stewarty

Certainly getting a lot of praise from Thistle fans. Not that I’m persuaded by that on its own, a peculiar fan base with the preverbial chip on both shoulders.

Nobody had a standout performance but airfield for me on the basis he got us off and running with the early goal.

The more exposure Bassey gets to first team football, the more he seems to adapt. Given the injury situation, I can see him getting a decent run of games.

I had the £1 deal until a few months ago. I also wouldn't pay more than that, but not sure if it can be used again?

I liked that he wanted to address the players collectively and give his thoughts on yesterday, rather than get drawn into a frenzy through the media. And a fresh start for everyone. If you're good enough, you're old enough, etc. No more favourites who play regardless of form. I think we needed to hear some of that right now.

Aribo for me too. I was baffled when he was taken off.

Great news. Well done to the club in securing their man so efficiently.

Sometimes you need to change the situation you're in and get a fresh start in order to kick on. But even though I am not happy with the way he has flitted in the night, I think Gerrard is ruthless in looking out for himself, his team and the things they want to achieve. Aston Villa makes complete sense for them, but I was only a fan while he was with us... and he better not come back for players on the cheap! When I look back I see a Manager in Gerrard who is still cutting his teeth. If you think back to the first season or so, he got caught up in the emotion of games, and was not as guarded in his criticisms of players/opponents etc. To more recently where I think he was too wedded to certain favourite players and I think could have been bolder in revamping the squad by potentially moving on one or two players to finance it. It seems to me we held off in starting the player trading model that we are told is fundamental to our football strategy. I think Gerrard's authority with the Board probably led to a situation where he persuaded them to provide more loans as a means of adding to the squad. The Scottish game as we know has its limitations for players and managers with ambition, but I think we held onto Alfredo particularly for too long. 20/20 hindsight is wonderful though.

It was Ray Wilkins last game for us, and there was a bad fog on the day, you could barely see the other side of the pitch. MoJo got the first. 3-0 win, Butcher and Super on the scoresheet too.

Fair enough Mikey, but how’s about having a word with your employer and encourage them to stop short-changing us with the pittance you pay for the TV rights.

Beale and McCallister, Scott Mason the first team analyst too. I think we can expect the majority of his guys to move with him.

Agreed. It wasn't my first thought, but it did cross my mind.

Any news on whether Defoe is moving with Gerrard? Given he hasn't played and our striker play has regressed, that feels like a failed experiment and if we can exit that deal, it would be good business.

When we read the accounts on Friday we didn't think that it would take the manager's departure to kick start the player trading model.

Officially confirmed by Villa and the club.

Picked GvB but don't think it'll be any of the names on there. Suspect it'll be someone foreign though.

Had we been managing our retail operation "in house", then all of the revenue and all of the costs would be coming through our accounts. Its hard to say how much that would amount to. I too heard some of the higher numbers bandied around by the Beahon brothers on podcasts, but we also heard from the club that the structure of the deal was unique compared to anything we have had in the past, with an ability to generate bonus payments depending on sales. But I think you could easily be talking that the total revenue via Castore could be 4-5 times that £4.3m. I think when it comes to Castore, the number appears a little underwhelming right now, but it may take a year or two for the full benefits to flush through and for the numbers to normalise. Only then can we properly judge whether its been a success.

I really hope you are correct, but this one looks like its going in one direction only.

Gerrard came with his team, and will likely leave with the majority of it. He personally doesn't need the EPL level money, but I fancy that the opportunity for him to facilitate his team getting EPL level money, and the security that might bring them, could be a big draw for Gerrard.

As far as I remember, the reason that he gave was due to restrictions the South African authorities put on moving capital out of the country. Whether that’s 100% true or not, I don’t know. He didn’t seem to have that problem when loaning the club funds prior to this.

I didn’t read it that way, more that player trading is a more sustainable model going forward. And that we are well positioned given the relative depth of the squad now. He wasn’t saying we needed to sell them all

I feel we are in a little bit of groundhog day with the accounts. Each time we accumulate losses which are in turn covered by a range of wealthy supporters. Whilst it is heartening to see how much 55 meant to those guys who again have stepped up and helped the club massively, its not a sustainable position in the long term. There is no doubt that Covid has massively impacted our ability to trade normally, you only need to look at the circa £17m reduction in income. That said, it has forced us to go after alternative income streams more aggressively such as our various commercial partnerships and RTV, as well as the modestly improved merchandising from Castore. On Castore, it might not be until next year's accounts until we see the full impact of the partnership, hence why I say modest improvement to c£4m. What it does show is the reality of our financial position and why we felt a little underwhelmed by the transfer activity in the summer. It also underlines why 56 this year is so massive with the guaranteed UCL income.

Dont disagree overall, but the market over the summer was delayed by the Euros and never really got going to the same extent as it would given the trend in years previously. Ultimately I don't think we received sensible bids for our key assets over the summer. On Kamara though, we have secured him on an extended deal earlier in the year so that at least preserves his value for a year or two more.

Or rather, anti-protestant bigotry, as we should all refer to it as.

Not sure about that. Suspect the manager will try and keep the majority of the team exactly the same. Thought we may have hooked Tav because of his first half booking.