ascender

Exactly Gribz. People are also slagging off his age, but he's 28/29 and should be coming on to his peak. Its also not a lot of money in to today's market and while we don't have much cash, people have to realise that we have to pay at least near to the market rate for players as we're not the only club out there.

As for his nationality, we all know that in the current climate the Scots lads are often the first ones to get flak, whether they deserve it or not. But also, do some fans think that we're signing McCulloch because we prefer him over Ronaldo?

Oh well, good luck to the lad. I'm sure most of us thought he could be given a chance to adapt to the Scottish game if he got a season in the reserves or on loan somewhere else. Was that not supposed to be the plan when he signed?

The writing was always on the wall for him though, especially when WS came in and shored up the defence so well without him.

I posted a similar thing last night Ally. I don't think its as bad on this board, but on other forums McCulloch is getting slaughtered by guys who probably haven't seen enough of him to form a reasoned opinion. I know I haven't.

We're a fickle bunch, but some people who were complaining about us paying over the odds for unknown foreign players are now complaining that we're paying reasonable sums for Scottish players who the manager has worked with or who are proven in British football.

You just can't please everyone.

I'm still mystified as to how we're going to afford his fee given that we've been making such derisory offers all over the shop for other players.

I honestly can't tell you how optimistic and excited I'd be about next season if we signed Cuellar, Faubert, McCulloch, Naismith & DaBeasley.

Let's hope DM pulls the proverbial rabbit out of the hat.

Is the McCulloch price not just indicative of the current market? He's 29, so is considered to be at or nearing his peak. He's been playing in the Premiership and is an established internationalist, so if you look at that lot, then 2M doesn;t seem bad. I wonder if people would be so dismissive of the guy and the fee if it was a similar foreign player we were looking at?

Its not a signing which gets me excited, but at the same time, it seems fairly low risk. We're getting a player who WS knows, has worked with and could be good for 5 years or so on reasonable wages. Sounds like far from the worst signing we could make.

As for Naismith, I wish we'd get him signed up as I really don't know how we can genuinely be in for Faubert if we're quibbling over a few hundred grand now with Killie.

He won't cost 10 million though, its all just part of the initial blustering. They know the player wants to leave, so now they just need to get as much as they can for him.

The guy's recently broken in to the French national team after being a regular for the under 21s and I think he scored the winner in a recent match against Croatia (I think), so I wouldn't class him as a risk. Compare him to the fee paid for Brown for example.

Taken from FF.

To thrash out the terms of his departure. Bid from Rangers thought to have been accepted. Faubert keen to come. A stack of direct quotes from the club, and his agents. The player has been hugely impressed by how much we want him, and how far we have gone to persaude him to come to Glasgow. Likes the fact that Darcheville (who is a good mate) is here. Thinks it'll help him settle. Though he makes no secret of the fact that he sees this as ideal prep for the big move he wants down the track (EPL).

 

Quick summary of what the French papers are saying today.

Hope that's true, would be good to have some exciting and positive news for once.

Couple of papers are saying that we've not made any offer and nothing has been mentioned when we signed D'Archeville. I almost wish rumours like this just wouldn't happen and we got back to the old days of signing players on the quiet.

I thought MacLean looked like he might have a future here, but he's one of those who got moved on instead of being given a real chance.

As for Rae, I still feel a bit sorry for him and his luck. He was honestly one of the best box-to-box midfielders in the SPL before he was injured (however many times). We'll never know what he could have done here if he'd been fully fit which was a shame as he's a Bear and there was never any doubting his commitment.

Good luck to them both.

Sounds like he'd be a good investment if nothing else, but I'm confused as to where the media think we're getting the money from when we've been putting in derisory offers for other players and quibbling over much, much smaller sums.

I really hope this isn't smoke and mirrors and is just the first signing of 5 or so we make in the next few weeks.

Sorry, let's be optimistic, didn't mean to bring the mood down.

4.3 on one player?! Will be a good signing if true and might finally address a problem we've had for the last 6 years or so.

Amazingly its been 5 weeks since the season ended with pre-season starting in about a week or so. Scary stuff.

Its pretty depressing really. I've been keeping away from footy sites during the day in the hope that when I come home at night we'll have signed someone.

Such a true bluenose that he was demanding more money to stay at a time when he wasn't exactly on a bad wage and we were downsizing. If he'd cared that much, he'd have worked out a deal to stay.

I thought Ian Murray was one of our better players in his first season here. He played well at LB and got forward to link well. He also did very well as a holding midfielder for a while, but then started to get moved about all over the pitch and things seemed to go wrong from there really.

End of the day, if he comes good then it'll be like a new signing. The guy obviously has the skill, but time's running out for him to show it week in, week out.

The problem is that while the tide has well and truly turned against DM on forums like this one and FF, he still has a massive support amongst the fans. I honestly don't know what it would take for the majority of the support to see just how much damage the guy is doing.

Unfortunately I can see a good few other Premiership clubs after McFadden. Only hope there is that he wants to play for WS. He's another player I can't believe we passed up when we had the chance to buy him.

Gary Naysmith has been linked with us for years, but I'd like to see him. If Stevie Smith's injury is worse than we thought, there's no point rushing him back, but as Papac is staying, I can't see him signing another LB.

Couple of reports down south saying WS is interested in McFadden who the Toffees are willing to let go as they're targeting David Nugent.

This rumour about there being no signings emanating from inside Ibrox has been around for a few weeks, I think it surfaced as many of them do, on FF. As the players are on their hols, its a surprising one, especially as its not made the media.

We just have to be patient. If there aren't the 6 or so new signings we need to compete over the whole season, I'm sure some groups of fans will see this as DM having wasted his last chance with them and opposition to him will surely grow.

This seems like common sense, he's looked OK at times this season, so why sell him and then spend the same (or more) money on a replacement. We have to sort out the creative and scoring problems in our midfield first. Replacing Papac was a bit of a luxury I think.

Not long until the matches start then. When are the players due back?

The Brellier thing seems to be quotes from his agent saying we are interested rather than the other way round. That's what makes me think he's being offered to us rather than him being on our list.

Besides, there's no fee involved, so surely if we were after him, the deal could be struck quite quickly? Just sounds like agent talk to me.

Who knows. Its anyone's guess what's going on at the moment.

NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 

3-5-2 isn't an option....

 

Cammy F

I don't like the 3-5-2, I think we should be 4-4-2, just trying to weigh up the options and see how others are thinking. Gribz is a big fan of it for example.

Does anyone play with 3 centre halves these days anyway? I think the formation was in fashion about 13 years ago or so, but was quickly ditched.

Apart from the positives/negatives of the formation itself, I don't think we need 3 CBs in the SPL.