Yngwie

What/when/who?

What do you make of Macclesfield's fundraising idea of selling a place in the team for £20,000? Whoever comes up with the dosh gets 10 minutes on the pitch in a competitive first team match. Must be male and aged 18-35. Presumably you'd have to be on the bench a few times and the manager is only going to put you on when the outcome of the game is pretty much decided? I certainly wouldn't want to be brought on by my team only to cost them the game. It's a lot of money to pay for a gimmick, but for the lucky fan its kinda nice to think that your name will forever be in the record books (and Soccerbase!) as having played for the club.

I forgot to mention that from the end of January 2013 onwards, the number of points we got per game would put us very much in a relegation fight if repeated across a full season.

I'd put Aaron Doran in the same category as Wyness, in that he initially came on loan and did OK, but only became a really good player after signing permanently.

The debate on Philip Roberts got me thinking about how successful, or otherwise, loanees have been for us over the years. Who do you think have been the biggest hits and misses?

It's tempting to say that we should be doing the same if not better than last season, but you've got to remember that we have lost our 2 internationals and replaced them with non-league players. Meanwhile, the bigger budget clubs like Aberdeen, Hibs and even Dundee Utd surely cannot be as bad as they were, and will all be starting the season with expectations of a top 3 place. Top 6 please, and we are long overdue a trip to Hampden.

As for Tade, St J have been grumbling that he had verbally agreed to stay for another year and was supposed to come in last week to sign. Come off it Saints, look at his history and you'll see that his only loyalty is to his bank account. He made his way through 6 Scottish clubs in 6 years. With ICT he was popular and succesful player in whom the manager showed a huge amount of faith, to firstly give him a crack at SPL football, and then sticking by him during some awful spells of form. He then buggered off at the first opportunity, to a rival team no bigger than us, after saying he wanted to return to France. The lure of 90 minutes against a foreign team was the next convenient excuse for taking the extra couple of hundred quid a week, and now he's done a U-turn there to be closer to his family, to be in the Europa League qualifiers, for a new challenge. The challenge of how to spend the extra cash, presumably. Not that I'm really blaming him for maximising his earnings, I'm just pointing out to St J that if you manage to seduce the local whore then you shouldn't be surprised to find your bed empty when you wake up.

If for a moment I can put aside my copy of "Vampire jokes for boys", what is funnier is that a Romanian sport website has the headline this morning "CFR Cluj takes top scorer in Scotland" 4 goals in 36 SPL games - hopefully something got lost in translation. Cluj may have had European football in recent years but they only finished 9th in the league last season, and I'm guessing that 9th in the Romanian league is not a particularly high standard. They have just appointed their 4th manager since the start of last season, and signing Tade would just confirm what chaos they are in.

If he does well out there, he'll soon have his own fang club......

I'm not surprised he wants to leave Scotland - he was always getting it in the neck.

Going to the only part of the world where they might appreciate his horror show performances?

Looking for a bright side, it'll be Norway, where the alcohol is far too expensive.

I see what you mean, 22nd March should say home v Partick.

I see the BBC have already applied the 15 point deduction on their 2013/14 SPL table - as a result of which ICT have moved up from 6th to 5th.

Will need to have a think now about how many Uruguay will put past them. Not as good a team as Spain, but Tahiti will be tired, and desperate for the glory of going out with a goal, potentially leaving even more gaps at the back.

I see Tuffey has signed for Linfield. The BBC article mentions that he only played in 17 games during the last 3 years (ICT and St Johnstone), so hopefully he'll get plenty game time and put his career back on track.

TV schedules are the least of your worries there - the fixtures are going to be completely revamped to enable Richard Brittain to play for both of his clubs.

The best I could find was 9 or more goals, at 5/6.

Yes, 2-2 away. How many times have we won our opening fixture in the SPL? I can only recall one.

Kerching! Tahiti certainly tried to play some decent attacking football, rather than stick everyone behind the ball like some of the European minnows do (some of whom even go 4-6-0!). But they'll need to improve massively at the back if they are going to restrict Spain's reserves to single figures.

I don't have a great deal of interest in the Confederations Cup, but I thought I had misheard when it was mentioned that Tahiti were in it. Turns out they are the representatives of Oceania after overcoming Vanuatu, Samoa, New Caledonia and the Solomon Islands. Seriously, that's all they had to do! Will be interesting to see how these unknown amateurs fare against Nigeria tonight, and to get Renegade's current views on the Pacific Islands as a source of footballing talent I've got a bet on there being 5 or more goals in the game, at 13/8.

Didn't we do Yeovil etc a couple of years ago?

I also note that the game at Wick a few days earlier is marked as "Provisional." I wonder if we are trying to arrange another game darn sarf for then? London is a long way to go for just 1 friendly.

I like turtles.