MarkD

Breaking news ... George Clooney has just signed up for a biopic on Jimmy Saville's life, to be called "Oh, she's eleven". There might be a couple of sequels, but he wouldn't want to go beyond 13...

Presumably Aberdeen like the position whereby they only need to find one other club to agree with them to veto any change they are opposed to? I doubt it's anything to do with perceived league position, but as you both say it's pretty negative for Scottish football.

I think the joys of "tracking back" can be over-estimated...it can mean you are pinned your own half with a very defensive set up, if you have more people up (a la Messi and Ronaldinho!) it helps to keep the opposition honest.

True, but in previous years we've struggled to break down and score against these sorts of teams (Hamilton springs to mind).

Allow me to recommend a very succesful club manager with international experience, lots of Scottish friends (SAF, Hanson...), likes the rain, good Scottish surname... Shhhteve

Sam Allardyce??? 4-6-0 would become a fixture. Please take him. I'll throw in Andy Robinson too for free ... Oh wait...

Armstrong had the opportunity to challenge in court the 1000 or so pages of evidence including testimony from just about all his teammates and friends, but chose not to. The UCI is now, belatedly, considering this evidence. USADA has followed a process, it is Armstrong who decided not to follow it through, having tried to get it stopped in court and failed. Hearsay evidence is evidence like "I heard he'd done this". What is presented here is direct evidence from people who are saying "I saw him do this". That is not hearsay evidence.

Different point but probably not worth a thread in its own right ... does anyone else get annoyed by the number of replays in the highlights ... in the Ross County highlights each goal got 5 showings and each other clip chosen 3 ... how about showing more of the match with less replays ... can always run the clip again if you want to watch it again.

Busted? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/cycling/tour-de-france/9600518/Lance-Armstrongs-former-team-mates-provide-testimonies-crucial-to-USADAs-doping-case-against-American.html Shocking also that UCI's response is to sue Landis and (journalist) Paul Kimmage for defamation.

Well what do you expect, he's foreign (not English) and as Michael Owen says, its all the foreigners doing it. Including himself, with his Welsh name.

Err, well there's no way you can legally dock someone's wages for doing their job even if you don't like the way they've done it. Only for gross misconduct eg refusing to play or train or seriously abusive behaviour.

As you say, fantastic mental toughness after 4 GS "failures" and getting hauled back from 2-0 up. Plus beating the king of hard courts.

I agree with that, the selections in the last few games resulted in us snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But I don't think that changes what he's trying to do now and the validity in moving the 'old guard' on even if someone else round the corner is putting their hands in their pockets to pay them.

"Ask not what your club can do for you, ask what you can do for your club"?

Shocking

Firstly, the 'people in authority' are the USADA who are the people responsible for ensuring that US sports are clean so they are just doing their job, same as when athletes such as Marion Jones, Justin Gatlin etc. got busted. Surely it's clean sports we want. Second the mantra that keeps getting repeated about 500 tests is just that - an irrelevant mantra. Unfortunately the drug cheats are ahead of the testers and have been for years. The fact is that in cycling, most of the other riders who have been busted were also 'clean' according to the tests and have since confessed. So clean tests actually mean nothing. It's hard to test for blood doping for example, and the test for EPO (I understand) didn't exist/wasn't effective. Jones, Chambers et al. only got busted when someone leaked - they'd also passed tests. Thirdly, the 'unsubstantiated testimony of untrustworthy people'. Well in our courts that's usually exactly how drug dealers are tried and convicted. And the testimony is from his own teammates - a dozen or so of them who have testified as to sytematic blood doping etc. I'm not sure why these people are any more untrustworthy than someone who's more incentive to lie about it. And of course it is Armstrong who's decided not to subject these testimonies to cross-examination etc. Most likely his lawyers have advised him he didn't have a prayer. The charges are very very damning and frankly I'm amazed that so many people think they shouldn't be properly investigated. http://www.usada.org/media/sanction-armstrong8242012 Given that just about every other rider who finished on the podium on those 7 tours has been found to have doped, it's not credible that Armstrong wasn't doing it as well. Now that the tests have been beefed up, riders like Cadel Evans and Bradley Wiggins who are believed to be clean are able to win, but at average speeds that are significantly less than in the previous 2 decades - that tells its own story.

May also explain, apart from money, why a number of players from last season didn't want to stay.

I happen to agree with Butcher mainly because of his (Munro's) poor distribution skills, and I don't think we've ever replaced Darren Dods as someone to lead the backline. At the end of the day you have to ask youself who knows more about football and defense in particular: Terry Butcher - 500+ senior appearances as centre back including 77 for England, 3 world cup finals etc etc. or all the armchair critics who, frankly, seem to be looking at the past through rose-tinted spectacles.

Munro and Tokely? The centre-back partnership at the end of our relegation season, one of whom got himself red-carded early on in the final, must not lose, game against those giants of world football, Falkirk.

I have no view as to whether Salmond is personally "racist" (ie anti English) but I am sure that he gets that vote and, debatably, cultivates it. That's not to say that all people who vote SNP are, of course not. However it's not healthy to have a party that bases everything on 'it's all someone else's fault' though perhaps he's reduced that recently.

No, the point is Salmond's hypocrisy in complaining about "Westminster" when the cabinet was extremely well represented by Scots and the party was in power thanks in part to Scotland's disproportionate voting power. The decision to wage wars was made by these people just as much as anyone else. It's not personal. The point about the £9k is that up to now the Barnett formula disparities have not been that visible and therefore have not generated much political mileage in England. My point is that this will change.

I've never met anyone who 'takes it as a personal insult'. Why should we care. It's more a question of (i) not wanting the continual "neverendum" (ii) not liking Scottish MP's voting on English matters that are devolved for Scotland, (iii) not liking the disproportionate seat sizes (iv) increasingly with £9k pa tuition fees not liking the unfairness of the Barnett formula, hospitals and schools that are less resourced an so on. Finally through the 2000's we had Salmond moaning on about "Westminster" (his code for I hate the English, we're not deceived) the whole time when a large proportion of the UK cabinet were Scottish. The debate may well be in its infancy in England but given the £9k factor it's only going to increase.

The OG was a classic - a precision back pass from wide that found a non-existent gap between the keeper and the goal - can't remember the other goals!

Christmas presents: For brother - iPad For son - iPhone For wife - iRon

Caley A v Caley B at TCS ... but which is which?!