vikingTON

We could - get this - not replace sand dancers with yet more sand dancers, by shunting this completely useless function out of the squad altogether. You pay a premium on any attacking player of quality in the market - which we cannot afford to do, which is why our options are generally crap and/or move on very quickly indeed. But unlike a centre forward that you need to have in order to score goals, you don't actually need to play two wingers or pay for 4 gubbins squad options. All to field a garbage 4-2-3-1 every week, that belongs in the bin alongside the scratched disc of 'LMA Manager 2007' that dates this approach. To make best use of our restricted but not miniscule resources, we need a different approach to squad building. We need more players like Wilson to build the team around a dominant physical presence in the middle of the park and use full/wing backs for width.

NB: And the first 'stat', on scrutiny, is actually even more ridiculous than the second. Morton created fully 25% more major chances last season than any other team in the division - with league champions Saint Johnstone (who created about 20 big chances in their 4 games against us alone) nowhere to be seen? That is an objectively ridiculous claim, that takes the slightest scrap of critical thinking to verify, and confirms that 'Fotmob' can be filed in the bin where they belong.

So an online scores app with zero physical footprint in the Scottish lower leagues then. And that lack of footprint is really shown by the second 'stat'. If you think that there has been a near 2x difference between Morton's performance in converting 'big (undefined) chances' to any other side in the division, then you don't understand how statistical significance works. That is an enormous outlier across 36 points of data - which is either explained more by our breathtaking attacking football (given our actual goals scored is nowhere near 2x lower) or by the tallying of 'big chances missed' being a subjective, dud measurement. I know which explanation best fits both the statistical outlier and the eye test of last season's performances.

I've seen this stat get peddled on here - but have yet to see any provenance provided for that claim. If you think that the story of last season was one of breathtaking creative football and wide play, only to be cruelly wasted by strikers, then I'm not sure what games you were watching. How many chances were we racking up in the final two games of the season against seaside league bound mince? But by this seems legit version of events, then the same logic must apply to re-signing Garrity and Shaw too. As opposed to the correct option which is to rightly ditch all of this garbage and try a different approach altogether.

More created than Nathan Shaw and Michael Garrity. The Balón d'Or is surely in the post. It is the toleration of all these flattering to deceive sand dancers that explain precisely why our league campaign was so poor. Indeed, it was pointed out in advance by yours truly as a woeful set of options with no credible record of delivering when it counted.

It's both though, as he's not going to be playing there for anything other than a hefty wage (one that Inverness - surprise! - won't be able to actually afford). That a section of our fanbase still hold a candlelit vigil for An Ambitious Backer after our last white knight threw their toys out of the pram and demanded that total duds like Laird be imposed on the club indefinitely is a separate category of fail.

Given that he was in the door in January and his system became progressively more shambolic every month until we slithered over the line, this thinking lacks any evidence. The idea that Gillespie is capable of covering the required ground with three sand dancers in front of him - if only he gets a proper pre season - is wild too. If you want to play that system, you need different central midfielders in terms of quality and/or intensity of work rate.

But it means we have players in the squad who really weren't good enough - scraping a draw against ten man Airdrie should be fooling nobody - and demonstrated all the resilience of a chocolate teapot in Stenhousemuir and Dingwall. What message does that send about the standards at the club? I don't care what Dalrada do or do not pledge - there are several players either 'in talks' or already re-signed who should have been emptied on May 2nd regardless.

I cannot believe it is 3 full weeks since that nick of an Airdrie game and there is still no actual purge list from this once proud football club.

The playing field isn't even at all, if just over a quarter of the teams in the national league system get an annual windfall while the rest (including those promoted to compete in the top flight) do not. This is a UEFA more than a Scottish football failing - but solidarity payments like these should be pooled by both the SPFL and the SFA to distribute to their entire memberships on a sliding scale.

Referee deciding that if you commit enough fouls in a game - on both sides - that cards no longer apply. With Naysmith leaving, the time is ripe to get a token of payback by wrenching 12 points off Stenny on their inevitable way back down. Better day out too, so happy with that.

Partick's strategy of selling off assets/stakes in the club to pay the wages of Watt, Chalmers etc. is reaching the end of its road. Another promotion failure only weakens our direct opposition (not a rival). St Mirren going down this season will most likely be like St Johnstone last season. I have zero interest in some extra money and four derbies, en route to their title clinching campaign. St Mirren can go down next season in 12th, after appointing another couple of donkey managers.

No, there's no evidence for Reece Lyon to be anything other than at his appropriate level. Just as Luke Donnelly was.

Nice try, but Strapp and Morton failed to agree terms when he left the first time. Lyon was released like countless other players deemed surplus to requirements by the end of their spell here. It is absolutely not spiting anything to base your transfer policy on proven evidence of performance at this football club over conjecture and bluster. Luke Donnelly 'performed' at a lower level and indeed later returned to Championship football: we shouldn't and thankfully didn't move to re-sign him at any point. What braying Arbroath fans said about his breathtaking talent for their club was irrelevant. Any move to re-sign Sean McGinty - who has played far more games at this level - would result in you having an aneurysm. So two issues: 1) The reason why people are placing Lyon in a different category is not down to objective achievement: it is subjective bias because he's a 'Morton product' and 'local boy'. This is double standards, but more importantly would be a piss-poor influence on the rational judgment of a professional football club. 2) The constant revisionism about how and why such starlets get cruelly jettisoned by the club is also one of the 527 reasons why we can Never Have Nice Things. That Imrie was having to field regular complaints about this two years ago in Q and As was not a good look; that the proposed investors had to handle similar old men yelling at clouds nonsense about guid youth products in the Cappielow meeting a few months ago was fucking wild.

Didn't see much of that experience showing, when the squad spent the last 6 weeks of the season shitting the bed in spectacular fashion though. He did have an impact against Airdrie, but we wouldn't have been in that situation had more effective leadership been in place - in the dugout, and in the squad too. A purge should have started nearly two full weeks ago and there should have been no such discussions with the vast majority of that squad.