buster.

I'd guess that the SFA regard the contract between a player and his present club as the legal document in play and that any pre-contract will only be relevant to them when it actually becomes the contract between player and next club, taking the place of the previous.

At that age it's about constantly improving year on year. When Ryan Hardie was a similar age he was scoring goals for Raith in the Championship (6 in 753 minutes)* and whilst he has progressed since then, it's been at a rate that suggests he's not going to reach a high level in the game. * Rudden currently has 7 in 1331 minutes. At 18, Rudden has a chance to make it big but he'll have to work hard and then work harder.

I don't know if the tweet about interest in Stewart from us is true but if the League One and League Two interest references have substance, it only helps show at what level he is rated down South. IMO Stewart is a player with some ability who wouldn't handle the weight of our jersey very well.

Reminds me of David Templeton.

99% of players in the EPL aren't really worth the fee they go for.

IMO, if Middleton played instead of Kent, we probably don't make the EL group stage and that would mean approximately 10M revenue down.

I reckon Kent will probably be outwith our budget and our transfer dealing (adding Jones to Murphy, Middleton and Grezda) took that into consideration. Liverpool might well treat us preferentially regards loans (they'll be happy with 50% success rate IMO) but when it comes to transfer fees, it'll be strictly hard business and in todays market, why would they sell Kent for less than 5M ?

Don't underestimate the tactically aware and disciplined wideman. Candeias and Kent played a large part in our European success in the summer.

Qualifying for the group stages was fantastic on various levels. SG seems to have put together a decent supporting staff and even in his first year (as a manager) has the charisma and leadership qualities to have the whole club (from the fan to the boardrroom) look up to him. Aswell as the grudging respect from elsewhere. In other words, I don't think it unreasonable to "expect the unexpected". However, before we get to far into the CL conversation. We've got a hugely important win over Celtic in the bag and he now needs to find a way to put together a run of wins in the league. I still make us second favourites but if we can get 10 or more points from the first 12, I'll start to believe.

Looks like David Templeton (playing for Burton Albion as a sub tonight) isn't too bothered about the League Cup,...team beaten 9-0 by Manchester City

For financial reasons, unless we were to be making a lot of money via player trading, we'll need to be making European group stages (CL or EL) every couple of years or so. It's vital that we keep progressing and if we could make a CL group stage in the next 3 or 4 years then great. The flipside is potentially the EL2* (from 2021) which would obviously have less money in it than the EL. To avoid the EL2, we'd need to make the CL or hope that the Scottish place in the Co-efficient table gets significantly better. * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Europa_League_2

Bryson played for Clyde in the Roy Keane debut for Celtic. Bryson played for Kilmarnock in the Robbie Keane debut for Celtic. Co-incidence but the good stat is both Clyde and Kilmarnock won the matches.

Halliday deserves a lot of credit for the way he has went about his business this season. So does Steven Gerrard for the way he has managed Halliday and got such a response.

- What SG&Co had available to them (players) has changed significantly since our last game - Up until that point we hadn't solved the problem regards playing compact defences - We'll find out when the games come round

Agreed, Davis & Defoe instead of Ejaria & Sadiq greatly improves the depth in our squad. Prediction: First team beat second XI 4-2

The management team now have more to think about wrt formation as better players make certain options more attractive on paper. Different options are good to have and they'll be working/drilling/looking at things now. 4-3-3 may well remain the the prominent system but I'll be surprised if two up top doesn't feature more heavily than the first 2/3rds of the season. ----------------- Morelos stat: His next league goal will be his 55th senior league goal (HJK & Rangers) Good going for a 22 year old playing over 8,000 Kilometres from home.

In other words......... A special Record Sport investigation has established that the previous story from the Special Record Sport Investigation team was a pile of Chick Young. You have to laugh at the use of "Special"

When up against tight compact defences we have to find ways of breaking them down. Unless you have a Gazza level of Number 10 (not going to happen), I think playing 2 up top has to figure high up in possible solutions.

Are the SFA in competition with the Tory Government/Brexit in how to fcuk-up, sow confusion and make as little logical sense as possible ? ---------------------------- I see Morelos and the recinded red card from Sheepsville still manages to make the article, why ? The compliance process correctly applied the current interpretaion of the rules and arrived at the correct decision. If the media and most pundits want to analyse that incident using something other than the current interpretation of the rules then that is their problem but is what has to be called out. Darryl Broadfoot tried to point this out (Sportsound) but few wanted to listen and it gets forgotten as a narrative is pushed.

A fit Kent will get his fair share of gametime and if he's playing well, he'll almost certainly start most games. Coming out of this window, our bench will certainly be stronger. McCrorie is a player I'd like to see further develop but just as he was getting back in, his gametime may be limited again. I guess It's up to him to up his game again.

The 3-5-2 option looks good on paper McGregor McAuley - Goldson - Worrall Tav - Davis - Jack - Arfield - Barisic Defoe - Morelos

The level of scrutiny today puts a lot of unreasonable pressure on referees and other officials. VAR would help spread the pressure but wouldn't eliminate it. VAR would help reduce errors but has to be paid for in a league that has little spare cash. A little further down the line, you'd have a narrative about VAR not being worth it because it was restricting clubs from competing in the EL2 and there was still controversy over decisions.

A couple of years ago he was supposedly waiting for a Top 4 club, cough ! If there was an exchange rate where you could exchange speculation for Dembele dollars, that was worth 50M.

9 days in and the main difference between us and them regards transfer business is that they are continuing down their usual transfer M.O. regards age and profile whilst we are focusing more on the immediate future (as well as building the squad for 19/20).