Coventry Saint

Fair enough. Can't find a weblink but CBA paying to see us play seven defenders.

Christ.

You paid or got a dodgy link? Hesgoal had a link but it disappeared.

Nah but he's got tattoo sleeves like Power and at this stage we might as well pick players based on their fucking ink. Edit: you're right, though, I'd be picking Flynn in there all day long. This is just bizarre.

Simplest explanation is Tait in for Power in the middle. McCarthy, Shaughnessy and Dunne at CB. Fraser and Tanser wingback. Ethan and Tait in the middle. McGrath behind the strikers. But holy fucking shit

After a McGrath swap?

Games on Sundays are fucking shite. Excellent strategic decision to not show up on Thursday night, Saintees.

Yup, teams definitely feared him. Even if his crosses basically came to nothing most the time, defenders couldn't really take that chance and still had to play him.

While they may have figured Connolly out, the benefit with having someone like that in is the space they create for other players. If teams are dropping off, then people like McGrath find themselves in more space. We already lack so much width that it's very easy for teams to push up high and basically suffocate us off the park. If Tanser is doing the 'great deliveries from relatively deep' thing, then we definitely need someone on the other side who is offering something different, even if they're a headless chicken at times.

...and the stage is set.

*Did have.

Fair enough. I too have always found the best way to prove you're not thinking about something is to post on an internet forum about that thing.

I think it's becoming fairly clear that we were hoping McGrath would get sold for a solid fee. I guess there's still a chance of a loan or two, but it seems the transfer market is generally quite quiet and I can't see much happening for us now, either in or out.

He's thrown my own joke right back at me and it stings.

Checking the webbed fingers will be faster, tbh.

I knew we were minted, but I didn't realise we were so comfortable financially that we could knock back the income from the travelling fans of European giants such as St Johnstone.

Fucking disgraceful, tbh. Someone in Perth finally discovers fire and this is how they're treated.

It's great when those gambles pay off. Most of our appointments are gambles in a similar vein to you taking on Glass; they're either decent or awful and there's rarely any middle ground. Goodwin is currently in the 'decent' column based on last season but his name's only written in pencil.

If McGrath stays then Kiltie needs dropping, or we need to find a different system. As you say, it looks like we recruited early based on him leaving, with the plan of using the proceeds to add some gloss/class to the squad in other areas to the squad. We're now stuck with two (supposedly) first-choice number 10s treading on each other's toes. If McGrath wants to hang around and secure himself a more lucrative contract as a free agent next summer, then fair play to him, and on balance it's good news for us. But we need to shape the squad and tactics around the fact that our best player is still going to be here.

Doing anything other than praying Livi/County are worse than us looks pie in the sky now.

I mean, we tried to get them and failed. I wasn't really passing judgment on their qualities.

(Fake edit: just saw the post above but I'd typed the below out already...) Reliable poster on BAWA (they do exist...) saying the Kennedy deal is now dead, which brings the list of wide/attacking players we've missed out on to Middleton, Scott and Kennedy. As I said ages ago (and repeatedly...), we were going to struggle to attract pacey wide players while we stick so rigidly to one system. as @Stan Bo has said, if we can see that the likes of Scott and Kennedy don't fit into how we play, then you can absolutely guarantee the players can see it too. They won't fancy being the new Durmus and being made to flog their nuts off down the flanks.

St Johnstone yet to win a game this season; St Mirren yet to win a meaningful game this season. Will anyone break their duck this weekend? Probably. Will it be us? Doubt it. St Johnstone 6/4 favourites for this and rightly so. As SN1F says, we can but hope they'll be stretched after what is already a fairly full fixture calendar for them. We'll be without Fucking Idiots Power and Dennis and, if Saturday was anything to go by, a goalkeeper with functioning wrists. I can't be arsed to type out the 4-2-3-1 formation that we should go with, nor the 3-5-2 that we'll actually start with. I can't be arsed to type out for about the 15th time that McGrath and Kiltie can't play in the same line-up when we know they will both play. 3-1 home win.

To be fair, if we'd mustered just a few more shots on target in that game at your place when you went down, then he might have managed. Cody Cooke in the record books for the softest hattrick ever recorded. Yeah, I'm not being critical of your (Celtic's) approach - the best teams always have that side to them (harrying, disruptive, lots of niggly 'under the radar' fouls.) And while we're all here saying it didn't affect the result, it can't be easy as the away side seeing Collum pat your player on the back after the most stick-on yellow card challenge you'll ever see, and then see a further 17 fouls go without caution.