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Have the rest been stolen?

If the Young Team fail to produce a banner that says "WELCOME TO HELLGIN", I'll be disappointed...

May 25 - 1978. I took a series of photos of the Eastgate area using the Council's "cherry-picker". Not easy holding the camera steady whilst trying to control your nerves! The first photo I posted, showing the Eastgate car park, was taken in May 1979. I have earlier ones taken in January 1976 and then up to the Centre opening in 1983. Here's one of Hamilton Street taken on February 9 1976.

Anier's last game was in November, so I doubt he'll start. Although Richie might want him closer to match sharpness ahead of some must win league games? Cole is re-signed on loan and will be a likely starter, as he was a mainstay prior to the winter break. Ebbe won't start or be near the bench I would assume. I really hope Richie used the winter break to try new formations and we don't go into Saturday with the same plans as last year. Drop Vigurs, move Polworth into the middle, start Fisher instead of Doumbouya... just those simple changes would make a huge difference I feel.

A bit like Dingwall but without the Wimpey.

It always amazes me that people that don't work for the club seem to have such a grasp of what's going on with ticket sales!

Folk moaning about other teams seemingly being able to find players that are doing the business for them and not us really need to get a reality check. I'm not really sure what is expected. The fact of the matter is that most players we sign, due to their unattached lower league status will generally be punts. We've been very fortunate in recent years with the forward options we've signed. Rooney, Mckay, Watkins, Hayes and last season Storey. We're not always going to have a never ending supply of goal scorers. The task is finding the next one who can go on a run and grab 10 goals that might keep us up. Anier wasn't great at Dundee United but neither were Mckay or Ofere. At least not to the same standard they had been with us. He does however have experience at this level which should be seen as a positive. He's a capable player who with luck could be good for us. In saying that I here a certain Diego Costa wants to leave London. It's an absolute abhorrence that we haven't slapped in a 60m bid.

As Richie said in his interview most of the team are proven at this level. For a few season the core of the team has been Warren and Meekings with Draper and Tansey in front of them. Go back to this. Punt Vigurs. Sure, technically he is possibly our best player but a central midfielder needs mobility when he severely lacks (or the motivation to be mobile). Even putting Vigurs as an attacking midfielder is a problem as he wont make runs beyond the striker. The whole point of the 4-2-3-1 formation is the 3 have the freedom to make runs beyond the lone striker which has rarely happened this season. Draper was successful in that role because he would make those runs. I have generally agreed with most of Richies team selections and I am positive for the future despite our position but for me the main issue is Vigurs. Drop him and I think it will improve the team greatly.

im certainly not blinded, and like many probably very concerned that we may well go down. and echoing what im sure i've said before, if we are to go down, i dont want to do it shouldering a heap of debt brought on by throwing money at some marquee signings, who we probably couldn't afford even if we DO stay up. RF can and has done wrong, but much like the rest of the squad, thats who we have and thats the route the club is going. There is a reason he was given a 4-year contract! this was never going to be easy, or an overnight success. it will be a long hard slog, which may take the full 4 years. lets hope the club remains solvent in that time. or we could just sack RF, throw out the board, get relegated and end up in a financially unsustainable position, somewhere in the middle of league 1 within 2 years, with countless people losing their jobs along the way. maybe then the 'missing' fans will turn up!

Yeh dammit! Why does this site cancel the "Edit" facility after a relatively short time? This morning I spotted last night's syntactic aberration and tried to change it from "Being an Elgin supporter...." to "Since he is an Elgin supporter...." but the thing wouldn't let me.

As the men's tops are out of stock are the new signings wearing a size 16.

Shameless plug here - I wrote a blogpost about our defensive issues this season and NareysToePoke blog kindly published it http://nareystoepoker.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/caley-thistles-case-for-defence.html Hope people find it interesting, any feedback welcome.

I think a lot of the problems aren't restricted to the defence - if it was one player who had got significantly worse then it'd be easy to pinpoint but all defenders performing at a lower level, in the measures used, suggests that the issues are wider. I didn't do any analysis of other players further up the pitch but the fact that this season more of the moves leading to goals against us have been in the 'centre' circle area stuck out for me. I don't think we are keeping the ball up front well enough and when we lose it I'm not sure we are doing the best job of recovering it, or even pressuring the opposition and covering space. I can't say anything definitive about it though. Regarding crosses and through balls, those figures haven't really changed much from last season to this. 40% of goals from through balls, 20% from crosses from the left, 20% from crosses from the right and the rest from 'other' (long shots, dead balls, OGs, direct passes to the opposition). One thing that would've been useful is to have had the figures for the entire league to see how we compare, especially with the pitch grid stuff. I'm not doing that though because I think my wife would leave me if I spent hours watching all Hamilton Accies goals. I don't really like that formation - I don't think adding another defender would deal with the issues and I can see that midfield getting put under a lot of pressure. I'd have Polworth starting as well.

Our best performance of the season came against Dundee. We were excellent from start to finish and we should have won by more than 3 - 1. In that game Polworth played behind the striker for most of the game, Draper anchored the midfield with Tansey and Vigurs was on the bench. For me that says a lot.

I thought Anier had been employed as a player, but elginloon seems to be suggesting that he may be the new head of the Singing Section Can anyone give us official confirmation of Mr Anier's status at the Caledonian Stadium?

And give elginloon his due - when he says: "Whats so special about inverness that makes you slag off the town of elgin i think its the fans you hate more than the actual town unless the town run you out the place but doubt that on saturday with the supposed amount of police that are meant to be there" he's at least not one of these people claiming that the place is a city.