wokinginashearerwonderland

Nisbet did nothing last weekend to suggest he deserves a place in front of Ambrose. Ambrose may have his technical faults but he's a trier. Nisbet is a lazy bastard and wouldn't even make my bench.

aye, poor buggers having to play fitba again

That's a fair point but also have to bear in mind that six(?) of that starting line up last night were signed by Thelin so it is HIS team now. He can't use that excuse any more. On the plus side, the goalie is proving a lot of the doubters wrong, starting to look decent.

I think you probably do really. Anyway, the basic issue is that if we end up by next season having a squad where 95% of them are foreign what the hell is the point in supporting your local team? May as well just start watching Liverpool or Man Utd if I want to see 11 foreigners running about in red shirts.

Most of these boys were signed over 3 years ago. There has been a real move to foreign signings since then. If you look at the true "foreign" players we have brought in over the last 3 years, I would argue the only one who has truly made the team better and become properly settled and stayed for a decent spell, is Miovski.

Not sure where you guys are getting that from to be honest. If you look at our signings over the last three years when we had Glass, Goodwin, Robson etc in charge, the only regulars we signed who are Scottish players were Shinnie and Devlin. I don't see why that is likely to change now we have a manager from outwith but time will tell. I agree with that general sentiment Rico but even just UK and Irish players in my view tend to fit in better in this country. We've had a few Irish players in particular of late who have done well. I think players from over here whether they are Scottish, English, Irish, have the same kind of mentality, sense of humour, christ even the same language helps forge a better team spirit. It's got to be hard for someone like Duk, Gueye or Ambrose to get the crack in the dressing room much more so than it was for Joe Lewis, Jonny Hayes or Molloy.

Really hope the club start to target some Scottish players. Looks like we are likely to lose Jack McKenzie which would only leave Shinnie and Devlin as the only Scottish first team regulars. Massively important issue for me this. Not sure about the rest of you guys but for me, it's just not the same without a core of Scottish blood both in the squad and management team. A bit the same as when we had a national team filled with people with dodgy passports. I said previously (and was shot down by someone for it) that foreign players rarely work out for us/stick around for long and that has been proved so far in the main, aside from Miovski.

I don't know. Yes, the season started in July but those early league cup games really just replaced the normal pre season friendlies in all but name. This is the easiest start to a season we could have possibly had in terms of intensity. Piss easy fixtures in the cup plus the easiest possible run of league fixtures you could want over the first 7 or 8 games and no european football. God help this team if we have to play in Europe next season and we have a few tough away games in the league early on. If you have a look at Killie's run of fixtures for example, they have played 22 in the league plus 6 european games (3 involving foreign travel obviously) and a league cup game away to Motherwell including extra time. Add to that 2 of their opening 3 games were away at Parkhead and Pittodrie and their budget I'm guessing will be a fraction of what ours is. We have had it easy.

Not disagreeing with this statement but would question why it's the case? We don't have European football and very few international players. So we have played 21 league games in five months plus one meaningful game in the cup (I'm not counting the other games against the diddy teams which were nothing more than glorified friendlies). Add to that, the players had international breaks in September, October and November..............and yes, Devlin was called up but didn't really play. Why the hell are our players tired? These guys are not 36 and 37, they are 31 and 33. For arguments sake I just googled the name of 30 year old Andy Robertson and already this season he has played 25 games for Liverpool and 5 games for Scotland and he runs about a hell of a lot more during a game than any of the above three.

- just getting in early before someone else posts on this thread

I'd argue Clarkson has been shite since we signed him permanently. Possibly a bigger waste of £1M than Paul Bernard actually. McGrath's a terrific player but you have to factor in that he had an operation in mid November. Can't be easy coming right back into the team after that but he's been the only guy other than Miovski who has consistently scored goals for us these last couple of years.

Wolves showing how you don't need to fuck about when sacking a manager. It doesn't need to take five months. O'Neil fired on Sunday, his replacement hired today.

He might be a tim bastard but gotta love Ange. He seems to be one of the very few managers that gets the fact people go to a match to be entertained. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/videos/c87x92g1jzvo

Not so sure. McGrath is quality and our best player by a country mile. Very under rated by our support. Everyone thought Liam Scales would not play when he went back and he was a first pick for Rodgers, Ryan Christie the same after his loan finished. Jonny Hayes also became a first team regular after moving across to the dark side.

Do wish Rob McLean would quit calling players by their first names like their his mates.

Ah, the Hun demise is massively over played. They are probably 3 points worse off than you would realistically expect to them to be at this stage all because of the loss to Killie. The Celtic defeat and the Hearts draw were not hugely unexpected. If you look at our own fixtures we are maybe 6 points better than we would hope to be if you had looked through the fixture list at the start.

Not sure where folk are getting this from. Dons are 14/5 to win this. Hunnery are favourites at 21/20 with the bookies.

McInnes incoming at Tynecastle surely

Our fans are getting a wee bit excited by very little IMO. The shitey stages of the league cup apart, we have played four proper games this season and beaten St Mirren and Killie at home and St Johnstone and Ross County away. I mean it's not exactly the European elite is it? Rangers have dropped five points via a draw at Tynecastle and a loss at Parkhead so are basically two points worse off than you would probably expect them to be at this stage. I'd like to think we will be a good bit better than last season but realistically we have only changed three or four players from last season and lost 25 goals out of our team by selling a £7M striker. We still have the nucleus of a side that was nearly hauled into a relegation scrap a few months back. To say we have suddenly a great chance of second place is a bit strong at this stage but fingers crossed.

The old slapper

I'm a little surprised by all that has gone in the last few days. It actually makes it look like Clarke is very unprepared. We have lost 3 first team players if you like, in Hickey, Patterson and Dykes and now it seems like anyone with a Scottish passport could get the call. He's known for weeks that it was likely neither Hickey nor Patterson would make it yet our replacement only makes his debut a couple of weeks before the tournament which is a bit mad. The right back slot, assuming we go with three centre halves, is arguably the easiest position to play on the pitch. Craig Burley played most of his international career there for Craig Brown and did a pretty good job. We could easily stick someone athletic in there and get away with it. I would be tempted to try McTominay at right wing back and Christie/Armstrong could replace him in midfield. The forward thing is a bit weird too. Dykes and Adams have always been our first choice forwards and Shankland has come on to a game this season. Not sure why we are ripping up the game plan a week away from the finals by calling up players that have been nowhere near the team in Doak, Morgan and Conway. If you want someone direct and with an eye for goal rather than a number 9 as such, then Forrest is the obvious solution.

Bring on Dons, Caley, Cove, Peterhead and Buckie. North East tour

Not surprised, 16 points from 11 league games is some going

I’m sick of hearing our fans claim we have a lot of good players, it’s total nonsense. 8 wins out of 33 games in the league tells its own story. If Ross County make up three points on us in the next four games we would be fighting for our lives at Dingwall in the last game of the season. We are still well and truly in a relegation battle regardless of what anyone says. If third is a realistic target next season (assuming we are still in the top flight) then we only have about four or five in that squad who are at that level, the rest need to be binned. McKenzie, Devlin, Miovski, McGrath and maybe Lopes. The rest should be shown the door. Good luck to this new dude but our fans need to get a grip on the expectation level. We ain’t got some divine right to be at the top end of the league just because we were a good side 40 years ago.

Yeah, as I said in my previous post it depends what your agenda is I suppose. You can dress up the stats to suit. I doubt many people would agree with you that O'Neill's achievement of qualifying for the Euros tops Lennon winning five league titles with Celtic but there you go. You seem to dismiss Lennon because he had a good group of players yet make allowance for some of O'Neill's poor results because he has a young team. He has not been "sensational". I don't think he has massively over achieved with Northern Ireland, but he has done well. Laurie Sanchez beat the likes of Spain and England when he was in charge. O'Neill qualified for the Euros by winning a group that had Romania, Hungary and Finland as the big teams. He then played 4 games at the finals and lost 3. He has had over 80 games in charge now and only Stoke have come calling which for me says a lot. As I said above, I am not against the guy but I think in this country we are far too quick to dismiss and write off others that have won trophies because they are not fashionable names.