McGuigan1978

Airdrie 2 Partick Thistle 3 Ayr United 2 Inverness Caledonian Thistle 1 Dundee United 3 Dunfermline Athletic 0 Queen's Park 1 Arbroath 0 Raith Rovers 2 Greenock Morton 1

Week 1 - Falkirk

Arbroath 0 Dundee United 1 Dunfermline 1 Airdrie 0 Morton 2 Ayr United 2 Inverness 2 Queen’s Park 1 Partick Thistle 1 Raith Rovers 2

Aye, the podcast isn't in my list of things I want to catch up on, so I won't be giving it a watch, but just one thing I wanted to touch on, as I feel it's generally latched onto on by people sticking up for him, and was alluded to earlier in the thread. It's the whole matter of Val McDermid's opinion, and after that, the fact Nicola Sturgeon was asked for her thoughts. I'm not trying to downplay their involvement, and of course, if the First Minister has an opinion, then it's very much at the forefront of the news cycle. However, I don't think David Goodwillie's transfer to Raith Rovers was annulled by a main sponsor and a couple of other high profile people who were asked their opinion. It was thankfully brought to an end by dozens of volunteers who contacted the club to tell them they wouldn't be able to help out anymore because they were disgusted by the actions of the club, and by hundreds of fans who simply didn't show up for the first two games immediately after the signing. Val McDermid and Nicola Sturgeon's opinions are all very good, but if you don't have anyone to run the website, or Raith TV, and have no ball boys, and no-one to produce the programme, or man the turnstiles, and approximately a third of your home support disappear for the next two games after the signing is announced, then that forces the club to act, and I'm glad they eventually did. Raith Rovers rid themselves of Goodwillie because of a groundswell of their support, and that's a great thing, so lets not play it down. if "James English" was much of an interviewer, he'd be asking him about that, but I sense that's not the case.

Just catching up on the thread from the last few days, and I have to ask, what was the unorthodox technique that your new guy was employing for reading out half time scores etc? Sounds fascinating

I think we'll probably learn a wee bit more about the squad when we take on Kilmarnock next Wednesday, albeit that has the huge caveat of who's all fit and ready to go. Aye, watching this Rovers team is frustrating, but it's hard to be particularly dismissive when at a rough guess, 90% of the game took place in Albion Rovers half. I suppose my big disappointment was that we didn't run up some goals. After their penalty disappointment at the weekend, I hoped Vaughan and Gullan would have got amongst the goals tonight, but it wasn't to be. Unless Vaughan, (which I find sacrilege to say) and Gullan can start to score goals, then one or both probably need to drop out if Hamilton comes in and leads the line effectively, and other players start to recover. It's a good job we have Kilmarnock in our group and we almost always beat them, otherwise me might struggle to qualify.

Callum Smith or Keith Watson for me. Smith if I had to pick one.

Slight ankle knock and nothing to worry about apparently

Really pleased with that signing. Just hope “Rover1883” is okay.

Fair play, I did enjoy the fact someone suggested they would turn down the opportunity to sign a current Scotland international in Kevin Nisbet, because he wore a black and white t-shirt for a wee while

I’ve missed the last 10 minutes of the first half waiting in the pie queue, and it would appear I’m about to miss the start of the second half. Fair play, an utter shambles

Your first suggestion here, suggests that Inverness are trying to tap into sectarianism to sell some t-shirts, which doesn’t feel like a particularly normal or well thought out idea tbqh. Maybe your second suggestion is right though, and the Rangers daft CEO had no idea of the colour connotations and release date…

Aye, I think Saturday is the worst possible fixture for us to begin with. I don’t rate the defence on paper one little bit, and that was before I realised we’d be doing without Scott Brown for the group stages. If we don’t have Ross Matthews either, then the defensive side of things looks a little scary. I absolutely agree that losing this one and having a poor group stage doesn’t really mean too much for the league campaign, but if they do end up on the end of a poor result to Dunfermline, which would almost certainly eliminate us from the tournament after one game, on the back of a pretty turgid last few months of last season, you can imagine the reaction. However, that doesn’t mean anyone hasn’t learned lessons from last season. In fact, Ian Murray’s quotes in the interview from the other day tells us he knows exactly what’s required, and is making moves to fill the gaps.

Aye, Watson has played the vast majority of his football as a centre half since about 2017

You appear to be getting us mixed up with the Welsh national side. Close though

Wasn't there today so can't comment on the performance, but I think it's a bit frustrating we've (presumably) still not managed to use the system we'll employ in competitive games. Having one sitting midfielder with five attack minded players in front would get absolutely trampled all over in the Championship. There's a reason no team used that formation in the league last season, and if Ian Murray is keen for his full backs to get forward more this time around, then that puts even more importance in the players in front of the defence to protect it, so I'm struggling to believe he'll use just one. The problem there is that we only have two players who can play that role in Scott Brown and Ross Matthews. Sam Stanton just can't do it, and when he does it also hinders us further forward, so as much as I wasn't that bothered about Brad Spencer heading to Grangemouth, it does leave us sparse in that area, with just a couple of players who have missed a lot of football over the last season or two. Last time around, we weren't good enough in both penalty areas, and while we've made moves to fix things up top, the defence, as it stands, is weaker than last season, which is a concern, as last term's was poorer than the previous season's. I don't mind Ross Millen and Liam Dick, but they're both somewhere between mediocre to fine, no better and no worse. I haven't seen enough of Keith Watson to know what he's going to be like, but I'm going to guess he'll be broadly similar, so it feels like we desperately need a defender who we can, at the very least place in the "he's quite good actually" category. I'm really not sure that Dylan Corr or Adam Masson (just now) fit that description, and Brody Paterson doesn't either, so another defensive signing feels key for me, otherwise we'll be in a similar situation as last season, but incrementally better/worse depending on how Jack Hamilton gets on. Pleased to hear that Kevon Dabrowski sounds like a good laugh. I remember he saved a Brian Graham penalty while playing on loan for Dumbarton and he posted a picture of him celebrating afterwards on Instagram and tagged Graham in it. I couldn't make up my mind if it was a fine piece of shithousery or if he was a bit of a bellend, but now he's with us I've decided it's very much the former.

Some chat on here about how good Dylan Corr looked last night. I can only presume he was exceptional for the rest of the game, as he makes some fairly egregious errors in those highlights.

Aye, with a boy called Raheem Sterling. Not sure where he ended up.

He came on as a sub when we got huckled out the Scottish Cup by Alloa, but I’m fairly certain that brief cameo was his one and only appearance for us.

Ah that is a shame. I’m sure I remember one interview with him from that time, maybe on Football First, although I could be completely misremembering that, and he came across very well. Not something you could say about many things from the club during that period. I read afterwards that he would take training during the week, set up the side a certain way based on what the plan was for the weekend game, then Anelka would just disregard everything and do his own thing on the Saturday, essentially making the previous few days a complete waste of time. Not overly surprising he decided it wasn’t for him.

Really liked that strip, think that might have been my first season going to Stark’s Park. I guess the 14 shirt would have had a few folk wearing it throughout the season, as the subs were always 12 and 14 if I mind right.

As soon as Connolly re-signed, I presumed we'd cool our interest in Mullin, if there'd been any truth in it to start with. Obviously we need more strength in depth, but two (presumably expensive) options for the same position seems unusual. In terms of saying he can play wide left or centrally, I'm sure he can at a push, but overwhelmingly his performances throughout his career have come wide on the right. Chuffed with the signing, but interested to see how we fit him in.

Or they’ve not announced what the good news is yet, maybe?

I’m not a huge fan of him, but if it wasn’t for Dario Zanatta then we’d almost certainly have just finished a season trying to get out of League One. Also, the fans definitely don’t love him

In the article on the website