Proudtobeabairn

Neilson looks a tremendous prospect - shame he's not ours.

Yeah thought I'd get pelters if I came out with that but exactly what I meant.

We really need to sign an experienced keeper next season to compete with Mutch.

McWilliams and Baptie haven't been the most energetic commentators recently. That team must have been a right laugh.

Leitch really is atrocious

There are a lot of problems at the club but the appointment of a decent manager would paper over them all. The budgets available to Housty, Hartley, McKinnon and M&M have all been good enough to succeed but failure to appoint a decent manager is fundamentally whats costing us and continues to do so. The MSG would barely ever be mentioned if we were winning on the park. I'd get rid of M&M today. My only concern is that if Holt takes over to the end of the season and we go up he'll be given it on a full time basis. Punt M&M and advertise straight away and make it clear Holt is interim only.

Assuming we lost the top spot this year to Cove the absolute worst outcome would then be finishing 2nd to McKinnon next year... *shiver*

We have to get back to 2 up front for this one. Dowds injury is a blow but he'll hopefully be fit, if not then Sammon has shown slightly more than Francis this season. Incidently I've slowly forming the opinion that Mutch isn't good enough (though should be fine for League 1), Morrison is 'limited' and Keena not the goal machine we were all hoping for when he was out injured... nevertheless: Mutch Neilson. McLelland, Dixon Deveney Morrison. Gomis. Telfer. Connolly Sammon. Keena If Connolly still out then Alston in Morrison/Alston switching sides. Having Alston (or Telfer) out wide isn't ideal but seeing nothing from Fotheringham to suggest he's ready. What it will most likely actually be: Mutch Mercer. Hall. Durnan. Dixon Morrison Alston. Gomis. Fotheringham Keena. Francis Even typing that team out is painful.

An utter disgrace tonight. 43 shots to 0 are the worst stats I think I've ever seen. Completely agree with @Craig1876 that we should be playing our strongest XI every game and preferably our real strongest XI too, not the M&M version. Yes, its highly probable Celtic would have beaten us anyway and possibly by 3 nil or more but its completely unacceptable and disrespectful to the fans to be starting players like Leitch, Sammon, Miller, Mercer and Francis and to go to any ground in Scotland and concede a shot on goal every 2mins. To be joking around on the touchline while this is going on is the final straw for me. M&M have to go.

This is an interesting point though for a lot of those seasons we had Hibs, Rangers, Utd etc and they didn't run away with it as easily as a terrible Hearts team are doing this year. On a related point, I do sometimes wonder whether our bias means some past teams and players we've had become better from memory than they actually were in reality. I started going to games in mid 80s so I'm thinking about guys like Derek McWilliams, Sam McGivern etc who we all remember very fondly but more often than not were in teams competing (but not necessarily winning) the 1st division/championship. The season we finished 5th in the premier league (under Jeffries) is probably the only time pre Yogi that I remember us not in tier 2 or battling relegation from the premier (despite some of the players we had in those teams). Were we just not as good as we think or was the overall standard better back then?

Taylor Morgan?

M&M will need to wait until after the Celtic game to shoehorn Leitch back in now

Would be fascinated to know what M&M see in Leitch to start him over Telfer. That episode in the 1st half where he was in miles of space down the right and then somehow managed to lose the ball rather than get a cross in (or even win a corner) was utter sh*t. Morrison, Dowds, Mutch, Dixon, Miller and maybe Keena were the only pass marks for me yesterday. Dixon and Miller purely for being 'solid' which is a low bar. Can't think of a time either full back overlapped or put in a decent cross.

Fotheringham, Leitch, Alston may as well not be on the pitch. We still look shaky at the back with crosses too. Other than that, its been ok.

Gomis with lockdown hair!

Leitch and Durnan picking up exactly where they left off so far...

Comfortable 3 nil win. I expect the only new signing to play will be McClellend with the two wee boys from Dundee Utd on the bench.

Ideally you'd have a functioning academy/youth team up to around 18 y/o and also. reserve team where younger talent could be played alongside squad players/those returning from injury.

Its unclear also why Rangers & Celtic are the only two clubs allowed to get Colts into the league. Wouldn't Aberdeen or Hibs (for example) also be interested if entering Colts into league 2 is a serious option? I imagine any team with an Elite academy would benefit from this but only the old firm get quoted when this comes up

We really need to stop signing right backs from QOS..

Ok then - where is it going?

Apparently the delay is that the clubs have presented a 22 game proposal with a 2 week extension to the season but the SPFL have told them to explain how they will deal with scheduling any games due to COVID call offs or later round Scottish Cup ties. They also need agreement from the championship clubs for the 2 week gap until the play off games. They so far haven't been able to. Increasingly likely 22 games won't go ahead and it'll either be 18 with play offs or 27 with no play offs and only 1 up/1 down.

By the end of April, the priority groups will all have been vaccinated. At that point we need to ditch all the panic about 'infection rates' and concentrate on hospitalisation rates and deaths which will surely be tiny by then. We can't allow lockdown to continue to weeks and months more just because younger healthy (often asymptomatic) age groups are catching Covid.

I can think of at least one example from this very forum (DPB)...

Clubs at the bottom will feel as though 22 gives them more chances to reach safety than 18 I expect. Sounds like its a compromise that few really want but clearly they couldn't reach consensus on 18. Rumour I heard was that the 20 were pretty much split 1/3rd wanting 18, 1/3rd wanting 27 and 1/3 wanting null and void.