vikingTON

I asked you roughly 24 hours ago what factual point you were disputing with your 'aye keep telling yourself that retort'. Your subsequent Catherine wheel of fail brings us no closer to an actual fucking answer. The idea that you're in any position to lower standards is laughable, your abysmal contributions speak to that. The only question is how long it will take you to join Dr. Zhivago and Ed de Ball in the dustbin of forum history.

If you're not a complete moron and understand that all managers make errors in judgment, of course it is. The only test is whether the manager's collective decisions amount to a net positive or a net negative - and only a complete moron (you, again) would actually dispute that this has been the case. I couldn't care less if one or two deserving players fall by the wayside in the name of collective progress, because I'm not hanging out of any of their arses. GMFC is a professional football club and not a social club. The problem for those who were braying endlessly about 'releasing' a former POTY (in what nick of a team, btw?) is that the market has fully vindicated that decision, what with it being the last week of September tomorrow and Strapp being without a club. The widespread tears and snotters about signing Waters instead look utterly foolish now. That was entirely the correct decision - though we are still badly lacking a backup option.

Telling myself... what exactly? What is the factual issue you'd like to dispute? Be extremely specific.

Was he not training with the burners a couple of months ago? No harm to Strapp at all, but Imrie got a huge amount of pelters for making his decision in the spring and he stated (IIRC - at one of the fan events) that we would see where Strapp ends up by the end of the summer. Well here we are, and that judgment looks vindicated. A club would sign a player with an already known injury, if they viewed it as a key addition to the squad. Perhaps a call that Imrie deserves subsequent credit for, that we can trade for the Broadfoot weird yin.

While a straightforward comparison of the scorelines today shows the stupidity of the view that a youth player, pretty capable though he is, can single-handedly change the fortunes of a team.

We just lost our last two league games by a collective scoreline of 1-7, at home, to significantly worse sides (on paper at least) than Dundee United. The only thing required right now is to try and stop that rot and it has happened a week (or two) sooner than could be reasonably expected. Couldn't give a toss about a missed opportunity for 3 points - getting 1 up there is a big step in the right direction.

Having someone 'useful' around the squad now (which King undeniably is) has to be traded against the benefit of playing regular, competitive, 90 minute football. I'd expect us to be down an experienced central midfielder or two in 12 months' time - preparation now is needed to help King to step up reliably instead of just the occasional cameo.

He's scored 2 goals in 36 appearances at this level, which is not bad at all but makes your claim unrealistic. The reality is that unless the middle of the squad gets completely hollowed out by absences, King wouldn't get too much game time here this season but can get it elsewhere. I'd prefer not to have signed Wilson and prioritised support elsewhere, but that cover needed for injuries and until French signed has now left us overloaded in central midfield. I doubt we'd have seen King play more than 180 minutes between now and Christmas other than the Kelty game tbh.

I could swear blind that Duffy added Stefan McCluskey to his usual coterie of ringers this summer - apparently he's inexplicably* ended up at Kelty instead. * only explicable in a coaching/doing the kit man job capacity - at League 1 level.

He's a central midfielder in a squad that has got about 17 of them now. There's no actual evidence to support the roles you're shunting him into, Jim McInally style. And presumably the club wouldn't be letting King go out on loan of Crawford is injured for an extended period of time. That's information that they have at their disposal.

He could certainly get competitive game time at a higher standard than an absolute nick of an outfit like Clyde. Presumably their clear effort to run as our tribute act (McLean, McCluskey, Millar - Duffy until a few weeks ago) explains the choice. I'd rather we used our Annan link even if they're well up against it in League One this season.

Kelty at home on weekend of October 14th.

Power was head and shoulders above everyone else on the park.

Think that King was one of our better players today but could still have done a more. There was a lot of playing the ball back where it came from when against this opponent at least, there was much more to drive forward with confidence. The midfield shape also caused that IMO: it's no coincidence King was more effective and pushing further up the park after the first two subs. For the winning goal there was an audible shout telling McGrattan to turn and actually go at the Elgin defence. I think that shout came from Blues - it was exactly what was needed when so much of our play before was comfortable possession football but ultimately passing over responsibility to somebody else on the park to beat their man.

The first one was attributed to something called 'Regan Mimnaugh' AFAIK

While I can see the 'defensive winger' element to his game there's no genuine ability and his first touch (and technique for striking a ball - I've never seen a professional player produce so many mishits) is brutal. In today's game, we were effectively playing with 10 men while he was on the park.

The two apprentices should be on the bench next week, with Bearne and Boyd in the stand. Both are useless.

Whenever we've get Waters into the final third with the ball, Elgin have coughed up space for all our midfielders to take. Why we didn't just focus on that side of the park when we only have one full back is a mystery.

We're overthinking this to a ridiculous degree with this formation. A simple 4-4-2 with an actual forward to support Muirhead, two wide players and two full-backs who can take the ball forward effectively would be strolling this. We have too many players behind the ball in possession, Boyd/Bearne are lost and most of the free space is being given to Wilson who can't do much with it.

What is the added value of this 'productive relationship', if the club can just produce content* and the paper will print it anyway because it has literally nothing else of value to fill its garbage publication? It therefore doesn't matter whether the club has a friendly relationship with the Tele in terms of engaging with the community through a single, crap local media source. Any key information will be published regardless. Which takes us to an issue that your point of view has to address: what behaviour would sanction a break in cooperation with the newspaper? Are the Tele allowed to publish anything it wants about the club in perpetuity, on the grounds that they're Valued Local Media? As owners of the football club, I see no reason why we should welcome a rag that is undermining the precarious foundations of successful fan ownership model through false reporting. That very real cost has to be recognised alongside this increasingly intangible sum for how the Tele relationship benefits the club. And even if they only balance each other out, there's still value in punitive action. * not that there's too much of that to reproduce so far this season

What content would they be using to maintain their current level of coverage? They would have their own vacuous thoughts and fan letters. It's notable that your argument has now warped so much that it's flipped completely on its head. First you were hand-wringing that the Tele needs to be kept on board for the club to engage with its vast and important readership; now you're saying that GMFC denying access would not substantially change the level of coverage. It can't be both things at once. But if we were to take your new argument at face value, then the principal losers from a removal of privileged club content would only be the very journalists and editorial team who have damagingly misrepresented the club for their own interests. Making them Scrabble around to fill their pages is itself an appropriate punishment.

A cup game at home to likely the worst team in the entire SPFL is unlikely to prove too much for anyone tbh. Our first team needs whatever confidence boost they can get too, but if we're comfortable - and we really should be comfortable - then there's every reason to give them a run out.

Well no, because Morton content produced by interviews with players and management is their entire halfway credible pack section of the newspaper, Saturday and Tuesday-Friday. Other than expanding the Gisbey Gazette, that's 4 editions out of 6 for which there can be no content (based on existing types) without voluntary engagement by the club. They should get absolutely none and be forced to pretend that 'the joon-yurs', cricket and other such utter nonsense are legitimate items of interest. There'd be only one loser in that contest and it wouldn't be GMFC.