Uilleam

Paging Mr Lampard, Mr Lampard.. Paging Mr Lampard, Mr Lampard...

Wholly shit.

FFS!! Men!! It's Ibrox!! It's the Hertz!! Surely it's a horse's knob? !!?

Surely they are still playing Tim Time

"Sad plight of Ajax shows brutality of life outside football elite" "......Ajax...... has made some terrible decisions along the way, such as bad coaching, executive hires, and misfires in the transfer market. Ajax failed to obtain a transfer fee for players such as André Onana and Noussair Mazraoui....." I've heard this song before. Nearer home. Sad plight of Ajax shows brutality of life outside football elite Dutch giants became great by keeping everything under their own roof, but expansionism and money of today’s game means that option is fraught with danger James Gheerbrant Saturday October 28 2023, 12.00am, The Times Ajax, one of the most celebrated clubs in Europe, have won only one of their opening seven league games and are in the relegation zone https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sad-plight-ajax-shows-brutality-life-outside-football-elite-b6c00mcq5 Some football matches wear their symbolism lightly. Brighton & Hove Albion’s Europa League victory against Ajax on Thursday was not one of these. Ajax, the four-times continental champions, archdukes of European football, founding fathers of the modern game, against Brighton, the upstart gulls soaring aloft on the thermals of Premier League richesse. The fact of Brighton’s win would have been enough; the manner of it was doubly striking. Brighton had 65 per cent possession and made 788 passes. Everything that Ajax once pioneered — young talent, passing triangles, using the ball to dictate and dominate — was turned against them. For a long time, Ajax were the school. On Thursday night, they were schooled. Brighton came not to humiliate or emulate or give Ajax a taste of their own medicine, just to impose their own game. In fact, they played with a studied disregard for their opponents, which of course is how Ajax used to play in their glory years. If that was a similarity, though, in other respects this felt like a collision of two opposite philosophies. At their best, whether in Johan Cruyff’s long career or afterwards in his long shadow, Ajax embodied a lean, inward-looking asceticism. A tight ship. The idea that with a set of principles honed on the training pitch and a sacrosanct link between academy and first team, you could — as far as possible — reduce the vulgarities of chance and luck inherent to the sport and keep your destiny under your own roof. Brighton, on the other hand, have bloomed under their gambler owner by embracing calculated risk, by being better than anyone else at playing the game outside the game, by casting their net ever further and wider. In a way, although Brighton are wealthier than Ajax, the landscape of modern football puts them in the same bind: losing their best players and coaches to bigger teams and forever having to replace them. Brighton are just much better at this than practically anyone else. Once, Ajax conquered all by systematising the play; these days, you have to play the system. It’s hard to overstate how terrible this season has been for Ajax. Their defeat by Brighton was the fifth in their past seven matches. They have not won a game, in any competition, since August 24. Unbelievably, they are second from bottom of the Dutch Eredivisie, albeit having played two games fewer than most teams. It is not yet November and they are 22 points off the lead. Since the Second World War, Ajax’s lowest finish in Dutch football has been 13th in 1965 (Cruyff’s first campaign); since then, they have never dipped below the relative ignominy of sixth and fifth in 1998-99 and 1999-2000. For Ajax to be this bad is no less improbable than when Chelsea were 16th in December 2015, or when Borussia Dortmund were bottom of the Bundesliga in February of that year, or when Real Madrid finished beneath Tenerife in 1996, and somehow more unthinkable. For the name Ajax is evocative of more than mere might; it is also synonymous with beautiful football, with an ideal form of the game. More confounding still is that Ajax were very good very recently. You will remember the team that in 2019 came within a whisker of reaching the Champions League final and also stormed the Eredivisie, but in Erik ten Hag’s final two seasons, 2020-21 and 2021-22, they also played at a high level. Dutch champions in both seasons, they accrued 88 and then 83 points, with a goal difference both years of +79; to put that in context, the 1995 Champions League-winning team of Clarence Seedorf, Edgar Davids, Marc Overmars and Patrick Kluivert won the Dutch league with 88 points (adjusted to three points for a win) and a goal difference of +78. Clearly, Ten Hag has proved hard to replace. But no less relevant to Ajax’s predicament has been the loss of Overmars, who had worked brilliantly alongside Ten Hag as the club’s director of football, responsible for some of their excellent recruitment in those years. He rightly and inevitably left the club in February last year after sending a photo of his genitals to a female club employee. Ajax are not the only European power to be facing relegation. In France, Lyon, the seven-times Ligue 1 champions between 2002 and 2008 and Champions League semi-finalists in 2010 and 2020, are bottom of the table and winless after nine matches. Both clubs have been plagued by lawless ultras: Ajax supporters forced the abandonment of a home match against Feyenoord last month when they threw flares on to the pitch and then vandalised the stadium, while Lyon’s hardcore have in recent times struck Dimitri Payet with a bottle, got their club thrown out of the French Cup and lit fires in the stands after last season’s Europa League loss to West Ham United. That kind of toxic rage is obviously beyond the pale. But even the moderate majority of both fan bases could be forgiven a sense of alienation and estrangement. When Lyon won those seven titles in a row in the 2000s, three players stayed from start to finish (Grégory Coupet, Juninho and Sidney Govou) and four more spanned at least five seasons. Now, only two players remain of the 15 who took the field against Manchester City in the Champions League quarter-final three years ago. It’s the same story with Ajax. Not one player remains from the match-day 18 that faced Tottenham Hotspur in the 2019 semi-final; and of the 15 players involved in a 4-0 win over Dortmund two years ago, just three. The team has been remade twice in four years. It is not easy, in those circumstances, to command unconditional devotion. A cathedral that is remodelled gradually, which has a bit chipped away here, a bit added there, is still a cathedral. But a cathedral that is knocked down every few years and rebuilt entirely no longer is. It can only be a facsimile, an imitation. No doubt Ajax and Lyon have made some terrible decisions along the way, such as bad coaching, executive hires and misfires in the transfer market. Ajax failed to obtain a transfer fee for players such as André Onana and Noussair Mazraoui, while Lyon made the same error with Houssem Aouar and Moussa Dembélé. But their slump also speaks to how hard it is to keep winning at the game that most clubs outside the super-wealthy elite have been forced into: sell, scout, develop, start over. For now, all they have to fight for is survival.

Scottish SPCA will check on welfare of Britain’s loneliest sheep Steep cliffs and poor weather have prevented rescue efforts Mike Merritt, Lizzie Roberts Thursday October 26 2023, 10.00pm, The Times The sheep, whose fleece has grown so large it trails along the ground, is trapped on a stretch of beach about half a mile from the Cromarty Firth JILL TURNER/PETER JOLLY/NORTHPIX Britain’s loneliest sheep, which has been stranded at the foot of a cliff for two years, will be monitored by animal welfare experts “when the weather allows”. The sheep was first spotted near Balintore, Easter Ross, by Jill Turner in 2021 but when she returned to the same spot this year she saw what she believed to be the same sheep, only with a very overgrown fleece. The animal’s plight has been brought to the attention of the Scottish SPCA, the animal welfare charity, which said it would now monitor its health. “The Scottish SPCA is aware of the sheep that is stranded at the bottom of a cliff,” Mike Flynn, chief superintendent of the Scottish SPCA, said. “The sheep has ample grazing in the area but we have not been able to ascertain who the sheep belongs to. We will continue to have further checks when the weather allows and it is safe to do so.” A rescue mission would be likely to require specialist equipment because of the difficult terrain, but it is understood a farmer has previously looked into how the sheep could be retrieved from the seashore. Drones have apparently been sent into the area to check on its welfare. The sheep was first spotted two years ago when Turner was on a kayaking trip between Balintore and Nigg but it was felt the animal would be able to find its own way to fields above the cliffs. She said of the first sighting: “About half a mile before turning into the Cromarty Firth we spotted a sheep on a shingle beach at the bottom of some steep, rocky coastline. “She saw us coming and was calling to us along the length of the beach, following our progress until she could go no further. She finally turned back, looking defeated.” Turner was shocked to see the same animal at the beach on a recent paddle around the Cromarty Firth. “She called out on our approach and once again followed the group along the shore, jumping from rock to rock, calling to us the whole way,” she said. “Her fleece on the first occasion was a normal year’s growth. However, on the recent trip the fleece was huge and touching the ground at the back.” She added: “The poor ewe has been on her own for at least two years — for a flock animal that has to be torture, and she seemed desperate to make contact with us on the two occasions we’ve gone past her. “It is heart-rending. We honestly thought she might make her way back up that first year. After the storm at the weekend I worry about whether she survived. With huge seas coming in and a deluge of water pouring down the gullies, it must have been traumatic for her, if not fatal.” The sheep is not of the same breed as those belonging to farmers in the local area. It is thought it could have been part of a flock that was temporarily on nearby grazings. Turner said that the landowner had made several attempts over the past couple of years to get to the ewe but has had to abandon rescue attempts for various reasons, mainly due to the dangerous landscape. “The highlighting of this case has caused him quite some concern, fearing people randomly turning up trying to be the hero and getting injured,” she said. Turner added: “I walked along the top of the cliffs and located the bay from above. It is really steep with difficult access due to gorse, bracken and fencing. “The shore is shallow and has easy access. What we need is a semi-ridged inflatable that can go in, and for at least one of my farming friends to go along with a dog and capture her. I have had sheep myself so I think it’s possible, and so do they. “We did see some guys in such a boat the first year, hauling up creels, possibly from Cromarty, so maybe a fisherman could help. She deserves to be rescued and given a good few years with other sheep. So hopefully she will make it back to a flock soon.”

Christmas Eve in Motherwell. Mmmmm.......tasty

Better than I thought.

What were the stats on shots? Was it not something like 19 to our 1?

Butland, Sima or Souttar. Quite a tricky choice, which may not be rushed.

We got a clean sheet because -Butland made outstanding saves -the defence made some great blocks, interceptions, clearances and tackles -their finishing of chances was desperate Of these three factors, the last was the most significant. What does one say about Dessers and Lammers. We have been watching them for months, now, and have yet to see either of them produce even one decent half of football. I look at Dessers, and think, 'How tf does he get paid for playing football?' I look at Lammers, and think, 'He doesn't even flatter to deceive'. Does M.Clement think he can get performances out of them? If he does, I hope the long stop date will be Hogmanay, at which, if they haven't shaped up, he will concede defeat and consign them to the bench, unless he can (don't laugh) ship them out. How about Dessers and Lafferty upfront for Johnstone Burgh?

Yep. Anything but the duds, really.

Starting with Lammers and Dessers, and scraping an away draw is almost acceptable.

The referee is a complete and utter prick.

And we look as fit

I am not sure that I was being 100% serious. I should be happier if the youth on the bench had had some actual experience under their belts, in case they are called upon.

Giving youth a chance.......??

Belgian Manager, ergo Belgian Beer

It has come to my attention that the Club seeks a 'Rangers' Man' to join the coaching staff. You are a 'Rangers' Man', of a certain vintage, who has seen the best, and the worst, so perhaps the Club might consider engaging your services, with special emphasis on physical fitness. I am sure that the matter of emolument could be quickly, and amicably, solved. As for equipment, well, a few windcheaters, a few pairs of jodhpurs, and like no. of leather riding boots, would be necessary, to which you would add a sjambok, and two or three cattle prods, of varying length. None of this would break the bank. What say you? Is your fedora in the ring?

I hope not.

That's the spirit !!

Dammers is the Lesser of two evils. Or something. I fell off a ladder, yesterday, so who knows?

Ah dinna ken what they say in Wallonia, but in Glasgow we say "Plus ca change.....plus ca meme chose."