Slim

If it doesn’t hit his hand, it’s a shot on target. It’s a penalty all day long. Kent’s first yellow is not up for debate. It was a yellow-ish challenge in the first place then he pushes Hayes right in front of the ref. The 2nd yellow, probably not so much, the reaction from Brown made it look worse than it was. But that was after McCrorie got booked for a challenge on Morelos where if Morelos had rolled any further they’d be calling out the RNLI to pull him out of the North Sea. So fuck him/them.

Just needed a bit of composure. The opposite of McLennan basically. If JET and McGinn can’t be trusted we may as well just replace them both in January. That free kick late on was criminal. Kent had been sent off and Barisic was off cleaning up his bloody nose and we still conspired to send the ball right into the middle of a cluster of 3 Hun defenders with no red shirt anywhere near. Still, to be so solid at the back with Hayes at right back and Campbell at left back was pleasing. Doesn’t bode well for Gallagher’s future either but correct decision not to disrupt McCrorie and Bates’ partnership.

Dundee United have just signed a Finnish (he’s only 27) international keeper, I would imagine they wouldn’t be signing Clark also.

First Hogmanay in Scotland for about 12 years. Flicked it over to STV at 11.59pm to see if their show was any better than BBC 1 and my eyes are met by what appeared to be Ricky Foster sitting on a sofa. So the last word out of my mouth in 2021 was “cunt” and 2022 began trying to explain to a bewildered wife why the effeminate man on the TV was indeed a cunt while trying to understand how some TV executives must have discussed at great length who should front their Hogmanay show at a time when the whole country would be at home watching and come to fucking Ricky Foster as the answer.

Who were the others?

Nae sure “give the ball to De Bruyne” can be easily replicated at Easter Road.

Fuck the money, let’s hope he’s our right back for the next 15 years. Let Cormack worry about the accounts.

I would be cautious about reducing the capacity. If the club’s business plan/ambition is to become one of the top 100 UEFA clubs and be playing attractive football with a team consisting of home grown players and exciting flair players using Atlanta’s connections, this alone should see an increase in attendances. If we want to revolutionise the match day experience so people are bringing their families to hang out around the stadium for hours because there’s so much atmosphere and entertainment, this should be hand in hand with an increase in attendances. Voluntarily reducing the capacity contradicts the rest of their business plan. Of course the business plan is full of holes, but if it was achieved, a 17,000 seater stadium would be at capacity several times a season. Also need to consider the impact of any future developments like a switch to summer football or admission to a European “Super League”, bars being allowed to open, etc. Perhaps someone clever can design a stadium that has smaller upper tiers in the 4 stands that can easily be “hidden” when not in use.

Meh, bang average striker going through a bit of a purple patch.

Would we not be better keeping these guys in our reserve team rather than have them sit on the bench every week in League 2/Highland League? Instead loan out the players we actually see a future for to a Championship level team. We’ve got a lot of players out on loan and the highest level we have them playing at is bottom half of League 1 (not including Hernandez).

He was only getting game time because their first choice right back Brooks Lennon was injured.

Looked like it was a penalty on the highlights there, Bates with a handful of the guy’s jersey. Seemed like Bates was the one who was supposed to be tracking Morelos for their first goal too.

I’m not so sure that interview was Cormack consciously making himself a human shield for his employee. It was more like a thin-skinned Trumpian reaction to having his own personal reputation being questioned. ”Whatever people say, I've got the emails to show what a good appointment it was at that stage. ” I can totally imagine that being a line from a Trump rally speech about some crony he appointed to run a Government department.

Tuesday morning and someone throwing a wee bit of plastic is still the back page headline in the Scottish tabloids. Can’t think of a bigger overreaction in recent memory.

Again, no we don’t. That was his role a couple of weeks a year with the England team. He’s our assistant manager/head coach/no. 2. According to Glass, a big part of his remit is designing set piece routines, which we seem to be generally ok at.

Nailed on that Curtis Main will score against us.

Alex Neil or Steve Clarke I have decided I’d rather watch us win ugly than watch attractive triangle passing between our central defenders and goalkeeper for half the match. If the big hoof up the park is inevitable I’d rather it was planned than done in a panic because the spoilsport opposition unfairly decide to press us with their forwards. That said, I’m still willing to give Glass the benefit of the doubt for now but I’m a bit worried that he’s trying to reinvent our playing style while signing players who have never really played in such a style in their careers. Unless these signings are known-quantity stop gaps until the recruitment system is in place to identify and sign players with specific attributes to fit the desired playing style.

One thing that confused me was that we were about to bring on Campbell (I think) for Ojo but at the last moment, cancelled the substitution because Bates picked up a knock and he got replaced by Gallagher instead. We're still allowed to make 5 subs aren't we? I couldn't figure out why replacing Bates with Gallagher meant the plan to replace Ojo with Campbell had to be shelved.

Ramirez seems to be Darren Mackie after finding a magic lamp and using the three wishes to be athletic, handsome and Hispanic rather than use any of them on being better at football. Only ever looks like scoring tap ins but has around a 25% success rate at them. A peak Adam Rooney would be in double figures already.

Was in League 1 last season, surprised we couldn’t find any takers in the Championship/League 1, seems a capable enough left back.

Will be interesting to see if the payment for the consultation will be made by the club or Cormack himself. Having seen the output of some of Deloitte’s management consulting recommendations in other companies I’m not too confident we’ll see anything groundbreaking.

Russell was the striker coach for England. I believe his role with us is Assistant Manager. I recall Glass mentioning he's the one who designs all of our set piece routines.

COVID Passports then, will be required to attend football matches. A bit annoying as I've just moved back to Aberdeen and was looking forward to getting a season ticket. Currently there's no way to register overseas vaccines on the NHS app so I'm going to be locked out of Pittodrie from 1st October.

So beat Israel at home, Faroes and Moldova away and we're in the play offs. Should be do-able....

Walsall get their first win of the season, climbing off the bottom of English League 2 after dropping Ash Taylor. Strange he can look fairly competent for us but stinks the place out in the English bottom tier, same happened last time he left us IIRC.