Dink

Well, the number of Scottish students in English universities has been falling since 2010-11, from a little over 12,000 to a little over 9,000. 2010 is also the year that the Browne report was published which recommended the removal of the cap on tuition fees in England (instead a cap of £9,000 was put in place, later increasing to £9,250). I don't think it's wild speculation to say that there's a high likelihood that the two things are related. It may not be the devastating counter argument that you were looking for but it's better than any argument that you provided above. Is this where I should add something about unionist trolls, group think, and cults? Or does that only work one way?

Yeah, and I don't have a problem with him commenting on Rangers, I don't particularly like it but as you say Mulraney would have accepted that from day one. Rather it's the tone of his media pieces where he comes across as more concerned about Rangers' performances than ours. Obviously that is the way the media game works in large part, but it makes it no less galling to read those sorts of articles on the back of what was probably our worst performance of the league season.

Yeah, I'd just been sent a link to an article based on that interview and it's such a shitty look for him to be talking about how angry he is it Rangers' performance when he should be concerned about the performance that we put in on Saturday. I've not been shouting for him to go yet, as I think there have been some plus points such as the game against Queens Park, but that sort of article does him no favours at all. TBH I think it's probably best for all concerned if he goes, but I suspect he's here until the end of the season at least.

Another game that I'm missing unfortunately, but as ever I have no idea of what to expect from us. Our last couple of league results have been excellent with Henderson on fire, and if he maintains that form then we've got a real chance of winning. On the other hand I've got no faith in us maintaining our discipline to keep 11 players on the park, and we always seem to have a shit-show of a performance up our sleeves - this season we've been beaten by Cowdenbeath, Brechin, and Clyde. So, cautiously optimistic but really wouldn't be surprised if it all came crashing down around our ears again.

So, Charlie Gilmour. Not sure that we needed another Central midfielder but I believe he's highly rated by St Johnstone. Sent from my Pixel 3a using Tapatalk

I think it's something like 1 defeat in the last 15 or so games against you and we're unbeaten in the league going back to 1995-ish.

I'm not making tomorrow's game unfortunately as I'm away for the weekend. I can't say that I'm too confident following the midweek game against Airdrie, although our record against Montrose over the last 20 or 30 years is very impressive.

I think that Waspie called this pretty much spot on. In the end it was a game that we could have got something from but Airdrie were probably worth the win. This was a very different game to the Falkirk match on Saturday. Falkirk came at us, played with a high line, and left gaps in behind which suited us as we were able to pop balls over the top for our runners. Airdrie defended deep and didn't give us any space to exploit and we left it too late manage to change the way that we were playing. Given that we weren't getting any joy trying to pass or way through the Airdrie lines then bringing on Conor Sammon made sense as it let us have some hope of getting on the end of high balls. I'd also have thought about bringing on O'Donnell as his trickery might have brought us some success, and once you manage to beat a player it forces the opposition out of their shape. I was surprised that we changed to a back 3 late on as it seemed like the earlier changes, in particular bringing on Sammon, we're beginning to bear fruit. Given how solid Mendy and Durnan were against Falkirk it was probably right to start them again last night and apart from the making for Airdrie's first, and another occasion where they took it in turn to give the ball away, I didn't think that they did too badly. Credit to Airdrie they played us pretty much perfectly defensively, and looked dangerous when they broke out. It was a game where the first goal was going to be very important. If we'd scored first Airdrie would have been forced to change their approach, instead we conceded first and Airdrie were able to double down. Also, their second was a very good strike.

45 minutes of passing the ball in front of Airdrie, who have looked very comfortable so far. Their goal comes from an unchallenged header. Hopefully will improve a bit on the second half, but we've been contained very easily so far.

I thought that yesterday was the best that I've seen us play under Barry Ferguson, including the Livingston game. Of the various ways that we've been set up recently the 4-3-3 that we used yesterday has been my favourite, Sena and King (who had his best game in a Wasps shirt yesterday) complement each other very well at the base of the midfield 3. When I saw that we were starting with Durnan and Mendy at the centre of defence I was worried (fingers crossed there's no issue with Andy Graham) but they were rock solid. Mendy will always make mistakes but his physical attributes means that he is often able to get away with them. Up front Henderson had an excellent debut, although he was helped by Falkirk combining a high line with slow central defenders, making it easy for us to pop balls in behind for him. Hopefully the injuries aren't too bad, we know Trouten's quality, whereas Boyd remains a bit of a conundrum. He's an excellent natural finisher but at times he seems to struggle in the wide areas. Having said that I think we're a better team with him in the side. A final note on Hutton who had a solid game, and it was good to see him getting a decent reception from the fans. The Parry situation isn't his fault and there's no point in giving him a hard time over it Barry Ferguson certainly wouldn't have been my choice as manager and I still have reservations over his ability, but credit where it's due he had us set up really well yesterday. If we continue to play like that he'll win the doubters around

The defender who gets to Sammon's header is the one that Sammon has already run away from. The only reason he looks favourite to get to it first is because Sammon is being confronted by the goalie rushing out to flatten him, and checks his run slightly. It's maybe not 100% a clear cut sending off but I think Queens Park certainly got lucky with decision.

Last week there were a lot of negatives despite the win, albeit with a couple of decent attacking moves for the goals. The hope was that we could build on the positives for this week, instead it seems that we decided to build on the negatives. One of the positives from last week was the finishing of Boyd, so I'd hoped that we'd try to get him into dangerous areas in the box this week. No, he seemed to be playing as an advanced left wing back. In the first half in particular some of our passing was shocking, I lost count of how many easy passes we put straight out of play. Mind you, given how static we are we don't exactly make it easy to find passes. In the end this game ended up being between 2 teams who were evenly matched for 10 of their players but Clyde top off their uninspiring 10 with an excellent striker, we top ours off with a striker for whom uninspiring would be generous praise. I'm clinging on to the hope that Cawley and Trouten returning will strengthen us, and that we will sign a decent striker and a left back who can get closer to the performances of Taggart on the other side.

Having moved my post to the match thread, I'll just say that this week's performance was pretty shite. I'm not panicking yet, but I'm getting a hell of a lot closer to it.

My first game since Brechin in the league cup and a good result, but I'd agree with Waspie on the performance. First half we bossed possession without creating too much other than the goal (great piece of play from Scougall and a good finish from Boyd). Then in the last few minutes we almost conceded with Hutton having to save well. Second half and it all seemed to be going wrong. We concede early with what looked like Hutton getting his positioning all wrong (although a very good strike so I'm perhaps being q bit harsh). At this stage it looked like East Fife we're certain to add more, the midfield dropped out of the game, the defence was porous, and Hutton had to bail us out on a couple of occasions. Then seemingly from nowhere two good pieces of football, two fine finishes, and for the rest of the game we cruised to a good win. It was a game that showed we are still a work in progress - the midfield needs to improve and Church needs to get closer to the performances of Taggart on the other side. It was also a game that showed we can manage to play some good stuff, Scougall and Boyd in particular were impressive. Hopefully we can build on the positives but it's still very much a work in progress.

That was me being deliberately positive, my actual view is closer to "this has largely been shite so far, with a few positive notes, fingers crossed things look better when we start the league games". Last night was the last game I'll make for a few weeks so, who knows, perhaps we'll be sweeping all before us by the time that I get back to the Recs.

Attempting to bring in some positive vibes after my posts last night were, understandably, not full of the joys. So, a few happy thoughts: The 4231 that we used against Cowden and (a variant of) against Livingston has the potential to be a useful system for us. With Scougall, Cawley, Trouten, and O'Donnell (plus Boyd) to choose from for the 3 in behind the striker we've got some very talented attacking options. Ben Armour's movement and work rate as a lone striker should create space for the 3 behind to play in. Scott Taggart has started the season well, to the extent that he was our main attacking threat least night. Andy Graham has generally looked back to his best. Howie looks like a decent no-nonsense stopper. It looks like we've got genuine competition for the goalkeeping spot. So, there you go it's not all doom and gloom (only mostly).

Positives? Well, the first 15 minutes or so were excellent and Ben Armour did well to get into good positions to miss his hat trick of chances. Any others? At least it's not league football yet, and hopefully the three at the back system with Taggart almost as a winger and Howie breaking into midfield won't be seen again. Perhaps we're using these games to try things out and when the league season starts we'll look a lot more cohesive, but I'm not full of confidence. Given the positives of Saturday's performance I thought it might have been a good idea to stick with the same shape and try to build some momentum. Instead the changes saw O'Donnell moved central where he seemed to struggle as he had a lot less space to work in.

Well, that was poor and certainly brings us back to earth after the Livingston game. In the first 15 minutes we probably should have scored 2 or 3, but after that Brechin gradually came into the game and our performance was poor. The midfield failed to really get a grip of the game and for all the chances that we created our strikers never looked like they were going to finish one - perhaps loading up on front players with poor scoring records isn't such a great idea. Between that result and the Cowden one it begins to look like Livingston were indeed very badly hit by illness when they played us. We have to hope that these two results are just blips and that there will be more to come once the season starts, but it's not looking great at the moment.

A bit late with my comments on Saturday's game but I thought that we played really well, a big improvement from last Tuesday. I thought that Howie was excellent at the back, and also a lot of credit to Andy Graham with a fantastic pass out to Taggart for the first goal. Fingers crossed this gives us something to build on, and we certainly need to see more from Sammon. Hopefully there are more positives in the next couple of games.

That's disappointing. Based on Church's performance on Tuesday I'd say that Williamson is the better player.

Not a particularly inspiring first performance, fingers crossed that things improve. We struggled to create many real chances and in general looked a little lost going forward. I felt that the three behind Sammon were all a bit too similar. First impressions of the new players (the starters): Church - disappointing, I'd rather have Williamson in there and continue to give a youngster a chance to develop. Howie - I thought that he did well, looked like he could be reasonably solid at league 1 level. Adam King - I was pretty pleased with him, he didn't exactly dominate the game but he was neat and tidy in possession and of the two in the double pivot I thought that he did better than Robertson. Boyd - looked willing to have a go at his man and try to make something happen, but nothing really came off for him. Sammon - he did ok when the ball was placed right on his head, other than that he was disappointing. I was expecting to see a bit more movement from him to give the three behind a bit more space to play in but that just didn't happen, and I felt that may have been largely responsible for its not creating more chances. Only one game in and there's plenty of time to improve, but if we're still playing like that come the first league game of the season then I'll be seriously worried about our prospects.

If you guys have for someone who can take the ball off the back 4 and develop play (similar to Iain Flannigan) then Grant might do pretty well for you. If you don't then you're fucked, because he won't let little things like not having the players to play his system get in the way of his philosophy. Although, on the plus side he got a pretty good tune out of O'Hara for us.

Thanks for getting something up, and I appreciate that Leodhas can only work with what he's given by the club. One small consolation in all of this is just how much it seems to have pissed off the staunchest of rangers fans, judging by their reactions on twitter.

I'm really not a fan of this appointment, and I'll be even less impressed if Bob Malcolm is coming as well. A manager whose CV isn't great who and brings an awful lot of baggage. Given the general reaction to the leaks you may have thought that the club would want to engage with fans, and try to bring them onside at least a little. The radio silence that we're getting instead suggests that isn't the case. Even a brief confirmatory tweet or story on the website with more detail to come would surely be appreciated by fans.

I certainly hope not. His spell at Clyde was very poor, and I don't give him much credit for what he's done at Kelty given the players he was able to recruit.