renton

While not strictly Indy polls, we've now got a couple of polls showing a slim Tory lead at Westminster, and ICM showing the tories in the lead for the EU elections with Labour bumped down to third, behind UKIP. Available data suggests that there are a lot of people who conflate independence with the like or dislike of a particular party, as such there is a percentage of people who would be more willing to vote Yes if they thought the Tories would win in 2015.

Yeah, well the methodology might be shit, but the funny thing is they still ended up showing a massive 9 point swing to yes from their previous poll that the PSO carried out. not going to lose much sleep over that, despite BT's attempt to conflate the PSO/Yougov and Yougov polls to show a widening of the No vote.

The mental thing is this is their second poll, and it shows a 9 point swing to Yes from their previous poll....

Again?

If he wants to play for a championship club, he'd surely be best staying where he is.

We actually did try different formations - remember the 4-2-1-3 formation in December time when both wingers were out, the 4-5-1 at Easter road, both times, and a few times away as well. Bare in mind tactics is not necessarily equal to formations, and particularly in how Elliot was used, we've been quite flexible, or when subbing Smith for Spence or even Vaughn, that changes the tactics of how we play. That's not to say that Murray should not be carrying the can for our shortcomings, but only to suggest that it's not as simple as he boneheadedly played the same 4-4-2 no matter what. I think our principal limitations were in not having a midfielder who could consistently play something other than as a pivot - limiting your offensive midfield options to wing play. Both Vaughn and Callachan showed some ability in that role at different times but neither is the finished, consistent product (which is why Elliot played in a more recessed position a lot of time). Even at that, we might have been in better shape if Fox hadn't deteriorated as he did, he seemed simply unable to keep up with play as the season got into the final quarter, but at the same time I don't think Moon and Callachan particularly worked well together- I think it left us looking a bit flat and restricted our passing options (something Fox was good with) and that goes from the back as well, at the start of the season Fox was a constant outlet for Watson from the back, but as the season wore on, Watson was forced more and more to hoof it over the top. The other big issue was in not having a genuine left footed player tha towuld allow us to mix things up more out wide. At the start of the season, you'd say we looked like ahving a good first 11 but with no depth, I don't think we adequately replaced Watson when he was out and not haivng McGurn was as much a psychological thing for his defenders as it was a physical thing. Just knowing he was behind you surely would give you confidence as a defender, but the limiting of options for our midfield play seemed to hit us more, unable to replace an injured and out of form Fox, or to be able to change the way our wingers played. So overall, I'm happy with what the board are saying, but then I've never been in the 'sack him' camp, even if my frustration has boiled over. it's clear we need a bigger squad - in reality we tried to get by with two centre halfs, two wingers and two central midfielders, and it's not enough.

Wonder how that works when the clubs want to sign some of these guys, quotas or a free market system where biggest and best gets first dibs on the best talent - in which case what incentive is there for the smaller fife clubs to be involved?

Twaddle: "I've always said we could finish as high as fourth in the league and if we can get a run together I'll stick to that." ooft.

That's usually where it goes off for the rails for you, though.

Yeah, first couple of home games, 'cos the south stand wasn't finished yet.

measuring Elliot's performance purely by goals scored is not doing the guy justice. He's a battering ram when you need him to be, and for all the stick he took on the back of the Cowden game, he did set up Spence for the consolation goal. he's skillful, strong and brings his team mates into the game as well, the trick is keeping him interested. Elliot for me would be one of the certs for trying to keep, along with Moon (who I'm sure will go - he's had a good season and is of a decent pedigree with SPL experience) Watson, Baird, Cardle and Hill*. There are two or three places where we need to change it a bit, we definitely need a bit more pace in midfield and a proper left footed wide player, but for the most part I'd argue it's depth of squad rather than a dearth of quality that's killed us. *edited to add: assuming we don't lose by 5 or 6, Cowden don't win by the same and Alloa wins their game.

had a good season for us, definitely could still cut it at a higher level and he knows Hartley from Alloa. Still feel for him if it's Dundee - he's a Saints fan!

"They're keeping him? He's shite - f**k that I'm off".....

For me the big issue this season has been squad size. Even good players don't play well all the time, and players sometimes need a rest - beyond that, a couple of injuries and your whole team shape is scuppered. Murray made a gamble on Ellis still having a season left in him, and on the 4 young guys being a bit more ready than they perhaps turned out to be. In the event it's led to Murray trying to eke through the season with two senior centre backs, two senior central midfielders and only two recognised wide players. Virtually the only place we've had competition for berths is up front. So two long term injuries between the keeper and the 2 centre backs wasn't exactly ideal. Laidlaw's form in goals was patchy and neither Ellis or Donaldson looked solid partners for Hill, and it's really that month - December, where we have lost McGurn, lose Watson, then we play Dumbarton and lose both wide players. Cardle reckoned the last ditch 3-3 draw at Cowden punched Rovers in the gut that took them a while to overcome, you'd also have to look at the Livi game immediately afterwards where 3 mistakes gifted Livi the game (it was also the situation then that several guys were carrying knocks - Fox hadn't trained properly in weeks at that point, such was the fear of him breaking down in training) - I think over those couple of months they found it impossible to get any kind of momentum going. It's January before the walking wounded are fit, your keeper situation hasn't improved and we are down to putting Thomson in at centre back. Chopping and changing can't have helped as well, and you could see them looking more nervous, more risk averse and thinking twice about things - which generally is what leads to the kind of individual f**k ups that cost us in the second half of the season. We stopped doing a lot of the good things, I think Shaun mcGuigan on THHP noted that the Cardle/Booth overlap just didn't happen with the regularity that it had in the first few months of the season. What's interesting for me is the fact that generally, we didn't play that badly in games, some times - Falkirk on Saturday, Cowden back in February we were generally atrocious from abck to front, but in other games, we've generally looked decent in spells, even the front six have been good - and fallen apart at the back. Part of this is not being able to settle the defence without Watson, part of it is certainly the lack of McGurn, he no doubt gives his centre backs confidence that they can go up and try to win balls knowing that he's there when they need him, when you start to think the man in the sticks, or the man besides you is shakey, it affect show you play your game (Todd Lumsdenw asn't a bad player and when paired with Campbell and Andrews was more than fine, but with Mcleod next to him and Brown behind him?) This isn't to excuse Murray, he's made mistakes but generally he's put the best team out and gotten reasonable performances out of them which they've then gone and let down through individual rather than systemic mistakes, for me the big things has not being able to adequately replace the injured - gambling on the young guys who need a bit more time, and maybe not having guys with the mental strength to plow through (one of watson's great strengths is communication) - McG said in one of his interviews that he always asked what players were like when he signed them, you can see that he wanted certain personalities to help keep the team together, is Murray's curent team a bit lacking in that department? Possibly. f**k knows how we'll match Cowden for motiviation on saturday but we have to try. All in all, there are three or four guys we could let go but I'd be looking to build a bigger senior squad than the one we had this year, ironically though, next year (assuming we don't get turned around 5 or 6 goals this weekend and next) looks like a tempting one fo rthe board to cut costs and make money from the Rangers and Hearts crowds.....

Think we are keeping the white shirts for next year.

Note also that there is a 14% amongst the Yes/No vote who could change their mind. The gap between whether respondents believe indy would be good for the economy is not huge and has infact narrowed by 2 points since the last ICM poll to give good/no diff/bad as 37/7/41. There is now a plurality of responents who believe that inequality will reduce in an independent Scotland. fascinatingly, in the event of a No vote a majority (64%) believes Holyrood should become responsible primarily for "decisions about taxation and welfare" but only 33% think Scotland will get more powers in such an event with 35% (the plurality) thinking it'll stay the same as now and 14% thinking that powers will be reduced. Q6 is that a double negative in there? Looks like you are being asked if you would vote no if no new powers were forthcoming, but that's maybe just my reading of it. Q11, looks like the sub sample for England is a bit high - showing 15% against the 9% seen in the census.

Mostly the regions look much of a muchness from a purely qualitative point of view - i.e. the south storng no, highlands for yes, Glasgow for yes and Edinburgh split. Central Scotland seems pretty much where some of the yes canvassers said it would be as well. The two that stand out as anomalies are Mid+Fife and the North East - no way is yes so far behind in it's heartlands, and no way is it ahead in Fife of all places. On the last point, we have two differnet data points, Panelbase had 39/34/27 y/dk/n amongst undecideds vs. ICM's 14/65/21 Bare in mind that broken down into sub samples, the error becomes greater and thus generally those numbers could be deemed unreliable.

There is currently no evidence of a 'shy No' syndrome, or 'shy yes' for that matter - and it's worth noting that polling companies eventually compensated for 'Shy tory syndrome'. Base don the numbers from the likes of PB, ICM and Survation you need anythign from a 5 point to a 2 point swing to get it, in the latter case you only need the 15-20% undecideds to break a little bit better for yes than No to get it.

The last commissioned Wings poll broke down the undecided sub sample as follows: Strongly inclined to yes 10% Moderately inclined to Yes 29% Undecided 34% Moderately inclined to No 25% Strongly inclined to No 2%. The caveat there is that the sample size is small and therefore potential error is large. If it were a true estimate of intentions and you bundled the inclined to Yes and Nos into their respective groups, based on Wings/PB's healdine figures it's be a one point swing required witha couple of % undecideds.

f**k aye

My bad, totally didn't read the pie chart correctly and took the Nos as the DKs!

Not really, about 16% - in the range that the BPC pollsters all see, except TNS, who typically see DKs in the 30% range.

I agree that canvassing is a limited form of polling, there is no weighting, no way to make the numbers a snapshot of the wider society, but then that's not really the point with this - it does show, and all the information we have points that way, that the poorer C2D2E parts of Scotland break for Yes. Getting them registered and out on the day could potentially be a big thing for Yes, bearing in mind that the BPC pollsters struggle to weigh their numbers for that chunk of of the populace who previously haven't voted, or been off the electoral roll.

How about Meadowbank Thistle, classy, simple and might bring in some of the edinburgh punters who dont follow Hearts or Hibs.....

Steady on mate, the boys an idiot but no need to get so wound up by it.