Dev

YESSSS!!!! That League table looks oh so sweet. MAGIC!!

Even better when you get a view of the bottom two as well...

Sexy.

I find the Ultras word totally off-putting. It might sound cool in Milan or Belgrade or somewhere but it sounds like a majorettes group to me.

Moving this to Fitba Chat as it no longer has any relevance to Saints.

Saints cancel training due to 7 players taking ill .

Why does this seem to happen to football teams so often? Every few months there are stories of clubs where half the team is down with some sort of bug and the rest of the players are sent home.

It's never happened to my knowledge in any of my workplaces, seems bizarre how regularly it occurs at football clubs.

Nope not for me , sad as it was . I remember that day for celtic park and part time saints taking rangers to a replay , coming out the ground and being bombarded with wine bottles and getting chased up the road by rangers/chelsea casuals . There has been minutes silence/applause for this before , the report has revealed the truth , sorry for being heartless but why do this now ?

I honestly don't think it's heartless, we're all sympathetic about what happened to the 96 and their families but I just don't think it would be appropriate for a Saints match, especially not this particular one.

I'm actually amazed Scotland still manage to pull in reasonable crowds. The games are horrendous to watch - absolute murder. The team is so negative, so lacking spark or flair or urgency. And the manager is terrible.

It's a pity, because I think the players available aren't too bad. They're not brilliant, but they're okay. A manager with a bit more nous and a bit more motivational ability could surely get more out of them. I'd like a new manager to start by cutting out this "we'll take a draw" approach that has permeated through the national team. Qualifying from a group is about picking up as many points as possible, which means winning matches - not pretending draws are okay all the way until the end, and then suddenly realising they're not because you've finished fourth.

I think Levein seems like a decent enough bloke, but he's well out of his depth at international level and is never going to be able to tactically unpick these tough, skilful, organised eastern European opponents that his team invariably has to face. To this day I can't understand why he got the job in the first place. I just can't see anything in his background to suggest he would have been up to it.

Agree 100% with this. I can't help but think that someone else would be able to do more with what's available.

Delighted I bought the Scotland season ticket...

Meanwhile, on the list of other heinous crimes I've committed today, I have posted an announcement to publicise this event that appears on all forum sections. I should be burned at the stake.

Personally I don't think this is relevant to Saints. I stand ready to be shouted down but, while I agree that the revelations are shocking, I wouldn't be personally interested in marking it at a Saints game.

Don't talk utter shit, and is there no praise for Celtic making the group stages, no some will be hurting at that eh?

You can always try a Celtic bigotboard forum if you're desperately keen to read praise for that lot.

The money Celtic will bring in from group stage qualification will only further exacerbate the gap between them and the rest of Scottish football, as if that was necessary.

Dobbie joins York City on loan. Surely we could have borrowed him.

It's Dobie not Dobbie that's joined York City and we definitely don't want him back!

Apparently Dobbie could be on his way to Middlesbrough in part-exchange for Marvin Emnes.

I nicked the match ball from Saints' 2-1 win over Rangers in October 2000. At the end of the match Barry Ferguson lumped the ball into the Main Stand, it took a bounce off some seats and I grabbed it. Shoved it under my jacket and made off out of the stadium. One of the stewards stopped me on the way out (think we still had our own stewards then) and I claimed that Jim Weir had given me it, which he semi-accepted giving me enough time to disappear off up the car park. Momo Sylla came into the High School a few weeks later to visit French classes so I even got the ball signed by the winning goalscorer!

We miss his influence desperately.

To repeat again for those who haven't been able to stop themselves, despite our pleas.

Do not post any allegations, rumours or hearsay that is currently doing the rounds. Don't allude to anything, don't speculate on the validity of anything, don't ask for information by PM, don't tell us that you have some source or other within the club who says X, Y or Z. Just leave it alone. If possible, stick to comments related to football topics for the time being.

Piles of posts have been removed from this thread and others as they could result in legal issues for the site owners and may jeopardise the future of the forum. We are being watched!

The Marca report on the Motherwell-Levante game is hilarious, read it with my breakfast this morning. Describes the Motherwell players as butchers and gives four of their players 0 out of 10. Lasley "led the way in hacking". Hammell was "slow and always out of position". Higdon was "very much overweight, harmless". Ojamaa "didn't appear the whole night". The only guy they gave any praise to was Humpreys, "the only Scottish guy with ability". Basically painted the whole lot of them as talentless hammer-throwers.

They did praise the Well fans though, "another night of frustration for the noisy but suffering local fans. Football has forgotten them. Without doubt, the best of Motherwell was in the stands."

following up my post earlier in the week re: the Falkirk announcer, one TSFM reader emailed falkirk asking on what grounds they could suspend him. Falkirk apparently replied saying that he had not been suspended, but told to take the next game off (against Sevco) as they had received so many threats they could not guarentee his safety.

In what way are they unable to guarantee the safety of a bloke who sits in a room in the Main Stand? Surely he's not gonna come to any harm if he doesn't leave his wee box during the game?!

Sounds like more nonsense on this subject to me. Mountain out of a molehill.

Think it's £12M up front with another £2M depending on appearances/performance.

Just watchedChelsea v Reading

With Reading keeper racing back into his own half, Chelsea broke forward with 4 players. Only one defender got back to the goalmouth as the attacker with the ball rolled it forward for another Chelsea player who scored.

What happened to having 2 defenders between ball and goal to prevent forwards being offside ?

This was the second offside goal Chelsea got away with.

I just watched the highlights online - Ivanovic was behind the ball when it was played, so no offside.

The manager has to be a Saints supporter

Do you actually believe that? Perhaps that's not what you meant, if you mean that he has to be positive about the club then I agree with that.

Thinking about it, have we ever had an actual Saints supporter in charge?

In my opinion for far too many years Saints managers have neglected to grow our own home grown talent at the expense of journeymen professionals who whilst capable of doing a reasonable job, if properly coached, do not have the ability to progress further. Since Davidson, McCluskey and Griffin, we have struggled to bring any youngster through and the only time they appear to be given a chance is when injuries force it. Even if they were man of the match they then disappear from the scene. It appears that the motto has been to protect the managers job rather than improve the team, allowing that young players are variable in their performances.

I know that the main topic of this thread isn't the youth system, but I'm going to comment on this anyway. I don't think any of the youngsters we've had in recent years has been worth putting into the team, with the possible exception of Moon. I don't think our youth system has been attracting players of real prospect for years and years now, certainly not the kind of guys that United, Hearts and Hibs have brought through of late. We just aren't attracting the standard of player required and that's not down to the size of the club as you can see successful youth players coming through at the likes of Livingston (Griffiths, Davidson, McPake, etc) and Hamilton (McCarthy, MacArthur, Easton). None of the guys who we've released have gone on to have any sort of professional careers, they've all gone down to playing part-time in the lower divisions. If they've just not got it, playing these young guys doesn't make any sense and would be to the detriment of results.

Andy Jackson is an example of someone who was given plenty of opportunities but eventually turned out not to be up to the standard required. You missed out Parker as well, he was good enough so he got in the team on merit.

If the talent isn't there then there's nothing the manager of the day can do about it.

The visual aspect seems to have given way to who can make the loudest noise.

That's certainly the case in Spain anyway. I was brought up going to the South Inch to see the fireworks on Bonfire Night and they were always set off along to music. I also saw some good ones at theme parks in Florida, again along to a theme or music of some description. Here they just make them as loud as possible, no music, no theme, nothing. Just a shedload of noise getting on my wick.

What do you think of fireworks? Personally I'm not much of a fan, I don't find them very interesting at all.

This week is "Aste Nagusia" in Bilbao, literally translated from the Basque language it means Big Week. As part of this, every night at 2245 there are fifteen minutes of fireworks and there are different teams from around Europe each night. Throngs of people crowd the banks of the river and all the bridges to get a view of them. I could just go and watch them from my balcony but they just don't do anything for me at all - a lot of noise for nothing!

Am I just being a grumpy git?

Just watching the Dundee derby. Dundee are getting pumped 3-0 at half-time but it's a little bit undeserved tbh, they were looking pretty good and had all the possession up until the first goal for United. Defensively Dundee don't look great though.

I started the thread as it always looks like Lomas doesn't know what to do.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...otball/19311378

Interesting read. We over achieved last year in 6th place, does he now think we are in a more appropriate position.

From the quotes in the article, that interview is a cliche-ridden mess. (I haven't actually listened to the interview, I don't want to hear his voice.)

Can't bring myself to listen to his pish tonight.

No fault of yours though!

Guys,

Please be extremely careful with what you discuss on the public forum - unconfirmed rumours can be potentially libellous and/or defamatory and as a result we cannot tolerate discussion of these matters on this forum.

Postings of this type could result in the forum being taken offline and legal action being taken against the site owners.

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