Durnford

As a matter of interest Penrice was excellent for us even though it is championship level, and chipped in with a goal and made a few yet he rarely seems to get any time with your guys. Must admit I'm surprised as he's a guy who really plays his heart out which I assume is what you need at the moment.

Judging by what Sevco did with Charlie Telfer I wouldn't count on it. Even though he wasn't being paid the suggestion is that they got wind of the fact that Dundee United were interested so offered him a contract which ensured that they would get a fee - set by a tribunal at £200k I believe.

That would be a cracking bit of business... and then I woke up

A nice lad; always had a lot of time for the fans. Generally plays as a forward although he can fill in as a makeshift central defender. Reasonably good at holding the ball up for other faster players; most of his goals for us have come from point blank and headers. Not particularly prolific but good for coming on as a substitute in my opinion. Seems to have struggled in the championship but was pretty good in the first division.

You'll get a lot of differing opinion here but for me he is a young lad with bags of potential. If he cuts out the show-boating and concentrates on taking on and beating defenders then he can be really good. His development has been hampered a bit by all the hype over him (much apparently generated by a family member) and he's had trials with Cardiff and Sunderland recently plus Sevco and Manchester United were reportedly looking at him at one stage. Generally I've thought he's looked at his best on the left side of an attacking midfield.

Myles Hippolite?

Looking at Callum Carson's feed it seems the real news is that Knox is still on trial with Sunderland and no offer has yet been made

As far as I know the most Sevco ever offered was around £50k. Hype or no hype if we'd been offered six figures I'd expect the board to have bitten hands off. Sell-on clauses are often only worth anything in the current length of contract hence if he only gets a one year offer and doesn't move during that time we wont get anything. Not sure where we would stand with regard to development fee though; that would probably go as well but its worth hoping.

So just to be clear you're saying Josh Mullin told you personally that he was leaving to accept an offer from another club which was going through imminently?

Tend to agree; with the arrival of Buchanan our defence is looking a lot better particularly able to handle some injuries and suspensions without necessarily requiring Todorov to fit in. Players may move on if the right offer comes in but there's little point in discussing the potential of every third rate has-been that comes on to the market. Brett and Barr being prime examples here. His failure to impress for the last ten minutes of the QoS game was more due to them defending in depth and cutting off any potential for any of his quick rushes up the wing rather than for any other reason; also in the past he's had excellent communication with Gallagher, who is usually able to pick him out and put the ball ahead of him. As such I'd suggest Gallagher's suspension also had an impact.

I wouldn't bet against it.

At the moment St Mirren appear to be looking at building a team to consolidate again into the SPL. On that basis I could absolutely believe them making a move for Halkett but not Mullin (and I do agree that on his day Mullin can be a excellent player).

Can't see any club willing to pay a fee for Josh to be honest; also sell on only works for the current length of the contract so if he signs on for another side for one year then its unlikely to be worth the ink its written on. Incidentally he played last week didnt he?

I thought both Jacobs and Gallagher should have swapped positions but evidently Hopkins wanted to use Gallagher's height in the centre to counter any route one high ball stuff. Also I got the feeling Jacobs was on the right to support Buchanan as it was his first game for us.

Unfortunately Barr has had a number of shots at the championship and failed to really impress on any of them in my opinion. With all due respect to Bobby; League 1 is his level now. If we were stuck in the position of going for an explayer I'd rather go for someone like Danny Denholm; least-ways you know what you're going to get. On Carrick I think it had become increasingly obvious over the last twelve months that he wasn't really an out-and-out striker. Cant really complain about his work rate or the fact that he played half a game with a hand broken in several places rather than be substituted but it is pretty obvioiud that he is an attacking midfield at best.

I do feel a central defender needs to be a priority; I'm not convinced we'll be able to keep them all past the winter window and anyway Halkett and Lithgow cant be too far from a ban anyway.

Hughes was their manager wasn't he - that says enough.

Sorry but just because Hopkins has played players as a makeshift forward doesn't really mean they are one. Cadden is only ever a winger in my book. De Vita did start his career as a forward but hasn't really played as such for some time (more down to stamina I think). Not sure I'd definitely say Knox isn't good enough; in the pre season games he certainly started to equip himself well; cutting out all the show boating and having put on bit of weight; however in one of his recent appearances he seemed to have gone backwards; his showboating against Glenafton was a mixture of immaturity and lack of respect for the opposition most of which didn't come off and ended up making him look silly. I cannot help thinking that he ended up believing all the hype about him that ended up holding him back; if he concentrates on doing the straight forward stuff well he'll be a lot better player - after all he's only just turned 18.

We do have Knox; Jacobs; Robinson; Brown (when / if fit); Cadden; De Vita etc. Compared to defence and attack I would have said midfield was one area we had covered.

Not sure midfield is one area we need additional cover - also Jordan Thompson played pretty much the entire season for Raith Rovers last year when they got relegated and scored one goal. On one side I think well he was on Manchester United's books as a youth player but then again he is quite short .... That aside I suppose Halkett didn't exactly set the heather alight for his first season with us.

Pretty sure the signing rumours are a wind up; there's no way we'd be offering two year contracts at this stage. With regard to DK at the CIS cup final he was definitely there although I think he was as a guest rather than as chairman at that stage. The club went into administration on the same night we won the semi final against Dundee at Easter Road.

A quick look at your website says that was largely down to having Hibs, Rangers and Hearts during that time, that your estimated to make a loss for your year in league 1, will be interesting to see how your accounts fare this season. Hibs barely managed to exceed a good Falkirk travelling support - partially due to most of our home games against them being televised. Hearts had the best impact on the gate but that was unfortunately only for one season. Unfortunately all three visitors required a hefty and expensive security presence; actually I've be surprised if Hibs showed any profit based on all the shenanigans with fireworks and having to escort significant numbers to Livi South station. Hearts must have shown a decent profit for us and for the local traders though.

Not that its really any of your concern but actually I believe we have now reported making a small trading profit for three years running now

The offer the club made was to pay him £18,000 per annum over the next 13 years (£234k) - no idea if that one was what was accepted.

Sorry but as far as I can recall McDougall alone was owed something like £250,000 wasn't he? Even if everyone at the home games paid full price PATG that would mean a gate revenue of £18,000 per game - that would take the full revenue from almost 14 home games to clear off. There's no way we could have made much of a dent in that let alone Nixon or others. At best we're probably managing the debt which means meeting the agreed repayments unless of course the previous creditors agreed to wipe off their debt but that isn't the same as clearing debt by trading income. No so long ago one of the directors (Wilson?) said we really needed a home gate of around 1600 per home game.