CaleyD

Lugubrious

Proof that he deserves credit for last season, and I doubt many would question that. This year however, he been a shadow of the player he was back then. Their must be a reason for that, and IF Charlieis looking to move him on then that may be part of the reason.

a hard

"Look me in the eye and tell me you don't love me anymore"

crapper

Everyone seems quick to jump to the conclusion that he was on the bench because of some kind of falling out. It could just as easily be that CC believes we needed a different kind of player/partnership up front for this game and it was purely a tactical decision.

Me

Seems that Motherwell have refused to change the fixture on the grounds that it would cost them in the region of £30k revenue. BBC Clicky Wonder how much the change is going to cost us?

Dingwall. Suddenly

I have to admit that I was of a similar mind to RiG when I first saw Bronsons post, but knowing it wasn't serious I decided to let it run and keep an eye on it to ensure it never got out of hand instead of removing it or blowing the joke straight off. Wyness_Is_God - You can be certain that neither Big T or Absent Friend will have been in any way offended so no need for apologies. You aren't the first to be taken in by something like this and you can be sure you won't be the last - Live and Learn :001:

:015: at the last line. The rest of it makes for interesting thought, and although I would never want to see the club spending beyond it's means it does show why some are keen to push the limits of the bank balance in attempts to achieve an extra couple of league places. My thought for the day on this point... Is their a sensible balance of risk/reward to be found in taking on short term loans of "bigger" players with higher wage demands in an attempt to secure a top 6?

I know what your getting at Alex and I agree. What I was trying to focus on was that the phrase "wage structure" seems to have gone and is no longer being trotted out by the Board, The Manager and the players when interviewed on such things. It used to be the standard excuse for us not being able to hold on to players, but no longer seems to be part of the defensive arsenal. In other words, the club etc are making positive noises about negotiations instead of the usual, much expected, negative. I think most of us will realise that, strict wage structure or not, we have to continue to keep wages etc affordable, but the emphasis on 'one team one pay deal' seems to have gone and perhaps the club have realised that we do have players who are justifiably worth more than others and are making changes/offers accordingly. Nothing may have changed other than attitudes to such things, but even if that is the case, I still think it's a plus point that perhaps those involved are seeing us/themselves a little less as the "wee team" and more on a level playing field with others and that's increasing positive talk - something thats not happening all the time (e.g. CC's constant mention of "a club of our size") but it is a shift in the right direction.

Many people seem to have forgotten that Dods said he would stay if we had offered him a longer contract than he was being offered at the time (think he was looking for a 2 year extension and we were offering 1). Given the fact that CC said in the interview that he has been given a "Greatly Enhanced Offer" then Dods moving may not be the done deal everyone thinks it is. BTW, think I am pretty certain I know who Dens1983 is. If I'm right then players etc are well aware of his loose lips and normally fill him full of chit knowing it will find it's way around the web.

Are we seeing the starts of a slightly different train of thought with the new chairman now in place? In the past when it's come to contract talks with players the publicity from the club has always emphasised on the fact that we have a wage structure in place and offers would be made in line with that. I've noticed that during this transfer window and leading up to it the response to these queries from the club has been a bit different. Not once in any press article, in the Q&A session we did with Alan Savage or in any interviews with CC have we heard the "wage structure" being mentioned. We still get comments about having to watch the budget etc, but we are also hearing a lot of talk about players being given not only enhanced offers but "Greatly Enhanced Offers". This point only struck me tonight when I was listening to CC's post match interview when he was asked about Dods and he made the above statement. Dods has said that he wants to move at the end of the season and it was mentioned earlier in the season that he was looking for a deal that would take him through to the end of his playing days. All in all I can't help but wonder if having a new man at the helm has brought a different line of thought to the whole "wage structure" issue and the club are now taking player salaries/packages a bit more seriously than some of us might have thought they did in the past. Granted we saw David Sutherland play hardball with the grocer at the start of the season, but I feel that we are maybe seeing a bit more value in retaining players than we are in letting them go for any and all offers received, and we are in fact looking to push the player salary budget a bit more. Whether that comes at the expense of bringing in "bigger" players or not is yet to be seen, but I think that the early signs are pretty positive and we might finally be starting to view ourselves as a bit bigger than we may have done the last 2 or 3 seasons.

It's not nice to see any player get a serious injury, and you have to wonder what it will take for Brewster to decide enough is enough. Not denying the guy still has the ability to continue playing, but surely thier comes a time when you realise that your doing yourself more harm than good by pushing it so much, especially when your picking up injuries like this? These are the kinds of injuries that will really take their toll in later years and this dislocation on top of his knee injury from last year will really be punishing his body. He came into professional football later than most and has had a pretty succesful career, nothing he does from here on in is going to improve his "status" and he's already set for life (financially) so it's not like he needs the cash. He's obviously a great man for fitness and training and I think it's about time he concentrated on that and bowed out as a player before he really comes a cropper. He made a (positive) reputation for himself whilst here with what he did for our fitness, he should be taking advantage of that whilst it's still fresh in people's minds - opinions may change. I mean, if he gets any publicity for pushing himself too far and to the brink of these injuries, it's going to put doubt in clubs minds about whether he may push those he is coaching too far.

Even if he had signed for us now, CC had said he wouldn't join us until Monday so I wouldn't have expected to see him in the squad. Don't think it would be a good idea to drop him straight into the starting 11 anyway - he (and the squad) will need a few training sessions together under their belt to acclimatise first.

Don't think you can simpy dismiss Bayne because he doesn't score goals. You have to look at how many goals he contributes too and the part he plays in making opposition defence really have to work hard which creates opportunities for others. Nobody in our current squad works a defence harder than Bayne.

Doesn't matter how many times you say the same thing - I still disagree :016:

who

Disagree - I think Bayne and Wyness have shown recently that they are our strongest partnership up front (at the moment at least) Also a little strange that you think Wyness and Dargo were strong up front against Stirling when Wyness was actually playing in behind a front two of Bayne and Dargo. This would suggest to me that Dargo can/does only perform at his best when he isn't asked to do any leg work and someone else is doing all the graft in order to put the ball at his feet.

I think people have made sensible suggestions, and have been making them for a long while now. The frustration (certainly from my point of view and experience) is that suggestions seem to be totally ignored. As for CC not having a go at the fans who do turn up, again I have to disagree and it's not only CC. We've all seen the articles about wanting more noise from the crowd, wanting people to get behind the team more etc etc. We've also all seen the articles where the constant answer to crowd sizes is that fans should bring a friend. First off, it is the actions of the clubs (or more sspecifically their emplyees) which are killing much of the atmosphere - the sit down shut up approach taken by stewards leaves many people looking over their shoulder when they do decide to get a bit vocal, or stand (even for a few seconds) to cheer on the team. They feed us stories about the SPL/Safety rules not allowing it blah blah blah, yet they continue to allow it in the away end and when you look around just about any other all seated stadia in the country you see fans standing and cheering without so much as a sideways glance from stewards or mention of many of the problems we seem to have had in this regard. Secondly, many people DO try and encourage people to come along each week, but they are farting against thunder due to pricing/conditions/lack of pre-match & half time entertainment/delays getting away from the stadium/insufficient serveries etc....they all might be small things in themselves, but taken as part of the package then it is more than enough to give people the excuse not to go. I don't think anyone is expecting them to do it all and come up with all the answers - but we are just as powerless to bring about change on our own as the club is on their own. The club needs to be doing more to help us help them. Between us we need to remove all (or as many as possible) excuses for people not to attend - Football is a team sport, both on the park and off it, and we all have a part to play. The guys on the park can't perform at their best if half the team stands around pointing the finger at the other, and the same goes with the club and the fans.

They'll have to resort to printing another story about our interest in Mackie :015:

Shame :001:

No :002:

tart