Sao Paulo

All the league and cup rejigging that's been done over the past ten years or so has just been a dice throw by governing-body executives who were either bored or too ready to take seriously the whines of supporters amplified through the papers and suchlike; the amplification making it seem as though there was an irresistible consensus in favour of fiddling at the margins with the league and cup arrangements. As for putting it to a vote of clubs, again, of course they're going to vote in favour if it'd do them one. Ask me: would you like your next exam to be easier? I'd say aye if I thought the resulting qualification still traded-in for the same value in the labour market. 'You told us the game needed spicing up, so here's what we did'. It's the sort of job-justifying pish that those of us working in large corporations or in the public sector are probably all too familiar with occupationally. The only thing I'd give credit for is the pyramid: creating a back door for shite mobs and an entrance for ambitious non-league teams. Otherwise, what's it amounted to? Some teams benefitting from a play-off based promotion where they'd otherwise have stayed down; some teams missing out on automatic promotion/surviving demotion because of their play-off results; team's treating cup games against colt sides with contempt; a fixture pile-up leaving teams shattered on day one of the league campaign; a 'destination' tie in Wales, Ireland or England for lucky wee teams. Might as well've done nothing. It's done bugger all to improve the quality of football or player - nor will it. And on the added excitement point, I couldn't give a toss myself. Way I see the play-offs, they've operated to preserve the employment of mediocre managers, and lowered the aspirations of clubs which, in the past, would've had to have benchmarked finishing 2nd or 1st as success; now 4th will do. As for cups, the only one that's worth a damn now domestically is the Scottish cup. The rest are a contrived distraction. And whatever the UEFA Nations League is can take a flying focus to itself as well. Turn the clock back. Where's Walter, get him in.

On a scale of 1-10, what's your favourite colour of the alphabet?

You've got to stick a few filters on today's match in order to see it for what it was. Fitness firstly. Anyone looking back on the match honestly would acknowledge that its intensity was unusually low over the piece, especially for a season opener. The fixture pile-up of a pre-season is in part responsible for that in my opinion and I think we could do with most of the lads having one evening off before Raith next week. Another way to make this point might be to say: there's no way that East Fife team drew with Hearts; a far sharper and more intense East Fife team obviously did however. Filter the new pitch next. I don't know much about how these surfaces bed-in but the old turf had a much greater predictability about it. Perhaps this one will slicken up with time. Whatever the case is, it'll work against us until it does. Finally, filter the hot and dry conditions. As a package - along with the pitch and the pre-season hangover - these things don't bode well for teams like East Fife or Clyde whose strengths aren't in launching the ball from back to front. All the afore answers for a lot of how today's game played out; lethargic, miscued, mistimed, sloppy, arsing up the basics. Aside from five or six memorably good passages of play from each team putting doubt in his mind, a new-coming neutral might've thought he was watching football at a much lower level. Beyond the filters, well... If I grudgingly accept that 3-5-2 isn't going to happen then I'd say we picked just about the best team we could, so credit to Lennon for that. Individually, now. Goodwillie was worse than a man short and should've been hooked earlier. McNiff continues not to be a left-back. Wallace done way better than Svyersten in front of McNiff but wasn't faultless. Smith covered a diminshed looking Barry Cuddihy reasonably well on the other side and made himself a nuisance on occassion. Johnston was his usual self in spells but, like Grant and McStay, really suffered from having a poverty of options in front of him (Goodie). The defence is a newly assembled one, sure, but still left a lot to be desired. The entire second half was defended on our heels. Rumsby's going to struggle in a four without a very sharp, sweeping partner like Lang beside him; that's only what happened last season when he faced either the more hard-working and mobile forwards like Sheppard, Lyle or McAllister or bigger forwards like Blair Henderson. It was also the case that he and Petkov barely communicated today and they must improve on that. Petkov should be bollocked for his wild showboating but done alright on the basics - generally won his headers, read play well at times; but caught completely cold with play coming past him more than once, highlighting that he's an inexperienced and recently converted centre-half. An improvement on Howie, perhaps. Time will tell. Grant and McStay, particularly the latter, struggled to impose as they have in the past but showed their quality enough to let us know they're not overawed, riding a promotion high or otherwise not yet realising the 'bigness' of the step-up or any other such utter bumf that's been fed to us and will fast become a cliche. McStay's reverse pass to put in Smith in the second-half was sumptuous. If we'd Rankin back in there instead of Johnston to stiffen things up and provide leadership, plus a lively Goodwillie ahead of them, and maybe some real wide-threat to release, they'd all handle this league no danger. It's only how they handled League 2 so well last season. I would reserve judgement on East Fife because of all the unusual circumstance surrounding today. If I could guess, glimpsing through the fog, I'd say we and they will be close together in table terms. Neither we nor they seem like strong play-off contenders at the moment, albeit for different reasons. If we'd their defence, we'd be challenging. If they'd our midfield and attacking options (fit), they'd be challenging. The likes of Falkirk, Airdrie or Raith would've taken us for a few today. Easy. I think we've made a pig's ear of recruitment for the defence, I really do. And I think we should've sought out a big lump to stick up front, especially for games like these where our play-from-the-back game is stifled - any sensible team would do the same to us. We're a lower mid-table mob at best as things stand. Probably make Smith or Mitchell our MOTM. Distribution wasn't great from the latter but done the other goalkeeping basics fairly well.

Aye, general point I was making is that we've had players who've played in midfield and then moved back and done really well. We done our damndest to turn Lang into a right-back, mind. Thank heaven it didn't work out.

He actually played in midfield while with Birmingham and Rangers, albeit in each case not for all that long.

Oh, jobby. Probably Smith up himself then. I'd honestly be three-five-two-ing it just now. Smith with Johnston behind. McStay, Wallace and Lamont - while Grant is out for the opener - behind with Cuddihy and Duffie (left) outside. Petkov, Rumsby and McNiff in a three. Mitchell in the sticks, of course. That's a damage limitation line-up that. Grim to contemplate for the season opener.

Interesting post-match comments from Lennon here. All but confirming Petkov coming in on loan - though he wasn't named - but no talk of anything beyond that, and a both wry and guarded answer to the interviewer's question about whether or not the performances in the cup have changed his (Lennon's) mind about the need to add to his squad. Lennon landed on the conclusion that he had the tools he needed, making reference to Love and Rankin still being out and so on. A wee bit worryingly, Syvertsen's taken a knock today. So we might be fielding a half-fit Goodie on his tod next week. Not great. Perhaps we'll see John Rankin play left-back again once he returns?

Aye: we'll be bringing a mid-table league two defence into league one if we don't sign another two or three players for that line. I've begun to think trying Tony Wallace in the centre beside the new signing (Petkov) might be worth a punt. Gives you two truly physically imposing players, who're reasonably mobile and decent with the ball on the deck. It'd also put Wallace to use, because I don't see him being a particularly good centre-mid, and it'd be a shame to have him be a stop-gap because he's quite handy at a lot of things. I'd try Rumbsy with Petkov first if we're going to keep the four, of course; he at least knows the position and has seasons of league one experience behind him. Anyone coming back with 'Oh, he's never played there...'; 'You're the very one that moans about players being used out of position'. Aye, I know that. But we've had players transition from being decent or poor midfield players to being very good defenders. Indeed, Petkov only became a centre-half last season because - to paraphrase Levein - he wouldn't have a future at Hearts as a centre-mid. By all accounts, he's taken to being a centre-half very ably. I understand Tom Lang was a midfield player not all that long ago, too. And Billy Gibson would be another relatively recent example of a midfielder turned (excellent) sweeper and full-back. Wallace has got the same fitness chops as Lang, and reads play well. I'd like to see what Wallace is like in the air when he doesn't have his back to goal. If he's good that way, then he's an outstanding candidate, IMO. I think he could be quite an effective organiser, too.

Howie and Rumbsy partnership improves with each game.

Get aff the internet, you.

Civil actions of the kind brought against David Goodwillie were, until his case, almost entirely unheard of in this country. I mention this because the law - whether criminal or civil - is supposed to aspire to minimise anything arbitrary and, ideally, ends up being something predictable, transparent and understood by all so that it can be obeyed. And there has long been a large academic and policy discussion on the appropriateness of civil remedies for rape where the civil remedy doesn't somehow follow from or complement a criminal conviction for the same. The basic point here is simple despite the sometimes technical legal language that surrounds it. Fair labelling is a principle taken into account when, for example, a legislature creates a new criminal offence or civil law, or when a judge decides to convict or rule against someone. If the world works in a way such that an ordinarily criminal label ('rapist') can be applied to someone without consequence for the labelling person - being sued for defamation, say - and the person labelled hasn't gone through the ordinary criminal process with all its rigour and protections in order to have that label applied to him, then the state of justice is at the very least inconsistent and at worst straightforwardly unjust. You characterise Clyde01's opinion as absurd and as the stupidest thing you've read on here. It may be the latter, only you can say so. But if it's the former, then there are a superabundance of lawyers and policy makers in this country and abroad with similarly absurd opinions. Of course, sometimes those people do have truly absurd opinions, but here they're not up to their usual sophistry. Like I say, it's simple. For an act as heinous as rape, the argument that civil remedies should only be available and that the label should only be thrown around once a criminal conviction has been sustained is perfectly serious and reasonable. Happy to link you up to the aforesaid literature - both academic and policy related - and to the pubically-held opinions of esteemed lawyers on this point. I won't do the shady, lawyer-like thing and hide my own opinion. I've already made it clear a number of times in any case. Before I'd even heard of David Goodwillie, it was my opinion that as a general rule, civil remedies, where those relate to a transgression that's also a criminal offence should of course be available to victims but shouldn't be available in the absence of such a conviction. To have things work otherwise does a number of unfortunate things like undermine the public's faith in the criminal process (prosecutors, judges), potentially cut through the double-jeopardy rule depending on what comes out in civil cases, encourages bad-faith litigation, leaves it looking like rape, assault and whatever else can be 'priced-up' by a judge and forgotten about; quite a grimly immoral outcome to my mind, though some would argue that it's better than no outcome of course. By the way, and I always say this... Everyone's full of fury and indignaton about the Goodwillie thing. Whether against him or in his defence. The judgement given in the civil case is available online and gets into the evidence in quite a bit of detail. Of course, nobody will've bothered reading it before coming to their view. But I'd recommend a read to anyone. Reading it, it became obvious to me that a criminal conviction couldn't have been gotten out of the evidence - and very likely, chiming with the decision not to prosecute, that the trial would've been incompetent due to an insufficiency of evidence (i.e. chucked out before the jury even gets a shot at it). I can't really relate to the circumstances as a virtual non-drinker, and as a non-club and mostly non-pub-goer. However, I understand that men and women pile out of these places drunk and into taxis every weekend all across the globe. What happens after that probably has the potential to be criminal much of the time, given that consent can't be given by a drunk person, and that 'drunk' is now reducible to a figure. I can't sympathise with David Goodwillie because I'd never have gotten into that situation. But because of the sheer amount of conflicting and confused evidence in play, I couldn't say with confidence that I thought he was a rapist. That's bascially why I'm morally indifferent about him playing for us.

Not sure. I've only ever glimpsed out the gym window. I'll have a swatch when I'm down later. Least of our worries, of course!

It's already playable. Won't be any issues. They've recently put up those big nets that stop the ball flying into the never-used away stand; think we've had them behind the goals for a while. I just hope we don't do away with the ball boys that'd usually stand over there. The nets aren't so big that a hoof could go over the top of them; I could see play stopping for an eternity if we did. We've never seemed to keep a superabundance of spare match balls around in the dugout.

No.

The intelligence, speed of thought and movement are what I'm alluding to. We don't see that kind of thing in the diddy leagues so much. The intensity from you lot isn't what a part time team would bring to a midweek game.

Lennon's going to lose the faith of the support in a hurry if he doesn't sign defenders and pack-in the nonsensical team selections. McNiff with Syvertsen in front? I could've made it to the line in a pedalo past those two, nevermind one of the best wide-men outside the SPL. Duffie with Cuddihy in front? You want your last line of defence to be as mobile as possible on a big pitch, against a fitter side. The big man thinks, turns and accelerates as a double-decker bus would. There's just no understanding having him there in view of the alternatives and in view of the direct opponents he'd come up against. What else? You know I'd have gone 3-5-2 in order, among other reasons, to stop the opponents being able to walk into our half. But if it had to be 4-5-1, I'd have had Syvertsen up himself without any defensive responsibility because he's incapable of discharging it. He'd have done at least as well as the unfit Goodwillie. Smith would've come in on the left where he was considerably more effective in covering than Syvertsen. Cuddihy would've played right-back with McStay or Wallace in front. The defence was a leaderless gang, centre-backs included, slow to organise itself and react espeically to set-plays, with the midfield ran-daft assisting them. As we've seen before, Grant is made into a dogs-body and can't do his usual game-reading, play-calming, attack-starting work in that circumstance. We only saw him do it in limited amounts last night and mostly when Thistle's intensity had let-up. Looking honestly at the game, Thistle left our tallest player unmarked at a corner for the equaliser. And we got a flukey second. Grant, Johnston, Wallace and Fitzpatrick might take a few plaudits. Mitchell too, if he wasn't so punch-happy. We're fortunate that Thistle have the same weaknesses as they did last season, albeit somewhat remediated by Cardle and Miller. That is, that they don't have enough guile to win matches comfortably and they're without an especially clinical strikeforce. They've also got a bit of wobble going at the heart of their defence which doesn't bode terribly well. Lastly, to defend Duffie for Miller's goal - or Duffie's OG, arguably - the pace of the play leading up to it and the quality of the run and jump Miller made wouldn't usually be seen outside of the SPL. Anyone - and I know some have - being harsh of Duffie for it might suggest another player who could've done better and who we could realistically have playing for us any time soon. I think (?) Lennon acknowledged this in his post-match comments. Positives? I understand Lennon's mentioned that we're working very hard on improving the defence - hopefully that means signings, pronto.

Oftentimes a strategy thinks long-term. For instance, when we hustled the hell out of Celtic in the cup circa 13 years ago, I'd call that a tactic as opposed to a strategy. We couldn't hope to replicate it every week. Another example would be when Barry Ferguson did the whole 'high tempo start' thing and notched some early goals, but it eventually wore out as a means to an end. Same follows for having a big player out on the wings to win knock-downs. The other teams, if they're any kind of clever, read it and stick their biggest defender out there. If you whack in 'difference between tactics and strategy' to Google, you'll see that it's not really a technical or academic thing. Most sports, disciplines, jobs - whatever - recognise the difference.

If you're about to make the point that we'd a poverty of such options under McNally and that we'd now be 'wasting' too many good midfield or forward players by reason of committing another one to the centre of defence, consider that we'd gain a partner (Syvertsen/Smith) for Goodwillie in doing so and retain the services - when in possession - of Cuddihy, Wallace/Duffie - as wing-backs - McStay, Grant and Johnston in the midfield. It clearly wouldn't be a "fucking mental" trade off and we really know now that four at the back, almost however configured, will have us leaking 2-3 goals a game. It's Thistle we're playing next, away. We'll get a roasting at Firhill if we play four at the back.

Aye - it'd have been Wright on the right then. Lowden as a CM with Cuddihy and that Ramsay bloke we had.

If I remember righly, Tony McNally, in the spirit of making the best of what we had, switched to a 3-5-2 on taking the reins from Chapman (away to Stenny), and got us a point, conceding only one goal where before we'd be averaging nearly three shipped each game. Think we started with Home, Munro and McNiff in a tight three, with Stewart and Lowden as wing-backs, the latter on his wrong-side. Or it might've been Wright, I can't mind. You can walk-back that "fucking mental" charge any time.

We used Callum Home to the same effect under Chapman, against Kilmarnock for example. And Jordan White under Cowboy. Problem is, that's a tactic, not a strategy. We've got a full season ahead of us and having a left-back who recommends himself for no other reason than his ability to win flick-ons isn't clever. If you're now saying he's a good or accomplished left-back and you'd play him, I've lost you entirely.

Can't believe to read this thread that it looks like I'm blowing the trumpet for McNiff 'the great centre half'. I spent a season getting a slagging from the same punters who're now ribbing him themselves. Those posts still exist lads. He turned the corner last season under Lennon and became a dependable centre-half; there's no chance I'm imagining that. It was a genuinely surprising and pleasing turn of events. Before, he'd been ropey as hell virtually everywhere. If we're not going to sign anyone else, I'd make a three and play him in it. If we are going to sign another better centre-half, which we need to, I'd have Rumbsy in before him beside the new lad.

What are the quote marks about? That doesn't contradict anything I've written, does it? Is anyone saying he didn't become a different player a centre-half last season? No. Does anyone want him as a first choice centre-half or left-back enduringly? No. There's no dispute here.

You'll be a small minority; perhaps a minority of one in thinking he wasn't a good centre-half last season. Lang and Rumbsy were better options in the middle and he provided a utility in being as capable in the air as he was pushed-up on the left. He wasn't shifted because he was bad. He was shifted at a time when he'd been doing brilliantly in the middle.

Willing to believe the first, can't be arsed checking in any case. Point being he was a good centre-half last season; different player. That's true. Stuart Millar signed/re-signed Marc McCusker etc. Nobody's ever completely inept. Colin Hendry very nearly got a hold of Robbie Foy as I remember - would've been a Kerkar-esque capture, that.