Juanjo Nostalgia

We all know that Dodds is good mates with Jim McIntyre, now he’s signing multiple of the same players that his mate was signing this time last year. Do you think they might have had a conversation about it? Do you think talking to your mate who didn’t even last a season at the worst team in the league is a professional method for scouting talent? Do you think these signings demonstrate any ambition with regard to getting promoted from the Championship?

Good to see Gardiner, Robertson and Dodds sticking to the “mates first” policy... Anyone remember when we, at the end of our worst run of the season, beat Cove 6-0? They got relegated from the league so we’re… signing multiple of their players… to help us get promoted? Give me a break.

Did anyone ever work out what happened with him signing for some English club earlier this summer?

That’s the story of most of last season. He’s a man amongst boys, far too good for us, and we are lucky to still have him!

They got the Celtic player in it for the photo too!

Hot take: I really like the socks.

Week 1 - East Fife

Our Billy and our Kyle have played together for Northern Ireland twice: - a 2-1 win over Hungary in September 2014. Billy came off the bench after 79 minutes, inspiring Kyle to pull of an assist and then a goal in the time remaining to win the game. - a 2-0 loss to Romania in November that year. Also, Billy came on for Kyle against Wales in March 2016. Any championship sides got Hungarian players who will be quaking in their boots?

Is this true? My recollection is that we haven’t done it much over the last two years. When we have, it’s been with Samuels or Shaw or someone very much sitting behind Billy.

Lafferty feels very similar to Broadfoot and Gardyne signings a couple of years ago. Could go either way!

Presumably not the Plymouth gunman…

Scot Gardiner to himself after a busy day pissing off our best players from each of the last two seasons:

https://ictfc.com/club-statement-15/ Absurd statement - clearly drafted in a hurry and not checked over by anyone remotely sensible. No shit, Sherlock. What they’re referring to is procedurally unfair dismissal, failure to comply with the ACAS code of practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures. That code was published in 2015. More fundamentally: - Even if you have to invite him to a meeting, etc. that doesn’t stop you having an unofficial conversation. You know, like a decent human being. - The accounts don’t line up. Did they tell him he wasn’t being kept on by email, or did they invite him to a meeting by email? If the second, why did he think/tweet the first?

Obviously there are two sides to every story, but that sounds like really poor form from the club - a failure from start to finish. - after Shane being out for a whole year, they still haven’t “got to the bottom of the issue” - club seem to have chosen and then stuck with a physio who’s not up to scratch (not even speaking to Shane for 3/4 weeks, giving opinions without having met him or seen a scan(!)) - Shane/his family having to pay for his own specialist treatment and surgery - club have had a duty of care to him for a year! Not renewing his contract is harsh but obviously that’s a business decision which they’re entitled to make, but failure to look after him up until now is inexcusable. Sounds like he’d potentially have grounds for an employment tribunal claim.

Agree with this. Thinking Dodds should have gone already doesn’t mean I want him to fail in the future.

Mea culpa!

Deas is a top class player - easy to imagine him performing well at Killie and then moving quickly on to bigger and better things. We are going to need to bring in a reliable CB. What do we think the odds are of Reghan Tumilty? Can’t imagine he’ll stay with Hamilton in league one.

What’s Partick’s chat in terms of contracts for next year? Got to imagine that some of your players have put themselves in the shop window for premiership teams since Doolan came in.

Excellent day out yesterday. Fair play to the boys for putting in an admirable performance in tough circumstances. A few assorted thoughts. The strategy in the first half was extraordinarily disciplined. Almost a basketball-style half court press, and it worked very well. Apart from the goal and one defensive slip up, Celtic really didn’t threaten that much. Allardice in particular was fantastic - covered a lot of ground and was so composed, even with very good players running at him in the box. All of that said, the price for that discipline was that we didn’t even dream about attacking. There were points where Henderson and McKay had space to run into but chose to turn round and pass backwards. Hard to watch, especially as we were never going to keep a clean sheet for 120 minutes. Would have been interesting to see when we did start attacking if we hadn’t conceded. Goal Down at half time the boys obviously decided to have a go. It was pretty turgid stuff going forward though. McKay seemed like he wanted to buy a free kick more than he wanted to actually score. The less said about Shaw’s whole performance the better - I wonder if it was the occasion and his nerves got the better of him like at the start of the season. I thought Shaw through the middle and McKay on the left was clever for the first half press system, but they should have swapped back in the second half. Wallace Duffy was unbelievably good both in defence and going forward. I’ll hold my hands up and say I (like many others) would have started Carson at RB, but Duffy was Caley’s man of the match for me. He was willing to take his man on, he played a lot of good through balls (unfortunately mostly to Shaw) and, of course, THAT cross. Speaking of THAT cross, THAT goal! Caley fans were absolutely buzzing, and for about five minutes I genuinely believed we were going to win the cup. One of my favourite ever football moments. Danny McKay loves a big occasion. I wish him well at Hibs and if I ever get the chance to buy him a pint I will do. Lastly, credit where it’s due to all the Caley fans. I’m Glasgow-based so take no credit personally, but it was a good turnout for the distance (and we all know about the kick off time) and it seemed to me that we had more fun than the 40k Celtic fans did.

We have two this year!

Depends how far you’re willing to walk, but lots of good options in and around Shawlands, which seems to be close enough to walk to Hampden but far enough away to avoid being overly full. Other option is city centre, but there’ll be plenty of green and white there too. Best shout to avoid them would be the Shuffle’s shindig at the Ferry

County Ange Going down

I heard that Ange’s first act as Spurs manager will be to break the club transfer record signing Nathan Shaw.

I love the sound of this, but is it true? Darvel beating Aberdeen got a lot of hype, but I think it was explainable by the fact that Aberdeen players were essentially downing tools to get Goodwin out. Any other contenders? Super-Caley-Go-Ballistic is the other one that comes to mind!

There was so much more hype before the final in 2015. I guess the drama of the semi-final, doing well in the league, etc. all contributed - but surely the primary factor was that it was our first ever Scottish Cup Final, and as a team barely 20 years old. For example, my Auntie (Invernesian, lives abroad, not particularly into football) came to the final in 2015 but didn’t even know that we were in it this year until last week. I’m in Glasgow so don’t have the best read, but I honestly felt like there was more excitement around Inverness for the play-off final last year than for this.