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Club accounts for 2020/21 are tough to analyze because of Covid losses - and also because of the funding clubs received from the government as a result. As regards ICT's own situation, I would put forward this question - How many full-time clubs in Scotland are not running either at a loss or close to the wind, year-in, year-out? At the top end you have Rangers and Celtic. Rangers have run up extraordinary losses since 2012 and probably require Champions League football to make a profit. Celtic either need Champions League football or to see a player for an eight figure fee to cover the shortfall. In last season's Premiership there was also Aberdeen (wealthy American backer), Hearts (fan-owned but getting more than £3m a year in 'donations' from a wealthy supporter), Hibs (wealthy American backer), Dundee United (wealthy American backer), Dundee (wealthy American backer) and Ross County (uncle Roy). That's six more clubs not really living within their means. The other four are St. Mirren, Motherwell, St. Johnstone and Livingston, each of whom are very frugal and each of whom could quite conceivably end up stuck in the Championship for a sustained period like us. In last season's Championship there was Kilmarnock (who will have run up a big loss to get back into the top flight). The other full-time clubs in our league with similar budgets to ours were Hamilton, Partick, Raith and Dunfermline, none of whom are raking it in. Ayr, Morton and QOS I think had even tighter purse-strings. Below us were Queen's Park (wealthy backer), Airdrie (who have a hybrid of PT and FT players) and Falkirk (who are a basketcase). My belief is that unless you have a lot of outside money coming in, then a club of our size can't currently turn a profit unless they are in the Premiership and probably punching above their weight (ie in the top six). It's also my belief that the only way to make a small fortune out of a Scottish football club is to start with a big fortune. The two concerns going forward for us and clubs like us are 1) that directors at some point can no longer be persuaded to cover the shortfall (which seems unlikely but can never be ruled out) and 2) that we get overtaken by smaller clubs who do have money. Queen's Park are a potential example; Cove Rangers (who are currently part-time) could be another in the future. The only answers to our problems are 1) getting promoted or 2) getting our own Roy MacGregor.

Given that the results are improving, albeit marginally, and are pretty much in line with expectation, I don't understand the depth of negativity from some posters.

Where are you seeing a clamour for glamour friendlies ? I think most of us, after a long hard season with a shortened break, are content with any regime that gets the squad match fit for the season ahead.

@No Shin Guards - if you have an issue with how the site is managed, lets discuss this in another thread or via message system. As noted, by a couple of our mods, you are closing your own topics according to the site logs so no-one is shutting you down. However, your methodology and phraseology are familiar to me so lets not pretend here! As mentioned, you do bring some interesting points to the discussions, so lets focus on that, and not the misguided attempt to manufacture censorship that is not in existence.

I say.....For the record, you have been closing all your own topics yourself apart from one that was dealt with as there was already a topic dealing with it. Why close your topics which are sometimes relevant once you can see through the smoke screens. That defeats the purpose of having topics to debate and takes away from the purpose of the site. If we closed all topics that were past their sell by dates then there would be nothing left to read.