buster.

You'd think that the job of safeguarding material evidence without a sell-by date would be simple enough for Polis Scotland but apparently not. Obviously the stewards have already clocked the culprit (wee Johnny fae the under 15s Motherwell Ultras) and as a highly trained elite force would do, have instantly switched focus and are tracking the evidence whilst computing the dilemma between professionalism and their stomach. Scene reminded me of a group of school kids giving their lollipop man some stick. One issue I'd bring up was that I saw the object being thrown on TV (or rather landing beside Tav) but never heard about it from any medium, who were all talking about the lighter. It's only Tav's twitter account that I have seen it in although I'm sure that will mean it getting picked up elsewhere. Are stewards selected for their bulk and the increased chance of blocking pies, lighters or whatever from reaching the pitchside ? Are they paid in pies ?

Pie gate pic Only thought in the stewards head is 'free pie'

From PQ...... Now that we've got (another f**king) break before the Scottish Premiership split let's take a look at each team's points tally compared to where they stood last year.

Build a wee bit of momentum and now we don't have a game for a fortnight !!

We are always going to drop silly points until we get significantly better.

Some seem to already be in close-season mode !

Hearts offer very little creative threat and if their big centre forward isn't having a productive match/being supported well they look as if they could play 24 hours without scoring. Hibs counter attacked into more space and had a touch of quality to be able to finish. Neither team looked very good.

We've played a lot better and not been 2 goals up at Fir Park. Not complaining but I'd hope we can come out and play a lot better in the second half. Midfield isn't really functioning very well. Game isn't over yet so the sooner the better we get a third.

Will he up against Hastie ? If so, he'll need to watch for the lad for cutting inside and shooting with his left peg. IIRC his one on one defending wasn't the greatest and too many widemen got by him that led to a lot of yellow cards. Bit of an experimental line-up and I reckon we'll have some defending to do early doors. Not as confident as I was yesterday when I made a prediction on the other thread.

I've talked on here several times of the irony that we are the Palestinians of Scotland

For me it was a bad mistake given context of the situation at the time (league positions). We had a long documented problem wrt creativity. If Davis was supposed to be the solution, bad mistake. If he wasn't and the issue wasn't even addressed, bad mistake.

26th, even by your standards, that was an exceptional effort -------------------- The Friday night Sportsound (*link below) is probably worth a mention. PQ looked at some of the news and decided to change the usual Friday night line-up (Billy Dodds & sometimes Scott MacDonald) and bring in their heavy political hitter, Michael Stewart. A vigorous defence of Scott Brown was required and Stewart provided it in such a way that he may get another gig on the Celtic PLC legal team for the upcoming hearing on Brown. The jaw-dropping and unchallenged lack of balance that Stewart preaches is of a perverse level for a public broadcaster and is more what you'd expect from a Celtic in house TV channel. It's as if a very public campaign was mounted with the banner reading 'Scott Brown is Innocent'. Despite the perceived injustice of Brown being cited post OF game being the programmes main issue,....they never even mentioned (on the podcast version) the fact that he had just got away with another one after not being cited for a stamp in the St.Mirren fixture. I wondered if this news had come too late to mention it and checked to see if Clyde Superscoreboard had covered it. Clyde mentioned it at the top of the show (ie. more or less the same time that Sportsound begins). Had Alfredo Morelos done what Scott Brown did last weekend and against St.Mirren, there is no doubt whatsoever that Sportsound would have provided an unbalanced and unchallenged case for the prosecution, followed by open mouthed and loud condemnation at getting away with another stamp. * https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p075p24p

The manager/recruitment made a mistake when they signed Davis with a view to solving our ongoing problem regards a lack of creativity. If it's decided that he joins the plethora of holding midfield options, we'd probably have to give him a 2 year contract on relatively good money. He might be worth it if he were to nail down a place in the team and show some quality but the jury is very much out on that and one decent game isn't enough for me. If he could do it in all 6 remaining games, I'd understand it better. If the permanent deal was more or less agreed when he signed on loan, I hope it was provisional dependent on what happened from January to May.

I don't think it a choice between seasoned quality and potential when you look at recruitment as a whole, more that it's about getting the balance right, not to mention, the right players who are able to cope with pressure and do the business. There is no doubt we need some seasoned quality but we could do with players who are at the top of their game rather than on the way down/haven't the legs (eg. Kranjcar, Alves, Davis, Barton, Dorrans, etc.). It's about what players can do for you NOW, not what they did years ago at the top level. That means we don't get the cream but milk is better than cream that has gone off. Generally, I think a lot of what is happening in the football operation is very encouraging and that it is going in the right direction but it needs to be tied into the first team to a reasonable extent....and this is where it could fall down. Obviously players need to be good enough and if management don't think they are, ok...but if chances aren't given more because of short-term pressure, perhaps that is a mistake. Hence the first team management's objectives/timescale/pressure are unlikely to be in sync with the rest of the football operation. I'd rather look to build something because you'd have something constructed whether 10IAR were to happen or not because I think we very much risk not having built much / spent way over odds and it happening anyway. The logic about their level in relation to the management situation makes sense but there are hardly any guarantees that it will pan out the way we would like to see, nor is it something that we can control. I think that they'll bring in a better manager than Lennon and give him relatively significant money to spend in an effort to insulate against teething problems. If the PLC in the East were to decide to keep Lennon and take the risk of going down Biscuit Tin Lane, then from a financial POV it would be very short-termist, as well as placing their dominant position closer to risk. Hence, I reckon the heid yins over there will invest this year with an eye to getting 10 over the line.

The short-term approach hasn't done us much good recently. The logic about them having a potentially serious financial problem sounds good but as it stands, is a long way off. They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. In gambling circles it would be chasing your losses. Bottom line is that Dave King, the board and perhaps other investors will decide which way to go. All the rhetoric that I've heard towards it suggests that stopping 10IAR is objective Numero Uno on the list of requirements for SG&Co. So perhaps talking about priorities and choices is a waste of time, unless SG&Co actually believed the best way to employ the budget would be to go heavier with younger players and put some experienced quality beside them. I'm starting to think that the weight of unreasonable pressure that is born out of the expectation / timescale / impatience becomes a lead weight tied to too many of our players. I say unreasonable because in many cases we are talking about fairly ordinary players compared with what we had back in the day and at a time when the respective budgets of the Old Firm have never been so different in scale. I don't really know enough about the respective players to preach the following but it's my general impression........ For me, I'd prefer we signed Hastie rather than Stewart. The former hasn't done so much in the game but is more fairly raw but with a dynamic potential that may see him go far in the game. The later is a creative player that has done a certain amount but appears to have a glass ceiling when it comes to moving away from more comfortable environments. What we need to look at is what a player could become and back ourselves to improve him rather than go for players whose best days are behind them. When we are linked with the latest 30+ veteran, we tend to think of the player they were, rather than the player they are going to be for us....or in Stewart's case, the support will be sceptical that he is of the level we need and it won't be long until the almost inevitable sequence of events follows.

Good timing by Ed Woodward Is he cursed or just useless ? Sun 10/03/19 PRL Arsenal 2 - 0 Manchester United View events More info Sat 16/03/19 FAC Wolverhampton … 2 - 1 Manchester United View events More info Sat 30/03/19 PRL Manchester United 2 - 1 Watford View events More info Tue 02/04/19 PRL Wolverhampton … 2 - 1 Manchester United View events More info Wed 10/04/19 UCL Manchester United 21 : 00 Barcelona

We've drawn 3 and lost two of the last five games. If I'm not mistaken, you have to go back to late 2005 for the last time we didn't win for 6 or more domestic matches. Back then it reached 7 plus 3 European matches. Eck took us on a run that would sow the seeds for his departure after looking into Sir Duped eyes. Ironically, it was the one time when we qualified from our CL group. A team that could hold it's own near the top table in Europe had difficulty beating Scottish provincial teams The proverbial early goal tonight please.

We need to build a solid base yet we also need to stop 10IAR. The question is priorities. It's not impossible to do both but IMO, it's unlikely. The fixation with 10IAR is potentially very damaging, although you could say that 10IAR would be damaging and a potential tipping point for some of our supports relationship with their Season Ticket. I'd say best to go for stopping 10IAR if it were next to guaranteed, but it's not. The real damage would come if we concentrated on the short-term and it didn't work-out. Hence, I reckon it better to continue building the base and hope we hit an early sweet spot whilst we do.

"It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. " Harold Pinter 2005

When the Stewart speculation heightened a couple of days ago and Steve 4Lads mentioned that Hastie wasn't finalized, I started to have my doubts about the later. If it came down to money then Celtic or teams down south will blow us out of the water. What Celtic have been doing is buy up the better young talent coming through in Scotland and in the case of Scott Allan, they bought him partly to prevent us getting him. They might go for Hastie to stop us getting him as well as getting a guy who is mostly potential but from the little I've seen of him, he could go far in the game.

It's usually longer odds for their to be a red card (for anyone) in a game. eg. tonight Wolves v ManUtd: 4/1 for there to be a red card in the game and the shortest price on an individual player is 33/1 *odds are from bet365

Edouard did what he had to do well. The pass put the ball into an area that gave him all the initiative. Goldson tried to clip him but he kept his balance and drove at Worrall, one way then the other. In the blink of an eye it was done. I'd give the forward the credit rather than point the finger at Worrall. The damage was done when Candeias gave the ball away, thereafter we were on the backfoot and it was their quality that got a goal from it. We have to hope that Jones, amongst others grows and improves as a player next season. I think he has the raw materials but he needs to deal with the expectation and be as consistant as a winger can be.

Watching those highlights that DerB posted - their first goal was due to two main factors. The loose Candeias pass and a brilliant/lucky first time pass from Forrest that gave their CF the advantage. - Candeias redeemed himself in our goal with a brilliant back heel and interaction with Tav who played the ball inside and Kent finished magnificently. - The third goal explains itself and like Candeias, Tav goes from one end of the scale to the other. - The last minute Worrall chance showed a defender (Ajer) who wanted it more than our centre half #Return2Sender ... there was a part of the game when Worrall's distribution was giving me flashbacks to Rob Kiernan at the same ground.

SG&Co know what the problems are and if there is a criticism, it's that they didn't or weren't able to get to the root of the problem in neither of the two transfer windows thus far, especially the January window. Breaking down an organised defence isn't always easy even when you have real quality in your side but I think the current problem with us is part psychological. When we encounter the same old teams playing the same way, we seem to accept the script has already been written. In Marvin Andrew speak, we don't believe. As well as some quality to break down a defence, we need some more drive and mentality to push it.

Sectarian chanting (SC) isn't worth talking about when Alfredo Morelos is making the news......... except when it's the only thing they can talk about when he scores 4 goals in a game. The contrast in coverage between SC directed at Kris Boyd and Steve Clarke was stark enough. At Parkhead, there wasn't any BBC Scotland coverage for the specifics of it, at all. In the words of Harold Pinter, "It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. " Think about how important this issue was deemed and how much coverage it got when Clarke spoke about it, apparently the football (Morelos and four goals) should be forgotten and ALL the attention should be directed at the SC. Now, it's fair to say that there were other things in and around the OF game worthy of discussion but strict liability was given considerable time within an hour long programme more than 24 hours after the event (Sportsound/Monday evening*) but for the actual specific SC against the Rangers manager not to be mentioned at all lays very bare BLATANT DOUBLE STANDARDS. * link to said programme podcast https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0756wp1