Slim

A lot is being made of the lack of friendlies. Leaving 10 days between the last friendly and the first competitive game, and with almost an entirely new front-4, does seem to be a bit odd.

4-6-0?

Nielsen’s like that cunt at work who’s been a supervisor for the last 10 years because he can’t actually do the work itself but doesn’t have the leadership skills to get promoted. So he’s just there getting in the way, contributing nothing.

Jensen is an absolute fanny, he might be technically better than Devlin but we’re a better team with Devlin in it.

Not sharp enough, not aggressive enough.

Drita seem to have a fairy respectable record in Europe, only being knocked out by some well known teams and never really being thrashed (although not really beating anyone of note either): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FC_Drita#Drita_in_Europe Looks an absolute pain in the arse to get to, minimum of 2 connections from ABZ. I think I'd rather play the Romanians.

I guess the dynamics of buying football strips have changed in recent years. When I was a kid, getting the new strip was a birthday or Christmas present, then the kits lasted 2 years minimum. No point in buying a kit at Christmas now as it’ll be obsolete in 5 months, not ideal when they’re not a kick in the arse away from £100.

I see Dundee Utd have been caught defrauding the taxpayer with dodgy R&D claims, could be on the hook for up to £2m if I'm reading this correctly: https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/07/31/dundee-united-rd-claim/

It is the new 3rd kit, heard it’s got a similar colour scheme to the 2020/21 away shirt, white with gold and black trim.

Turkish clubs are usually good for an over pay, hopefully get a few hundred k’s for him.

Kjartansson looks like a bit of a unit, I can see him being first choice defensive midfielder after a couple of weeks/months. I don’t know what it is with Palaversa, whether he loses concentration too easily or he’s just shite at passing. Or both. So frustrating to watch sometimes. Sat in the Merkland Stand/“Red Shed” for the first time in about 25 years. Didn’t see the 3 goals scored there because of the big fucking flag being waved for the whole match.

6 month loan presumably because their season ends in 6 months.

Reeks of Gordon Strachan

Happy with that. A lot of defenders on the books now though.

Yeah he had good instincts in the 6 yard box, which is not something to be sniffed at, but looked quite poor coming deep with the ball at his feet and in the air in general. Would never be anything more than a "fox in the box" to bring on with 20 minutes to go when we need a goal. Which, to be fair is probably something we need as we can't rely on Sokler or Ambrose to do that, but I'd still be wary about parting with serious money for him.

We're in the "doubling down" era, people would rather make excuses for Trump/Boris/Farage than admit they were wrong. If they're going to overlook his behaviour towards his own daughter, they're not going to give a toss about some random child from a broken home.

Does Kjartan need to be registered? My recollection from Football Manager is the foreign youngsters are exempt somehow. Also wouldn’t be surprised to see some players with a year left on their contracts whom we paid a transfer fee for leaving this summer. I think Gueye and Morris fall into that category.

I think I read he was the team captain for the Turriff game. Could just be because he was unofficially part of the coaching staff while injured last season so they wanted him involved from a leadership perspective. Does anyone know who was on the touchline for the Turriff game?

Won't somebody think of the ESG KPI's?

I'd need to know more about whether you're hand washing or using a dishwasher for your cups before making conclusions on the alleged quality decline of cups over the years.

"The more I practice, the luckier I get" - Sam Cosgrove (possibly) I remember the feedback being he was very raw but also very coachable, trained hard, listened, etc. That'll be the difference between him and your Laurent D'Jaffos. Seems to have suffered a bit after being scouted and signed as a winger by Birmingham but looks like he's carved out a decent enough career as a role player off the bench to win/hold up the ball in the final third at a fairly decent level. Not too dissimilar to Josh Magennis I suppose, although he seemed to kick on and improve more after leaving us.

1/4th winger, 4th choice winger, I'll take that.

Breda appear to have paid EUR 800k upwards. He would’ve been our 4th choice winger. Probably best we didn’t get tempted into a bidding war.

Aye-you-chee-chay? Looks like he suffered from the exceptionally poor piece of luck that the manager he fell out of favour with at Lorient was then appointed manager at his new club Sunderland.

It’ll be interesting to see how/if Alfie Bavidge fits in. I read somewhere that he tended to play in a deeper role, or even out wide, rather than the main no. 9 at both Ayr and ICT.