Coventry Saint

You'll be fine, IMO, but it's been quite the drop in form from you guys. What's gone wrong? I'm intrigued by Mellon - his Paisley roots always saw him speculatively linked with us. Seemed like he was doing a very solid job in the first third of the season.

Might as well play him: the surgery is unlikely to have made him any worse.

I'd leave Connolly on the bench and give him half an hour of constant sprints against Waters at the end of the game.

TBF, you'd need to get relegated and still be there in 2054 for that to be the case.

Peak Accies, IMO. Usually it'd be to leapfrog us, though, so not sure how that affects things.

I'd genuinely forgotten Clyde were ever relevant this century. Clyde missing out on the top flight by a point (and some GD) is mad to think about, tbf.

Yeah, we did it in 2006. Glory days.

It's worse still when there's no clear favourite and your team's still shite. I present Saints in the 90s/early 00s as exhibit a. The absolute state of this in 2003 (from our POV, not yours, obvs):

Yeah, and on that front I take your point completely.

Yeah, that's a reasonable way of putting it.

Would you class us as having had a significant financial advantage? Genuine question, btw. We certainly almost fitted into the bit in bold those first two years we were down. The most surprising thing for me in our title season was how dominant we ended up being in terms of points. It never really felt that comfortable at the time. I'd say the fact United were down there for three years shows that pure financial muscle isn't always the be-all and end-all.

An unbeaten league season.

Bullshit. It's based on a love ballad I wrote for Ted Rogers, presenter of 80s game show 3-2-1, with Dusty Bin. "It's you and I, Ted..."

Yeah, I wasn't criticising Durmus, in case that came across. He's been great recently and was my MoM vs Celtic. Just a few weeks ago I was ambivalent about whether he was staying beyond the summer and now I really hope he is. I suspect his agent will be looking for another fee, though.

Yeah, there's bound to be a fair bit of rotation over the next few weeks. Wasn't massively impressed with the decision to put Durmus on the right, btw. If we're playing two up front surely you want to be hitting the byline and getting crosses in as quickly as possible. Dunno, might just be me.

Not a penalty IMO, but as written above, we've been given some proper soft ones recently so I'm not really complaining. Fraser does sort of swipe him with his arms a couple of times so can see why the ref has given it, even if actual contact was minimal. Sort of defeat that won't really have done much to damage our confidence, so hopefully we can get ourselves sorted for the weekend.

I sacked it off at the red card. I wasn't quite feeling the way we were lined up to start with: Durmus on the wrong side for me. Still, splitting hairs. Clear red card added goals to what looked the most stick-on 0-0 I've seen for a while. Really would quite like to beat a Jack Ross team one day. Maybe after the split.

Ah, FFS.

It's not a classic. The players all just look like they're cold. Shall we call it 0-0 and just get on with our evenings?

The jump in quality vs where we've been in recent years is clear.

That's a great line-up. I see Magennis is being spared the head-to-head against his cut-price replacement.

Ross County and Accies, probably.

Given he's our most valuable asset (age, contract length, talent), and has a decent chance of being a near ever-present in the best-performing Saints midfield in at least a generation, then any interested parties would need to show us the fucking money. He's got the physique and the passing range, he can strike a ball, and his game awareness is improving all the time. Still prone to some daft moments but those will disappear with experience. I know this is the internet and people chuck stupid valuations around like confetti, but if he's not at least a £1m player then we're never going to have one.

Probs wouldn't read too much into that. Did wonder if he's been rested for tonight (completely feasible if JDH and Flynn are fit to start) - but he's had so much game time, surely he wouldn't be kicking off about that. 25 appearances so far this season. He's been a revelation, tbh, but I think being rested, especially during Feb, and also playing with more experienced players, will do him the world of good.

His account is locked; what's he said?