Roque

Are either of you members of social bubbles? I also had problems getting my ticket earlier (it wasn’t recognising any details - either to log on or to reset password), but thankfully a member of my social bubble was able to purchase the ticket for me. It seems like being part of a bubble like this may impact your own access to the online ticketing platform. He can also see my season ticket details on his profile but I can’t see my own ST details anywhere.

Yeah, the Star is an embarrassment these days. The new owners have sacrificed their proximity to Firhill and the regular income that brought, to run their ridiculous wee Celtic supporters club from it. **** them.

I thought the figure announced seemed about right. A disappointingly low home turnout, but it made sense. I'd guess roughly 1700 in the JH and 400 in the JL is probably fair, with the announced 1080 in the away end making up 3200. JH used to hold just over 6000, but there have been a few changes and its capacity is now a good few hundred less than that.

Yeah, saw that on Twitter. Looks like some Alloa fans on P&B were at the wind-up by saying it hadn't changed. Good news for us, anyway. Suits our FB/WBs especially.

The pitch hasn't changed in size, unfortunately. I do think Alloa will be weaker this year and definitely more beatable at home, but yeah, the Indodrill pitch in its current state is a real leveler.

I misunderstood what DD meant by "league positions", assuming it to be about the group positions in the League Cup! Have edited that part of the post to be clearer.

They are based on League Cup group positions, but we're not guaranteed through that method. Celtic, Rangers, Kilmarnock and Aberdeen will be seeded as the European participants, as will the four group winners with the highest points totals. Currently the group winners and their points totals are: County 12 pts (+10 GD) Thistle 10 (+3) Motherwell 9 (+9) Hibs 8 (+5) Hearts 8 (+3) Livingston 8 (+2) Inverness 7 (+4) St Mirren 7 (0) However, only County, ourselves and St Mirren have played 4 games. Hearts, Hibs, Inverness, Motherwell and Livingston all have a final group game to play, and each one of them who wins will move us down a place. So we need less than 3 of that 5 to win their final games, which I'd say is pretty unlikely.

6 draws and 3 defeats in 9 Firhill games against Kilmarnock in our 5 seasons in the top flight. Compare and contrast with 3 wins, 3 draws and 3 defeats at Rugby Park. Embarrassing home record against them, which hopefully unlike the away record at Motherwell, doesn't develop into this kind of curse that we can't break.

I was behind the goal as well, and whilst it looked like a goal from our angle, being behind the goal isn't a great place to be able to determine things like that. Much better view of balls crossing the line, offsides, etc from the side.

Motherwell are currently sitting on P15 W13 D1 L1, with their final game on Saturday. Ayr are on P15 W13 D0 L2, with their final game also this weekend. If both win, we will be 3rd overall in the group stage format since its inception. If Ayr fail to win and we will be 2nd. If Well lose then we would be top overall, and if they draw it would be a tie between the pair of us (and I haven't looked at GD). Bear in mind Motherwell are playing Annan in the last game, so highly likely they will win!

Few mentions of him signing for us on Twitter; one from Graeme McGarry, who often seems to get first dibs on Thistle news.

It seems like quite a few people on here seem desperate for this takeover not to happen, and I can't figure that one out. There are very few facts available at the current time, but we've got folk instantly dismissing them because they won't have Partick Thistle's interests at heart, or they're foreigners and therefore they must be dodgy because Vladimir Romanov and some crooks who owned Dundee a while ago were. To me, looking at the portfolio of Chien Lee and Paul Conway, I don't think this looks like a case of some Romanov-esque dodgy dealings. These are very wealthy men who run bigger clubs than Partick Thistle, and whilst I could be wrong and they could be taking over our club to asset-strip - that doesn't seem like it would make much business sense given the current make-up of our club. Far more logical would be the suggestion of them trying to build up a network of clubs, with us somewhere nearer the bottom of the pile, where young talent can come to Firhill to learn, and any prospects that we develop ourselves have a quicker route up the ladder. But even if that is the structure they'd have planned, it doesn't mean we can't be successful as a football club at our own level. I think any suggestions that we're dying as a club are wide of the mark, but we're certainly not flourishing either, and imo any positive change should be welcomed. The current board plod from one mistake to another, don't seem to understand or appreciate how to keep an entire fan-base on-side (hint: texting a select few supporters and expecting them to spread word of how great a job you're doing doesn't work and just creates divisions within the fans), and I have no faith in them to improve on our current predicament.

I don't get this kind of thinking. What's the difference between loan players or "cast-offs" from Nice or Barnsley, and mercenary Scottish players? Realistically, hardly any players playing for teams these days are local, or support the team they are playing for. Whether it's a French player on loan from Nice, or an English player on loan from Barnsley, they're still players trying to make a living in the game, just as Ryan Williamson, Shea Gordon, Joe Cardle, etc are. None of them will have signed for Thistle because of love for the club or because of loyalty, so what does it matter which of them are lining up in red & yellow on a Saturday?

Hard to directly compare a player who we've only seen a few times, but Tidser seems quite similar to what we've got already at CM - and especially to Bannigan. I'd be worried that signing him would take us to 5 CM's (6 if you include Wilson) whose roles are all fairly similar. This would again leave us without a defensive-minded CM, which we've sorely lacked since Osman decided he wanted to be a hat salesman instead of a footballer.

For league games, home club keeps all gate receipts, food sales, etc. They then have to pay for stewarding, police etc from their own pocket. Gate receipts used to be divided years ago (I'm thinking maybe 70s or 80s was when it last happened), but was rightly binned. Why should Hamilton Accies and their minibus full of fans receive half the gate (minus costs) at Celtic Park? Or indeed, to use your own example, why should Alloa and their 150 travelling fans receive half of a 3,000 gate at Firhill? This kind of thing just isn't practical and has no real reason to be reviewed.

Being a Thistle fan would be no excuse for him being bad at his job, if he was indeed a Thistle fan. This kind of attitude is why we're in the mess we're in - rewarding "loyalty" despite a complete failure to do the job you've been tasked to the required level. Plus he's a Celtic fan anyway, so as well as being irrelevant, your point is wrong.

The attendance was given as 1757. I'd say from nothing more than an eye test, it was roughly 700 Alloa fans and 1k Jags. Almost certain they didn't outnumber us.

The capacity of the JL is just over 2000. We will have more than 2000 fans at this game.

There was talk that Archibald handed in his notice after the Livingston game, but it was rejected and the board convinced him he was the man to lead us back to the top flight. If that's true, the current predicament lies more with them than on Archie himself. Neither are blameless, but this board seem awfully cowardly to me. Easier just to chuck Archie back into the firing line than actually go looking for a competent replacement. We're a shell of a team these days. No tactics, no leadership, no desire. Stumbling about from one loss to the next. If the board can't see that, they have to go as well as the manager.

So Al-Ahly terminated Coulibaly's contract but still hold his registration documents? I'm not asking that in a rhetoric manner, btw. It seems that this would be a strange thing for a football club to be able to do. But then again, so is a player walking out on a club, so maybe they are within their rights to do so. However, if his registration expires at the time his contract was supposed to end in 2020, what happens to the FIFA-imposed fine if it hasn't been paid at that stage? The whole thing is a total mess.

Not at one point have I said Coulibaly is Kilmarnock FC, or that he was the recipient of the transfer fee. If the player doesn't perform to the expected level of the transfer fee that's a different matter: then it is a poor investment in football terms. These happen all the time in world football. However, you can't call it a poor investment if your investment decides to walk out of your club, citing reasons that were subsequently determined in court to be invalid. Al-Ahly quite rightly took this player to court and you've got to assume did so with the intention of recovering the cash that they had spent on him; the majority of which would have been in the transfer fee. I'd dispute that this level of fine would be related to the wages and bonus structure of his contract because I'm assuming Al-Ahly didn't pay his wages as soon as he went AWOL. They didn't lose money in wages or bonuses - they lost cash because a player that they spent £1m walked out on them. If a player did indeed shoot himself, then he would no longer be able to sign for another club. The same would apply if a player picked up a career-ending injury from which he had to retire. Those situations would be unfortunate for the purchasing club. This is not an unfortunate, unavoidable hard luck story for Al-Ahly - Coulibaly left the club (without a valid reason, seemingly), and is now trying to sign somewhere else. They're entitled to try and block that while chasing the money they are owed, imo. The fact you're writing off the transfer fee paid as if it's completely irrelevant in this discussion is bizarre. It might even be "horse manure".

But they are out of pocket. They're out of pocket by a million quid because the guy they spent that on decided to breach his contract and leave the country. If a club purchase a player, and the player signs a contract with that club, then of course his contract is based on the transfer fee. The contract wouldn't exist if the transfer hadn't happened. Coulibaly signed a contract on the basis of him being purchased by Al-Ahly from Kilmarnock. Okay, it probably wasn't written into his contract that he owes the value of the transfer fee if he decides he's going to quit having only served 10% of the duration of his contract - but that's been a judgment made by a governing body, and imo it makes perfect sense to link that fine to the transaction for a player who ended up being nowhere near that value to the club because he walked out on them.

Why would a replacement be in any way relevant? Coulibaly was subject to a transfer fee and signed a contract for x amount of years with Al-Ahly as part of this transfer deal. If he then walks out of the club and leaves the country, he is in breach of the contract that was signed based on the principle of a £1m transfer fee.

I'd guess that the compensation due to be paid is at least partly linked to the transfer fee Al-Ahly paid for Coulibaly. They seem to have paid Kilmarnock around £1m, and it sounds like much of it was up front. If he's walked out of his contract a few months after it begins, I don't think it's unreasonable for Al-Ahly to expect a decent sum of that in return when they spent that kind of sum on a guy and expected him to be there for 3 or 4 years. The £800,000 or so he apparently owes would be a fairly logical settlement figure in that case. Pure speculation on my behalf here, but I'd assume that's why the compensation figure is set at such a seemingly unrealistic level.

It doesn't all depend on Keown. You've got to imagine his wage will maybe be restricting us on bringing in 1 (maybe 2) of the 4 new signings that Archie is aiming for. No chance he's taking up enough that we can't sign anyone else without him restructuring/leaving.