lady-isobel-barnett

I thought, like an earlier poster, that a player suffering concussion had to take time out from the following week's fixture?

Shame on you! You should apologise this minute to TL. How would you like someone saying that about the love of your life?

I doubt whether a go it alone salary cap in Scotland would work not that there's not a lot of merit in the idea. There's a couple of other ways of toning down some of the nonsense that's gone on before and to some degree still goes on. Firstly instead of a salary cap (or in conjunction with one if a wage limitation was practical) limit clubs' player wage bills to a certain percentage of the individual club's turnover. I remember Dundee were about 10 year ago spending just over 150% of their turnover on player wages and I think Dunfermline about 130%. Result of course was the former going into administration and the Pars ripping up contracts to avoid the same outcome. I wouldn't know what percentage limit to set tho' 50% of turnover seems to me about right. I realise that this could be open to abuse (boot money etc) but most of that abuse would fall foul of the taxman and vatman. Secondly, and I'm thinking more about our division here, limit the player squad to say to no more than 15 outfield players over the age of 21 with no limit on those below that age. If in tandem with with the wage/turnover thingy it would be a logical move in any case. There's a third thing I'd like to see but doubt it's possible. That would be a return to split gates in league matches. If we went down the route of 16 club leagues we would likely have to revert to groups in the league cup to augment the drop in league games. Those group stages would be home and away and that would be an ideal place to split gates.

Condolences to David and his family.

Don't know if your meaning at Firhill or the last game at Falkirk. I think tho' you're talking about Higginbotham who's none too popular with the Falkirk fans. They think he's too flash with little substance to his game. That may be true but he does see a lot of the ball and appears to have decent delivery Btw Finnegan's the clown that tried to get Archie sent off in an earlier game. Centre forward with both a poor scoring and disciplinary record.

More dosh to spend

Perhaps that's why we had a McGowan on loan.

I don't think you are disagreeing, HJ. All I was saying was we have a fair quota of front players already signed for next season and one or two would have to go out on loan if we bring in an experienced striker. As for McMenamin I don't believe he's a spent force. I wouldn't know whether he's the ideal partner for Doolan or not (rather think he could be) but I'm fairly sure he'd chip in with a good few goals regardless. If he formed a useful double act with Doolan all the better. Expanding on HJ,s last couple of sentences, with SFL wages being forced downwards players will be looking for local clubs to cut down on travel costs, which are obviously higher these days. McMenamin is I believe a local lad.

Not so sure Accies will. St Mirren on the other hand would likely dip into their pockets even to keep hold of SPL level players or bring a few in. I would tho' imagine we'll get considerably more thru the gate than Hamilton will ever bring.

but again the real culprits are the SFL for not anticipating that loophole.

Next season we'll have Grehan, Burns, Doolan, Fraser, & Stewart (maybe) with McGrotty thereabouts. We shouldn't be short of competition for frontline places (Erskine can also play upfront). I don't think the manager (whoever he is) would turn his nose up at the chance of an experienced striker but I'd imagine it would necessitate one or maybe two of the younger players going out on loan.

Read again I said "in practical terms and on a relative basis". Even so I agree I still phrased that badly. I was actually thinking of other businesses that I've been involved in when saying that. It would be too long winded to go into further but if I had a return of say 40% on my bad debt provision it wouldn't impact into letting staff go etc. A return of only 6% would be crippling. I probably still haven't made myself much clearer You are correct in what you say in the rest of your post but even taking that into account I still feel just about anyone can comfortably take the moral high ground when talking about the way Dundee FC have conducted themselves off the pitch this season.

His recent utterances have been close to a direct opposite of his patter in his SPL days. Yorkston has undoubtedly got a split personality but deep down he's good people.

It wouldn't be bad idea at all and we've got the space to do it. I'll need to get hold of an old map of the droving routes to bring my ABERDEEN ANGUS BULLING HEIFER and my 1 YEAR OLD BLONDE BULLOCK down to Maryhill.

No confusion, DD. I'm not talking about the legality of the situation. What really gets on my goat is the SFL who don't have scaled punishment in place. As I see it at present the door is wide open for clubs to go into administration at a time where a one off points deduction would be more or less academic. It's surely the responsibility of the SFL to have rules in place to enforce fairness when the "system" works against equity. They could start by looking at soft loans.

Can't agree with you there. Nobody has the right (or at least should have the right) to rip off suppliers and service providers in the way they did. The very fact that they have crowds over double ours and thus could've directed more funds towards their debt only makes the situation even more despicable. As I read it they could now sell Harkins for instance for a sizeable amount and keep the lion share of the proceeds for themselves or alternatively retain his services and pay him a wage with money that morally should have been directed towards debtors that in turn may just have kept some company afloat or some punter in employment. Their punishment this season should have been an arbitrary points deduction, a ban from signing players plus a ban on promotion. Their real penalty should only now be being assessed. The very fact they decided to pay only 6p in the £ when by selling players or by making other obvious cut backs they could've paid their creditors more, should be taken into consideration. If common sense and decency prevailed within the SFL Dundee should be starting next season with a points deduction. If Dundee FC go on and win the league next season by effectively milking the system this season it'll just be a further nail in the coffin of Scottish football. I'd still I suppose be a Jags supporter if we did something similar but I would no longer be a season ticket holder or even a regular attender. Apologies if all this sounds sanctimonious but tho' I could maybe regularly support a team that buys success I could never support one that cheats and buys success.

Stewart may not have anything to prove to McNamara if he gets the job. The role he played in against Morton and I assume yesterday was roughly where I thought Doolan would end up playing (tho' maybe cutting in from out right instead). That was when we weren't anticipating Doolan being the main striker. Jumping the gun, I know, but I got a good feeling about us playing that system next season.

In practical terms and on a relative basis paying out 40p in the £ isn't likely to impact on suppliers and service providers too dramatically. Paying 6p in the £ is and will have put small businesses in jeopardy and cost jobs. You're correct about the principle to a point but as I remember we paid out as much as we could. All evidence with Dundee points to them paying out as little as possible. I can see tho' the general point you're making and us getting into that situation in the first place was every bit as bad as Dundee FC. I think tho' we came out of it with our heads, if not exactly held high, certainly not bowed in shame, whilst Dundee this time round have no dignity left whatsoever

Then you're saying that there will be no promotion from Div 1. Not that I see yon proposals going thru anyway.

You could argue that Dunfermline should have trimmed their squad and cut their wage bill accordingly. That "saved" money could have gone towards lowering the £11m debt. Only thing is the folk that are owed the £11m don't appear to want it back. I might be viewing their situation in an over simplified maybe naive manner but perhaps those guys due the £11m are as happy as Larry tonight and wouldn't want it any other way. Dundee on the other hand are just out and out feckin' cheats.

What tho' if the Doncaster nutter gets his way and three clubs are relegated? How do the Pars prepare for the SPL with that uncertainty hingin' about?

Agree there, gaz. Doesn't sound that today's game came anything close to that tho'. Think then I'd disagree with Tom S all the same, tho' I didn't go today. I probably prefer the insipid non confrontational games that we normally get today than some pale imitation of the past. That's just an age thingy of course

Correct. With 35 games played, which is surely enough to draw a credible conclusion, we can see that we can rise to the occasion against the better performing sides but struggle against the teams that had no aspirations of winning the league. In my mind we've struggled to get the necessary killer instinct to be successful but I wouldn't confuse that with saying the players lack the bottle.

I feel that could work well. I get the impression that starting Fraser isn't something that JMcN or IMcC wanted to do just yet. Being forced into it kinda takes the stress of Shaun a bit. If he starts next week Shaun's not likely to have the added pressure of knowing he'd keeping a fit regular on the bench.

All this latest conjecture still puzzles me. If McCall is heading to Ibrox why the sudden departure? Something happened yon Thursday night/Friday morning to tip the scales or, more Machiavellian perhaps, IMcC used something that happened then to engineer his escape. If the hunjob is genuine why did McCall feel obliged to leave Firhill so urgently? Doesn't make any obvious sense.