18 games played, we are officially half way through the season and 12 points behind the leaders Dundee.

If we win, 9 points (although very difficult) is an achievable target when you take into consideration we play them on 2 more occasions before the end of the season. Not to mention the psychological affect it will have on us and them going into the new year

If we lose.... I'm not a pessimist but I can't see us making up a difference of 15 points in the remaining 18 games. 2 games against Dundee to reduce the deficit to 9 but we are still requiring 3 weekends where we take full points and Dundee take none... to put that in perspective, I think we had 2 weekends like that so far this season!!! In the meantime we would have to win every other remaining fixture.... not impossible but very very very unlikely

I think if we lose against Dundee Butcher needs to make his plans clear, he needs to commit himself to the club for another season or leave so our next manager has the transfer window to build a team for next year. I don't want to read Rafa Benitez type interviews every week where the manager is clearly in denial and still claiming he can win the league where there is an insurmountable* defecit

* big word for Christmas :)

Inditherm Plc is a company that develops and supplies heating systems like that installed at Falkirk. They also supply a polymer based heat transference oil which is also called 'Inditherm'. This oil is heated using a boiler or electric heating elements and is pumped through underground pipework. Because of its excellent heat transfer properties it is more economical than water. Either way it could well be what we use. Another product on the market, produced by Dow Chemicals, is Dowtherm and there are various other products available. All good quality. The advantages of using those products is their hear transfer co-efficiencies. The cost per therm to heat the oil is a fraction of that of water though the environmental impact, if a leak occurs, can be much higher.

12thman, your first paragraph is not strictly true. We may not have the Inditherm Plc Heat Pad system in place but we could be using the 'inditherm oil. So long as material specification of the pipework is suitable and the boiler internals suitable for the product there's no reason why we couldn't be using the oil.

:(