velo army

Genuinely thought your first comment was cringeworthy. This one saw my arsehole shrink to a decimal point. Brutal patter.

I was actually afraid that Sammon would go back to Hearts as he is absolutely a Levein type striker. Given that they have punted Isma I would suggest that this isn't entirely innaccurate...

This thread has now deteriorated to "I know you are but what am I?" levels of bawbaggery. Can we get back to how much we want Killie to be relegated and how seething many of us are that Well and the Dons have both managed to avoid it despite having finished bottom? Thank you.

Great thread. Naturally I'm wound up to the point of destructive rage. But credit where it's due.

For a man who was the arguably the best centre half in the league last season? I'm not sure about that. Given the market and the riches down south we need to start being stronger when it comes to selling players. Barnsley could have afforded 7 figures, but we sold him for 1990's money. I would wager that he's improved slightly over the last half season, but it shows how shafted we were when Lindsay can now be valued at £6m. I would be very disappointed in our club if we'd only negotiated a 10% sell-on fee. Celtic negotiated a 33% sell-on for Van Dijk and, given the paltry fee we let him go for, I would have expected at least 20%. 100th post and I'm a seething mess. Yaldy.

KT was excellent at LCB against the dutch. I'd have him and Lindsay, but obviously there would still be concerns having two Left footed CB's. Having Hanlon in the squad for that game instead of Liam was utterly risible.

Barton was utterly frustrating last night. Both he and Edwards were dreadful in possession. Edwards would immediately get rid of the ball, only occasionally finding a man in red and yellow. Barton, on the other hand, was just a complete coward and would just hide. At times this was literal and he would move behind a teammate or opponent to save himself from being passed to. When he did have the ball he dithered about and ended up losing the ball when there had been ample time to play a pass to a runner. And how the hell can someone with his height fail to win a single header? He didn't manage a single one. Liability of a player at the moment.

Selling the naming rights of Hampden to a huge company would be a no-brainer. The big German clubs have done this for the last 20 years and it hasn't diluted the passion or atmosphere. Get the private sector to pay for the rebuild of the stadium. Irn Bru would surely jump at it.

Hearing him lose the plot when Barry Wilson said McGregor had dived was wonderful. His outright bias in favour of Celtic should be an embarrassment to the BBC.

Law never won the Ballon d'or. That would be the world footballer of the year. He did win the European award though. He was world class though. Judging by the many youtube clips I've seen of him in his pomp, he was pretty unplayable. Alan Hutton has been the closest thing we've had to a world class player of late. Before he endured his series of awful injuries (various breakages and ligament damage) he was on his way to becoming one of the very top full backs in Europe. Against Italy in 2007 the reigning world champions made two substitutions and a further tactical change to try and stop him bombing forward. They couldn't. He moved to Spurs the following January, got injured in April, and then kept getting periodically injured for the next few years and just never came back the same player. Truly heartbreaking.

Just watched the highlights of the Hearts-Killie game (which looked superb by the way). The atmosphere in Murrayfield was excellent, despite being about a third full. It's a no-brainer for me, which means, of course, that the SFA won't go for it. I understand the thing about office space and the other things, but really from a fan's point of view the whole experience of going to the football will be much more enjoyable at Murrayfield. The transport links have been mentioned and are an obvious plus, the accoustics of Murrayfield are far superior to Hampden (you get that thing where you experience the sound bouncing off the walls when the old place is full and rocking), and it's within easy (and very, very pleasant) walking distance from the city centre of Edinburgh. Going back to the admin/office expenses side, I don't know what the solution to this would be, but other major football associations have their headquarters away from their national stadia (if there was no space for SFA offices at Murrayfield) so finding office space in Edinburgh (or Glasgow for that matter) shouldn't be hard. I've long felt it was ludicrous that a country of our size has two stadia for international sport when France (population 66.9m) has the Stade de France for both. Long term wouldn't it make much more financial sense than continuing with the status quo? For me the major consideration is accoustics and atmosphere. Even a half full Murrayfield is louder than a mostly full Hampden. A full Murrayfield is a cauldron. It'll be great.

St Johnstone too, without much doubt. What would your definition of a top 6 club be except ones who finish consistently in the top 6?

It seems we have a choice. We continue to play our football at a stadium which is fairly obsolete, but to which a lot of us have a sentimental attachment, or we accept a deal with the devil and play our football at Celtic Park (I could give a f**k about Ibrox, frankly, it's a terrible ground) as it is ideal in terms of acoustics and atmosphere. I'd love a new stadium, something modelled on Seattle Seahawks' Century Link ground, which was designed to maximise crowd noise. The facts are, however, that we don't have the money. I'd like to see the SFA break with tradition entirely and allow private capital to pump money into a new stadium in return for naming rights, seat sponsorship and other branding. I want the best ground we can get, one which gives the national team a distinct advantage in terms of crowd noise and atmosphere. I don't care if it's called Hampden Park or the Tesla Arena. A removable pitch would be a plus too, meaning you could have concerts without fucking it all up. I won't be holding my breath for the blazers to truly embrace the modern era and we'll still be playing home games at the old ground...

I cringed when I read this, but it seems like free money for three years, so that'll be fine then. "Lassie is filthy" patter is a bit tragic though. Teenage hyper-macho pish, Gie that a by. With that money maybe we'll get a nice shiny new player, or a new pitch, or we'll spunk it on something forgettable. Exciting times.

No, Taylor played LB, with Ralston to the right. Wilson played more of a holding role in midfield. Highly effective and very calm on the ball.

This. Our young team looked very good. Thomas made a couple of poor decisions in the first half which conceded possession, but he learned from those in the second period and he was much tidier. His technical ability was very good too. Lewis Morgan will be an absolute star. He has bags of pace and trickery as well as being deceptively very strong. I could go through the whole team and offer praise. Ian Wilson, Greg Taylor, and the two CBs McKenna and Souttar looked like they'd played together for years. This is a very good U21 team and they haven't really played together that much. There is better to come. We need to start becoming aware of our national tendency to attribute the failure of another team to beat us to their own shortcomings rather than our competence. We have very good young players coming through. The dutch looked good too. De Jong was a joy to watch. The boy who hit the post had lovely touch and technique and the lad Dumfries (yup) looks like he has a future. They just couldn't get playing because we wouldn't let them. Our U21s bossed the game and the scoreline was an accurate representation of their dominance. It's been said (rightly) that the national team has a lot to thank Brendan Rogers for. It could be said with as much validity that the U21s have a lot to thank St Mirren for. Mallan and Morgan were hugely influential tonight. With the young lads coming through at a host of clubs, Scottish football is in a healthy state. Almost all of the starting line-up tonight are playing first team football.

Who would youse like to see McLaughlin go to? Obviously Ayr United are a shout, with McCall being an excellent manager and a friend of the jags (also my favourite away ground). I'm unsure about the other clubs in the first division (aye, I've not really bought into Doncaster's nomenclature).

While I understand the financial reasons for moving (selling the land to Tesco or something), I reckon it should be considered a huge mistake to move away from the city centre. Also, Kingswells is v-neck jumper-wearing volvo-driving levels of w**k, but never mind that just now. The reasons for having a good training ground are obvious, but what isn't obvious is why it needs to be right next to the stadium. Put that stuff in Kingswells. New players will love it. As said elsewhere, there does need to be transparency regarding reasons that the existing stadium can't be redeveloped (a la Tynie). I reckon people underestimate (if they estimate at all) how much being close to the city contributes towards the atmosphere. Your identity as a fan is tied to the city of your club. It is often the celebration/reinforcement of this identity which fuels our involvement in the collective effervescence of supporting our team. In moving out the city one risks breaking these links and creating a more atomised support, just a group of individuals who buy into brand loyalty.

I love how it all looks, but Westhill is fuckin miles away. It's also soulless and tediously bourgeois. I love the shininess of the stadium, the size of it and even the buses (I used a shuttlebus to go to a game in Lucerne and it was quality), but I don't understand why Pittodrie can't be renovated to look like that, with the training complex situated among the Waitrose classes. Pittodrie really is an awful stadium, but it has a perfect location in the heart of the city.

Dating site for Christians. Let there be banter.

Looks like he has pace and is a pretty clever finisher, as far as this video shows. It's unclear from this video whether he'll offer much to the team in terms of off the ball play/defending from the front, but he may have that in his locker too. When watching this video I don't get the impression that he's too good for us, which may or may not be a bad thing.

Sincerely hope Milne reads this. Nice work CB.