the_bully_wee

Aye, certainly has all the hallmarks of being him. Never quite worked out if he was radio rental or just constantly at it for nibbles.

East Fife have done absolutely the right thing here, as have Clyde if the JRG did indeed say the fixture should be fulfilled - I highly doubt the club would put out a statement which such an egregious lie, but you never know. If that is the truth, then the only party to blame here is the JRG for what is, on the face of it, an absolutely mental decision.

I will be utterly seething if we re-sign any more than three of these jobbers

Ah yes, we shouldn't judge a (very-well-)paid employee unless their working conditions are completely ideal. Naff off.

Terrible netiquette doesn't lend any more credence to your bizarre sycophancy when it comes to Danny Lennon's recruitment record. When we were racking up a £170k bill getting out of League Two he was even at it, with the likes of Eddie Ferns (the only player I've actually heard a full crowd laughing at), Ross Lyon, Joe Gorman and Karim Belmokhtar recruited in his most successful season alone (I'll spare him Hopkirk).

Oh absolutely, unfortunately we decided to double down on our strategy of shelling balls long and praying that we would get a lucky break somewhere along the line. As soon as we brought on someone who could run we actually stretched your defence a bit in the last five minutes, but that was obviously too radical a ploy to try sooner when the score of *checks notes* 0-1 was so great for us! As has been said, fair play to Dumbarton. The archetypal Jim Duffy performance, that was - if you execute that against us again then I fancy that'll be enough to see you safe.

Danny Lennon isn't blameless in this squad-building mess. Anyone short of Ronald McDonald (the one with the big red shoes, not the ex-chairman) would be able to see that our squad could've been markedly better this season if we hadn't dished out misty-eyed two year deals like sweeties to some bang average League Two players after being promoted.

For all his usefulness to us in this run, keeping Nicoll on after going behind was laughable decision in a string of them tonight. As stated, Cuddihy and the young keeper the only two to escape that shit show with any credit. The painful thing is that the outcome was so predictable, but I honestly didn't expect us to be that dire. Hopefully huge lessons are learned before our huge trio of games against Forfar and Dumbarton.

Good stuff from Clyde here, constantly diving in against a team that only poses a threat from set pieces!

Shaping up to be an all-timer in terms of painfulness to watch, this. We're making Dumbarton look slick in possession!

Lamont only ever seems to play well against Falkirk, so it's worth a shot.

I did fancy that we would win tonight, but not that easily. As soon as that first goal went in, Forfar were utterly hopeless and once the second arrived I had absolutely no doubt about us going on to win the game. The most worrying thing for Forfar was that we were in complete cruise control for the last 40 mins and they created absolutely nothing.

Five year deal for Otoo please.

Looked as though the shot took a big old dirty deflection, but a great run.

Blood rolling down my cheeks again here. Mitchell never likes the wind, does he?

Klaiber is unreal, unfortunately I'm not willing to take the hit of putting Robben or Van Bergen in to have him in the team (I've no icons) and don't have the personnel to position change him to CB but he remains a valuable sub when I'm seeing out games. I'd like to throw Diogo Dalot's name into the hat for the best value tradeable option (besides the PL meta crowd); I cut my losses on headliners Theo Hernandez on Saturday and bought future stars Dalot (the LB) for 600k less. In game I swap him with freeze Ansaldi (RB, 5* wf) and he has been tremendous for me.

Rage quits tend to be the key in making it bearable, as long as you save at least 5 games worth of time from them it isn't too bad. In saying that, there is absolutely no chance I would be playing this game to that extent if it wasn't for the fact there's almost nothing else to be doing every weekend.

Was shit hot this weekend, started off 10-3 then got myself to 25-3 with the vast bounties of Elite 1 so close I could almost taste them... and then I came up against this. Pope made a nigh on impossible save at 0-0 and then the boy started abusing directional nutmegs and Ronaldo headers, which my (relatively) slow CBs just couldn't handle. Finished 4-2, my heart is truly broken.

Mixed feelings on that one. Was initially quite disappointed (though unsurprised) to see it was a relatively strong team out, but that is a very good battling result. It'll have taken a lot out of our legs though, and the extra fixture could be problematic for us. In saying that, a winnable next tie could see us coining in a total sum over the two games which will make a real difference to next season's budget - let's just hope that'll be for League One.

I wish we had an U20s side to send out for a mullering by Ayr on Saturday, I really do.

We are going up.

Very good point that; was expecting a bit of a pasting today. With Dumbarton in disarray and Forfar looking quite hopeless we do have a decent chance of nabbing 8th, if we can get through these two weeks without incurring (m)any injuries. The one benefit of having so many young loanees is their quicker recovery time and superior fitness, so hopefully we will see that in action. If we can take care of the aforementioned sides in head to head games then I don't see either finishing above us.

Kevin Nicoll conceding a penalty. Well, I never.

To build our own ground now would require a level of borrowing that is undoubtably some way beyond us, given the whole "no assets" thing. Even if we did have our own, the main fresh revenue stream we would have available to us would be pitch rental - though net profit from that would mostly just raise funds towards replacing it 7-8 years down the line, unless we got massive grants to lay one. 40k a year at Broadwood with the potential for big attendance windfalls and minus the liabilities of upkeep/repairs/insurance/staffing costs is a good deal for us, and I really doubt we are much worse off overall than we would be if someone gifted us a brand new stadium tomorrow. One of the main issues at the club is that successive boards continue to be strung along and conned by shysters, rather than being able to come up with a coherent plan to achieve consistent growth and mid-term financial security. Bobby Gracey, Norrie Innes, others who know who they are - several have taken, with boardroom facilitation, the club for a complete ride and left us two steps back and reeling from it afterwards. Mr. Innes' insufferable jargon really ought to have been a sufficient red flag before he was parachuted in, for starters. If we have to take a relegation to get back on an even keel then so be it, but I really doubt we would be coming back up at any point soon unless there were big changes. One of those changes would have to be in the player recruitment field - for all Danny Lennon's strengths as a manager, this is clearly not one of his. Over the last year and a half our recruitment has been utterly diabolical; for a guy who talks with so much optimism about where he wants the club to be, it just isn't good enough. So many lazy and/or Hail Mary signings (and retentions) that it beggars belief. There has been no clear improvement in this regard, even with the appointment of two staff members dedicated to improving affairs. I honestly think I could do a markedly better job of identifying players who are gettable and would do well for us!

Three more gifted goals and a similar number of credible chances of our own across the entire game (two coming after East Fife stopped caring, another from a goal kick). Really worrying stuff - still - and it doesn't look at all like we have the tools to get out of this mess.