ascender

I've dropped them an email myself as a "concerned" member and sharesave participant....

Do we really need two players sitting, particularly in the SPL? Assuming everyone else around him plays to their ability, I'd have thought Thomson on his own would be more than capable of holding the midfield. I know what you're all saying though as Barry does want to come deep the whole time, but I just think if we go with that system, we're almost wasting a midfield berth. I really think its time to change the balance of our midfield and start from scratch in terms of ideas & lineup.

What I don't understand is that the Miller thing has been rumoured since the start of the year? Some on FF said it was a done deal back then, way before any of the papers picked up the story. Derby were relegated; there doesn't appear to be interest from any other clubs; Miller wants to come back to the club and work with Smith again. Yet we can't agree personal terms? I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but none of this adds up. Are we just waiting so we can sign someone else at the same time to lessen the blow of signing Miller?

I don't have a problem with us signing players from the SPL, particularly younger Scottish ones. I also don't have a problem with us paying the going rate for these guys as that's the market we're in now. But like everyone else has said, we need to be supplementing these players with a few special ones, who will cost us more money and who we need to uncover through a decent scouting network unless we are willing to pay silly money on fees and wages again.

Talks have stalled with Miller but we're expected to pick them up again this week. Miller can't be too keen to come back here after all if he's wanting more money. That's the problem Gribz, unless he's going to drop one or more of his favourites, WS is going to struggle to fit a creative midfielder in to the lineup.

I think if anything Miller coming will mean we're more liable to play him and Boyd up front. If we sort out our creativity problems in midfield, we should be able to play any of our strikers up front in a pairing and be scoring for fun.

And so Walter's wet dream of fielding 10 centre halves in the outfield position comes a step closer.

It really is the silly season. One minute there's a rumour that the deal's hit a snag, the next is that its been finalised. Having said that, its strange how this deal has been "nearly completed" for weeks, maybe months now. I agree with what's been said recently. Even though we're paying over the odds as he's in England, there must be better ways for us to spend money like that if we had a good scouting system in place.

And according to the Record we're willing to listen to any offers for Webster. Now I know its the Record, but if true, it might back up the rumours which suggested we had agreed to sign Webster when the loan deal was done and so couldn't back out of it now. Or its the Record just taking a flyer and putting 2+2 together to get 5 again.

Real Radio reckon we're after Berra now. Vlad will never sell to us will he? Regardless, have we not supposedly been interested in Berra and Lee Wallace for some time now? One of those rumours which won't go away? If successful, when added to our current squad + Webster + Reynolds, is Wattie looking to play centre backs in every position next year?

I think that's an absolute steal of a price for us if he manages to get fit and stay fit. So I'm assuming that the medical staff have faith he just needs to get a good pre-season under his belt, or at the very least he's on some sort of a structured pay as you play deal for the first year?

Why bother?

Cousin will be gone, JCD might also go. If we play two up top then things are looking OK for Boyd, bearing in mind that Novo seems to make more of an impact when playing on the right.

Apparently we're after Velicka for 1M and have offered Gow + cash for Kyle Lafferty. As for Miller, he's still expected to sign, this time before Monday. Not sure why that one is being dragged out. And Stoke still want McCulloch.

I agree. While he's not the finished article yet, he does seem to have something special about him and be able to make some stunning saves which not every top drawer keeper can do. I think we'd have to spend a lot to get someone as good as him and as young (relatively speaking) as he is.

I'll try to get my team done today. Main problem when looking at this is that so many of the teams could go either way and storm the tournament or struggle from the outset. I'm thinking Spain, Portugal, Holland etc. Then there's Greece & Croatia with their aging players. Who knows.

Again we're having to pay over the odds because he's playing in England, just as we did for Lee McCulloch. I don't know about this one, depending on where he plays and how he plays, he could do a job for us. But he's certainly not an exciting signing. Like I said in another posting though, can he be any worse than Cousin & his poor attitude or JCD & his dodgy hamstrings? BTW, can we change the title of this thread until its a done deal?

Double that 4M for Thomson and you might have a deal.

Interesting times ahead then, Follow Follow will go in to meltdown when the deal goes through.

Get that offer increased Wattie, did you know that.... Genius sports reporting from the ET as always.

I heard he was a Celtic supporter too, but the Record says it would be a dream move for him, so who knows. Is this guy good enough to partner Cuellar? I've heard some good things about him but not seen much of him myself.

I guess the other thing to consider is that he's going to have a better attitude than Cousin and be less injury prone than JCD, just going on his career so far.

Quite a few people think its been a done deal for some time and we're just delaying the official signing so that he can be paraded with another signing which will then deflect the backlash a bit.

Now there's a shock, our interest is finally confirmed.

I don't think there's much between McGregor and Gordon now. AM has closed the gap massively since he started playing for us every week. I always said that Gordon's main advantage was his experience. I'd be happy with either one of them as our number 1, but I'd only let AM go if someone like CG was lined up as a replacement beforehand. Neither are a complete keeper yet and both have their weaknesses, but AM is massively improved and I really think he's challenging CG for the number one slot.