DoofersDad

I never like the fancy terms that are used to define players these days. The extent to which someone who lines up toward the back of the team joins the attack will be dependent on the game plan and the way the game develops. As far as I'm concerned, Raven is a Right Back and Shinnie and Tremarco are Left Backs. I think they are all good going forward and personally I would like them to press forward more positively more often. By the way, where did the term "Fullback" come from? what is wrong with simply a Left Back and Right Back? After all, you have Centre Backs and not Centre Fullbacks.

Apart from consolidating 3rd position, a win at Tannadice on Tuesday would also all but guarantee top six. Kilmarnock in 8th would not be able to match our points total before the split. Whilst St Johnstone possibly could, they have to play both Dundee and St Johnstone and it would require a particular combination of results on those two matches and then for all three of them to win the rest of their games before the split and for us to lose all of our for us to drop out of the top six. It simply isn't going to happen.

Given the run we've been on I thought that was a pretty nervy and lacklustre performance against a team we should have beaten. We have a huge game against Dundee Utd on Tuesday and we are going to have to play better if we are to get anything out of that. I thought Tansey and Draper were both well short of their normal high standards. Ross and Williams both did reasonably well in midfield (great strike from Williams!) but MOTM for me was Christie by a country mile. He worked tirelessly and was always wanting the ball despite getting some pretty rough treatment which the referee seemed happy to condone. Defensively we were not great and there were a number of individual errors which led to goals. Whilst it is, of course, fantastic that we are still unbeaten in 2015, it is a bit worrying that after taking the lead against County we were pegged back to a draw, then against both St Mirren and Partick we had a two goal cushion and they pulled one back and then today, we took the lead no less than 3 times and were pegged back each time. Yogi was talking about this last week saying we have to learn to kill teams off. Whatever he said to the team clearly didn't work! That is now 4 games in a row where we have allowed the opposition to score the last goal of the game and these games have been against 4 of the bottom 5. Interestingly, that coincides with Brill's absence from the team. It would be good to know how close he is to a return to fitness. On the balance of play we might consider ourselves a little unlucky not to get all 3 points but to be honest, we never created a lot of chances and at times gifted them opportunities to attack through sloppiness. So we probably got what we deserved. A 3-3 scoreline sounds great but in truth it reflected defensive frailties rather than good attacking football. At least Dundee Utd lost and we strengthen our hold of 3rd place.

HT 1-0 FT 2-1 Inv Watkins Opp Magennis Time 13 mins

The clips are quite impressive but his record over the last two years is not great. Playing in the 2nd tier in the Dutch leagues he has averaged just one goal every 6 games. I guess Yogi needs to judge whether his undoubted talent can be exploited within our set-up and whether he has got the appropriate work ethic. If he signs then we will have an interesting player on our hands.

What a crepe name for a lad - although he probably doesn't give a toss.

Proof if proof were needed that Inverness is out of this world!

John Sutton?

One amazing fact I read today is that of the 5 successful run chases of over 300 in the cricket world cup history, it has been Ireland that has achieved the target in 3 of those.

Not quite sure what hospital radio has to do with "the dancing"! Perhaps things were a bit different at the Craig than they were at the RNI?

Back on topic, our two goals were both really very good goals indeed. Both came from excellent work on the flanks (Shinnie and Raven) and then really composed and decisive finishing. This is not a one off - we've scored a number of top quality goals in recent weeks.

Steady on, let's not make this more complicated for them than it already is! Yes, Otherwise we might also needs rules to define how far forward a defender can lean without any part of his body being within 10 yards of the ball.

Yes, it's a funny one (albeit not very amusing!) and is made worse by the different meanings of "resign". If you resign from a post it means you no longer wish to accept the terms and conditions etc of that post. Yet if Marley does not re-sign, we will have to resign outselves to that fact in the sense that we have to accept it whether we like it or not.

I suppose in theory some sort of sonic radar device could be used but you will only get a laser to go exactly 10 yards if you fire it at something which is exactly 10 yards away. Perhaps a more practical solution could be a simple retractable tape measure. The referee could ask one of the defenders to take the end and walk toward the goal until told to stop when the appropriate distance has been reached. He would then be told to hold the end still till the referee walks up to the point. The ref would then spray his foam, pocket his tape, get to his position and blow his whistle. Any defender encroaching would be booked. Incidentally, what annoys me as much as all the encroaching is the delay in taking the kick whilst everyone gets ready. If the ref was to blow for the kick to be taken as soon as he had accurately marked the distance and taken up his position then everybody should be ready. The defending side has, after all, just committed a foul so why should the attacking team be held back anymore time than the referee needs before they take the kick.

No. I remember we sometimes used to start with Andy Barrowman up front.

Interesting point. I liked what Yogi said in his interview about turning the screw when we are winning. For a large part of the season we tended to sit back in the first half and came good in the second half but it seems to me that recently we are starting with a more attacking mindset. If we can score first and force the opposition to commit players forward then that will create space for Watkins to use his pace. Whilst Mckay seems to be a more natural goal scorer, with a bit of tactical re-jigging you may well be right that we are a better team with Watkins up front. If he can develop the confidence to convert a few more of the chances that are being created we could be a very good team indeed.

It seems quicker just now than it has been for a while. The result seems to have shaken the site out of its lethargy.

I'm finding the same although my computer, like me, is getting increasingly sluggish, This site does seem to be taking longer to load pages than others.

For someone who is in favour of independence, you make a good case for the Union! Yes. Volatility in oil prices is nothing new. That is why it is irresponsible of the SNP to budget on sustained high price and production levels. The bookies would have smiled even more sweetly at Salmond had he gone to place a bet on the oil prices staying above $113 for the next 6 years. The point about the greater per capita proportion of oil revenues for a Scottish Government is that it is volatile. It only becomes a problem when you have idiot politicians making national budgets based on unrealistic assumptions of sustained high price and production levels. Used sensibly oil revenues are, of course a fantastic asset. The sensible thing to do is to budget on conservative assumptions and then if revenues are higher you have the nice little problem of deciding what extra things you can do with the money. And I agree that it is not credible to talk about massive borrowing when you consider the debt Westminster has amassed. But that is exactly what the SNP were planning to do. I'll not comment on Oddquine's post in detail but I'll just make 2 points. Firstly, regardless of all the various points made and the various UK priorities that might not be Scottish priorities, the fact remains that the spending plan the SNP put to the electorate in the referendum relied both on unrealistic assumptions about oil revenues and massive borrowing. But that does not mean that I don't think a reasonable case could be made for Scotland to be a perfectly viable independent nation. It was the sheer irresponsibility of the proposals used to buy votes that destroyed any thought for me that independence was a sensible choice at this time. The other point is this constant obsession with Westminster's failings and the implicit assumption that those of who voted "No" must somehow support all the things that the "Yes" voters dislike. I am not a fan of the current Government or the Labour administration which so spectacularly mis-handled the economy before them. But what I am not going to do is to support independence simply because I don't like the current UK Government. Just because there is irresponsible Government at Westminster is no reason to condone irresponsible Government in Edinburgh.

I see County have signed a former Ivory Coast international defender. I wonder whether he will prevent them going down.

Have you been watching 50 shades of grey? He priobably wants a spanking new striker too. ...who can score from a variety of positions.

Of course an independent Scotland would not be funded on oil alone but the point here is that as most of the North Sea reserves are under Scottish waters, oil revenues would be very much more important to an independent Scottish economy than they are to the UK economy. During the referendum we were constantly hearing charges that the Unionist parties wanted Scotland in the UK because of the oil revenues and yet we then get nationalists playing down the importance of oil revenues to the Scottish economy. You can't have it both ways. I haven't the time to look up the figures but the per capita revenue from oil in an independent Scotland would be about 8 times that of the current per capita income within the UK. That makes it about 8 times more important to an independent Scottish economy than it is to the wider UK economy. Add into that Salmond's absurd assumptions for the sustained price of oil and production levels and you get some idea of the irresponsibility of the SNP's proposed post independence spending binge which it used to buy votes from the poorest sections of our community. Whether or not a post independence SNP Government would be irresponsible enough to actually implement the policies it used to bribe the electorate is debatable. Without the level of oil revenues proposed they would have to borrow even more massively than they were proposing to do in any case. Regardless of whether anyone would take the risk of lending the such sums, I doubt that even the SNP would actually throw the nation into the level of debt this would involve. It's not a question of talking down Scotland. In my experience those in the unionist camp and especially those who (unlike me) were born here, want what is best for Scotland. What we share with those in the UK outside of Scotland is a belief that Scotland is better by being part of the UK and that the rest of the UK is better with Scotland as a part. The heavy dependence of oil revenues in the Yes campaign's economic case followed by the massive volatility in the oil price since the referendum seems to me to be pretty convincing evidence that we really are better together.

I do find the self righteous moral outrage of those who don't like the outcome of the referendum a little tiresome. It wouldn't be so bad if it was justified but the reality is that the dishonesty of the YES campaign was simply mind boggling. Charles is quite right to pour scorn on the Salmond and his crew bribing the Scottish electorate with his promises of jam tomorrow based on projections of sustained high oil prices which already have been shown to be false. I would add that these bribes would also have required massive borrowing over and above fanciful oil revenue projections. Not only that, but of course, Salmond couldn't even tell the electorate what currency we would use in an independent Scotland. And I really don't see what "yessers" are complaining about the vow for. It may not be delivering all that some had hoped for but it is delivering additional devolved powers which we have not had the opportunity to say whether we want or not. The "Yes" camp lost the referendum but are getting further devolved powers that have not been put to the electorate and yet they still keep whinging. It really beggars belief. I guess the tactic is to make themselves so unpopular with the rest of the UK that they will happily support independence just to get shot of them. It may be a way to get independence but its not good for Scotland.

HT 0-0 FT 0-2 ICT Tansey Opp Goodwin Time 48 mins

With the inevitable sacking of Paul Lambert there are now no Scottish managers in the English top flight (unless you count Scott Marshall who is jointly in charge on a temporary basis at Villa Park). Over the years, the English top flight has had way more than its fair share of Scottish Managers. Managers such as Moyes, Souness, Dalglish, McLeish and Strachan have all had some reasonable success but it is the legends of George Graham at Arsenal, Bill Shankly at Liverpool, and Matt Busby and, more recently, Sir Alex at Manchester Utd that made Scottish managers almost an institution in the English top flight. I don't know when, if ever, there were no Scottish Managers in the English top flight and wonder what this says about the Scottish game. More often that not, great managers were also great players before. Just as we have seen the number of Scottish players playing in the English Premiership decline, it now seems that this is working its way through to managerial level. Of course, top level football is so much more international these days. Top Premiership clubs are awash with foreign players and an increasing number of foreign coaches. But that doesn't mean that there are no longer opportunities for Scottish players and coaches. If they are good enough then they will be employed. The fact is that fewer and fewer players and coaches from Scotland seem to be making the grade these days and it perhaps reflects the general state of Scottish football. Lambert's sacking can be seen as representing the end of an era for Scottish football. Let's hope that Gordon Strachan can conjure up some success for the national side in order to regenerate grass roots enthusiasm again and trigger a new era for Scottish influence in the beautiful game..