vikingTON

Can we do better - I'm really not seeing any outstanding external candidates out there, that I'd be changing for right now. And by your own argument the internal option doesn't seen to bringing anything to the table. A manager's position can and often does become untenable regardless of that, but we're not at that point yet. Dalrada have over us (as yet) next to nothing that the MCT membership cannot freely remove. The partnership is due for discussion in January and I'm yet to see a persuasive argument for persisting beyond a basic 'money = full-time fitba = ambishun' pitch. I am somewhat concerned if and when GMFC is handing out any major contracts that extend beyond June 2026, because that's a cheque that we might not be able - or want - to fulfil minus Dalrada. There's a conflict of interests there, when prudent stewardship of the club would have us committing to nothing other than regen contracts beyond Dalrada's legal commitment. I'd like to have a successful 50-50 partnership between investors and MCT running the club, but the refusal of Dalrada to take even nominal value shares and the refusal of their hand-groomed chairman to take a normal accountability role raises alarm bells for me. I'm pretty confident that this level of informal, vibes-based scrutiny would not be tolerated within Brian Bonar's own company - so why should it be an acceptable method of running GMFC?

And Duffy's record was so great, that despite Chick Young touting him for the Scotland job (yes, really.. ) he actually went on to get... hee-haw other jobs in Scottish football management, above the joke outfit known as 'Clyde'. We have certainly had far worse managers than the boomers' great white knight Duffy, but let's be realistic. If he had taken over the dire situation on and off the park when slaphead Gus was finally binned, we'd have gone immediately down and would be in at best the 4th tier of Scottish football right now. And while there's no denying that Imrie is currently making a total hash of working with more resources, we also remain a total zoo behind the scenes as well. Those 'cosmetic' announcements and self-declared positive change from the Bonar interview a few weeks ago really aren't cutting the mustard, when there's no publicly accountable structure for even basic financial management and administration at GMFC right now.

We were shite before McPherson or Corr started playing though, this has been a rinse and repeat issue at Cappielow since being dominated on day 1 by a mediocre Dunfermline side. Our away record and performances have actually been reasonable.

I completely agree, with the addition that the pace of our play is far, far too slow to cause serious problems even when we do acheive the hallowed aim of 'playing the ball through the thirds'. It is being done at a glacial pace, and no defender (e.g. a centre back) steps forward to push the team 10 yards up the park quickly. It is just possession for possession's sake, similar to Johannson with a (usually) better defensive shape. The flip side to that is that every single away team at Cappielow this season has had the red carpet laid out for them to spend long periods on the ball and have a lovely Saturday afternoon, because we have too many sand dancers who either can't or won't press. Though given the ease at which Corr, Longridge etc. cough up possession from basic punts up the park, even a good press wouldn't necessarily solve our problems.

Let's not forget that Boyes was apparently the root of our problems last season. It's almost as if a handful of high profile, visible howlers doesn't outweigh the ability to stroll through the majority of games and win 70% of your first ball challenges. Not one defender has stepped up to Boyes' level, never mind Baird, and so we cough up cheap goals from almost nothing.

No and yes respectively. He's a professional footballer strutting around the place with that stupid Lord Farquaad look, who then makes himself as narrow as an HB pencil in trying to block the second goal. I also don't feel sorry for Sonny Hart because unless there's some screaming injustice at Cappielow, he is clearly miles out of his depth to not break into the team ahead of that. Tbh I have zero sympathy for anyone at the club right now. Of course, Imrie is personally recovering from an unimaginable tragedy. But the first team squad he has been entrusted to build and our larger, Douglas Rae only more incompetent 'ambishun' project are thoroughly dislikable. There is little serious competition for places: it's one jobber in, one jobber out on a tombola system. The only player I think who has been harshly treated (slightly) in the current lot is Blues. Storer has been blameless over the piece too, but his starting place is guaranteed anyway.

Looking forward to our 'false position table' being updated, on account of the rest of the division cruising off into the distance.

Dunfermline at home/Broadfoot defending levels of embarrassment.

Garrity did nothing in our last home game, Moffat came on and was much better. Moffat started last week and was anonymous, so... Imrie talked about a lack of quality service from wide players to the front two, but this is hitting a head against a brick wall territory. All the wide players put together likely struggled to break much more than 10 assists last season and with fewer goals: this lack of quality was entirely foreseeable then. It doesn't ultimately matter which ones play and which don't - it is guaranteeing mediocrity at best. We need to change what type of service the forwards are relying on: Control the middle of the park and play the final ball from there, and it is not acceptable to just abandon this since Ali Crawford got injured while we have a glut of central midfielders on the books too.

You've undoubtedly earned your right to an opinion. One issue I'd raise however is the idea that Dalrada are pumping money into an underperforming club. At least since the Raes left, there has been no such underperformance: we scrapped our way from the play-off against Montrose and Airdrie to solid consolidation under Imrie, always with a flimsy squad at times and in certain areas. I don't think Championship football would have been sustainable in the long term without Dalrada, but there was no underperformance. The underperformance is now happening under Dalrada, and in my view is more risible given the refusal to accept any other purpose for capital investment than just paying yet another mediocre mercenary to pad out a midtable squad. The grand plan of finishing 4th and winning promotion off 3 play-off games was never credible. You are entirely right to flag the risk of the club being left with expensive commitments if the funding gets cut off for whatever reason. How can an auditor seriously sign off GMFC's next or subsequent set of accounts as a going concern, based on a pinky promise relationship? We need to be extremely careful about entangling the club in any expenses that its (almost non-existent) balance sheet can't cover from summer to summer. And if that means we lose the Adeloyes and Nathan Shaws of the world, then so be it.

"Apparent glee" just shows you embarrassing yourself now. Unlike yourself, I spent a large amount of money to watch that drivel today, like the other (diminishing IMO) three hundred odd away fans, none of whom were as enthralled by our performance as your distant hot takes would allow for. If I was so gleeful at expecting defeat, I'd have... err... went to the pub today instead and saved my money. Rancid take. Here's a sample slze for you: 1 league win in 11 games. It's garbage, and no amount of dancing around the facts and whataboutery regarding refereeing decisions changes that reality.

Would like to know what 'window dressing' is now on offer, when at least to public viewing we are still yet to appoint a Finance Director or clarify what replaces the Chief Executive position lost months ago too. A cynic might say it suits John Laird as the go-between from GMFC to Dalrada to keep responsibilities nice and vague. But given the increased scrutiny of both the SFA and SPFL over club governance (see Hamilton; Edinburgh City), the risk of us coming a cropper over some daft oversight issue are in my view too high. I think it's high time to see some evidence towards that. Because so far, it seems as if the mantra of banging heads together to work for the same purpose, seems to involve all of Dalrada's favoured sons remaining in the building because reasons, while nothing else changes. We should all have our say on the future direction of the club, but if the default option is to be a Dougie Rae level doped-up clownshow again then I want no part of it.

I mean you did say just yesterday that there was no reason to change from last week's lineup. There was such a reason and today's insipid performance was entirely in line with the first half display last week. Imrie's fault is in not addressing these problems while using refereeing decisions as cover, though changing Shaw, Garrity and Lyall for today at least suggests some dissatisfaction with the players. I'm not convinced that playing with two forwards is the issue (as we usually don't) - it's the fucking garbage 4-3-3 that needs binned. When we played Brophy and Adeloye with Crawford behind them at Firhill, we actually created more chances than any other game I've watched this season, by having a narrow team that could overrun the middle of the park. Our current 4-3-3 is dung because there is no area of the park that we can ever dominate using that shape. The wingers aren't good enough, the midfield (especially with a poor Wilson) aren't good enough, and the back line will cough up just enough chances to stop us winning. Adeloye and/or Brophy will have no service regardless of their work effort as the central striker, which is why we end up obsessing over the outcome of 1 shot on target or 1 disallowed 'goal' during our cycle of pish draws.

Ageing like milk in the Kalahari Desert, this take, as our results inevitably regress to the standard of performance actually demonstrated since August. Though a single shot on target today was an advance on our performance against Dunfermline on opening day.

We didn't concede right away though - there were about 5 or 6 different opportunities to either intercept, tackle or fucking leather the ball out of play between Storer's save and the ball into the box for the winner. Our failure to do that is an additional error on top of Delaney's.

But let's not stop with the first team: the entire club is hopelessly adrift at the moment. We used to be punching slightly above our weight, which made the occasional stinking display somewhat tolerable. We are now just a standard, bloated mess of a Championship club, chucking money at mercenaries without any strategy or long-term vision. Why should fans pay over and above their season ticket for this?

The key performance indicator now, as judged by Imrie a few weeks ago in the Tele, is that "we're playing the ball through the thirds". The facts that we do so at a glacial pace, with no reliable precision around the defence and create nothing if the ball reaches the final third are all irrelevant. I strongly suspect that Imrie is once again taking being overlooked for a bigger job as a sign to try and overhaul our playing style. Once again, it is a failure. And once again, this obsession with playing any two completely garbage sand-dancers out wide is a failure. We scored with our only shot and serious attempt on target today, and there are poorer results incoming before we get all the dross at Cappielow in December.

Moore should be in for Corr when fit and the team shape needs to be changed to stop us being unable to press without the ball. Our luck on both counts is going to run out soon.

Creag Little and Logan O'Boy turned out for Largs Thistle as they CRASHED to defeat in *insert pointless, junior cup 3 here* at home to battling minnows 'Greenock Juniors' (Ed: check this please). O'Boy left the park after a completely anonymous hour playing in an attacking midfield role against a team two levels beneath his current club, which suggests that yet again the cruel and heartless decision to release a promising Morton youth starlet will be fully vindicated.

How is Shaw going to beat a man on the outside? Using all his silky skills or lightning pace? Similarly, Moffat has never been an actually effective winger at this level, which why a dung Dunfermline side were happy to let him go. The area where both might be effective is playing centrally, behind and linking up with Brophy and/or Adeloye too. That's where Moffat actually looked okay at the very end of last season, and where we suddenly seem reliant on Crawford who was maligned for the same underlying reason. That may leave our squad bloated with too many options for the same role, but here we are. Having two winger positions in the formation is the problem - how our rotating cast of League One standard options play that role is irrelevant.

My main concern on first thought is that our Dalrada-based ambishun model seems to be just throwing extra money around without a coherent plan. For example, Comrie is likely to be a good squad addition but was right back a starting position that needed upgrading (see left centre back or indeed left back)? Not so much.

Speaking of which...

Echoing the above, I'd rather the major sponsor understood that a true legacy at this club would be to deliver the (unfortunately for them) grubby work of creating a professional business fit for the 21st century, that our last rich fan dreamer neglected for the best part of 20 years long before they (much appreciated) showed interest. If Brian Bonar could deliver a fourth side to the ground with credible hospitality and/or other revenue potential, then name it after him rather than just signing some largely forgettable mercenaries. Leaving that hopeful dream aside though: was there not supposed to be some energy efficiency benefit to the original partnership? What are the tangible results of that? It's also hard not to wonder about Laird's priorities and whether they align with any long-term interests of the football club, given his seemingly semi-detached and unaccountable position too.

I'd like to know why, if our budget is competitive, we are still being subjected to seaside league level dross like Shaw, Moffat and Garrity on a weekly basis, with our attacking play now seemingly reliant on Ali Crawford to do anything of note other than solo goals from Brophy. None of our wide or creative players would get a game for any of our supposed play-off rivals, and Delaney/Longridge definitely wouldn't either. That's half a team on the park today that are patently not good enough to deliver the target supposedly set.