RicoS321

0-4 final score. Queens looked tired. A step too far for the giant coupon of Coyle.

Agree with this. With the volume of players coming in, a couple that are as close to known quantities as possible would be good. He's a very low risk signing, an upgrade on Kennedy and Richardson. He's an actual right back too, which leaves the option of switching to a back four if necessary, where he should be comfortable. He's got two goals and four assists (zero sending offs) this season, which is significantly better than McRorie. He'd do fine.

I don't know, AC Milan's ground can be a tough place to travel to and can be a real leveller.

Gary Bowyer leaves Dundee. Seemed to do alright from the outside, but now they're back in the big leagues we should expect a more experienced head to take back the reins. It'll be interesting to see if Strachan can coax his friend out of retirement.

That'd be good. Coupled with the possibility of an Ayrshire one for the SPFL place would be a great advert for the playoffs - entirely ignored our broadcasters of course.

He's having a hernia operation apparently. I'm guessing that if he has it now then he'll be able to pass a medical when the window opens. Fairly pragmatic from the club I suppose, and probably not something that you want to risk leaving too long if it can be avoided in case of further injury. Even if he's staying, it'd be just as beneficial for him not to miss any of pre season training here. Don't know the turnaround on a hernia, but probably safe to assume we won't see him again, and definitely not at Pittodrie. Coulson on his wrong foot gives me the fear, but at least it suggests that Kennedy won't be getting a new deal, which a miniscule part of me was still fearful of!

Serious lack of reporting on how this finished. Shocking. 4-3 to thistle for anyone who uses these pages as their only source of fitba results.

If it was outside and not a red then it can't be checked. I've not seen it of course. John Beaton was the ref though, so it was very obviously a foul.

We should offer them some tickets in the corporate end in return for Shinnie. Make them feel special. Probably work a treat on that type of chancer. Reminds you of the various charlatans that got hold of the Hun during their first few years as a club.

Are you seriously advocating paying the scum money?

Shame for Cove, but they didn't really look good enough for the division. Fantastic night of fitba though.

BBC couldn't be airsed with a graphic with the as it stands positions. Could you imagine them covering some eighth tier English pish with such lack of effort. Get in

More than a touch, they can go and fuck themselves. Cameron looks decent for Dundee. Seven goals with VAR would have been box of paracetamol and whisky levels of tedium. But then the momentum losing, life sucking, vacuous pish would likely have resulted in a 1-1 draw.

Absolutely tremendous half of fitba. I really like the championship Friday nights, it's great viewing, but this one has just been insane. Ochilview a cracking venue for this one too. Interesting to see if Cove can hold out too.

Me too. I'm not really a power tools type of guy, so it's often a sharp chisel or carving knife and occasionally an axe. I'm old school sinister.

Just turned it on yesterday on your recommendation, fairly decent so far. I'm not a monster also good. Have to admit, I don't get beyond the BBC when it comes to podcasts, as I've never quite worked out the best app to listen to them. I don't listen to enough either to warrant searching around, nor would I listen to enough to justify another subscription service.

Worth a look?

There are fans from a non scum team? How on earth do you expect the SFA to accommodate people from outwith Glasgow?

Duncan was very good in the second half of the Huns game. The only question mark from that game would be Duk, who massively underperformed - Duncan and Miovski did all the work in the forward areas to make up for it. Obviously he's got plenty of goodwill in the bank. I think that there's more to the Barron situation than just injury, it's almost like he's being phased out for not signing a new contract. Either way, he doesn't fit into a midfield with Clarkson as number six, and I don't see Robson shifting Clarkson further forward to accommodate Barron as number six, or in a two with Ramadani (the latter, in my opinion, is the only option if Barron is playing). If he signs a new deal on Friday, he'll be straight in! Otherwise it'll be the same team.

There are many reasons why interim managers are a necessity. Not least, there was clearly a huge desire to keep Goodwin for as long as possible and give him every chance of succeeding. You can see from Hearts and St Johnstone's lack of appointments that there isn't a whole host of decent managers out there waiting for their chance to get sacked for not finishing third in the SPFL. It's really not that attractive a position, and the strategy also limits the number of managers that we can even look at (beyond whether they actually want the job). I suspect that due to health issues and previous failed appointments, Cormack was also very keen to wait until Burrows was in the door too, and if Goodwin could have staved off being horrendously shite for another month we might have seen a more considered appointment. As it turns out, I think Robson is a really good fit for us and where we are as a club. We're in the process of implementing the recruitment strategy, which is designed to remove significant responsibility from the manager, and we also want clear pathways from youth to senior football. Robson has a lot of experience with our youth team and isn't well placed to interfere with recruitment, to the extent that Mowbray is more experienced and will have more authority than Robson in that regard. It's exactly the setup that we should have had in place for when Glass arrived (as I argued at the time, Robson should have been part of his management team ahead of Brown), but didn't. If the recruitment team can succeed in the coming windows then we have a structure there that transcends Robson and is something we can sell to future managers as a working system. Had we got an external manager, we'd likely have seceded control significantly in those areas and been in the same place again in 18 months time. In the end, it's not just experience that matters with managers, it's ability and a good dose of luck. There are plenty of experienced managers who fail due to lack of luck or because they're not actually very good.

It's not the fans that are asking for this in fairness (at present I mean, it was clearly something expected of McInnes), it's part of the club's strategy and it's very clear that there was pressure at interview stage (at least) on both Glass and Goodwin, and that there was an expectation on them to play exciting football at the Dons. I think most fans will be very happy with the level of performance and entertainment served up by Robson so far. It remains to be seen whether it's possible to be consistent and entertaining in the SPFL on a budget (I don't believe so).

We've got a massive rebuild in the summer and that needs to begin now. If we can turn two of the successful January loans into signings (MacDonald and Shinnie, one down, one to go), that'll alleviate a few problems caused by inaction in that window, but we're still way behind where we need to be. That requires a management decision now, and there's equally as great a chance of Robson getting five pastings as any other manager (unlikely, you'd have to suggest). Pragmatism has to be the key next season. It's ludicrous to expect a manager to be able to get ten new players to gel into some beautiful footballing side and the board need to learn their lesson from trying to force Goodwin to do so. Entertainment will come in the form of results only, unless we get lucky, and it'll be inconsistent too. Exciting teams need to be built over time, and they can't be maintained for long on our budget. Our best side under McInnes took about three years to build, and probably 18 months to unbuild again.

Yes, I was more thinking ahead to next season. If Robson doesn't get 3rd this season he should be sacked.

Should have waited until after third was guaranteed. We've jinxed it now. It's the right thing. Hopefully we're relaxing the strategy too, and allowing him a window or two to build his own team. The whole "third place gets millions" thing is really toxic in my view, and has a hugely negative impact on a manager trying to build a team. Robson will likely get zero patience from fans and board in that regard, but he'll know that and be up for the challenge. That'll mean we can't afford to be precious about style of play and entertainment too.

Aye, it's one hell of a final day in that league. A bit weird that it's on a Friday night, but good for neutrals. Accies and Cove battling for relegation, with Arbroath trying to avoid the playoff, five teams going for three playoff spots up the way and a league decider between Dundee and Queens Park. Not one of the ten teams really has the budget to maintain large squads, so injuries playing a crucial part in every team's season hence why nobody has been able to pull or drop away at respective ends. It's like the SPFL without the scum. Tremendous league.