thestooge

I'd love to gazump them on this one, unless May is still on the cards. Get in McKay and bring in Gauld on loan. That'd be hilarious. 200k is a great deal for someone though.

We didn't concede to Partick last season and I'm hopeful that will continue. However, our last meeting was a 0-0 draw and that's exactly the sort of slip up we need to avoid. I'll take any win every week this season. I think Partick will really struggle this season and can see them going down so we absolutely must get three points, ideally with a performance to go with it. Like you say though, as long as we get three points, it can be as ugly as they like.

I'd say around 20/1 is about right. The oddest remain stacked against us. I don't think May is over-rated. People just think he could make a difference. He could turn a few draws into wins, which with our possession dominance but lack of conversion seems reasonable, given his record of 27 goals in 49 appearances for St J in 2013/14. I think signing May will add points to our tally come the end of the season. Those extra points could well mean prizes this year. That said, if we are looking like genuine contenders come Jan, I'd fully expect Celtic to unsettle our squad with bids for McGinn or Hayes or whoever.

I'd not put my mortgage on it. Do I think we can perform better than Celtic vs the rest? Yes, but only marginally. I think there is a gulf between us both and the rest. Hearts do add something to the mix and it remains to be seen how they stack up against us but I'm fairly confident that both ourselves and Celtic will gain a similar points total excluding head to heads. Do I think we can beat Celtic? Yes. Do I think we'll get the better of them in the 4 head to heads. No. I don't. But if we get a win and a draw or better, particularly when Celtic still have European football and we can sow a seed of doubt for the remainder of the campaign, then I think it gives us a real chance. Do I think we'll win the league? No. Do I think we'll push the title race into May? Hopefully. Do I think it's beyond all possibility that we could achieve our greatest success since 83? No. But we'll need more goals, as it's likely going to be converting draws to wins that will see us succeed. It's a long shot but the gulf in resources is currently considerably greater than the gulf in quality, which I think has been further bridged this summer.

I think we have a reasonable squad and a very good first 11. I'd go with a best 11 of: Ward Logan Taylor Reynolds Shinnie Jack McLean Hayes Pawlett McGinn Rooney I think Brown (GK), Quinn (RB/CB), Considine (LB/CB), Flood (DM), Smith (AM), and Goodwillie (AM, maybe, not at striker) provide us with a decent range of cover in most positions, we're short of a striker though, as previously stated. If we have one or two players injured or suspended, we can cope, any more than that and it will become a struggle, though guys like Parker, Wright, Rose, Storie and Culjack may be able to step up. If we didn't need to balance the books, yeah, another defender, a box to box midfielder, a winger and a keeper would be great, but at the moment I'd prioritise a striker and I'd be perfectly happy to throw all our remaining resources at a Stevie May shaped basket.

I think there is more to it than just signing another player or two. Finding players who'll improve us now is really tough. We've done great business with McLean and Shinnie but finding others in that type of position is challenging. Shinnie turned down 10k a week at Birmingham. How many would do the same? Marley Watkins, in my opinion, would have been a great signing, but he took 8k a week to move down south. Stevie May, I believe, wants to come here, but a permanent move won't happen in the short term because he's also on an 8k a week deal. We might get him on loan now, if Sheffield Wed play ball and pay a decent wedge of his wages, but if he does score 15-20 goals in a season for us, again he'll be priced out of our market. We are comfortably outspending the rest of the SPL, we're creaming off the best of the rest (at least when we sign the likes of Shinnie or McLean, they're continuing to develop, nae like many times in the past when the old firm have signed great young players and left them in the reserves). But we're now at a stage where to improve our side, we need to be attracting the sort of players that are also attracting the attention of mid-level Championship sides who still blow us out of the water financially. There are plenty of people saying we've moved beyond players like Willo Flood. That's not something I personally agree on, I think he has a valuable role to play, but I think even those critical of Flood accept he'd be a star player at every other SPL side, excluding ourselves and Celtic. McInnes maybe does need to get creative with the loan market, Ward certainly seems a decent addition, Hector and Logan have been in the past, hopefully May can come in and Parker is an interesting one too but finding a player who'd improve us, available for free or a fee less than half a million quid, whose wage demands would be sub 5k a week isn't exactly easy. We may need to take a gamble, and I'd be happier for McInnes to do that than any other manager in our recent history, on a player like Slater, or McGinn, or Christie (probably becoming less of a gamble and more cost prohibitive now), or Stewart (likely also now on the radar of clubs down south, 13 goals in 34 last season, 3 in 5 this)), or Crawford, but I don't think any of those players would necessarily walk into our first 11 and would realistically need a season or two to reach the standard we require. I do think McInnes is right to be cautious with his remaining budget and hold out for the last minute moves but I do still expect a striker to arrive before Monday.

Christophe Berra - 30 Caps Grant Hanley - 17 Caps Russell Anderson - 11 Caps.

Man Utd now pretending they are going to bid £240,000,000 for Neymar. It's a funny old game.

I don't want to be negative after what was a strong weekend performance, but, in my opinion, Goodwillie did nothing on Sat to show why McInnes has shown such faith in him. It wasn't a hopeless performance, not by a long way, he had a few nice touches with his back to goal, but he also squandered a lot of possession in the final third and when he did get through on goal, he fell over his own feet. Several times too, we were advancing at pace and Goodwillie was running away from goal, ending up behind the player in possession, when we desperately needed more bodies in the box. We create a lot of chances, we had numerous dangerous balls into the box at the weekend, Goodwillie isn't looking like the guy to provide that cutting edge. The argument that he is supporting and holding up play only holds so much water, and I thought Rooney did more in terms of supporting as well as providing a clinical finish and I'd not put faith in Goodwillie, an unproven youngster in Shankland or a guy on loan until Jan. For me, if we genuinely want to challenge for the title, and I don't think we're a huge amount away from that being credible, we need another striker, one with a track record of scoring in the SPL. If we can do that by 31st Aug, I'll be pissing my pants with excitement.

I really enjoyed that. A dominant performance against a decent SPL side. Rooney making himself undroppable with his two goals but there was a lot to praise in that performance. Ward made a great save at 0-0 when Dundee had their spell of pressure. He also held a couple of powerful drives well. Shinnie is immense. I think he'll be our player of the year. Consistently brilliant. Great brain. Jack was deserving of the sponsors motm. An assured performance. I did think he slowed things down a little too much in the first half but he's another consistently good player. He's linking up well with McLean. A much more natural partnership than him and Flood, much more creativity. McGinn was also a joy to watch. Confident and direct. Hayes was a little disappointing but he set up the first. Parker looks a little like the old Josh. Big, strong and fast. May well have more technical ability but hard to judge on a few minutes. I thought that was one of the most composed Dons performances I've seen in a very long time.

Aye, I feel a little disappointed if it's done. Which, given we've signed one of the most promising young keepers in England, the best left back in the league and captain of a close rival, an experienced SPL CB and a bonus ball winger, while also retaining our best talent, is probably a little harsh on Derek. I still think we'll see one more in. Wishful thinking maybe. When it comes to the Dons I'm ever the optimist.

Stevie May is going somewhere. No way he's staying at Sheffield Wed given he's not even been in the squad thus far, including minor cup games. I would be disappointed if he did end up at the Huns. I hope Derek is just being coy. Rooney is superb but an injury to him and we're screwed. I don't think Shankland is quite ready for the first team and a move to ST Mirren on loan would benefit him. Goodwillie, well, he's in the team just now but I'm pretty surprised he's still here to be honest. From 1st Feb last season til the end of May, he only started two games (one of which was after Rooney had been sent on holiday) and he'd made limited sub appearances during that period too. He's had a couple of decent recent showings but he's still not adding goals and I'm far from convinced. Derek is giving him another chance and I really hope he repays the support he's received from the gaffer. I'd prefer we got another striker in though.

In a world where Brentford can expect £9,000,000 from Bristol for some guy, then I guess it's nae to extreme to see Otamendi go for £30,000,000. Crazy though.

Dundee are 5/1 to win on Saturday. Now, I'm not one to bet against my own team but that seems hoorin generous. I think it'll be a close game. I think Dundee look a decent side and have improved their squad. Hartley has pulled out decent results against us already in the recent past. I'm sure we'll have enough to get the three points but I'm expecting a real struggle.

Freelance? BBC mentioned him and his AFC history in their story and had a comment from Houston on it too.

I see Swansea have signed their third Falkirk player in about a year and a half. Jay Fulton has played in the EPL now and has had a few cup games after signing in Jan last year. Stephen Kingsley hasn't featured since signing last summer but he did spend a few months at Yeovil on loan. Biabi is the newest addition, he's barely even played for Falkirk yet but been snapped up on a 6 figure fee. It's interesting to see an EPL club take so many young players from the Scottish Championship (Hamilton and Livingstone have done similar in the past), indeed they've also lost McGrandles, who to me looked the pick of the bunch, to Norwich too but it's particularly interesting that John McMaster is apparently the scout doing the snooping for Swansea.

No Rooney in the starting 11. Dinna get it. Goodwillie has scored 6 goals for us in total. Rooney scored that in his first 8 games. I'm confident we'll still win like but I'd I'd play Rooney ahead of Goodwillie in the SPL every day of the week.

Ha. Aye, he's got a decent haircut and we're both learning Chinese at the moment. Given he canna speak English properly yet, it's a little soul destroying that he's nae ony worse at Chinese than I am.

Just been to see Corbyn in action at the Arts Centre. As much as I'm currently disenfranchised by Labour, they remain the only alternative in Westminster and need them to be strong. Corbyn is being portrayed as this old school dinosaur, not fit for the wider electorate, by his labour peers. He is literally everything the Labour Party should stand for. He's disarmingly earnest but I believe he believes and that is close to unique in the current political realm. I could vote for him. I do trust him. But the task ahead is monumental. Wrestling the power from the faceless, empty New Labour shapeshifters is huge. Building a party that is also electable is entirely separate. The audience today, and his core support, are the waifs and strays. While I think he is electable in his own right, shaping a party that is articulate and charismatic is going to be challenging. I feel Labour have just had a standing eight count. They've been down but are not quite out. Anyone but Corbyn sees them in the political abyss in Scotland and sees the UK in a US duopoly of two right wing parties ever pushing for more for less. I'm genuinely terrified by what will become of the UK if we continue down this desolate, uncaring, selfish path. I'm scared what it means for my son and his future. I at least believe that Corbyn shares those fears and will do his best to wrestle the discourse away from tired cliches around benefit scroungers and filthy immigrants and instead focus on how our politics can build for the future. Good luck Jeremy. You will need it.

To be fair to Derek, even when his transfers have gone wrong, they've gone wrong for the right reasons. I'd say he's identified the right type of player, the player just hasn't worked out. We needed a big strong striker and he got in Zola, we needed pace on the wings and he got Wylde, we needed experienced CB/RB cover, he got Tate. They were all logical moves, within our budget limitations. SInce our budget has improved, his strike rate has improved too, McLean, Shinnie, Quinn and Ward being the recent additions certainly suggests he's going to get more right than wrong.

If this guy comes, I suspect this will be a case of "and" rather than "instead of". I don't have any great deal of insider info but I still think May will be playing for us and it'll be a permanent rather than a loan deal.

Went and saw Stuart Cosgrove at the Fringe on Monday. He was interviewed by yon fud Spiers but it was a really engaging discussion. It was essentially about Cosgrove's life as a St Johnstone fan, mixed with some of his love of music. I've read his recent book, Detoit67 and its encyclopaedic, absolutely littered with minute detail, musical, cultural, racial and political, in a year in Detroit, using Motown as a focus. Marvellous stuff. Anyway, as much as I enjoyed the show, the aspect I enjoyed most was about the St J cup win in 2014, which concluded with a lovely, if tragic, story about Tommy Wright. We obviously lost the semi to St J, that was the game where we were glibbly chanting "Who the fuck is Stevie May?", only for him to score a brace to sink us. As he celebrated reaching the final, he was pointing to the back of his shirt, at the time, I thought that was a direct response to our chant but it turns out he was pointing at "May 14", his name and squad number but also the date of the final. Written in the stars. In the lead up to the final, Cosgrove posted a picture on Facebook of his uncle, a die hard St J fan, along with his uncle's best friend, also the father of Cosgrove's best buddy. The picture was of the two friends, bleezing, returning from a previous St J cup adventure from years previous. Both men had passed away and Cosgrove had posted the pic in the lead up to the final as a wee memorial, asking other fans to list the names of fallen fans who would have loved to have been at the final. In the days that followed, literally hundreds of names were added. The club picked up on it and also started sharing the sentiment and it was brought to the attention of Wright. Tommy then responded saying how much he understood the importance of the game for families and the community and that he too would dedicate a victory to a departed loved one, for him, his four year old son. He said, if they did win the trophy, he'd cradle the cup in his arms and kiss it like it was the forehead of his poor wee loon, who died as a result of problems from being born premature. Sure enough, on winning the cup, Wright can be seen tenderly kissing the trophy. I love that story. Shankly maybe overstated it when he said football was more important than life and death but due to the passion, emotion, memories and nostalgia we can attach to it, and the highs and lows we share through it, it transcends it.

After his off the ball blindsiding of Goodwillie. Killie really are a contemptible bunch of cunts. They're basically a Ryan Stevenson short of a full house of fuds.

Very pleasing game. Comfortable throughout and the result never in doubt. No weak links today, thanks largely to the completely ineffectual opponents. I canna see where their first goal is going to come from, let alone their first points. Highlights were the crispness of passing from Jack, McLean, Hayes (in parts) and Smith when he came on. And Mcinnes's comments - "Westlake you fanny. Fucking behave yourself". Ace. We've as many points after two games as we did after 5 last year apparently. Keep it up.

Ach well. The great thing is, I have no doubts we'll be in Europe for the third year running next season. That's fecking brilliant. A long season ahead but I'm very confident of 2nd and hopefully a bit of silverware.