dunning1874

Crawford being booked for being fouled was another good one, and there was one in the second half where Quitongo chested the ball down without touching anyone and was penalised, seemingly for backing into a non-existent defender. Has there been any comment from the SFA or SPFL about refereeing during the World Cup? We already know the standard of refereeing in lower leagues has been destroyed by VAR hoovering up double the number of refs for the top flight every weekend, but why are Grade 1 referees sitting at home while the top flight is having a break for a month?

One of the many in the category of having a good first half then losing the run of himself in the second, several shanked clearances and misplaced passes which put us back under pressure. At 9 league games unbeaten, this is now our best unbeaten run in 15 years, having had separate runs of 9 and 11 unbeaten in 06/07. The last time it happened in the second tier was 89/90 when we went 10 unbeaten, but 9 of those were draws so the last run as good at this level was 86/87, when we went 12 unbeaten with 9 wins. Our best run of league results in 36 years. What a manager.

Putting it on the defence as a whole being caught cold is harsh: for all that none of them other than Grimshaw covered themselves in glory in the second half, the goal was entirely Baird's fuck up. However Baird has had an excellent season and I'd never have thought it would take 17 games for him to sell a goal, so it'd be harsh to hang him out to dry for it. That was the worst we've played since Firhill and we were hanging on for a point by the end, but we're inevitably going to see this run come to an end at some point so if we escape from away games playing like we did in that second half with a point then fine. I do think though that was the first time Imrie has undoubtedly got his subs (or lack of them) wrong. I'm a big McGrattan fan but even at that I've always seen why he's the first one to get subbed of the front three when Quitongo is generally a good outball, gives defences a physical nightmare and is capable of tearing past them with pace and power, while Muirhead can conjure a goal from absolutely nowhere. Today though neither of them were remotely involved in that second half and McGrattan was the only outball we had, having already tried switching Quitongo and Muirhead round which changed absolutely nothing. Kabia for Quitongo would undoubtedly have been a better sub than taking McGrattan off there. With Gillespie have a stinker, Blues invisible and Crawford on a booking we really could have done with King getting a go in the middle for any of them as well.

Official Dundee statement: No fucking about with 25 point deductions this time, get them expelled and they can rejoin the Midland League so they have another eight local derbies to humiliate themselves in.

McGowan is surely involved, as the police have mentioned a 35 year old resident in Airdrie. It's the same investigation that started last December into irregular betting on yellow cards when Dundee lost 1-0 to Hearts, a game where Griffiths and McGowan were both booked. Even if this doesn't result in criminal charges, if there is any evidence that they've been involved in spot fixing their professional careers are surely over. The SFA have gotten harsher on gambling on football in general, they'll go harsher still for betting on games involving your own team and with that in mind any player found to be actively spot fixing is likely going to get a ban measured in years rather than games, and probably on involvement in football full stop rather than just from playing. In their 30s they aren't coming back from that.

Today's Tele says the Griffiths rumour isn't true. Good.

Imrie has a track record in turning underperforming players around, but he's not a miracle worker and there is simply nothing to suggest Leigh Griffiths is good enough for the Scottish Championship in 2023. Even discounting the baggage to look solely at football reasons (which many people will understandably be unwilling to do) the way he stunk the place out at Falkirk and his humiliating attempts to win himself a contract in Australia mean the questions to be asked about him are not remotely comparable to whether Imrie can improve Robbie Muirhead, or whether he could get a Championship player out of Jai Quitongo. He's at a far lower ebb with far fewer signs of being a good footballer than either of those two at their lowest points. The Leigh Griffiths of 2017 and earlier is never coming back. It's natural to see this and think of Garry O'Connor as a comparison, with the common features of a player who was once a terrific centre forward to the point they were the best or among the best strikers in Scotland with international caps and big transfer fees throughout their career, suddenly finding themselves absolutely done in their early 30s when their natural talent should have had them still playing at a very good level. I think Derek Riordan is a better comparison to Griffiths though. For all that O'Connor was dreadful for us and it was too late to salvage his career, he at least had the attitude to accept responsibility for where he'd ended up and why. It was too late to do anything about the deterioration of his body, but he at least accepted his choices were the reason he was in that position and made an effort to change it, he just couldn't physically ever get fit again. Compare that with Riordan who had a similar fall from grace at the same time and took no responsibility whatsoever. None of his actions contributed to where he ended up, it was all down to Gordon Strachan not giving him a fair chance at Celtic five years earlier. As none of it was his fault he saw no reason to do anything differently, he still went on getting pished and not turning up for training all the time. He didn't turn up having arranged a trial at Morton that season, the last shot at a full-time football at this level he would ever get, but no, it was always someone else's fault that poor wee Derek wasn't the best player in the world and getting the offers he merited on that basis. Griffiths is the same as Riordan. Nothing is his fault, he still believes football owes him and he doesn't need to take any responsibility for his inability to find a contract. He will never improve or change. Avoid like the plague.

Also, I know that even aside from the rolling several years long fallout after the fact, some fans of other Scottish clubs looked at us having even a fan run night to celebrate a team being top of the league in 1979 as a bit tinpot. Would love to see what anyone who thought that makes of this.

In as brief an explanation as possible, Colin Weir ("lifelong Thistle fan" who had never set foot in Firhill prior to his lottery win) bought 55% of the club with the intention of handing it over to the fans but died shortly after doing so. Their fans set up an MCT equivalent for the purpose of receiving the shares, but with the sole director of the company holding the shares also being chair of the club board (Jacqui Low) she could basically decide herself whether she wanted to hand them over and whatever the motives clearly didn't want to. Therefore she's found some patsies to resurrect another essentially defunct supporters organisation which has had no democratic input from their fanbase whatsoever, the PTFC Trust, and has handed the shares to them instead. The criteria for being a beneficiary of this Trust is having had a season ticket in the last three seasons and there was no communication with the beneficiaries prior to the self-appointed Trustees accepting the shares, and they have secured the incredible oversight with this definitely real fan ownership of a grand total of one seat on the board of the club while keeping the whole existing board in place, Jacqui Low as chair included. It's some laugh.

Was preparing to say that the only positive from that half was not conceding, then we smash and grab a goal out of nowhere. I still think we could do with Pignatiello on to give the midfield some more balance, for anyone in midfield or attack other than Crawford. None of those five players have done anything wrong to deserve being hooked at half time, but we need to give the defence more protection.

The correct course of action is obviously to buy the Norseman, and the land between it & the gym, and the area between the back of the shed & Arnold Clark, then build a series of walkways connecting the new improved Norseman directly to the Cowshed via the new adjacent beer garden. Half-time access compulsory.

This is really promising stuff. There's a feeling that the club is moving in the right direction off the pitch and that would have been a totally ridiculous concept as recently as 2 years ago. Getting a managerial appointment right and seeing good results on the park can change so much of the feeling at a club and lead to people turning a blind eye to negatives or overstating positives, but it can also overshadow good work behind the scenes. I really think MCT and the club board deserve a lot of credit for how things are going now. The Dalrada deal is increasingly looking like a game changer for the club and it's something that would simply never have happened with Golden Casket in charge. We'll see in time what they have in mind for land on Sinclar Street, but the idea that the Raes could even conceive of capital expenditure on the area around Cappielow to generate revenue would have been laughable. The speed at which we've gone from 20 years of neglect to improvements in every area is really commendable.

It's incredible he lasted as long as he did. He could have been sacked several times throughout that 11 years and pound for pound he's been one of the worst performing managers in the country in that time. Seeing what a good manager like Stewart Petrie can do with a part-time club with a far smaller budget must have Peterhead fans wondering what could have been if they'd appointed someone competent during the years they were throwing full time wages at part time players.

I'd expect the defence to be left alone and Pignatiello to go straight into midfield for Gillespie. He's not going to be able to dictate things the way Gillespie can whereas Grimshaw might be able to contribute more with the ball at his feet, but I don't see Imrie wanting to disrupt a defence conceding so few goals. Pignatiello should still be able to do the defensive job better than any of the other options like putting King in, or bringing Kabia in to move Crawford deeper and McGrattan into the middle (which would disrupt the whole midfield and attack rather than just the one position).

We should have been at least 3-0 up at half-time there, even discounting the penalty appeals. We destroyed them out wide with Strapp and Grimshaw both having great games, Milne in particular had no idea how to cope with Quitongo until he realised he could foul him with impunity. I was worried we were going to be punished for how wasteful we were and we didn't look nearly as much like opening them up regularly in the second half. Fitzpatrick being a greedy bastard when they broke at 2-1 was a huge letoff, but we got what we deserved in the end.