CELTIC1CALEY3

How can our fixtures be the easiest? We cannot defend, we cannae score, we cannot win - we've basically forgotten Kilmarnock and St Mirren are chasing us for ?65,000 league places! Unless we attack like **** against Falkirk and treat that as a must win cup tie we can dream of just avoiding relegation. It is the classic match to beat all matches and must be won. Bring back the Steve Hislop or Barry Wilson spirit. In addition we must defend like tigers.

In theory we should get to play against Gretna, St Mirren, Kilmanock, Falkirk and I suspect Hearts.....unless something dramatic happens.

Brewster is in danger of taking us on a Dundee United run. We run the risk of 11th place unless he can change his approach. It was probably the best starting 11 and even at half time this was sensible to bring on Denzil but we really lack goal scorers and I guess Brewster gets frustrated because he feels he is the only goal scorer at the club. The problem for him is that he is in new territory. He has probably saved us from relegation so what does he do next?

At the beginning of the season the 'ole Jailender predicted we would go down and the Mighty County join us in Division 1. 50% correct I suspect. With a 12 point lead it is indeed time to clap in the Champions of Division Two. It had to happen and we can now accept that classic post 'We're top of the League, and you're no!'

The curse that was the Manager of the Month Award!!

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/newsfeed...86908-20324037/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtm...9/sfngre119.xml A few weeks back we were speculating that Gretna might be kicked out the SPL - Administrators may choose a different route. As I posted earlier, this is not a good story for the SPL.

The story on the BBC website about Gretna adds no credibility to the SPL. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/t...tna/7250672.stm

As we prepare to travel to Motherwell, Hibernian, and the Mighty Celtic I ask that these teams show some compassion to us as they look down from the dizzy heights of the top 6. We're only a diddy team.

Unless he was acting, Marius seemed to hobble off up the tunnel at the final whistle. He took a nasty one on the edge of the box first half.

Referring back to the referee. In the first half it was obvious to supporters and both sets of managers, coaches, the players and the fourth official that the ball had gone wobbly. Despite repeated requests to the fourth official which appeared to be conveyed to the referee he still seemed to think things were fine. Eventually the ball was played out in front of the main stand - the United coach threw it to Malky, he threw it up the Tunnel towards the Firth and someone quickly took another ball from the fourth official's bag. The officials were none the wiser! The game continued with a round ball. It stopped the rugby tackles on Marius and whilst the football did not improve for a while it was less a lottery with the wobbly.

In some ways the results against Rangers, St Mirren and Dundee United have been disappointing. However, on the positive front the results were all better than the first round of results. We must now scrape three points from three dangerous away games and find out where we are. Scraping three points may be difficult but in the year we caught Clyde we believed we could do it. The Motherwell game mid week is about a scraped result - a point may be invaluable. Markus looks as though he wants a contract. He has real potential and I hope we sign him up pretty soon now that his injury appears to be behind him. Teams do not like players running at their defence and he offers that as well as Imrie. Marius seemed to be carrying an injury from the tackle on the edge of the box.

On a positive note it is brilliant that we have people creating such symbols of support. We have to be realistic about the potential danger of poles and hopefully there is a solution. We need supporters with this commitment. The players want it too.

With Hamilton so far out in front does anyone know if they have submitted a groundshare application for next season. That is unless they are planning to put down grass as opposed to the artificial surface?

.....and if they all score at the right end this weekend they deserve it.'

Cowie is a good bet - he's scored in both previous games against St Mirren.

I'd like to see Dargo score it although as mentioned earlier we need to forget it and get on with life. We need wins or draws because the top six split is looming. We have a real chance if we can get some wins back on the board or else we could sink to 10th very quickly.

If Robson signs for Celtic this week it should encourage players like Ian Black, Zander and all the younger lads on our bench not to give up. In Ian's case I think if he is patient he could become an established star before Robson and Hartley did but if he gets impatient he could drift downwards. Working with Marius should show him he has to pace his career over the next 10 years not seek a big move and slip into a rut and then go backwards. It will be congratulations to the Ginger Whinger if he moves. He overcame our notorious barracking of his returns to the Caledonian Stadium.

Markus is fit, fast, good in the air, enthusiastic and someone who has improved at ICT. It was an enormous challenge for him coming on at the start against the league leaders and up against Whittaker. He did find it difficult in the first half but when he gets more practice he will be very exciting to watch.

Time for a different perspective and reverse psychology. Three of the last four games have been blanks. Will we ever score again? We have some incredibly difficult games coming up in February - they are called away games. Should Rossco be banned for shooting at the opposition goal? Should Marius be banned for attempting headers in the opposition penalty area? Should Roy be forced to pass even if two yards out with an open net? Surely we must practice scoring goals? Our history is about attack and success scoring goals. Denzil has masses. Motherwell used to be a happy hunting ground so lets get the season back on the road.

Scotty, Purely from an accounting perspective and Luton's demise I mentioned administration a few weeks back but I have not seen any other references. Vlad can do what he wants - the only other option for Hearts supporters now that he has run up even greater debts than the ?24m or so he inherited as sole bidder, is administration. Nobody, not even the run down flat dweller seeking to invest millions of monoploy money in ICT would take on ?40m debt. The world's financial markets are suddenly risk averse to sub-prime customers. The planning application for the new stand may be interesting. So I doubt Marius would in any way lower himself to a club that could be ditched 10 points at any moment and find itself weeks from oblivion.

I am not sure if everyone has read the Courier where it headlines that Northern Constabulary will have an extra 60 officers on duty to prevent sectarian singing. This would suggest there is still a potential problem, and my original post which was oblivious of the NC decision, raised the question of whether a referee would have the bottle to stop a game if sectarian singing became an obvious feature.

Good luck to Rankin. He is quite lucky getting his girlfriend pregnant, making himself homeless and still finding a good short term job. He clearly had a performance problem early in this season which did not relate primarily to Brewster. He has made a good comeback from these problems and we should wish him well. His goal against Rangers last year will be his legacy in the Highlands.

Walter Smith seems to be whingeing about Ian Brines last night. Nothing unusual there with the old firm. If we recall the last time we played Rangers at home, we were soundly beaten. However, some would argue, the referee should have stopped the game when sectarian singing started and taken advice from the police as to the next course of action. When there is crowd trouble or bad weather the referee has a very high level of responsibility. The game on Sunday could be interesting for Setanta if Ranger's supporters are anything other than decent. Some would say 'who'd be a referee?'.

Shearer John Robertson

By the way it's 'craic' surely?