BlueSuedeSambas

Novo Prso Boyd Boumsong Andrews

This. Which means me have another two years of this on a weekly basis to look forward to.

Ideally the majority of players we target should be younger but if a player is right for us then I don't think their age should matter that much. If we build a young team it's going to be important to have some experience in that team too. I think we are crying out for a centre half with enough experience under his belt to lead and organise our defence and you are very unlikely to find somebody with that experience who is under 25. I also think Margaro Gomis would be a fantastic addition to our midfield because he would be a good foil for MacLeod and he is a more energetic player than either Black or Hutton but should the fact he is 27 rule him out? We need to sort the scouting system out though. I agree with that.

If we weren't going to use Hemmings he would have been better off staying out on loan so he could build his fitness and confidence after a lengthy spell out. I'd like to think that we will see Hemmings and Little through the middle before the end of the season though. Both players have shown that they are capable of scoring goals at lower league level and both are young enough to improve more, hopefully individually and as a pairing.

If Gretna can score 130 goals, with them scoring 3 or more in 23 of their 36 league mactches, with a frontline of David Bingham & Kenny Deucher then I think our fans are right to expect slightly more on the park then we have seen. We've done the job, but it's been less enjoyable than it should have been. McCoist has made the correct noises about next season so I'm willing to wait and see what happens then.

Something that's always peddled on here is how we should follow the Porto, Ajax, Swansea models of buy players, develop them and then sell them for big money and Wilson fit that plan perfectly. How can we ever follow that blueprint if every player who leaves us is going to be branded a traitor by some supporters? Players come and go, that's football. So long as the player does their best for us and earns a decent return when they go them I'll never have a problem with somebody leaving.

Was Boumsong not on 40k a week?

After winning the reserve league fairly comfortably, I think players like Gallagher, Gasparatto, Wilson, Telfer, Ramsey, Walsh, Mitchell, Murdoch, Naismith & Hemmings deserve their chance. I hope they get that before the beginning of next season (Walsh aside who is injured IIRC), but if not I wouldn't be worried if they did have to start games next year. MacLeod, McKay & Little (not technically a youngster but at 23 he's hardly a veteran) have probably been our best players this season (along with McCulloch & Wallace) and they have played with a hunger and desire this season that we could only dream of seeing from Black, Sandaza, et all. Let's see if these other youngsters can follow the examples of McKay & MacLeod before we go splashing more money on big names that we might not need to.

People talk about the lack of pre season all the time, but surely as full time professional footballers the conditioning of our players is always going to be that bit better than the players that they are coming up against. I doubt the majority of SFL clubs get full time training for three or four weeks in pre season that allows to work on drills, fitness, etc, etc, yet a lot of teams we have come up against this season have looked more organised, fitter and more expansive in their play than we have. And then you have people who talk about the lack of time McCoist had to build a squad and how it was thown together. Again that's true, but most lower league Scottish clubs also have a massive overhaul of playing staff every season so that didn't leave us in a circumstance that a lot of other clubs weren't facing. Our resources have helped us get out of this league with ease, and that will be the case in SD2 and SD1 as well, but it's been far harder to watch and more of a slog than it should have been and IMO I think the fans are right to expect a bit more than we have seen.

Did I say 3-1 Hearts? I obviously meant 3-1 St Mirren.

Hearts looking comfortable so far. Think this will finish 3-1 to Hearts.

McLeish just said on Gols in Sunday that the job isn't for him just now.

Hopefully not.

He's visable aged in the past couple of years (obviously that's a common thing when a man reaches his age but I think our situation has accelerated the process in his case). I think a bit of a break is something that we all need. The past couple of years have been massively draining and I believe it's getting close to the burn out stage and that applies to everybody associated with the club from the staff to the fans. For that reason the end of the season cannot come quick enough for me.

The power of our resources means that we will have an unbroken run back to the SPL regardless. Anybody who thinks we won't is talking out there arse. If Livingston can negotiate their way from SD3 to SD1 while barely breaking stride and playing a decent brand of football then I see no reason why we can't too, especially when you consider that we have the resources and quality of player that they can only dream of even in our current unrecogonisable state.

Alright Ian, how's it going?

My cloud is an outsanding prospect.

On what basis do you say that?

Which just happened to coincide with the upcoming January transfer window. A time when he was already being linked with us and celtic and his agent went on national news and basically touted him around in public. Playing for a move perhaps? Seriously though, he'd scored something like 15 goals in 21 games in the first three quarters of the season and that's a fantastic record but he's never come close to anything like that since (for a number of reasons which are already mentioned) I do think Sandaza could be a decent player for us, and maybe with a break over the Summer and a chance to rebuild his confidence he will be, but I just don't think he will ever be reliable enough to be a first choice striker for a club the size of ours. I just think he's too much of a confidence/play in spurts type of player to be relied upon every week in the same way that say Novo and Lafferty were for us in the past. I still think McCoist needs to help Sandaza more by playing to his strengthes though. Derek McInnes was somebody who built a team around him (carried on by Lomas) and got the best out of him and he said he needs to play with a partner, so I'm not sure why we carry on with him as a lone striker.

If we are only worrying about the "real world" then why did McCoist come out and publically talk about his admiration for Ajax (a club who have a footballing philosophy and give the kids a chance) and implementing a similar set up at Rangers? More and more clubs who fall into the same bracket as us in terms of being domestic powerhouses (obviously we aren't at the moment) but relative minor players in Europe are adopting this approach and it seems to be working so there must be something to be said for it. I see no reason why success and an idealistic approach cannot go hand in hand in the medium to long term.

I know you are talking about a football philosophy as much as anything, but a huge part of that philosophy resolved around throwing money at players rather than developing from within and that eventually played it's part in forcing the club in to the banks hands and started a downward spiral that has ultimately resulted in us being where we are now. I don't think it needs to be a foreign manager as such to remould a club (look at what Billy Davies is doing at Forest he isn't foreign and Kenny Jackett was the guy who started the ball rolling at Swansea) but I think the circumstances for making a change of that level are better now than they were when PLG came in and that's why so many people constantly push that viewpoint on here.

In the long term I think we could do both. That's certainly what I hope the club are striving for anyway, especially with McCoist saying that he admires the Ajax blueprint.

I was somebody who thought Black & Sandaza would have been good players for us at SPL level, nevermind SD3 level, but I don't think they have the mentality for it. Kevin Kyle basically said as much today and he's been in the trenches with them for the entire season

It's only so negative on here tonight becuase the wounds of last week are still fresh and, in terms of performance, there was very little in the way of positives to take from the game today. Getting the win was great, and much needed after last weekend, but people wanted to see a bit more urgency and energy and after a decent opening spell we fell away to the route one, slow tempo football that so many people are starting to get sick of. There was one point today when we went something like 50 minutes without a shot on target. When you play that badly people are hardly going to be jumping for joy.