renton

Harsh..... but true, to be fair.

Saturday was only his third game of the season I think, he lasted 10 minutes against Dumbarton on day 1, came back into the team a few weeks later for Livingston away where he lasted 75 odd minutes before being injured again, and saturday was his return (I think ayway).

We're Rovers fans, we've learned not to expect.

At least part of that is familiarity, that's only the second time the two have played together up front, hardly enough to form an effective partnership. The other part would be Stewart's limited effectiveness at holding the ball up, as Nade and Elliot can. He actually did alright at times but he's never going to be hugely effective winning the high ball with his back to goal.

I don't think Stewart was playing up front by himself. Scott was pushed up alongside him and was plying farther up than he had when playing behind Nade at Easter Road, for example. To me it looked like Murray's favoured 4-4-1-1 and if you'd swapped Scott out for Elliot, a recognised forward but doing the same job, there'd be a lot less agitation about the formation. Wether or not you think Scott is capable of that job is of course a valid argument but for me, Murray did set the team up as positively as he could on Satuday, playing two out and out wingers for the first time this year. In the first half we played some good stuff, and Alloa struggled to cope with out wide men, second half they double up on McKay which absolutely limited his impact, and had better movmeent in the centre of the park than us. The problem with Murray's favoured formation is that it tries to resolve the tension between getting bodies out wide on the wings but without being over loaded in the middle of the park, and it requires a lot of work from the recessed number 10 (whether that's Elliot dropping back or Scott pushing up) and the two pivot midfielders. I thought Scott gave it a good shot but Moon was absolutely woeful - no ball retention and powderpuff in the tackle. Which is why I thought our momentum died. When they packed the middle and stopped McKay from receiving the ball, Murray responded by replacing him with Conroy to narrow the play and give us better ball retention but it wasn't enough, not without Moon pushing on as well - which he didn't. So Murray maybe solved half the problem but bhe should've withdrawn Moon and stuck Callachan in there instead. Callaachan has his own limitations when it comes to positioning but he at least has a lot of good movement and wouldv'e been more able to support our attack through the middle more than Moon.

We still have Elliot and Vaughan from that list. Spence and Smith both struggled over last season as well. Conroy is a goal threat, as is Scott. The problem at the present minute is being down both Nade and Elliot which really limits us on how we play.

Hill wasn't injured in the summer though, and had started pre-season when he pulled up with a hernia. Same goes for Barr. As for squad size, the current squad is one player bigger than the team that finished last year, being the devil's adovcate it's actually considerably stronger in terms of numbers than the one that started last year.

Nothing as far as I can see. The closest we got was a Panelbase poll asking about what powers Scotland would want to see devolved. Think it'll be a while before we see one, might not see one until Curtice's SSAS 2015.

Got myself two tickets for the Holy Bible gig - think it sold out dead quick, Well chuffed. Wonde rif they'll do two sets - HB in entirety, break then second set. Kinda the format for these whole album gigs.

After last season, the Rovers fans current short tempers and the probable reaction to losing a late goal not being something along the lines of 'c'est la vie' and more like a mob with pitchforks, then you can understand why Murray might take that viewpoint.

We aim high.

The aschroft poll broke the age groups down differently, having six age groups vs the four in YouGov, which makes it harder to compare the two. It's also a wee bit difficult to cross reference the pre and post voting intention given the lack of response factor in YouGov. Looking at the way the age groups break down, Ashcroft shows a small lead in yes for 45-54 and a huge No lead in 55-65. YouGov's 41-59 straddles both of those, so it's not inconsistent that it gives the overall backing to No in that age group, as the small ashcroft yes lead in 45-54 is more than balanced out by the No lead in 55-65. Same goes for the bottom two age groups. The 18-25 group showed a No lead in ashcroft (all those Labour activist students!) with 16-17s (a small subsample as well) showed a massive lead for Yes. Again, it's not inconsistent with YouGov when they combine those two age groups that there is a slim No lead. I don't think either poll is saying anything radically different. There is no doubt that Yes was in contention across all age groups up to the baby boomer mob, at which point they got absolutely creamed. If you break the age groups down differnelty the position looks more positive for yes than not, but it's pretty much the same picture - what opened up the big gap was reluctance amongst older people, middle class homeowners and folk reisdent in scotland from other parts of the UK.

How about a 1 minute Partrige style shrug.

Margin of error.

Not really a proper exit poll

Not much use to their grandkids if they're broke.

2200 hours, zulu time. 10 pm basically.

To be fair, a lot of them will worry about their private pensions I'd think, and while yes does make a strong case for those remaining intact, oldies don't have the luxury of time to get over it, if there are setbacks. Take me for example, I'm demographically the prototype No voter: Both me and my fiance work in reaosnably well paid jobs, have a mortgage but no kids. I'm voting yes for a whole host of reasons but accepting of the fact that I personally may take a kicking financially in the short term - thing is, barring accidents or my superb diet, I've got time on my side. Old folk don't.

Yeah, hoping it stays in the same ball park. have heard only the sketchiest of rumours about it.

Looking at data tables for Ipsos: IN terms of age groups, yes tanking No up to 55+ age bracket. In terms of employment status: +6 full time working, +3 part time working, +11 not working and -17 retired. In terms of working sector +2 in private sector and +14 in public sector. In terms of nat id Scot/more scot than brit/equal/more brit than scot/ brit it goes:+70/+28/-43/-51/-78. Ipsos also confirms that lower income households more likely to vote yes and that while Yes has a 1 point lead in urban areas it gets slaughtered in rural areas by a good 14 points. Folk renting, either private or council much more likely to vote yes than home owners, though one thing that did surprise me is that folk with children in their households are more likely to vote yes than those without.

Someone mentioned that it was 49/51 - but then it might have been confused with Ipsos

Not yet it's not. four runners at 48/52, but you've got Ipsos at 49/51, TNS at 50/50 and YG rumoured at 49/51 (this may turn out to be bullshit) but those are literal dead heats - you are talking about single digit numbers of people rocking it from a yes lead to a No lead, at which point the uncertainty breaks the model.

Ipsos Mori now 49/51. Fucking hell, if youGov does as rumoured then we wil lfinish the campaign with youGov, TNS and Ipsos-Mori as the most yes friendly pollsters

Depeends, let's say they pull out the exact same number of undecideds, it's still only 150 folk and utterly unreliable. Hell, if it's 49/51 with about a 2% error, it's pretty much in line with everyone else.

Like all sub samples those numbers come with a huge health warning, and can't be seen as remotely applicable to the wider populace: we are talking about 50 people here.