commenting on Ferguson and McMillan in his post-game media comments. His suggestion was that they've 10-12lbs to add. We've always known about McGhee's thing for fitness and physical prep but tied to the fact that you've got Craigan referencing GPS and whatever ProZone variant they're using almost every week post-match for the 20s then it seems to be a culture that's filtering through all the squads. It's obviously a good thing especially given how far someone like Cadden has come in the last year. I've said before but based on his form for the 20s I think there's every chance that Jake Hastie will skip ahead of Dom Thomas in the pecking order for the first team. It wouldn't surprise me to see that oft mentioned loan for Thomas happen next window, if not sooner. I see Pearson was sent off in Atletico's 1-1 draw yesterday, whilst not wanting to take anything for granted it seemed to be hinted at that he'd be back at Fir Park in January, he said himself in his statement "who knows one day I might be back for another go at it" I may be reading too much into that but it seems like it should have had a winking emoji next to it. I wonder if that's the reason that there hasn't been a like for like replacement brought in and we've had a section of our budget earmarked for him coming back.

He's on a two year deal. http://www.motherwellfc.co.uk/2016/07/05/mchugh-is-new-signing-number-five/ Agree it must be horrible, what's worse is I can't imagine there's any sort of rehab he can be doing. Just a case of sitting and waiting. You'd think there would be a psychological element too, even once fit you'd surely think twice about going in for a header again.

Mudhoney- Touch Me I'm Sick

Freda Payne - Band of Gold

Have The Rangers released a statement about it yet?

Drake at the Hydro. Tickets on sale Friday.

Daniel Johnston - Some Things Last A Long Time

The Big Short (9/10) Loved it, 2nd time watching it actually as it turned up on Netflix the other week. Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, Brad Pitt with some nice wee cameos from Margot Robbie, Selena Gomez, Anthony Bourdain amongst others. Basically about the guys who predicted the economic crash and made a lot of money out it. Recommended.

Yeah, the up to date rules dated Aug 4th 2016 are here and allows for "emergency" temporary transfers (pages 114-118) and those rules you've quoted still seem to hold. http://spfl.co.uk/docs/067_324__therulesofthescottishprofessionalfootballleagueasat4august2016_1471856539.pdf There are a few articles about the "scrapping" of the rule but most of them (if not all) seem specific to the English leagues: http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/why-scrapping-emergency-loan-window-bad-news-every-english-club http://the72.co.uk/47108/enjoy-it-fifa-scraps-emergency-loans/ Edit: Annex 1. 55: states the term may commence/terminate outside a Registration Period. So yeah, it'd appear the rules still apply up here (below Premiership level)

I saw the chat about Thomas to Ayr on loan. Is that even do-able outside the transfer window? I thought FIFA scrapped the 'emergency loan' thing. The English leagues were making a big thing about it: http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/10509644/emergency-loan-window-system-changes-explained