Slim

Not writing it off, but willing to sacrifice it if we can get a manager with a long-term plan to build a team around a core group of players who will be the spine of the team for the next 8 years. We can't go from qualifying campaign to qualifying campaign picking 30-something Championship players and whoever is warming Celtic's bench. For example, look at our defence. We can build a squad around Kieran Tierney, Andrew Roberston, Scott McKenna, John Souttar, Liam Lindsay and Callum Paterson. Use the next campaign whether it be Nation's League or Euro 2020 qualifying to get them to gel together, and we should see the benefits later. Replicate in all the other positions. As long as we continue to pick players in their late 20's with single digit caps, we'll never progress. We haven't had a manager with a long-term plan in my living memory. As long as the next campaign is always the priority, we'll always be stuck with the safe option, filling our squads with dross like Russell Martin, Chris Martin, Gordon Greer, etc.

I like how we can appoint someone as Performance Director to oversee the development of an entire generation of the nation’s football players but we can’t let him be trusted to coach a selection of existing professionals a dozen times a year because he’s a toxic, racist cunt. McLeish would be fine in a caretaker role, but we should be appointing someone now with a target and plan of qualifying for the 2022 World Cup.

I think it's possible to claim an element of success even in the absence of trophies, depending on the situation. I don't think we're there yet. Success for us would involve at least going into matches against Celtic (and probably Rangers too) expecting to win. If we were to go toe to toe with Celtic, obtain 90 points and miss out on the title on goal difference, that would be a fair claim for success for us. The league being over before the split, and relying on luck and Celtic not turning up to get at least a point from them is not really success, we're just the best of the unsuccessful teams.

Can’t understand why we didn’t chuck on a couple of subs at 4-1 up with 30 minutes to go. Could have rested McGinn, or taken off Shinnie/McLean to put a bit more fight in the middle of the pitch, some fresh legs to keep the momentum going and keep them on the back foot. They were there to be absolutely crushed.

We should make an approach for Vahid Halilhodži?. Has qualified for the World Cup with Ivory Coast, Algeria and Japan, including taking Algeria into the knockout stages. I'm sure there's another one or two of these national team mercenary managers who consistently take unfashionable teams to major tournaments that we could also consider.

McGinn’s great in that he just needs to steal a single yard to be able to deliver a dangerous cross into the box, even from difficult angles. GMS seems to need at least a quarter of the length of the pitch and to run at full pelt to get past the full back and get a cross in.

Loan goalkeeper will be Freddie Woodman from Newcastle according to The Sun. Was at Killie last season. They also say Scott Wright is going on loan to St Johnstone.

I’d be pissed off at Steve Clarke if I was a Killie fan. They absolutely dominated the midfield in the first half. Taking off a midfielder for a striker at half time was idiotic on their part. Probably wouldn’t have made much difference to the overall result though.

McKenna's breakthrough, how much of it was him forcing his way into the starting line up on the back of good showings in the U21's and in training and how much of it was an aimless punt by McInnes after a 3 game winless run culminating by an absolute roasting by Motherwell? All credit to McKenna for taking his chance, but I'm not sure him getting the chance in the first place was completely down to a natural progression of his talent rather than the manager running out of ideas. If we weren't ripped to shreds by Louis Moult in that one game, I'm not sure McKenna would have even stepped on the pitch for us this season. There's an argument for giving young players a run in the first team, occasionally you'll get one who looked ordinary in the second string becoming a standout in the first team. Certainly more to gain from trying that than bringing in fringe players from lower league English teams then being obliged to give them game time.

O’Connor wants to follow in the footsteps of Ash Taylor by inexplicably turning down a new contract to go and battle relegation with Morecambe or a team of similar standing. No great loss, but with Arnason probably also going and hopefully Reynolds going, we have a bunch of defenders to recruit.

I’d rather give Harvie some game time, perfect opportunity to give him 30 minutes.

Not sure if we sorted out the work permit yet. He played in Dubai, quite well too, but obviously no UK work permit required for that.

All the spare cash will be for the stadium, it’s far from being fully funded.

Just waiting on the work permit. He’s training with the team in Dubai.

Tansey to Ross County on loan according to EE. Midfielder incoming?

I make a mean chicken & chorizo gumbo, and beef pho.

I doubt we’ll do any business other than replacing Dominic Ball with another loanee.

I’d imagine the main reason he turned them down is because they weren’t willing to pony up the cash to buy out his contract and wanted him to sacrifice his integrity by trying to resign and make his departure overly acrimonious. Either way, I’m glad we don’t have to choose a new manager from the list of likely candidates.

They’re women in their 40’s/50’s on an online dating site, they’re probably feeling extremely self-conscious about showing their faces. Especially if they’re widowers/divorcees who haven’t dated for 20-odd years and are worried about the outdated perception that online dating is for desperate losers.

Tony Docherty for me out of that lot.

He still hasn't actually said that he is not interested in the Rangers job. That I have seen anyway.

Earliest games I can remember are the 5-0 home win against St Mirren in the late 80's (the first game I went to), Charlie Nicholas got a hat trick, Paul Mason got one of the goals, and I think McLeish was the other scorer. That and the Skol Cup final 2-1 win over the Huns. Can't remember which game came first.

Play him through the middle and give him plenty of service like Hayes/McGinn did, then he'll score goals. Force him to play out wide or drop deep to get the ball or have wingers who'd rather run up the South Stand stairs and buy the opposition full back a pie instead of trying to get around the outside of him and whip a cross in and he's going to be ineffective.

Another on a (much) lesser scale, Joe Shaughnessy. Seemed to be let go because he wasn't great as a right back despite it being fairly obvious to everyone that his best position was in the middle. Not a world beater by any means but a better central defender than Ash Taylor, Anthony O'Connor and Mark Reynolds at a lower cost.