bdu98196

Argument goes back to the imbalance of the Premiership play-offs where the number of games and frequency is heavily stacked to the status quo and protection of the Prem team - the chances of a 3rd or 4th place Champ team coming out on top in 3 ties over 6 games at 3 days apart is low. Should be 11th V 4th & 2nd V 3rd over 2 legs with winners playing a single game final at a neutral venue.

Dunfermline played it smart signing him on a 4 year deal knowing we were in no position to hold out. I fully expect they will be looking for KB to kick on and sell him in the next 18 -24 months and get a decent 6 figure sum. Showed our other young lads what it takes at this level to excel and keep up with the Alfies & Brannan who all are at bigger clubs and players I think we will be seeing and hearing more about in the future at top levels.

Agreement on the bloated set up and too many clubs, but forcing clubs to merge when they have community focus is detrimental to those areas whether it serves a few hundred or tens of thousands. There is and always has been an issue and while an Angus FC (Brechin, Forfar, Montrose, Arbroath) on paper brings together 4 clubs who reside at the lower levels permanently, on paper it could be seen as 4 into 1 brings enough fanbase and revenue to be a stable Championship level club but as we all know merged clubs have issues, lose fans and politics rip it apart for years therefore is it worthwhile overall and will it work to solve anything? A bigger point is the size of the league structures - 42 is too many and now we have the lower access route we are seeing teams like Kelty, Cove and now EK (could have been Brora) either getting or fighting to join - what do they bring overall should be the question? Minimal fanbases, sugar daddy spending where the ceiling will ultimately be League 1 and is there really much community engagement (not in the Cove case anyways). The danger of creating an elitist structure is the whole scenario becomes a closed shop, however without that there is the heavy dilution of limited funds which is keeping clubs either afloat (just) or they live one death, financial issue, benefactor loss from going belly up. Not saying the L1 and L2 clubs dont have a place but if you cant get more than a few hundred fans through your gates for home games then perhaps its better to be in a regional league set up. And thats where the restructure needs to be 2 top leagues of 16 with a significant restructure below to bring HL/LL/juniors etc all together into 3 or 4 regional set ups with play-offs/finals resulting in with a 2 up/down into the top tier set up. Keep it simple, keep costs and travel local and allow opportunity for teams to have breathing space to develop talent.

Biggest challenge with that is the structure of Scottish football and the inability to invest into longer term contracts aiming to develop and generate income through trading sales. With 10 team divisions where 4 top teams and 2 bottom teams end up in some kind of play-off at best clubs either short term invest to try go up all while avoiding lengthy commitments if they went down. Its typical of throughout the leagues why we see 1 or 2 year deals at best, this results in minimal transfer incomes if at all. The media laud over Celtic and their trading model of buy cheap and sell for profits which is easy when guaranteed to be top (1 or2) and European football to balance the books. Other clubs cant operate that model (especially outside top 5 or 6 in the country) - while we can develop young talent and get compensation (often decided by tribunals and not the levels a trading sale would bring) the opportunity to keep young players on longer term on a better wage structure to increase profits is too high risk. Looking at the contract lengths and then transfer business across the lower leagues its clear that sales are rare therefore limiting incomes to footfall and external avenues. Its absurd that a business needs to operate in a detrimental manner within a business sector to survive as they cannot rely on market stability to invest in core products that bring largest sales revenues.

Is it was written in crayon?

Yes

Lack of squad depth, lack of ability to change shape and personnel and our inability to break teams down at home again. Everyone in the league comes to us wanting a point so park the bus and time waste where eventually we either give away soft goals or get countered. Again yesterday we saw a repeat of Alloa and Annan where we could play forever and not score. We are too easy to play against at home. While lack of options especially up front is hurting us, so is no plan B, we continue in the same predictable ways all the time you can see our play becoming more frustrated and ragged. While SK has done a good job, if Savage is expecting promotion next season and not wanting extended league 1 football it will not be lost on him that there is a decision to make around whether SK can bring that even with a better squad.

We were defeated by our inability to score goals and finish teams off. Should have been 4 up at half time. Its symptomatic of our season in any games without Bavidge and sadly I worry tomorrow will be more of the same. Worst away day in the league, in an awful location and terrible stadium and no atmosphere. Expect us to outnumber the home fans.

Loving the heads gone stuff when fans question the manager or club (again). Its reminiscent of when criticism wasnt welcomed of Dodds or the last regime - see how that all panned out!!! Certainly IMO entitled to question whether the manager is a strong enough character to drop his AM as clearly Billy is not playing based on contribution or ability anymore its clearly nepotism. I stand by my point that BIlly should be nowhere near starting in that team - this season he has systematically demonstrated an inability to lead the line, hold up play, turn a man or even score any goals. Why SK is not seeing this, its unclear and before anyone states 'we have no other options' - give Cairns 90 mins and see what he does while Alfie is out, he cant be any less dynamic. If we never brought in Bavidge we would be fighting Dumbarton for the drop its clear we now revert back to pre-xmas with dominating games, creating a bucket load of chances and seeing our central striker spurn great opportunities. Having scored 100+ goals for the club, its not just a dip in form, he's fallen off a cliff!! Without Alfie if the midfield dont score, we wont get goals - and dont start me on our corners and set piece play - lets try some variation rather than 8 players in the 6 yard box standing still!!!

Any club needs minimum of 3 international call ups to request to postpone. Unfortunately none of our young lads are selected so it's just Musa this time.

Imagine selling the investors the prospect of a League 2 club and then being challenged as to WHY the club never used the loan markets which were available to at least try establish us at L1 level. Some folks think we have a class of '92 sitting there being kept out of the squad by other youngsters taken on loan as a conspiracy to destroy their careers. Ignoring the pedigree of those coming in are all key youth players at parent clubs, have international experience at many levels and have shown that only Bray from our stable is remotely near the level of these guys. I'd expect Bavidge & Brannan to be in the Scotland U21s very soon - who from our club can we say that about?

Hardly a shock given his pedigree as captain of youth teams at all ages, plays for Scotland and had a trial at Spurs. Yet didnt stop fans questioning why he was signed ahead of our own youngsters who have and are nowhere near this level. Hopefully some of those critics have been attending games and seen Brannan play.

It's clear we need to score more goals. Since the demise of Duncball and his ultra caution which for its credit did yield a strong defence we are conceding a lot more. Therefore although we are more creative and forward thinking its putting new pressures on the team to require more goals. Bavidge has been a great bit of business and God knows where we'd be without him but it's getting harder for him to get space and play with the opposition aware of his threat. Several disagreed when I stated Billy was done before the season so now is the time for him to show otherwise and consolidate our push up the table. We've a teenager come in and score more in a month than our seasoned pro all campaign.

This is the business model of most of Scottish football (not just the lower leagues TBF) only most fans are too blinded to see it. Majority of clubs are in debt and its wiped out or covered by soft loans from director(s) - plenty clubs are one death or external business collapse from plunging into admin. Biggest shock is that so many are literally hanging on by the smallest margins every year.

We are producing some and have in the past but not the quantity we like and for many them seem unable to kick on from schoolboy or youth to adult football. The idea we have a significant number all ready for professional level football like some kind of Busby babes or class of 92 is deluded. The best of what we have is getting game time and supplemented with better quality within the realms of our limitations right now which can only help their development training and playing with those guys while showing where the bar is - noting they are closer to first team gametime than any equivalents over the last 20 years!!! Too many want this utopian highland team which they would turn on when the current youngsters who struggled at HL level get taken apart weekly but our opposition.

I'm sure if our youngsters were captain of their teams, played for Scotland and had Spurs taking them on trail too then we wouldn't be looking for reinforcements & improved quality within the constraints we have.

Great to see the benefits of having a confident and capable goal scorer in the team. Unfortunately unless we are in the Championship next season it's unlikely he will be back on loan with us.

His name suggests he may be the wrong flavour

Stop card payments and do cash only, too often they don't process and slows everything down Bigger and more signs as too many get to the front with no idea what they are ordering and take ages 'dithering' to decide Fully agree service pre game today was horrifically slow, took me 15mins and there was probably less than 10 people infront when I got there

Billy will not be our top scorer this season and I doubt he will even reach the number Danny sets

Everyone of them questionable decisions (including billy last season) except Brooks who never got a chance and cairns who's still young. If Dodds had actually played him in the right position and kept Oakley he'd have given better return than all of them.

Is that based on your view of what he used to do and faint hopes going fowards of recapturing that or what you have actually seen this season?

Do you think maybe one could play up front - cant be worse than what we have!!! Billy & Scott should get criticism, nobody at the club should be immune from it. 23/24 - 36 games - 8 goals (6 games under Dodds - Zero goals) 24/25 - 18 games - 1 goal (8 games as AM with Kells - Zero goals) Too many stating Billy never scored because Duncball, well clearly there has been opportunity to change that and what are we seeing? The return is awful and now its jointly sits as responsibility towards Billy & Scott. So either Kells is too scared to drop his AM or Billy too egotistical to see he's not performing - or both . If they wish to persist then the team tactics & formations need to develop to provide Billy a role which after the performances (even in games we win) its clearly not happening. And to anticipate the inevitable 'but there's more to his game' - the hold up play is poor, through balls are non-existant and I'm not sure where the on-field leadership & organisation is as our set pieces are too often honking and we look devoid of ideas. So yes, criticism is fair.

Cannot criticise Kells or Billy, must know that by now, just the same as for years nothing negative was to be said about Robbo or the board. Last year we know the big bad man came in and made it all go wrong, cant expect any of the professionals doing the job on the park to be held accountable too!!! Slowly the tide of opinions will turn, just takes longer in some quarters than others.

Quite a lot owed to hotel & catering (circa £40k) - wonder how much were necessary & justified business costs and not just directors running up expenses taking advantage of the position.