renton

Superlative logic there.

Not really, I'd suggest that's as much to do with personality as much as anything.

We need competition for places, we need Hill to sign so that we have 3 centre backs for two positions. That keeps player son their toes, gets them to trian and play better and also means we are sure that if we have an injury, the other guy can slot in. No point siging two 'obvious' first picks and then some guy who has no realistic chance of keeping a first team place down. Anyway, from Hill's point of view - is he going to look at Barr and Watson and think 'gosh, they're so much better than me, I've got no chance" really doubt it.

Oh woe is you

X-men; Days of future past aka Bryan Singer's revenge for X-Men: last stand.

More than anything, he won us the league that year by being so terrible it forced mcGlynn into going 4-3-3.

We should get that on a flag or a coat of arms or something.

Fairy doos.

Thought Robinson was a full timer, might be wrong.

Well so far we've swapped Donaldson for Barr, which should improve matters. If it were a one for one swap, I'd be worried but the club has stated it wants to go to a larger squad size which means that these guys, who are not nearly as bad as you suggest might ot be guarenteed starters. I maintain the big issue we faced last year was squad size which meant a lack of competition, no cover for injuries and limited options for changing the style of play. Murray isn't inflexible about how his teams play - his first season should've demonstrated that, but he clearly caught himself out this year with a team that only had one real style of play. Further, we tended to lose stupid, stupid goals - not through playing utter garbage but through moments of breath taking stupidity, more often than not when we were on top. Individual errors can be sorted, systemic ones are harder to fix. A settled back four based around Barr and (hopefully) Watson won't leak nearly as many goals as our ever changing defence did this year.

Are you guys looking to take few folk full time this year?

He obviously doesn't if he's been offered a contract. Spence has many issues with his style of play, he's too lightweight to be the focal point of an attack, he lacks the all round vision of someone like Elliot and he's crap at one on ones. Yet he's scored about a dozen goals for us in each of his two seasons. I'm not fussed if he stays but I wouldn't be miseralbe either. That will leave us with two striker positions to fill even if he does re-sign. As for losing players - we've lost one player to a direct rival, who are managed by a man with a clear man crush on Baird (not the first time he's tried to sign him) and a two year contract that was probably more than we offered and was a lot closer to his home for training. We clearly wanted to keep him but obviously not as much as QoS wanted to sign him. QoS have a relatively settled squad while we are going to be in a bit of flux over the summer. It happens, but as talismanic as Baird is for us and as greta an impact he's made - he's not irreplacable.

Apart from the central midfield which now has 3 guys, we have pretty much a large rebuild on our hands anyway. I am more sanguine about Fox because I'm willing to put a lot of his late season issues down to injury. I still would like another player in that area who plays a different type of game but we'll see. I don't think anyone has to many issues with trying to re-sign Watson and Hill as alongside Barr that should make us reasonably solid in that area. as for McGurn, it's likely he'll be offered something but need to prove his fitness in which case would you risk him not being able to get back and relying on Laidlaw? If McGurn isn fit and Robinson signs on, worst case scenario is that laidlaw goes on loan and hopefully gets a full season under his belt somewhere. With Baird, Cardle and Smith all gone we are forced into a massive rebuild of our attacking options anyway. Spence can't play up front by himself and clearly needs someone to pull defenders away from him, it was always likely we'd offer one of him and Smith a contract once Baird was a goner, and that still leaves two striker berths. Honestly, we are all looking glum because we lost two guys we'd probably like to have kept and there is a dearth of rumours about who we might bring in. I was actually more impressed that we kept Elliot and Moon - that's a solid base to build on and Craig Barr is a decent signing. We just have to be patient at this point.

Cheers. They take ages to update the website and it's fairly hard to find an FFP in Edinburgh.....

This in the FFP?

Donny is the family doctor, he knows where the skeletons are buried.

We really need to get Hill and Watson signed up now. I imagine we are going to need a couple of new strikers, not just to replace Baird as I don't think either Spence or Smith will be kept - just going on how management used them and the things that Spence was saying about first team football etc. My wish list would be now: Get McGurn, Watson, Hill and Anderson re-signed. new left back + 1 guy for full back cover. Another central midfielder. A left winger + 1 for cover out wide. 2 new strikers. Ideally giving us 3 guys for every two berths.

With Stewart and Hemmings gone, I'd have thought you'd be more worried about the water ingress into your own rodent free boat.

2 years offers a player security but at the same time, better players may not want to be tied down by them - I'm sure Baird would rather have had a one year deal when he first came to the club, for example. Also, unless you are really sure, you end up using up a wage on Joe Hammil that you'd rather have not. Besides, whos to say we didn't offer baird two years?

Big plus point is that he's going out of the championship. I don't mind losing good players - I mean, I do but it's inevitable, happens to all the clubs so it's a leveller to an extent - what's annoying about Baird is it directly strengthens a competitor, whereas cardle leaving to County doesn't.

I'm pretty sure at least one of the two other forwards is going to be away. Not bothered about Fox re-signing either, so long as we further strengthen in midfield. Fox was pretty good when the season started but never seemed to recover from his injury torubles at christmas time.

We held onto Elliot and Moon, two of our better players - As much as a kick in the baws losing Baird to another championship club was, so long as we held onto those two, I'm ok with it. Far more than Cardle or Baird, Elliot was our main attacking threat last year, and you could see how toothless we started to look when he wasn't in the team - not so much in terms of goals scored but he was the centre of all our attakcing moves. Moon gives us a solid base in midfield to work from, mobile, good in the tackle and recycles the ball better than any midfielder we've had in years.

If cardle is off to the SPL it seems unlikly he'd hang around regardless of our form. Baird is more possible but our great form in 10/11 amd being in the middle of his contract didnt stop him wanting to go.

Either way that means hes not at another championship club. Its not great but better than it couldve been.

After the last decade or more, I'm fucking used to that.