Fearchar

I'd guess that there will be 11 against Morton, with anything from 11 to 14 on the Morton side, of course. :-D

Thanks for the interesting history, though. I wonder how old the Smelltick supporter is, or does that type have such a respect for "tradition" that he holds grudges for generations?

Can the penalty be added to because Dundee FC is carrying out a public campaign against the SFL while simultaneously participating in its appeals process?

Doolan was always looking for a goal as well as tracking back, and he is our top goalscorer. Buchanan was tired halfway through the second half, and should have been subbed instead of Doolan. Hodge was poor yesterday, and his only contribution was to place the ball in the net when it ricocheted out to him. He did not do his job properly: he didn't cover for Paddy Boyle at all, with the result that whenever Boyle came forward, a big hole opened up in our defence. That hole was where the Dundee forward movement came that eventually resulted in their winning goal.

Yes, but..... The team chosen was raddled with that unpredictable(!) affliction, er, age. The defence is far too slow to keep up with fast play, while the high balls pumped up the park play to the strengths of the likes of Dundee and Morton. Meanwhile, a good young midfielder who has already played in the first team, and distinguished himself in the reserves, is sent to get experience - in Ayr! We have slowcoaches like McNamara and Robertson in the middle, instead of getting McGeough in, and whenever Liam shows signs of flagging he's left on the park and our young top goalscorer Doolan is taken off. These are suicidal tactics, and if they continue, then we'll be relegated. Either youngsters of 17 or 18+ are capable of playing at this level, or they never will be. After all, Theo Walcott could play in a side at a much higher standard than ours when he was under 17. Are our youngsters too fragile? If so, they could hardly be worse than the old and not-so-old codgers in our first team - Archie, McNamara, Robertson and Hardie all collect injuries with ease, while Liam and Cairney still seem to be suffering the after-effects of not playing for a while.

If Dundee FC starts and/or supports a PR campaign against the SFL's ruling, while continuing to uphold their right to play under the rules of the same organisation and making use of the SFL's appeals procedure, surely this is worthy of another hearing before the SFL, and a consequent penalty. Surely the SFL should also be asking if it is appropriate for a club that has been receiving handouts from one man but not paying bills to receive huge financial support in the form of no rent or possibly a peppercorn rent from the owner of its ground. The administrator, at the very least, should be called to task for not stopping this outrageous bandwagon of hypocrisy: his job is to try to provide for a future for Dundee FC, and there can be no future for a company that refuses to recognise its past failings.

So polygamy is undermining Scottish football?

You can't do that! How could you leave one player the right side of 30 in the back line - he'd show up the others' lack of pace.

Absolutely: the screen aspect ratio of the video has to be set to fit the material.

To my mind, that is Hardie's contribution: physically, he is both slow and lacks stamina. McNamara is similar, and he doesn't have the sophistication of, say, Sid. We've been losing to the teams that move faster up and down the park - and that's just about all of them in the First Division. So we can't afford more than one slow player in midfield, with, at a pinch, another up front. My inclination would be to play Hardie, because of his grit. Otherwise, we should blood as many youngsters as we can, because they are the only ones that have the pace and the stamina to drive the team out of the relegation zone. There are more than enough old heads on the park, such as Archibald and Robertson, to guide them in any case. Doolan is our only consistent scorer, while Buchanan looks useful coming on as a sub to change the kind of play and introduce more pace towards the end of games, when both sides are tiring. Here's a suggestion: Shephard Paton - McGeough - Archie/Robertson - Boyle Cairney - Rowson - Flannigan - Bannigan/Erskine Doolan - Hardie Subs: Hinchcliffe/Halliwell Buchanan Bannigan/Erskine Archie/Robertson Burns/Grehan

Well, you did hit the target in your first comment: maybe your blooter would end up in the back of the net, and we'd all realise that we'd found our missing one-goal-a-match striker.

Sehr traurig! Admin, why is there no weeping emoticon. :'(

I like the idea of getting to kick a game off - how many of us would pay to do that?

Actually, that is potentially a constructive suggestion: since Stirling Albion was involved in the incident at Forthbank, that club might accept that it's a good idea to treat visiting supporters to such a facility. Who knows - it could cause an outbreak of concern for visiting supporters' welfare in some parts of the SFL.

I agree with PGS: Doolan is a good finisher. Usually, he shoots carefully, choosing his spot. In that respect, he reminds me of Marko. In fact, he could do worse than watch some videos of Marko at work, to show him how to improve. Unlike Marko, though, he makes a huge physical effort, tracking back and even tackling when opposition forwards advance, and he adds to his game by a good sense of where to hang out to grab opportune goals, or at least to frighten defences.

It seems that this team has found its level - at least, as far as goalkeepers are concerned. It was embarrassing to see that neither our full-time goalkeeper nor his stand-in and trainer had the foresight to keep a cap with a brim ready in case the sun shone. The Stirling Albion goalkeeper was similarly unprepared, but he at least belongs to a largely part-time team. Even I carry three baseball caps in my car because of the low sun at Firhill (one for each of my sons and one for myself), but all I'm doing is watching. Funnily enough, that's what Halliwell seemed to be failing to do when the first cross sailed untouched into his net. Surely this has to be the time to blood a young, active, alert goalkeeper. Scully or Shephard - or even the fan a couple of rows behind me, who said he could have saved one of those attempts on goal today.

Spot on - unless you want your employer to "help" in choosing your union reps and the government of the day to choose your MP, your MSP and your local councillor - just in case you get it wrong about the skills required, of course.

The board, albeit with a different mix of members, agreed to allow a Trust representative to sit with them. How the Trust's representative is appointed is not a matter for the board. That doesn't preclude the board from having a quiet word of advice for the Trust, or even from offering suggestions for the qualities that might be useful in the holder of that position, but refusing to allow the Trust's appointed representative to take up his or her place is a clear breach of the existing agreement between the board and the Trust. Since the board itself does not appear to be properly constituted (with a chair and a secretary) at the moment, there might be some excuse purely on administrative grounds for not holding board meetings, and in that case, obviously, the Trust's representative could not attend, but that reflects poor organisation on the part of the current board more than any fault on the part of the Trust. If the Trust's representative is not allowed to attend board meetings, then the Trust should make a formal complaint that the existing agreement has been breached; in the absence of responsible postholders on the board, the Trust may even consider mentioning to the directors that the irregular position of the board could be pointed out to regulatory authorities. After all, the Trust, at least, is properly constituted and appoints office holders according to the rules.

Absolutely. It's not a good idea for the manager of a side playing kick-and-rush to criticise the other side for not playing attractive football, but when his own side has lost, he makes himself look very foolish too.

That's generally where he's been at his most threatening, but unfortunately, football management in Scotland being what it is, the default view is the simplistic one that left-footed players belong on the left side of the park and right-footed players belong on the right.

I have car duty for all games - home and away. I wish my sons would hurry up and get their licences so that the Jags could affect my drinking.

Our household's analysis panel (!) thought that Grehan, who was repeatedly being held back or down by defenders earlier on, was wandering about looking lost later in the game, and that, if anything, he should have been substituted and Doolan kept on (where does he get the energy from?) when Buchanan was brought on. Grehan also missed a sitter in the first half and didn't seem able to communicate effectively with the other players (including his striking partners Doolan and Buchanan). The whole team seemed to want to retreat into a very deep-lying defensive formation, and was prepared to clear the ball from there straight to the opposition. Against a more effective attack, we'd have been punished for that. The RC style of play was poor (Scottish kick-and-rush), and they had one shot on target, as far as we can remember - and that was straight at Halliwell (who dropped it the first time, but had time to collect it again). Apart from the win, of course, the really encouraging thing was how the players seemed both organised and eager. It must be good for Erskine's confidence to nick a goal, too - especially with his right foot. Let's hope that he realises it's there for more than standing on. McNamara seemed to fade a lot in the second half, but Archie was our man of the match - mostly in defending, but also coming up the pitch to add a bit of support to midfield when the team needed to come forward.

Yes. Apart from that, that team was done after the hour mark. How many coaches do we have? We still can't put a team on the park that can last 90 minutes. We hear a lot about youngsters, but get just the occasional glimpse of them. Otherwise, it's up to yesterday's men, only the old pros can't cut it in the First Division. Dunfermline Athletic looked stronger and fitter, and they won almost every aerial ball where Willy Kinniburgh wasn't contesting for it. They broke faster - and our defence is so slow that Doolan can backtrack quicker than Paddy Boyle, for example. The most likely to score looked to be Flannigan. This is a dishevelled, disheartened mess. McCall has to sort it out or go.

Although the ref didn't have a good game, it does seem strange that Doolan should be penalised for a foul on the goalkeeper when he not only couldn't touch him (because a defender was between them) but the goalkeeper was being shielded by the defender. It looks as if the ref whistled in the belief that Doolan would foul the goalkeeper. In fact, the goalkeeper was scrambling about on the ground, and a loose ball might have ended up at Doolan's feet.