JohnMc

Thanks Bluedell, a very helpful summary. We really are incredibly fortunate to have the directors we currently have, I'm not sure supporters fully appreciate what they're doing just now. As you say we'll need to start selling good players quite soon, if not January certainly in May. Our wages to turnover ratio feels high at slightly over 73%, but then I guess that's why we made a loss. Celtic's is sitting at around 80% I understand so these things are all relative. Anyway, thanks BD and thanks Mr King, Park and Bennett.

The criticism of McBurnie is ridiculous and you can't help feel his stated club allegiances play a part. It's not like he's keeping someone better out of the team, when Dykes is fit he plays and McBurnie is the sub, it's hard to think of a Scottish striker any better after that. Griffiths, if fit and in form, would probably be picked ahead of him, and it would be hard to argue with that based on footballing ability. But Griffiths is clearly not fit or in any kind of form and it underlines the lack of quality that he's even making the squad currently. The players themselves can see Griffiths isn't fit and must wonder why someone with his attitude is making the squad far less getting game time. For me that's a far bigger talking point for the media, but I won't hold my breath waiting for someone to raise it. In reality Scotland played 3 matches against average opposition, they drew one and lost two, scoring only one goal in the process. Our qualification, whilst very welcome, has helped mask reality. Richard Gordon in particular was highly critical of McBurnie, yet strangely uncritical of the manager who chose and played him. Surprising...

The history of Dynamo Kiev is fascinating, there's a few books on it well worth reading. They not only had state backing during Soviet times but because they travelled to the 'west' regularly for matches they were used as a cover for all sorts of scary stuff. I must have mentioned this before @der Berliner but on my only trip to Berlin I struck up a conversation with my airport taxi driver who it turned out was a Dynamo Dresden supporter. The first match he ever attended was Dresden against Rangers in the old Fairs Cup in the late 60s and he'd followed Rangers results ever since. We were flailing around in the lower leagues at the time and we sympathised with each other's plight as Dresden were doing something similar. Ended up sitting outside my hotel chatting about football for about 20 minutes. He got a good tip.

Peter Lawwell is on the European Club Association board, as such you'd expect he has some insights into what is planned regarding European competition, so Celtic pulling out of this is probably quite telling. There were talks at quite an advanced stage between the Belgians and Dutch to create a unified 'super-league' with clubs from both nations competing. I suspect Covid has interfered with its plans but it was being reported that UEFA were open to it. The Dutch and Belgians are neighbours so the extra travel isn't a big issue, 60% of Belgium speak Dutch and they use the same currency so commercially, culturally and logistically it makes sense. For me it makes sense for the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians to get together for similar reasons. But we're being shoe-horned in as no one else wants us. If the the direction of travel in UEFA is amalgamating domestic leagues then clearly a 'British Isles' league is the obvious one for us to join, but I can only see that happening if the big 6 or so English sides leave and join some NFL style closed league with selected German, Italian and Spanish clubs. We might then be attractive to sponsors and broadcasters playing in a league with sides like Aston Villa, Wolves, Leicester and West Ham. UEFA and the big club sides are involved in an on-going power struggle. UEFA want to keep smaller football associations, like Scotland, onside as smaller FAs help keep the big ones in line on important votes. Even the biggest clubs are very nervous of unilaterally leaving UEFA and going it alone, so it's likely to come down to how much UEFA are willing to give up and what compromises the bigger clubs are willing to accept. It's important, I think, that three of the big 6 English sides, and a number of Italian sides have American ownership or substantial influence now. I suspect they'll be pushing very hard for a closed league structure with guaranteed clubs and no relegation, as works in American professional sport. I also fear it's a matter of when, not if, this happens. I can't see any scenario where we're part of that.

From a commercial perspective it's a league with a combined population of around 30 million, which would make it the eighth largest in Europe. It wouldn't be as attractive as the others as they all operate in one economic area with one main language, this league would have 5 different economic areas, 3 in the EU, 2 outside, 5 different currencies and at a push 3 languages if we group the Swedish and Danish together. In four of these countries English football teams are the best supported club sides. Football isn't even the most popular sport in Ireland and none of their clubs attract any kind of significant support. It has the potential to be a stronger league than the SPFL financially and certainly it would be more competitive, but it'll still be miles behind the big 3 or 4 in Europe. It's not an easy sell.

When you and Bluedell got married which one of you was the bride? To be fair I'm sure you both look good in blue, everyone does.

I struggle to accept that the Glasgow polis are fundamentally anti-Rangers, most of the coppers I know certainly aren't. That said I'm still not sure if Green and co were pursued by people who dislike Rangers or who dislike Charles Green and friends. I still feel there was something deeply suspicious about what happened to us and who benefited from it but that might just be my compensatory control kicking in and trying to infer order onto something that was in fact random and chaotic.

Am I correct in stating there are clubs using this quite extensively now for recruitment? Brentford and Midtjylland are the two I've read about, Midtjylland clearly finding success with it. The inspiration for it coming from Moneyball and the Oakland baseball team's success with recruitment that went against perceived sport wisdom? Baseball, like cricket, has a history of statistics based fandom, something that relatively new to football. I remember being told that professional scouts could watch youth matches and decide in 10 minutes whether a boy had the ability to 'make it' or not. I remember thinking this was bonkers at the time but professionals I've spoken too over the years say the same thing; they can tell very quickly if someone is a player or not. Our recent recruitment has been fairly good at first glance, but is that skewed by the fact we're playing well? Roofe and Itten can't be declared successes just yet, despite Roofe's wonder goal and good all round play he's already picked up injuries that have kept him out and Itten hasn't settled or looked like a guaranteed starter yet. Hagi is as polarising a player as we've got just now, frustrating and vital in equal measure he's got great 'stats' but I suspect would attract a lot of criticism from our support if we were allowed into the ground. Balogun and McLaughlin look like good signings already, comfortable and already easily fitting into the first team when asked. If we look across the city though that's when our signings start to look pretty good by comparison. Outside of Eduarde there's not an obvious player going to move on for big money currently, indeed some of their recent signings have been surprisingly poor. By comparison we look pretty astute, with Kamara, Barasic, Jack, Kent, Aribo and Morelos all capable of moving on to a better league than Scotland's for considerably more than we paid for them. Celtic's issues might be related to their management not getting the best out of the players of course. I find the stats approach interesting but I can't see it changing my views of players based on what I see myself. I'm too much of a dinosaur to be swayed, but I'm glad the club are taking a different approach, as long as it works.

When it started on radio in the 80s it was ground-breaking. Apparently clubs used to get tapes of the show and play them on the bus home from games, but Celtic stopped because the send-up of Danny McGrain was so cruel, and accurate, I should add. Davie Hay didn't come out of it well either, the infamous 'who's the best Scottish player of all time Davie? Pele. He's not Scottish, Davie. Always wondered why he never got picked for the national team.' Apparently Hay was furious at being portrayed as an imbecile (I thought it was funny). It's well past its sell by date though, indeed it's a sad inditement of BBC Scotland that it's still trotted out every year. Johnny Watson's a bluenose but I suspect he's the only one these days.

Pastor Jack Glass once used that very phrase on TV during a debate about education in Scotland, he might have been debating against the said University at the time. From an entirely personal perspective, having not attended either establishment, all I can contribute is that I pulled in Strathclyde Uni's student union but always found Glasgow's fallow ground. In the spirit of this thread my expected xG was better in John Street and that was the only stat that mattered at the time. Of course that probably says more about the young women who frequented both establishments than anything else. Still, happy memories.

It should galvanise the Rangers squad. Again Lennon uses every opportunity to take the narrative away from his team's form and performances and have the media and supporter looking elsewhere. I sincerely hope Rangers ignore this completely. Our players will need to be very careful from now on though, another breach of protocol, how ever it occurs, is likely to see harsher punishment from the authorities.

Yes, you might well be right and it wouldn't be a big surprise if you were.

Carson shouldn't have any obvious antipathy to us, as a Methody educated Belfast 'Prod' you'd expect him to at least have an open mind. I'd be surprised if Carson doesn't at least encourage his Sport's Department to try and rebuild some bridges, but I doubt he'll force it or fire anyone over it. I met his Dad once, we didn't talk about football unfortunately!

The character assassination of Stewart was wonderful, and it sounded heartfelt too, pardon the pun. Levein also did his prospects of being further employed by the BBC even greater harm when he declared he wanted Rangers to win the league this season. Cosgrove nearly choked when he said it.

A fair and considered response and good advice. My formative years were spent trying to avoid advance parties of the Milton Tongs an organisation with a similar philosophy to your Sgt Major, as such I came to rely on my wits, my eyesight and my ability to run, so when rare opportunities to take advantage did arise I made the most of them. Old habits and all that.

It's almost impossible to be involved in sport's manufacturing or retail in the UK and not come into contact with Mike Ashley or his associated companies. That's not an exaggeration. Ashley is also pretty bright and quite vindictive. Ashley put Puma into Newcastle (and Rangers) simply as a 'get-it-up-you' to Adidas with who he was involved in a spat. He knows the historical animosity between the two brands and so wanted to show Adidas he'd muscles to flex too. That spat is largely over now so he no longer needs to use Puma, leaving the door open for another manufacturer to move in. Ashley has a stake in Umbro so it's perhaps surprising they've not got the contract, but whoever won it needs to work with Ashley's companies, that's not negotiable. In my opinion Castore will, at least, be doing a joint venture with Ashley on retail, there's no way they'll be allowed to control that. Newcastle is a decent coup for Castore. In reality they're not big enough to sign with any of the big 6 English sides, all of who are already signed into long term kit deals anyway. Newcastle makes sense in many ways as they can tap into Ashley's retail allowing Castore to concentrate on manufacturing and design. I don't think Ashley owns Castore, or they're run as a proxy of his. But it wouldn't be a big surprise if he does take a stake sometime soon, he clearly sees them as viable and capable. The delight that greeted Castore among some in our support was over the top in my opinion. They're just a company making our strips, it'll be another company in a few years time so I wouldn't get too emotionally invested in them. That they seemed to herald a clean break from Ashley was probably behind the outpouring of joy that greeted them. Now they run the risk of our wrath, in my opinion again an over the top reaction. But football supporting is an emotional activity, not a rational one, so perhaps emotional reactions can be excused. What's important, I think, is that Ashley is out of our club, he isn't on the board and has no say in the running of the club. If we signed a kit deal with Adidas or Nike they'd deal with Ashley, if you want to sell football tops to neutrals or supporters of other clubs in this country you have too. If you just want to sell them to our own supporters then you bring it in house and control the retail. Ultimately it's in Castore and Rangers interests we sell more strips, so a deal with Ashley, however unpalatable that is, is inevitable. As long as he's not involved in running Rangers or the decisions our board makes I can live with that.

To be fair the SPFL can't, that's what this is about. They asked the clubs to give the board powers to make decisions and the clubs refused. Now they're sort of asking again or at least asking what the clubs would support. Far be it for me to defend the SPFL but they're not able to give any guidance on what will happen as the member clubs won't let them. This should have been sorted in the summer, but seeing as they made such a cock-up of ending last season and 3 member clubs were still suing them days before this season started I guess they decided to leave it for a few months... Scottish football is so riven with self-interest that finding any type of consensus is a challenge. Add that to it being appallingly run then I suspect we're in for more inept leadership and appeasement of the power-block created by our east-end city neighbours. I suspect something will need to happen as member clubs are clearly in difficulties. Dundee Utd (no laughing at the back!) look to be in serious bother if their American backer chooses to pull the plug to try and protect his investment. But clubs like Peterhead are now making redundancies as their pay-per-view attempts have not proved popular. I feel sorry for some of the smaller clubs, many of who welcomed us when others didn't. Dundee Utd going out of business would be amusing though.

Shirts without sponsors look so much better.

Aha, so is the shop in St Enoch Square not 'ours'? I didn't know that. Apologies, I've got that very wrong then.

Just me that thinks this is nuts then? Do we need two shops in the city centre in normal times far less in the current climate? I assume someone somewhere has done the maths on this but I think I'd have held off for a few months, I suspect there will be a glut of retail property in the near future and I'm increasingly inclined to think the pandemic will create systemic changes in our behaviour even when it's a distant memory.

It's a deep, deep cover TB, you've no idea how high this goes!

Managers are taught various things while sitting their licences. One thing that gets a lot of focus is media management. Neil Lennon demonstrated this superbly last week when he took a public swipe at Maurice Ross. The media loved that story, it dominated the back pages and the football news cycle for a few days after. It's clever management from Lennon because it took the focus away from him, his players and their run of results (2 losses and a draw is apparently grounds for dismissal in some quarters now). He was at it again yesterday when post match he had a go at the referee accusing him of having a poor match although he was unable to provide specifics when pushed on it. While not drawing the fire away as much as the Mo Ross outburst it has helped muddy the waters slightly and given the media something to write about other than Celtic shipping 3 goals two matches in a row. I mention this because the next logical step in this deflection is falling out, publicly, with a journalist or media channel. This often helps galvanise support behind the manager seeing as so many are distrustful of the media these days, and again it fills airwaves, blogs and columns as opposed to perhaps more pressing on-field matters. Of course if Lennon really was angry with Ross he could have called him up and told him so, but that's not what this is about. Celtic are feeling some pressure for arguably the first time in 10 years. Rangers haven't yet stuttered (although there's still a long way to go), Celtic's form is poor, their summer buys haven't yet gelled and they're feeling a draft financially for the first time in a decade or so. Should things continue in this manner expect a circling of the wagons down Parkhead way. BBC Scotland though can't afford to alienate Celtic, losing access to one half of the big two is careless but losing access to both would be problematic and difficult for senior management to ignore. So I expect a softening in criticism towards Lennon, perhaps fire aimed at specific players instead, referees certainly and perhaps the SPFL and SFA should events offer them up. Many of us have wondered how Celtic would react to some sustained pressure. When Deila's Celtic side were played off the park by Warburton's in the cup semi Celtic responded by replacing the Norwegian with Brendan Rodgers. That seems unlikely this time for various reason. Money for one, plus this Rangers side isn't just out of the Championship and filled with free transfers from the English lower leagues, we're significantly better than then. It's a dilemma for BBC Scotland, well you reap what you sow, eventually.

I seem to have caused some confusion and debate. Let me try and clarify. I think there's a high likelihood the Championship, Leagues 1 and 2 and the steps in the pyramid below that won't finish the season and so the SPFL need to speak with clubs to try and agree what happens should that take place. I class part-time sides playing in the professional leagues as professional. I also think there's a chance the top league in Scotland will be disrupted and also might struggle to finish. As such again the SPFL need to consult with clubs on what to do in that event too. My reading of things is everything will be done to keep the top league going and the other leagues might be sacrificed to ensure that happens. But if we've learned anything this year its stuff doesn't always go to plan and as full, country wide lockdown can't be ruled out. Craig is correct, I think the SPFL's focus is currently the 'lower' leagues and what to do if half the sides can't play matches due to quarantine and testing issues. And of course it should go without saying that this is my opinion based on fuck all inside knowledge simply a spare 20 minutes to while away on Gersnet. That'll teach me.

Because politicians make decisions usually for political reasons. Because public opinion might turn on highly remunerated footballers if examples of poor behaviour are reported while large parts of the country are locked down. Because already several clubs in Scotland have been unable to keep their players and staff in a secure bubble while infection rates are quite low and the weather was ok. Because part time teams in particular will find secure bubbles almost impossible to maintain as players have other jobs. Because clubs might find it hard to fulfil fixtures. Because it seems likely that infection rates, hospital admissions and deaths will rise in the coming weeks and a full lockdown might be imposed at some point. Because it might suit some clubs.

There is a chance that professional football in Scotland could be stopped before Christmas and a very real chance that the league won't finish before next summer, so while I understand the suspicion the SPFL need to at least begin communicating with clubs on what might happen if that turns out to be the case. If we were to get a bad winter weather wise leading to weather related postponements, on top of Covid postponements we could have some farcical looking league tables in a few months, that's assuming the government doesn't implement a full lockdown before that. I suspect everything will be done to keep the top league going, but I could see the Championship and Leagues 1 and 2 shutting down, so they need to have something agreed that prevents member clubs suing each other again. Ireland has just gone into lockdown again but have agreed to allow professional and top level sport to continue as long as bubbles and isolation continues. I expect other countries will implement similar in the coming weeks, ours included. For me the big question is at what point can a league be 'called'. Clearly with 9 games to go is the current benchmark, but what if there were 12 to go, or half the fixtures still to play? What do they do if suddenly Motherwell find they've played 5 games less than most other sides through no fault of their own, do they get relegated if they're bottom? Motherwell and Aberdeen have already played 2 less than us and the weather has been good so far. So I think the SPFL do need to try and agree some sort of framework for all eventualities. Do I trust them though? Not much is probably my answer. I can't see Mulraney, Doncaster, Lawwell and co doing anything but helping Celtic, it's whether they can still garner enough support from other clubs. Surely Dundee won't be duped by the lure of glamour friendlies again, or anyone else for that matter. So it's more important than ever that we keep winning, that whatever happens we're at the top of the league. I'd be willing to sacrifice the League and Scottish Cups to our reserve side to make sure the first team are fit, healthy and available for the league, because this season we'll see skullduggery like none before it.