the_bully_wee

That other "gilt-edged" chance would've involved him taking a silken touch running at close to full tilt in the middle of a quite busy penalty box. The ball for the header ended up a wee bit behind him and therefore he couldn't generate the power or direction required to beat the keeper.

It's all about opinions, but I thought he did a very adequate job of dropping deep, offering and laying off passes to advancing players to start attacks. If he sticks away one of his chances (the one where he took a touch and was tackled wasn't even that bad; folk seem to be criticising him rather than lauding the outstanding burst back from the Slovakian boy) then most would be talking about cause for optimism and a good performance. Equally, if Griffiths sticks away that last-second chance he is then given a lot of credit for a great flicked assist.

The point I'm making is that today's performance, alone, would be viewed and described differently if it was one by Dykes. Take it in isolation and I would say McBurnie was actually fine on the whole today, but any mistakes he makes are obviously going to be viewed differently when folk have completely written him off already. He should've scored at least one, but his all-round performance wasn't anywhere as near as poor as is being made out. As I said, there are parallels with the Steven Fletcher scenario where some people's ultimate judgement depended on his goalscoring, when doing so isn't his main role within the system. He struggled badly on Thursday night too, but the entire team was blowing out of its arse when he came on and were shelling the ball up to him with no support, which isn't something he has ever thrived on. Even then, he went on to tuck away a crucial penalty.

I'm just very intrigued to know who these fans want to see playing instead of McBurnie, and why they feel said player would fare much better or improve us. If Dykes turned in a similar performance today then I'm willing to bet there'd be a lot less negative sensationalism regarding the overall quality of it.

I'm not sure what good it's doing continually lambasting a player who looks set to be a squad regular in the long term, is currently second choice, is clearly low on confidence, and is under immense pressure to perform. He was almost immediately written off by Scotland fans, and every time he hasn't had a great game since then has served as some sort of justification for the opinions of folk who seem to take pleasure from his struggles. I don't rate the guy particularly highly, but we are clearly short of quality and depth up front (as we have been for a long time). It would be different a different matter entirely if there were clear and obvious replacements for his place in the XI/squad, but there really aren't. Shankland and Brophy are both some way off being international quality and one or both have appeared in most squads we've had since Clarke came in; McBurnie is younger than the former, the same age as the latter and is playing/has performed well at a significantly higher level than either of them ever have. Griffiths can hardly play half an hour without blowing out of his arse, so we can't rely on him and - even if we could - we need that position to be filled by a focal point who can play with his back to goal, bringing other attacking players into the game. That's never been Griffiths' strength.

It's bizarre that Scotland fans always have to have at least one scapegoat to pick on; McBurnie the sole victim of it now. He's flip-flapped between poor and average in his Scotland appearances to date, but I think I'm willing to trust Steve Clarke's judgement over the mob mentality which persists when it comes to dropping/not selecting specific players. Unfortunately for McBurnie, that video which went about had folk pretty much immediately on his back and that wiped out any goodwill he'd have had in the bank. It reminds me quite a lot of the Steven Fletcher scenario, back in the day. Beyond Dykes, he is the only player we currently have capable of being any kind of an effective attacking focal point. Even the next best we have (Kevin Nisbet, IMO) hasn't made it into a squad (though hopefully he continues to progress as he has and gets there soon), while the serially-unfit Griffiths' reputation still seems to revolve around two free kicks and a mental season for Celtic half a decade ago. We gain absolutely nothing from writing off McBurnie, he is our second best striker right now; if Dykes was out and we ostracised him, who would we start?

The only thing which makes it remotely do-able is committing to playing most games on a Sunday. When you do that, you're far more likely to be handed free wins/experience folk quitting early doors. I tend to get through about 15 matches in less than 3 hours on a Sunday. The difference between Gold 1 and Elite 3 rewards (in theory, anyway) makes it worth the extra bit of pain (again, in theory - come Thursday it all feels rather different). Dunno how long I'll be able to keep doing it for, as I'm already getting the ick due to the guff patches and woeful servers. If it wasn't for COVID, I'd hardly be touching it most weekends. Would recommend that everyone does the Atal SBC. Really good value if you have some mid-rated untradeables kicking about, class for a Ligue 1 team or a very versatile supersub otherwise. It's unlikely that he'll get an upgrade but it's a right good card for a sub in most positions, and will be handy for any first owner objectives too.

Imagine this feeling after getting three diabolical player picks (from 5 options) and then three discard value IFs, having sweated vegetable oil through your pores to get Elite 3 the previous weekend. That's pretty much my Thursday mid-morning these days.

Sold my Renato Sanches IF yesterday amid the panic selling, anticipating that he would get an RTTF and that subsequently his price would remain the same or dip if said card came out. Was hot on the button at 6pm and his *82 rated* RTTF card is currently selling for 1.1m coins, with folk obviously panic-buying the IF card back causing it to rise right back up to pre-drop price. A shitemare, and despite how much I want it I'm not dropping 1m coins on a box-to-box midfielder (I don't even have that many available).

Anyone else had brutal input delay all weekend? I was sitting 7-3 after my first ten games, losing early doors to a trio of absolute diddies due to a combination of the delay and my own sloppiness. I've gone back on today and reeled off 10 wins in a row, but it's still horrific to be playing. Dunno if I should just leave it or keep going to try for E3/G1 again.

Last season, we found it hard to create because we had to sacrifice a lot of attacking output from McStay in particular to protect a defence which was weak as piss, particularly in the full-back areas. That, plus the injury to Syvertsen meaning that our best form of support for Goodwillie until Cunningham arrived was the incredibly hot-and-cold (but mostly lukewarm) Lamont. Once the defence was tightened up (and could play a bit higher) with the arrivals of Livingstone and Lang, we saw McStay (and, to some extent, Grant too) being able to influence things a bit more in a progressive sense. The big problem we have now is that we've gone from having two central midfield players, who were very good at protecting our defence and allowing us to play progressively, to now relying on Cuddihy (nowhere near as good as either) alone doing that job. There are absolutely no alternatives to him, and he simply doesn't look up to it. Fingers crossed that Cammy Palmer is the player who's going to fix it, but christ knows what his injury situation is. It is a hell of a burden to be placing on a 20-year-old loanee.

This isn't just bitterness from a Clyde perspective, but I wouldn't get too excited or think too much about having turned a corner if I was an Airdrie fan this evening. The scoreline, I would say, was far more the result of our sheer incompetence in every regard rather than any brilliance from yourselves. With that said, you can only beat the utter garbage in front of you, and they did so without any trouble whatsoever. I was impressed by McCann and particularly Sabatini today, although I doubt any other team in the division will give either such an opportunity to puff on cigars for 90 minutes. Quite why we left Bain so exposed on that side with an empty jersey floating around in front of him, I really have no idea. As for Clyde, I don't even know where to begin. The slightest bit of pressure and we revert to scudding it up the park; there is absolutely nobody in the squad capable of bringing the ball out from the back. It looked from the first Dumbarton game as though Cuddihy might work well in that role, but teams have obviously realised what's what and he isn't good enough in tight areas to withstand/break a press like Ray Grant could.

Airdrieonians vs Clyde (Ladbrokes League One, 07/11/2020): Match Gallery

Best line of the day from the co-commentator, there. "Hopefully we can take something from this game"

Allowed my optimism to get the better of me. Idiot.

I'm more seething with how bad the commentary is than Clyde's abysmal performance, tbf.

Utterly embarrassing stuff, with an absolutely hopeless game plan to boot.

Chris Johnston would be really good in a dominant League 2 side, but he has been an absolute passenger in virtually every appearance for us. A shame that we didn't manage to punt him in a job lot with Tony Wallace.

A free header with 3 CBs playing. Oh, Clyde, you're doing it again!

That team is screaming a 4-1 loss

Felix is about the only usable decent player from this week's TOTW and I managed to nab him in my red picks, but he seems almost identical to Ben Yedder with a bit less dribbling but a bit more physical, and the WF/SM inverted. Another shiter just before a big promo, as always; the dirty dogs. As always, I then proceeded to get an 83 and a load of players of quick sell value from my 100k pack, but between D1 Rivals and Champs rewards I've probably still made about 200k+. All I want is one decent pack pull before the game is dead in one FIFA; it's been 8 years now and my best ever tradable pull has been worth about 200k.

Oh, without a doubt. Mbappe would slot right into my team on full chem but I wouldn't dream of that; I only flung him on because I was behind in my last game and the difference was 20k, a player pick and a pack of three guaranteed IFs. I'd noticed that fodder players were dirt cheap, but not that icon SBCs were returning this year. Might well join you lads in investing during SB rewards next week, as I've got 450k sitting about at the moment. ETA: Ter Stegen is looking very cheap on that front. Strong links to Pique/Busquets/Kroos and a weak one to Casemiro etc - he will be my man.

Let the haters hate.

Managed to fudge my way to Elite 3 again this weekend, by winning 5 of my last 6 games. I'd started like a train, going 11-0, but then proceeded to end up 12-5 which had me thinking I wasn't even going to bother yesterday. Managed to fire through the first four in less than 20 mins by virtue of rage quits, though, so decided to just go for Gold 1 and see where it took me. I did, however, rely on the subbed-on loan Mbappe winning me the very last game for Elite - apology swiftly issued to my opponent post-match. Hopefully we will see some better rewards this week than my red David Silva.

Fair play to "Clyde FC", that was one of the most insipid footballing performances I've seen in many a year. In many ways, a carbon copy of the same fixture back in January 2012, in which Kevin Finlayson notably (sic) appeared as a trialist. A bunch of Brazilian street footballers would be less overawed by the conditions than we seemed to be today - there is absolutely no excuse for being that bad. Football's back, baby!