buster.

Given his contract situation, he won't go for 5M or close to it. The money isn't really the main issue why we won't get him.

I think what you have at the moment is an M8 player corridor between Hibs and Celtic that has an unwritten 'rule'. - No player shall go to Rangers The example of Scott Allan is a good one. Once within, it was very difficult he get out. Hibs wouldn't sell to Rangers and Celtic saw the opportunity to prevent Rangers get a decent Number 10 and do some business. That business has resulted in loan deals that saw Allan directly involved for other clubs taking points from Rangers but unable to be fielded against them. It may result in him being used as a makeweight for a McGinn deal to celtic and that in turn would have him back at a club that won't sell him to Rangers.

The typical image that comes to mind for me is a goal that Johnstone didn't score. The 1973 Scottish Cup Final and with the scores level in front of 123,000 people , McLean swings in another pin-point free-kick for Johnstone to head on to the inside of the post, roll along the line and set-up Tom Forsyth for his piledriver of a winner.

Think of the creative supply route for those forwards and the way we played. My memory only goes back to Derek Johnstone and his amount of for headed goals, something that Tommy McLean had a lot to do with. For the others, the list of wingers they played with is impressive. For our attack to produce goals, we need to be playing very well middle to front, eg. first 2/3 months of 2018. But when we aren't playing well, creativity drys up and we don't do set-pieces very well or adapt. Morelos is an excellent young centre forward and IF he continues to develop, will end up playing in one of the big leagues.

I'll be very surprised if he doesn't end up at Parkhead. It's a 'no-brainer' of a signing for them and I wouldn't be surprised if McGinn had already been tipped a wink and was now running his contract down with an agreement of sorts in place that saw him receive a hefty signing-on fee. Hibs might try and cash in this summer but they aren't in a position to ask for what would represent 'value'.

If we sign John McGinn, a Unicorn will post on Gersnet. Wait a minute............!!!!

No, but if you get them in the right order you are more likely to get both.

Investing in a good manager would be cheaper than going through midfielders like apples.

Very much so. The state broadcaster doesn't even bother about a veneer these days. Not to mention Gordon Waddell crossing a line of sorts yesterday.

Thinking about it, more likely he'll be used as a makeweight in part of a deal for McGinn.

I think it's something that the authorities should review but given Lawwell is a big part of that, I won't hold my breath. You could insist that no clauses were allowed that prevented him playing against the parent club but that could easily be abused. Better to not allow loans to other clubs in the same league tier.

Can't be long, probably another season. I'd agree that he could have been a very good player for us and I think that was the main reason celtic signed him. They knew it and could afford the luxury. Thing is when celtic buy up most of the young Scottish creative talents and farm them out on loan in the top tier, it creates a situation devoid of sporting integrity. What you have is two of the teams at the top of the table dependent on celtic for their most creative player and unable to field him against celtic. Strikes me as against the spirt of the game.

You have Scott Allan as well. I reckon he's cost us at least 4 points this season. Two up at Dundee and another two for Hibs at Ibrox.

I thought it was always April 1st

That'll be in response to the 50 pence I just put on him.

There is a debate to be had on some of those issues but your tone and language couldn't be more downbeat and pessimistic. What the latter does is make debate more difficult and lend itself to social media confrontational/polarised positions.

Nothing to do with them, nothing to see here, honest guv............give us yir money ! Transparency sometimes comes in different guises !!

If we don't make fairly rapid short-term strides then that in itself would be a lot more damaging than how you see a 3 year kit deal. The truth of it that we are desperate for short-term finance. The important aspect to it is that we invest/spend it more wisely this time.

The fundamental is to get an effective manager in who can be the head of a football operation that can improve players. It's not easy given the level of pressure for immediate success but you have a situation where 'immediate demands' are actually holding us back.

A good manager, a good pre-season, fit players played in the right position and Dorrans would be one of several players already at the club that would be like 'new signings'.

You have to feel almost sorry for the poor souls who follow Hearts away from home or in other words, to watch buses being parked badly.

It was 3 important points and serves to switch attention away from the lows of last week. I think Murty is now 'window dressing' and the players are pretty much motivating themselves. I'd imagine they'll want to show that they can compete this coming weekend and we'll at least be in their faces. We are fragile at the back, no doubt and that isn't going to be resolved in what is left of this season. We'll have to aim to score more goals than we concede.

He'll be 30 in November and hasn't featured for a few weeks. Given our recent record of bringing in 30 year old+ players who for one reason or another are about to 'break down', I'd hope that the bulk of new players are a fair bit younger than Arfield. As Frankie aludes to, we need to start buying this type of player when he is 22-24 (or younger) and he has a career in front of him. Obviously, to do that we need to start improving more players.

The vitriolic tone which he uses throughout takes away from some of the points he makes that aren't that far off the mark. Regards the tone and language, he's crossed a line with that today. Any pretence of objectivity is rendered ridiculous.

We have to treat it as an opportunity. By my calculations, if the sheep beat Hearts on the Friday, we'd need a draw to 'spoil the party'.