DoofersDad

Yes. I think a rotation system where the players take it in turn to get suspended would work quite well.

It doesn't bother me whether Stevenson plays or whether Hearts manage to manipulate the system and get new players in, the fact is we are a much better side than them and as long as we focus on playing to our strengths we will win. Hearts have the poorest record in the league even with Stevenson in the side. And if they did get an influx of new players in they would be struggling to be organised enough to be able to stop us doing what we do so well. Many of the players in our side will have experienced the disappointment of last season and will want revenge. The determination they have will be transferred to those new to the team and as long as we are disciplined we should win reasonably comfortably. What happens at Tynecastle in the next few days is irrelevant and I am sure Yogi won't let the team get sidetracked by that. All that matters is that we are properly prepared on the day and play to our potential.

Considering we were once in that league dont you think the description is a bit condescending and unfair to the many part time teams that make up the Scottish league system. Fair comment. Having got into rant mode it was an inappropriate choice of word. "Part time" would have been far more appropriate. In that context it is interesting to consider that lads in the Forfar team would have been more likely to be working in the hotel before the match than relaxing in it.

This kind of thing (from the brochure): ELEMIS ADVANCED PERFORMANCE FACIAL FOR MEN Urban Cleanse Facial · 70 mins - £65.00 For oil rich skin. Therapeutic-grade products are used to eliminate blocked pores, neutralise impurities and accelerate skin repair. Leaves skin clear and squeaky clean. ELEMIS ADVANCED ANTI-AGEING FACIAL FOR MEN Skin IQ + Facial · 70 mins - £65.00 For stressed dehydrated and challenged skins. An anti-ageing treatment with Time Defence Wrinkle Delay and Time Defence Eye Reviver. Ideal to combat the harsh effects of daily shaving, pollution and urban living. Must be the only thing at that club that is squeaky clean.

...and another sponsor to avoid

I think that's a very good point. However, I think it is a question of timing for me. You've got to get the balance right between having the player contributing to the success of the side and selling them so that the club picks up a profit and you're not seen as holding up a player's career. In my view it is too soon to sell now although if the offer was significantly above the club's valuation they would be foolish to turn it down. It is such a gamble though. If he keeps scoring at his current rate his price goes up but if the goals dry up it goes down. Not too many players keep scoring well season after season, so there would be a strong temptation to cash in. Another factor here is what is in his contract. Players have all sorts of weird and wonderful things in contracts and it might be that he agreed to a longer term deal at a certain pay level provided that if an offer above a certain amount came in, he could go if he wanted. Contractual agreements can be the reason for otherwise strange decisions. I've voted for the million for this transfer window but I would expect the club to accept significantly less if Billy wanted away. Mind you, I would hope Billy would want to stay. We have very strong attacking midfield options and it is clear that the new manager wants to play an attacking style of football that plays to Billy's strengths. If he is going to score a hatful of goals anywhere, it is going to be here. He should stay put for a while and really make people sit up and take notice.

But are they? Before Terry and Mo went there they had 15 points from 13 games, Since then they have got just 13 from 10. Only 4 of those games have been against top 6 sides and they have got just 2 points from those 4 games. Their apparent marginal improvement may simply be that they have had 6 games against the bottom 5 during that period. The only teams they have beaten are the teams who occupied the bottom 3 places when Terry and Mo took over. They need to do a bit more than that to demonstrate an improvement.

Hibs currently lie 7th and I suspect that anything less than a top 6 finish will be seen as failure at Easter Road. Hibs entertain Celtic next week and one would expect them to lose. Then in February they have just two fixtures which could be crucial. Firstly they are at home to a resurgent County and then away at fellow strugglers Kilmarnock. Failure to win either of those would see them move into March without a win since a narrow derby win on January 2nd. I suspect that if that were to be the scenario, the natives would be starting to get more than a little restless.

Interesting to see the bizarre comment from Adams yesterday in trying to take as much personal credit as possible for County's surprisingly comfortable win against Dundee Utd. The BBC quotes him as saying "It takes a brave manager to do what I have done today and play six new players". Adams should reflect that the six new players have been brought in to address the mess created by his failure to put a decent side together. It is Adams' ineptitude which has forced his chairman to dig deeply into his pockets to finance a rescue act. Without this influx of players, County would be firmly rooted in 11th place and would be heading for the play-offs. Brave, my *rse! Had Adams not played the players the Chairman has financed he might well have been looking for another job next week.

Whilst things are looking up for us, they are also looking up for OTB. 10 points from 4 games in 2014 and Kiss is already their top scorer for the season after just 2 games. They were dross in 2013 but look much stronger now. It could be that the convenient floodlight failure earlier in the year and the apparent inability to have rearranged the match before now could come back to haunt us. It is good to have a couple of games in hand but we will do well to get more than a couple of points from games away at County and Motherwell, particularly if we have distractions of cup matches.

Shinnie would normally be our first choice left back but when Raven was out he played right back with Tremarco coming in at left back and he did well. With Raven back and the midfield missing Vincent, Foran and Draper, he has played in the midfield, again with Tremarco at left back. It should not be too long before all the missing midfield trio are available for selection and with the signing of Tansey together with improved showings recently from Polworth, Watkins and Williams , competition for midfield places is going to be fierce. To be honest, whilst I have always been impressed with Shinnie going forward, he does, at times seem vulnerable at the back. Last week I felt he was our MOTM against Dundee Utd and by all accounts he was excellent today. Tremarco seems pretty able at left back and I just wonder whether Shinnie should be played in the midfield role because I think that is where he is at his best. Of course, when other players are available there is the question of who misses out. If Shinnie was to keep a midfield role, who would lose out? Foran has now had quite a long lay off and I just wonder whether he will be able to get back to the level he has played at previously. Certainly, Foran is never going to match Shinnie's work rate and I wonder if Shinnie should take over Foran's midfield role - and the captaincy. Thoughts?

Swearing at a football match! Never thought I'd live to see the day.

Great results elsewhere today as well!

Good news because I think he can do a good job for us. When our absent midfielders are back there will be a lot of competition which I suppose is no bad thing. A down side is that this will make it less likely that we will see Pepper being given a chance.

Nobody spot the mistake? Yep. Another rigged ballot!

I can't see popular opinion moving to be in favour of a yes vote but that is quite a different thing to who will actually win the vote. In my view, the best chance of a "yes" win will be due to those happy with the status quo simply not bothering to vote. Those who are enthused by the campaign will generally be those who are in favour of independence and will go out to vote in force. A perfectly believable scenario is that we get a low poll delivering independence when only 20% of the population or so actually vote "yes". I suppose it is a fair argument to say that it is reasonable to assume that those who don't bother to vote don't mind what the outcome is, but it would hardly be a ringing mandate for change. For such a radical constitutional change it would be far better if there was an actual majority of the electorate voting for the change rather than a simple majority of those bothering to vote. Regardless of which side wins, I hope there is a good turn out and that the winning side actually gets the votes of at least half the electorate. Sadly, I think there is about as much chance of that as there is of ICT winnning the league this year.

Two options. 1. Don't sell Billy 2. Sell Billy and get someone else in with part of the profit. Perhaps there is someone lined up should Billy leave who would like to come here but has other options. Hence a time frame in which the club would do business on Billy. My view is we shouldn't sell. No reason why he shouldn't keep scoring. Keeping him would increase our chance of success at the end of the season and would allow time to negotiate a bigger fee with someone in the summer.

It really is quite shameful and demonstrates that those running The Rangers are not fit people to do so. Despite playing week in, week out against dross opposition, the fans of this odious club support their new team in huge numbers and buy club merchandise thereby putting very substantial amounts of money into the club's coffers. The fact that The Rangers' board now have to impose pay cuts means that they have totally mis-managed the finances of the club despite the scrutiny of what is happening. Their ugly cousins across the city must be laughing their heads off. The sensible approach for The Rangers was to keep wage costs low in the early years and make best use of talented youngsters. Income could have been invested to pay for wages when they hit the big time again. A knock on effect of this strategy would have been the emergence of youngsters who would be good enough to play at the top level and who would not cost as much as the established players they will need to invest in. Their irresponsible strategy may have allowed them to win the diddy leagues by a country mile but it will make them less competetive against Celtic when finally they reach the top tier.

Couldn't agree more. However well intentioned this may be it is simply not appropriate. I don't mean to sound flippant or disrespectful but what would happen if the minute's applause started just as Billy slotted in the opener? Are the Aberdeen fans going to keep clapping for a minute as our team celebrates the goal? If he was a well known and respected fan then perhaps the Aberdeen fans could persuade their team to wear black arm bands, or they could have a few collection buckets for an appropriate charity? At least that would allow the "respect" of the fans to be shown in a rather more tangible way.

I don't think he had a hope of stopping that but I do agree his lack of reaction is quite extraordinary. He barely moves from his relaxed pose even when Brill lands at his feet after his dispairing dive.

Nobody who is expressing a critical opinion regarding Nick Ross is claiming any deeper understanding than anyone else or has "delusions of Fergusion football knowledge", we're simply expressing an opinion and are as entitled to do that as others who think Nick is a key member of the team. It would be nice if we could offer an honest opinion without firstly being criticised by you simply for disagreeing with team selection, and then being subject to snide comments when we respond to that criticism. Perhaps next time you post you might like to enlighten fellow forum members with your views on some topic rather than simply insulting people and acting as self appointed keyboard censor.

So the manager never makes an error of judgement or he wouldn't be the manager of this club. And therefore those of us who watch the matches shouldn't have the audacity to make any critical comment as we clearly have no idea what we are talking about. What complete and utter nonsense! Whilst accepting that the manager usually does know better than anyone on this forum, managers certainly don't get it right all the time. Interestingly you mention how the manager sees the players on the training ground as well as at the game, but actually that is often part of the problem. Often players demonstrate attributes on the training ground that simply do not get translated into the match situation. Managers then persist in them in the hope that they will come good on match day or simply keep picking them because their overall impression is that the player who shines on the training ground is the better player - others don't get a look in. Butcher's insistence on playing Barrowman rather than Rooney when he first came here was a case in point. I also remember more recently when many of us were questioning Butcher persisting playing Shane Sutherland on the wing, Caley D defended the manager by saying we should see the things he was doing on the training ground. Well, he might have been great on the wing on the training ground but he wasn't on a match day - and now he's at Elgin. You don't win points by playing well on the training ground - it's the performance on match days that matter and the paying customer has every right to comment on it.

This'll be to keep OTJ company on the bench?

Apart from power, another attribute for a penalty is accuracy. Rooney had a great record of penalty kicks and whilst the keepers always knew it was going low to their right they could never get there. He was always so accurate with his placement and hit it firmly, but not so hard that he lost control of where it was going. That's a rare skill which not many have. But if you mix it up a bit so the keeper is genuinely guessing then you have more margin for error. A success rate of 80% shouldn't be an unreasonable ask. In the EPL from the start of season 2002/3 to the present, 79% of all penalties have been scored. Sneckboy's figures above suggest we are around 70% so we really should be doing a little better in this department

Fair enough to have a go at folk who shout abuse at players at a game but I fail to see what is wrong with making objective criticism of players on this forum. If this forum is not for expressing opinions then what is it for? I don't think it is supportive to the team simply to praise the praiseworthy and keep quiet about aspects which are not so good. If folk feel particular players are not making quite the contribution to the team as they should be and feel there are better options, then it is surely supportive to the team to voice those views. Nick Ross has been a "promising" player for a number of years but IMHO has not lived up to that promise. He has some nice little touches but rarely makes a particularly telling contribution to the game. He has now had a long run in the team and in my view the team needs someone rather more creative and incisive and with an eye for goal. I can't see that we would be any worse off by giving Christie or Pepper a decent run in the side. If all our players were available then I would put Shinnie back to left back and play Vincent, Draper, Foran, Doran, Watkins, and Mckay. With the option of Tremarco at left back releasing Shinnie into midfield as well as the availability of Greenhalgh, Christie, Pepper, Williams and Polworth then Ross would struggle to even get on the bench. TM4J's suggestion of putting him out on loan is a sensible one in my view. Personally I feel Ross is not quite up to the standard required, but if he does have the ability to justify him being selected ahead of these other players, it is not being translated into performances on the park. A period on loan at a lower level may just give him the opportunity to shine and gain a bit of confidence. In my view that would be supportive of both him and the team. No doubt others will leap to Nick's defence and that would be good. That is what the forum is all about. Support the players on the park however bad they play, but please let's not stifle honest opinions about the players on this forum.