lady-isobel-barnett

Smyth & McCaffrey look a useful pairing. Add in Ross Forsyth at left back and Morton's defence is taking shape. Btw there's a story in the Greenock Telegraph headline "'Ton's Cash Cuts Cost Me Contract" but you need to register to read it. Maybe means Morton think a lot about McCaffrey.

Not too sure you could call Higgins a traditional centre forward or not but he's a nice line in the traditional cliché “It’s all about putting the ball in the back of the net.” (courtesy STV online).

Do you know something we don't. Should we be heading to Willie Hill's before 3pm Sunday?

If you look at it from a positive point of view we're doing this as youngsters have moved up into the first team squad thus weakening the under 19s. I think Bannigan, Fraser, Scully, Lochhead & McGrotty would all have been eligible for next season's under 19s (I'm assuming anyone not 19 by July 11) so requiring trials could be seen as a good think.

I think you're splitting hairs. If we hadn't sold Harkins we'd have owed HMRC so the debt would have been that amount higher.

I can see many a situation arising where we sell a younger player to an SPL or a major English league club and he's immediately loaned back for a season. I wouldn't particularly want to see that with Erskine as he's potential and enough of a contract left to get serious money but it makes financial sense wherever poor cash flow is evident. The buying club are jumping in to get a player that's not quite reached their playing level and the selling club are buying a bit of financial stability against the risk of just potential. The more financially stable a club like us is then the more we can hold on to our prospects and chance realising serious money. To get to that stage of stability first we've got to sell players ahead of that level. I don't want to see that with Erskine but I fully understand why we might have to sell him at a lower fee.

Hot potato, off his drawers, pluck to make amends.

I'd rather see it go towards a beech hedge.

I can fully respect that. We're never short of suggestions how the Club can put more bums on seats. But whether it's pricing initiatives, half time entertainment, making hospitality more accessible or whatever we're still stuck with this repetitive nonsense once again. It's bad enough the four league games but the SFL in their wisdom go out of their way to ensure we'll be playing some teams in our league at least five times all down to the two cup competitions they run. One of those cups being a total joke of a competition.

Some get a kick from cocaine

Came as a complete surprise to me as well. Mind you I'd never heard of him.

Riordan has got a reputation as a bit of nutter off the park. That's possibly as he's exposed to his home town Edinburgh. Perhaps putting some distance from Scotland and the fact he's no longer a young man will give you a maturer signing. On the pitch the player is reportedly played in a wide position that's no doubt curtailed his goals to games ratio. Riordan is reasonably two footed and isn't bad at all with a dead ball. The guy's a bit typical of many a Scottish player of the past. No shortage of skill but has a well used self destruct button. How much his attitude is down to his home environment is the gamble your club is taking.

That's uncanny! I keep my trombone in an imaginary kitchen.

Up until a day or so ago I wouldn't have believed Paul Hartley would be playing for Alloa next season. Seems he's not hangin' up his boots after all and will be player manager instead of just manager. That's if Brown Ferguson doesn't keep him out the team

I'm not really au fait with facebook stuff but I found these photos HERE Presumably they get updated regularly. Think it's excellent that Thistle are represented by such a large contingent.

18 months is a hell of a long time for anyone to be in management at Livingston. Bollan I reckon has been there even longer. Some sort of record .

That's why I can't follow HJ's assertion that Livinghell is the best away match of the season. Falkirk Stadium must be about half the travel time from Linlithgow than Almondvale. Main road, cheaper taxi fare. and less likely to throw up.

Worth remembering they have absorbed the VAT increase as well

Not a mail bomb we're told but a suspicious substance turns up in Cowdenbeath. My guess, it was a bar of soap.

More or less what I was saying in a previous post tho' by using a bit of creative accounting I think we can expect to score more than 44 goals. Doolan scored 7 goals in the last third of the season suggesting he could manage over 20 next season. Similarly our scoring rate over that period of 17 goals backs that up. Just an opinion but if we could sign Stewart he'd chip in with a good few and certainly make more chances than we were doing. Fraser should improve and Burns is a lot stronger than he was this time last season. Bannigan has scored a few for Ayr as well. Still feel even using above optimism that we'd fall short of that extra 22 goals. Obviously we need to get the left back situation sorted and imo re-signing Stewart is almost as crucial. To repeat after that we'd need to send one or even two of the young strikers out on loan to bring in a proven Div 1 striker. Not sure the budget will even stretch that far.

Don't know if this is the point HJ is making or not but to challenge for the league we need to score considerably more goals than we did this season. Dunfermline's goals for was 50% higher than ours. Whether or not Doolan was top league scorer is largely irrelevant. I do tho' think that the momentum towards the end of the season suggested we would score more freely next season and with that in mind re-signing Tommy Stewart has to be a priority.

I suppose even the blandest of grounds have some attraction if you're willing to travel the best part of ten miles to that ground. But by your logic surely then Falkirk must be a better away match than Livingston?

We finished 13 points behind Morton that season. Even with Rae bankrolling them they only won the league by 8 points the following season. We wouldn't have been at the races. Would have been virtually a one man team (Roberts). Tho' on the bright side we'd have been able to hold on to the likes of Stevie Nicholas

I guess we're more or less in agreement. It's just I believe that clubs further up the peckin' order will be aware why he's been poorer last season. One thing tho' if both Harris & Boyle are looking to better themselves it will make it more difficult for both to get sorted out so you might well be right about our chances.

If it was of no real league significance to us I wouldn't turn up for that game. At the same time I'd be more than miffed if I did turn up I was getting turfed out my usual seat for that mob.