EpicMike

Cameron, best player on the park, gets his goal.

Classic McMullan. Does everything right until the final ball where he makes an arse of it.

Dundee much the better team but wasting chances. Giving me the fear...

The OF winning by 4 goals at home is not significant, the OF winning by a record breaking 9 goals away from home is. I imagine if it didn't coincide with both Celtic and Rangers making the CL though and it's implications on Scottish football, no one would care as much.

Pointing out an offside goal was offside is not getting "upset".

We sort of saw this during the Banter years. Celtic were coasting the League but Celtic Park was half empty because there was no Rangers to make it interesting.

Caught the highlights on SportScene, better teams than the Dabs will get a scudding from Celtic this season with the firepower they have. Their movement and vision in the final third is another level.

Disagree there. It's a very different feeling to personal accomplishments where success or failure is in your own hands.

Sports fans who have an affinity with an athlete or team experience their success or failures vicariously. There is also the tribal aspect of the "us" vs "them" nature of competitive sport which is exciting. At the end of day though, it's still a second hand experience.

I'd celebrate the success of the team I support, but I wouldn't treat it as a personal accomplishment.

But "you" are not actually winning anything, you're just a fan. Do people really derive their self worth from being a spectator for a sports team?

This explains your posts. Non-Glasgow Old Firm fans always feel the need to overcompensate.

With Sweeney suspended for the next game, this gives Bowyer a convenient excuse to hook him for Ashcroft and give the armband to someone else. Had a very poor start to the season.

I had high hopes for that game after Rudden scored 4 minutes in, little did I know it would be nothing but downhill from there... Conceding from a corner with Ayr's first chance up the park is bad, but there was still plenty of time to score again. Instead, Dundee continuously lost the midfield battle which only got worse after McCowan (our best player so far) went off and the bizarre decision to bring McGhee on. Dundee offered nothing going forward for the rest of the half. Robinson coming on at halftime is what should have happened when McCowan had to go off, I can only assume McGowan was carrying a knock otherwise that's a McPake calibre substitution. Sweeney had yet another poor game to emphasise a poor start to the season, the red card might be an excuse to get Ashcroft in the starting 11 ahead of him. If on losing an attacking player Bowyer's choice is to bring on A) a defensive midfielder and B) a centre back and play him up front ahead of McGinn, then McGinn is done at Dundee. With that said, well done to Ayr who looked good and have had an incredible start to the season. Glad I didn't publicly post my predictions for this season...

After a promising start Dundee have fallen completely out of the game. Rudden is getting no service without McCowan and bringing McGhee on seemed like a strange choice.

Celtic "getting things right" is having more money than everyone else, they don't sign players like Jota and Edouard because no one else in Scotland thought of it, they sign players like that because no one else can afford them outside of the OF. Leicester's average salary is about 50-60% of the Big 6. Heart's average salary is about 15-20% of the Old Firm's, the two scenarios are not comparable. Also, as far as money not being that important, you couldn't have picked two worse examples than the English and French leagues. Since being bought by Gulf states Man City have won the League 5 times and the League Cup 6 times in 9 years. PSG had won the league twice before being taken over, they have since won the French League 8 times and the Cup 7 times in 10 years. In their case, "getting it right" was having a ton of oil money pumped in to their club.

Aberdeen's owners were absolutely stupid enough to believe they could establish themselves as the second force in Scottish football.

Lets amalgamate all the clubs to create a Scotland FC that plays in England. But only on the condition that if we beat a team, we amalgamate with them.

Probably the same as us, accept the reality of modern football that they are unlikely ever to realistically compete with the richest clubs. There is a wealth gap between the top teams in all the top leagues in Europe, the one in Scotland just got significantly larger though and people are worried about the implications.

That did happen. The new club surged up the Leagues and ultimately won the Scottish Cup. Did absolutely nothing to disrupt the OF duopoly though, the idea that mergers might accomplish this is ridiculous.

For a team other than the OF to win the league, one of the following would have to happen; The way money is distributed would have to be substantially overhauled in a way where large amounts of wealth are funnelled from Rangers and Celtic to the other sides. A banter years scenario for both Rangers and Celtic, not just one of them. Rangers and Celtic piss off to another league. Neither of those things are going to happen anytime soon. For the people who point to Leicester as an example of a smaller team at a financial disadvantage triumphing over the richer clubs, Leicester's average salary is about 50% of Man City's. Aberdeen and Hearts is about 15% of Celtic's. That gulf is not being bridged.

Not a great performance from Dundee but good to get the three points. Raith look pretty guff though. Sharp made some good saves but his distribution is atrocious and that's a big part of the game for keepers these days. He either needs to improve this aspect of his game or Legzdins should get the jersey when he's fully fit. Both CB's, Sweeney and French, looked decent but Raith didn't exactly test them much. Good to see Ashcroft back, happy with all three options at centre back. Marshall's ball in for the assist was great but once again there's questions about him defensively, he seemed to struggle with balls over the top. Kerr had a mediocre game, the match passed him by. Neither Byrne nor Anderson contributed much from midfield where as Mulligan and McMullen's drive got Dundee up the park and put pressure on the Raith defence. We were screaming out for a ball playing midfielder with a bit of composure and finesse and McGowan provided that when he came on. It's great having so much young talent with bags of energy in the team but McGowan offers experience, vision and creativity in the middle of the park lacking in the other midfielders. If Gowzer is fit he should start, even if that means being exposed to seeing his hair more often. Jakubiak didn't offer much before he had to go off. Rudden ran his arse off and was a real headache for the Raith defence, a goal will do wonders for his confidence and hopefully he starts banging them in after that. I think Bowyer is still trying to work out what his best 11 is, that match probably offered a few insights.

Had Thistle rattled for the last 30 minutes and got the assist for both goals, both corners but were well taken and better than McGinn's efforts. McMullan's final ball isn't great, that's been obvious for a while but he gave Dundee an attacking option other than launching the ball up to Jakubiak. I'd start him on Saturday. I'd drop Byrne, not only did he have a bad game against Thistle we shouldn't be starting with too many defensively minded midfield players. Bring him on if there's 20 minutes left and a lead to protect. I think Anderson has a lot of potential, but he had a bad game and should be dropped for a spell. Still think Jakubiak should start, he worked his arse off with very little service. He's not a target man you can punt the ball up to though, he needs the ball at his feet.