Fearchar

Read Private Eye's take on the potential new owner, and it doesn't look beyond the bounds of possibility.

The oracle has spoken - almost. It just left out the possibility of Gardner Speirs, also mentioned earlier on by Alan Murray and Gordie: as the latter said, there was a decline in form after GS left.

It looks to me as if Dunfermline Athletic is living on borrowed time financially, while if Raith Rovers go up it would increase the financial pressure on SPL clubs. We could yet see an outbreak of realism in the boardrooms of Scottish football. On the other hand, of course, we could see more Done-Dees.

Anyone not aware that you have to creep round the back of the park to get in would naturally gravitate to the main front door, facing the main road at the back of the Main Stand. So it makes sense to specify the door.

It does seem to me that many of us fans seem to expect that players like Paddy Boyle share the same feelings about our club as we do, but it's not at all fair to expect that. We saw this with Jonny Tuffy, too - as soon as it was known he'd be going, there was massive grumbling on here. These young men don't get paid much at all, and if they're to make use of the very limited time they have for a football career, then they have to take all the opportunities offered to them - and good luck to them.

Seems a fair summary to me.

The club which reneged on the bulk of its debts, and apparently still owes salaries and redundancy payments to former employees, but remains in the same division and able to play a multitude of players despite a transfer ban; and the club which has amassed similar huge debts, despite having no substantial assets, but continues to buy more and more players within the division. Sadly, it seems unlikely that the SFL will sort out the snowballing financial and ethical problems.

He's certainly welcome, but I do wonder at all this talk of us needing another striker when we have the joint top scorer in the division on our books; that's despite Doolan starting many games on the bench. If I thought that McCall were sneaky enough, I'd say this is an attempt to motivate Doolan to scoring even more often. (I don't think that McCall is doing that.)

I'm a little surprised that all this discussion has focussed on playing without taking into account the side of the current team which has let them down - the psychological side. The number of draws and the failure to win after going behind indicate a "soft centre" that is a weakness in a competitive environment. It's obvious that McCall is not the type of manager that fires players up (or makes them fear him more than the opposition), and that isn't necessarily a fault; however, in that case someone on the field has to take on the function of encouraging and even, if necessary, bullying players, especially when they're in danger of losing confidence. In the past we've seen "Boab" do that, and more recently it looked as if Martin Hardie was doing it. At the moment, Archie, although captain, isn't. So here's the $64,000 question: who will lead the team next season? That question hasn't been answered this season.

That was attractive, but that's now been and gone, like all the other debt, since HMRC no longer has preferred creditor status. In practice, taxes owed but never paid are just another debt to be shrugged off by the unscrupulous. Unless HMRC becomes concerned about sly tax evasion schemes like this, it's very unlikely that Dundee FC's former directors will suffer any consequences - and that goes for the Administrator too. (I would question whether any of them could be regarded as a "fit and proper person" to become a director of any company.)

No link, I'm afraid.

What is interesting about the Dundee fiasco is that they have shown how it is possible to amass debts in order to gain promotion, shrug off those debts with minimal payment and then go on to benefit from the assets (in this case, players) paid for with other people's money - all this at minimal cost to the club. If the SFA doesn't sort this out, before long many clubs will see this as the route to winning promotion. Provided that most of the debt is at least notionally held by supporters of the club who don't want to see it go to the wall, then it's easy to wield enough votes to ensure that the debt is more or less written off. There is every appearance that Dundee is not the only club in the First Division which might benefit from this strategy. What puzzles me, apart from the ability of all of the clubs at our level to be extended credit by suppliers, is why any of the clubs think it's worthwhile: is there really a crock of gold awaiting once a club reaches the SPL?

5-3-2 is bad enough against part-timers, but replacing it with 5-4-1 after going a goal down is just gobsmacking. This Jags team has no heart: against better teams, it ups its game, but against poor teams it just lets them dictate play. There is no effective leader on the park. That's why the type of play in the second half was dictated by Cowdenbeath. Once we had gone behind, not one Jags player was prepared to stamp his mark on the game and push his teammates on. Will McCall learn the (oft-repeated) lesson, and appoint another captain? Going by experience, this seems unlikely.

It was a turgid game. For much of the game our double line of defenders didn't really know what to do when they did eventually get the ball. For much of the time, defensively-minded midfielders just stood off the opposition player in possession. Later on, both sides decided it was just easier to punt the ball up the park and hope one of their own players would get on the end of it. It didn't look as if either team would have scored if they'd played on until the floodlights had to be switched on. Tactically, we deserved to have points deducted. Fox and Rowson get pass marks. An in-depth defence was put on the park to deal with an opposition that hardly ever scores, and then the youngsters who can provide the pace to supply our forwards were excluded, not to mention playing only one out-and-out goalscorer: this is just playing for a defeat or a draw, at a time when we need points to stay clear of the relegation zone. As has been pointed out, using older players who are about to go out of contract doesn't make much sense either. Since points are unlikely to come from next week's match, the league position is being threatened by poor decision-making. Oh, and to add to the lack of strategic thinking, we are still to re-sign Boyle but the after-match summary effectively tells him that he's essential to the team. If he doesn't have an agent, he can afford to splash out on one now, since his Thistle contract is assured.

The Kelvindale Jags Supporters' Car will be on the road to Dingwall tomorrow, but with a slightly reduced payload freeload for family reasons.

Radio nan Gaidheal has proper sound quality - well, apart from the Leodhasach accents of course. No Rankgers songs could be heard.

Thanks to Ruairidh Alastair, McCall and Thistle were mentioned on tonight's punditry - unfortunately, it was for sitting back too deep and waiting for the opposition to score, just like our neighbours across the river.

On a related point, there is the Partick Thistle Supporters Club on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com): membership of LinkedIn and of the PTSC is free.

This is what I'd have thought too, but the thought struck me that the ball may bounce and roll differently on different types of artificial pitch.

My suggestion is to try using snail-mail. It is regarded as more official if it's typed, or more personal if it's hand-written, and it is much harder to ignore hard copy when others see it lying there. Sometimes email fails, and it does happen that some people allow email inboxes to expand hugely and then can't bring themselves to tackle the problem.

Good point, but failing a byline, the after-match reaction can only be expected to come entirely from the manager, albeit as reported rather than direct speech: the way that the article is presented, it reflects the views of one man explicitly and no-one else, even implicitly. The casual reader can only assume that the OF site version reflects the club's view, which, in this case, must be the manager's, since he's the one responsible for the football. If that's not the case, then the OF site should use a byline.

My statement: "McCall described it as being 'mugged', but in reality it was more like standing on a street corner dangling our wallet on our fingertips. " McCall's statement: "Not for the first time this season we left Palmerston Park this afternoon feeling as if we had been mugged." [My emphasis} Read it for yourself: it's in the link at the top.

Pity that McCall won't face facts - he put Donnelly out to slow up the game, but Donnelly's legs are shot, and he doesn't have a good influence on the team when it needs to be resilient. The result was that the sole striker likely to cause problems was Grehan (who did play well), who is a target-man, constantly looking for someone to take the ball off him. Result: no threat to the opposition's goal, and they can move forward with the support of their defence. (They saw their chance, and moved to a three-man defence.) McCall also switched to 5-3-2, which has served us so badly on numerous occasions, including at Palmerston: we back off too much, crowding the penalty box, and then clear the ball straight back to the opposition, who then punt it into the box again. Sooner or later, they'll get lucky - something which doesn't happen if they're not given possession cheaply. Back to 2010. McCall described it as being 'mugged', but in reality it was more like standing on a street corner dangling our wallet on our fingertips.

Just how many city councils does Dundee have these days? AFAIK, if the club had been liquidated (as opposed to gone into administration), the unpaid employees would have been preferred creditors. Of course, I doubt if Dundee FC has enough assets to fund even those debts. Expect to see Dundee FC struggling yet to pay even their current costs - not to mention to find suppliers willing to take a punt on getting payment.

From the OF: "Despite indications that a second inspection was planned for 11am this morning our Scottish Cup tie with St Johnstone has been postponed. "We apologise for the delay in relaying this information to you."