calscot

As said, it's not the subject matter, it's the manner it's done. As a more extreme example, you'd expect everyone to be genuinely concerned about the safety of the Ibrox roof, but the manner that Phil ???? reports it, is still shit-stirring. However, we've had definitive but not completely informative answers on the roof, the King issue is a bit more complex, and the "journalist" in question is deliberately muddying the waters by making negative conclusions by referencing Celtic as an erroneous exemplar. I don't know how that helps us. Like you say, they have nothing to do with it, and the further problem is that they don't seem to be a particularly good parallel to compare with in the first place when scrutinised.

So are we unhappy with the amount of information coming from the board, and/or unhappy about the amount of investment so far? And finally do we need King to be around more often and be the spokesman? I personally am not really sure what to think of all three.

I don't quite think it's about that - I think we ourselves are able to debate whether he is meeting his commitments or not and do so regularly. I don't think most of us really know what to expect and whether he is worthy of criticism so far. I think the problem here is that we have a shit stirring journalist using Celtic as an exemplar to show King is "bad", but on scrutiny, the comparison doesn't work. King might be bad, but the article is still invalid.

Have Celtic just made a big signing? If not, then half the article makes little sense - as yet. As for King, while he's not been sensational but I'm not sure where he's failing to meet expectations at this time. And as the guy lives in SA and that's where his family and businesses are, should we expect him to be here more, or is it that he shouldn't be chairman - and what tangible difference would that make? I agree the Celtic comparisons are a bit glaringly strange, ignoring the parallels and actually just making up the contrasts.

Yeah, I do realise that, but if it's your career then you have to find a way... Or move into drama. I'm with you, I don't get it at all. I can't speak for others, but I for one appreciated your Taxi, especially as I get that it's hard and I'm far more forgiving for an amateur. I would guess that many others think the same. I also realise that by writing it, you are putting your ego a bit on the line, and that might make you more sensitive to criticism or groans, when people will enjoy it despite doing that. We don't expect to find everything funny, and sometimes it's a groaner or just not really that funny - only because there's not much funniness to be had, but still light hearted. I think you have to be satisfied with being quite amusing rather than belly laugh a minute and it's appreciated as such. I used to do a toast to the lasses at Burns night every year, and after the first one, I learned after the first couple to dampen the exceptions of my audience with a preamble about not being a pro, if they can do better they are welcome to take my place, so to just do me the respect of listening and hopefully enjoying it - without heckling. I found that with a good audience of family and close friends, who've had a bit to drink and enjoying your hospitality, you can get a lot of laughs and compliments. And it's best not to invite the grumpy, negative people who like to criticise everyone. It also reminds me of so many single women saying that they want someone who makes them laugh all the time, which makes me wonder if they want a boyfriend or a clown... But also that when you go to a comedy club, see quite a famous, professional act, and it only makes them laugh out loud a few times, you wonder what average Joe can do to top that... To me, if you need someone to MAKE you laugh, you are a very dull person. Got to agree there.

Yeah, after the Scotland job, I don't have any respect for him as a manager (or much as a person) - but he isn't in that role and I think he was a good player, so you would think the current players respect him for that. I personally think if Hearts had kept Neilson, they would be in a similar position to Aberdeen. Without exactly being spectacular, he was doing a pretty competent job for Hearts. I think they will suffer with the new transition.

The biggest problem with only an excuse to me, is it's lack of actual funny sketches. Or maybe I just have a different sense of humour to the writers. As for the interviews, the problem with MW's "professionalism" in this regard, is that they are dull, dull, dull, and empty of much value. The players say nothing interesting at all these days, and the manager seems more concerned with fending off the reporters, at the expense of communicating with the fans. The worst was under Le Guen, whom I was initially highly enthused to hear his words of wisdom and hung on every word, until I realised he was saying absolutely nothing of interest whatsoever, and worse didn't seem to have a handle on the situation. His pronunciation of "Raungers" was really grating too. The first thing any intelligent person should do when appointed manager of a foreign club is to learn the local pronunciation of name of the team - including the stress of the syllables - such as NewCAStle. I know some weren't bothered about, but to me it's one of those indicators where you think, "If he hasn't even researched that basic thing, what HAS he researched?" I think we can see the answer was that he spent this valuable preparation time researching the Marathon Des Sables instead. There's an old, to the point saying: "Just get it right".

Shouldn't the presence and backing of Craig Levein as DoF offset that somewhat? He does seem to have had a terrible start - which is good for us. Although it could make our current gap with them a bit of a false one if he is able to bring it together, meaning they might be harder to pull away from next season.

I think we dodged a bullet there, I don't see why we would want to be hit on the ricochet...

While it's a definite push and foul, there is also a case for simulation.

I think it can be easily argued that BF and KB had more success than PLG in the following years after the latter walked.

You're just making my point. The player became an apparent problem to Walter and he "managed" it - without negatively affecting the success of the club or his job security. Warburton did the same with Barton (although he hasn't given the relative success). IIRC correctly Murray offered to get rid of Ferguson, but didn't want to do that without commitment and confidence from Le Guen, but that wasn't forthcoming and the Frenchman made an ignominious exit.

Yeah, they got Walter sacked too - oh wait... Every player has his flaws, it's up to a good manager to deal with it and get a winning team on the pitch.

We effectively didn't play one on the right hand side and that cost us dearly... It seems to me that to play three at the back you really need wing backs or some other way of guarding the wide spaces at the back which we didn't have.

People might not like Boyd and Le Guen still has a mystifying support, but a lot of this rings true and could help explain our very poor results that were completely transformed in a couple of weeks by Smith. I've read a ton of stuff on exercise and nutrition and Le Guen's regime smacks of over-training and under-nourishing as well as immensely naive on the psychological side of things. A lot of people think that the more you train, the fitter you will be and the better you will play but it really doesn't work like that. And it's obvious that if you hate the training you won't be motivated for the game. Even now people think that what Warburton is doing is revolutionary compared to past managers, but then you have to wonder how our previous sides were so successful, including now and again in Europe. The fact is most managers in the last few decades employ fitness experts, nutritionists and sports psychologists - and listen to them - after they have listened to the players. It sounds like Le Guen was a bit cloth eared. Everyone is different and you need to tailor things to individual players - and how they are feeling is massively important feedback.

Thinking about that, the problem is that if we can afford any of them, it's because they have declined to the level we already have. The problem is we have what we can afford and we can't afford to improve that much this season. Our finances should improve dramatically in the coming seasons with prize money, sponsorship and Europa games, as well as being boosted by investment. I think we have to not live too much above our means at the moment as it's not sustainable and we don't want to handicap future seasons when expectations will be a lot higher. What we need right now is great value for money and a manager who can get them to perform well above average for the level of investment we have. You only have to look at the best seasons of McLeish's Motherwell and Hibs or McCall's Motherwell, who had far smaller budgets, to see it can be done and hopefully scaled up to our superior income.

Fair enough with Naismith, except we couldn't afford him anyway. We lost about £10m when he walked away and his parting comments were abysmal.

I think we have to remember that the last WS squad won the league against a more expensive Celtic side than exists now, it was a pretty good squad - it's all relative to that when talking about players we didn't think were good enough. The lesser players then are generally better than what we have now - and reflected by the fact we paid more for them. The question with Lafferty is whether he's improved, stayed similar or got worse with age. However, while I understand some of the reasons why players walked away in 2012, personally I don't really want any of them back.

You have to wonder where they got their info for transfers while at Brentford - Watford?

Mikhailichenko had obvious talent but he never seemed to be that interested when playing for us; he just wasn't up for it most of the time. Davie Cooper was sometimes like that, and would have a similar bored expression on his face, but as a difference, he would put in a shift more often than not.

The funny thing about fitness is that a week off of training can actually make you fitter - IF you've been training constantly for months. To become fitter you need to train and rest, train and rest - effectively breaking down the muscles and letting them rebuild stronger. When you train constantly you build up fatigue levels that prevent your muscles rebuilding and also bring your form down due to tiredness. If you are very fit and been training for a while, a week's rest will be beneficial and while you regain freshness you won't lose fitness. Resting more than week, and you will start to have a detraining effect - slight at first and then becoming noticeable after two weeks. For optimum fitness and freshness, an athlete would ideally increase intensity for 3 weeks and then have an easy week and then repeat a few times, and then before a big event they taper off their training off to allow fatigue levels to drop. This is how they do it in athletics and cycling as fitness is the most important factor and competitions are spread out and don't have equal importance - meaning they can compete in lesser ones without being at their best and not being too bothered if they don't do so well. In football, this is very difficult due to how relentless the fixture list is with all games being important, and it's where a winter break is very good for the game, and should help prevent injuries due to over training. To really take advantage of modern knowledge of training, a manager should really have a good, interchangeable squad that can be rotated according to the fatigue of the players, changing a few every week to give them a rest from the match and lower intensity training, over a four week cycle. That way you could keep players in much better form. I assume the more savvy ones will do this with the training, if not the match, due to the importance of results and the variation of skill levels. Psychologically, I think we all intuitively know that if you are not doing so well at work, working you harder is not going to help and a break can allow you to reset your mindset and become more motivated to do better afterwards. We all need a break at times, to spend time with family, friends or just on our own, and get away from the pressures of work for a short while. Footballers are surely not different there. This is the perfect time for it, seeing as we have a winter break. A week off will do the players a hell of a lot of good physically and mentally. I don't agree with some of MW's thinking at times, but I'm fully in agreement here.

Are you saying that their team wage bill is 30m more than ours? If so I think you are mixing us up with Queens Park.

So according to you this is a sack the manager post...

We're struggling to finish above teams that have a third or less than our budget, so are you saying we need 3 times Celtic's budget to beat them by a slight margin? We're going to have to be incredibly patient if that's the case and I don't see where Europa money is going to help much in that scenario. Being unable to compete with Celtic is not the current issue with most of the manager's critics.

Please explain. You don't make the slightest bit of sense. Anyone can make up a load of crap about what they pretend someone said and then "judge it". What are you on about?