Uilleam

Names in a hat for Servette. Let's hope it's a Magic Hat. Maybe should have signed James Milliner.

The arithmetic actually isn't that great. Buy for 5M Forego 1M bounty Sweetener to Tillman 1M Sell for 12M Residual 5M %age to BM 1.2M Outcome 3.8M It's still better than 1M, and a possible 10% of the PSV fee. Purely speculation, of course. And there may be VAT.

Unless he agreed the principles of the deal when first he moved.

We could have exercised it, then. BM seemingly paid us not to do so.

Apparently, BM paid Rangers a bounty to get out of the agreement. So, there must have been something binding between the parties in the first place.

We should have enforced/activated our right/obligation to buy, and did a back to back with PSV, for a loan fee, and an obligation to buy at 15M Euros (would take 12). We could have given Tillman a sweetener, and still have trousered a handy profit.

A man's game in those bygone days of yore.

Don't you mean 'studded with nails' ?

Well, yes, and that, it seems clear, would align us with the manager, who seems to have made that a strategy. We, as supporters, of course, must also prepare ourselves for the worst, and, to that end, the pre-season serial clusterfucks have been helpful - I mean was anybody really taken aback by the events at Rugby Park, yesterday? I am told -was told- and sometimes quite forcefully, that pre-season matches don't matter, to which one might reasonably enquire: if so, what is their point? I think if a team plays well in these games, and wins , then it is reasonable to view them as tuning up, and not put too much reliance on the performances and results. However, when a side performs badly, incoherently, lacking teamwork, with no discernible game plan, and looks confused, with the ball seeming to be an object with which the players were acquainted only very recently, and when from game to game there is little, or even no, improvement, whatsoever.....I should submit that that is worrying, and that it matters. (I might digress, slightly, and suggest that the 'we played badly but won, and that's all that matters' mantra is similarly flawed. Sure, three points is the aim, but when poor performances become the rule, over a series of games, then it's a racing certainty that the team will come unstuck, as soon as it encounters decent opposition, or a side on form. We have seen this. Often.) Most of us would have noticed that, yesterday, there was a perceptible change from the, em, amorphous pre season performances: unfortunately this was retrograde. The team reverted to type, which is disappointing to say the least. The first -what?- 20 minutes, or so, were lively, but when we failed to take the lead, we, as we always do, took the the foot off the gas. Thereafter, we had the familiar comfort of seeing our team defaulting to trundleball, slow, horizontal, football, allowing the opposition all the time it needed to set its defensive field. There were even periods of horsehoe ball. Pllus ca change, alors....... I have no idea where we go from here, but it does seem imperative to change the default position which is timorous, unimaginative, and unsuccessful. Michael Beale has to do this in a couple of days. I wish him well, but won't be troubling the bookies by backing his side, any time soon.

Sorry, but I find this confusing: you have just scolded me, by suggesting that I check the fees these players commanded, before they pitched up in Govan.

I can only go on the performances I have seen. None of them look like game breakers, to be frank. The fact that clubs paid substantial fees means little. In fact, that they are no longer at those clubs, and have not commanded big outlays, is more telling.

I watched the pre-season matches, and today's game, and, it seems to me, there is no other forward who would fetch £4m. (Danilo excepted, as he is just over the door.)

Sometimes you have to play a wild card - today for instance.

You sure? Maybe you didn't watch the game.

It's not just you. I would say they are just going through the motions, but Compo declared that they were constipated.

You expect us to Buchan believe that?!?!

I've seen this film before. There were times when I thought I was watching a Gio side. We haven't had a court case for a while, perhaps he could sue for plagiarism

Oooooooh! Anurra wan!

Oooooooh! A shot!

No need - we have šljivovica or raki for that position.

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn! What dangers thou can'st make us scorn! Wi' tippenny we fear nae evil; Wi' usquebae we'll face the devil! That is in the way of being a prescription.

Erratically? I am disinclined to give them the benefit of that doubt: I think they know, and have always known, the whither, and, of course, the why.

It remains to be clearly established what Sima is for..

That'll be a nice surprise. Have you got your annual leave in?

Not smart, and just a bare face.