oneteaminglasgow

It won't, it's a point which gets bandied about in the media (most recently by Ann Budge I think) and goes generally unchallenged, but stands up to absolutely no scrutiny whatsoever.

I would guess he'd play with Bannigan and Osman, with Erskine and probably Lawless ahead of them. That's assuming everyone's fit, which obviously in the case of Bannigan wont be this season.

What? ETA: just out of interest, how many senior clubs should we have? What is the ideal number which would make the league more competitive? And which ones should we get rid of?

Aye I'm sure Osman was signed because of how he played for a dreadful Gretna side 6 years previous.

For thistle? No **** in, Crawford and Pogba out.

I'd rather Nisbet stayed on at Ayr, especially as he seems to be their first pick and playing up front on his own. If we're in need of a third choice striker then I'd prefer it be another of the development squad lads. Nisbet will benefit much, much more by getting first team football there at a fairly decent standard than by sitting on our bench and getting 20 minutes here and there.

Ah my mistake. Agree with you re Dave MacKay though, good player, but not one who's going to solve the problems in the squad.

Except he's absolute dogshit.

The problem with Conrad was that he was basically alright at this level, as long as he had someone beside him to guide him through the game. Given that both Lindsay and Devine look to currently need someone to guide them through matches, I'd have little confidence in him being the man to do that.

I thought a big physical forward would be a good approach to the game, and Pogba is the only one we have. He was crap when he came on, but that doesn't change my point. You seem to be suggesting that we should expect to beat teams who, looking at the teams, are quite simply better than us, and suggesting that a draw wouldn't be s good result. That's absolutely laughable.

Because some of us don't live in utter fantasy land and understand that, looking at our squad and looking at theirs, we were always going to be underdogs.

I enjoyed it. I'm 22, so a lot of the stuff happened before I was either born or old enough to appreciate what was going on. Quite enjoyed the Souness and Murray stuff tbh since we all know what happened with that. The bits about the Edinburgh clubs and the Dundee clubs merging were interesting too. And that clip of the Rangers dressing room singing the "party tunes" highlighting once again how despicable that club are.

This'll be my first league game of the season, and I can't wait. Would take 0-0 right now to be honest, we had a couple of properly brutal performances against Hearts last season. Lindsay is a cracking player IMO, he made a very costly error at the weekend, but literally every single defender in the league will have an absolute horror show at some point. Hopefully he'll come back from it an improved player and will learn when to play it out from the back and when to just punt it clear. Assuming we don't have any new signings by Saturday, I'd go with: Cerny Gordon-Lindsay-Devine-Booth Osman-Wilson Amoo-Edwards-Erskine Pogba I know Pogba gets slated quite a lot, but I think with Souttar at the back for Hearts he could get a fair bit of joy out of him and bully him in the way we used to see Balatoni regularly bullied by big target men. Edwards work rate could be useful in this game as I'd imagine we'll have less of the ball, and as Erskine is in such fine form and Amoo can be a good out ball in games like that, Lawless drops out. The obvious area of concern is centre midfield. Osman seems to have been pretty poor so far this season, and Wilson is far from the finished article, but with Bannigan, Welsh and Fraser all out, we've not much choice. I'll be hugely optimistic and say 1-0 Thistle.

Has Seaborne actually signed for Hamilton? All I can see is that Martin canning was interested?

In centre midfield, I'd have James McArthur and Darren Fletcher both ahead of him to do roughly similar jobs, and I'd also rather see Barry Bannan or James Morrison in future squads than Brown. Thats 4 for the position straight off, and with Bryson, Bridcutt and McGinn all on the fringes of the squad we should be alright. That's not to say he's not been a good player for Scotland, for the most part he's done what's been asked of him, but I think his time has come.

How did they do us a favour?

It could, but alternatively the article is in the Daily Record and is almost definitely a lie.

I'm just absolutely amazed that Chris Sutton can write.

If we were a lower league team I'd hope we'd treat this devalued joke of a competition with the utter contempt it deserves and field our under 10's. The best way to get this nonsense dropped is to not attend the matches.

Don't know if I'm making it up but I could have sworn Simon Donnelly started out at QP.

I'd imagine he'll mean Nathan Ecclestone

Can't make this one annoyingly. Hopefully we don't take this lightly, we still need to win to be sure of going through I believe, and even though QP have nothing really to play for, I'm sure they'll not lie down. Plus if we win, we're guaranteed to be seeded next round. Pogba seems to be in decent form, a goal and 2 assists in his last 2, so would be surprised to see him drop out. Be interesting to see who starts at Centre back, ideally I'd want Lindsay and Devine playing together as much as possible just now to nail that partnership. We should be winning this, and reasonably comfortably you'd hope, but as we saw in the 5-4 game (one of my favourite Thistle games ever), it could be very different from that. 3-0 Thistle. Erskine, Lawless and Nisbet rounding it off.

I believe if it's seeded it's going to be the Celtic, Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibs and the 4 best group winners which will be seeded. Should we win on Saturday, I think we're guaranteed to be seeded, which would be nice.

He'll end up playing part time in the lower leagues, if not juniors, IMO. Can't see too many full time managers wanting to take a punt on a guy who's not played a minute in over 2 years and comes with the baggage which he clearly would. Shame, as he's more than capable in the top flight.

Sorry ian_mac, what I meant to ask was do you have any actual evidence at all that it would help to have a summer season? Have other countries made this switch and seen their performance improve?