morrie21

Back to the real fitba then...... Stenny have appointed Gary Naysmith as manager. Quite happy with that. Should be a safe pair of hands to get us out of the mire we are currently in. Moving up the table, and you never know, maybe getting in contention for 4th and a playoff place.

Good to know there is a fellow Atalanta fan on the board. Usual action packed affair for us yesterday.

As far as I can tell the handball falls into the area covered by IFAB's rule about a player instinctively protecting their face when a ball is coming at them fast from close range. Can only conclude that after the quick VAR check, Collum, or however you spell his name, agreed with the ref's on-field decision and the game continued. The penalty awarded to Rangers definitely falls into the clear and obvious error category for me. The referee waited an age, then pointed to the spot. Because he made the decision on the field it was difficult for VAR to overturn due to the nature of what happened. It did look a penalty, so no clear and obvious error bearing in mind the ref only has one look at full speed. The Celtic defender made a serious error by going to ground like that and the Rangers attacker totally played him. If the ref hadn't awarded the penalty then VAR wouldn't have either - it was one of those decisions for me.

Quality. Let me know how you get on. Bergamo especially. Atalanta are my team!

Serie A resumes tomorrow with a full card of fixtures. Staggered throughout the day with KO times being 1130, 1330, 1530, 1730 and 1945 in the GMT. Outstanding!

Aye, always trust your own eyes. Goes for whatever you are watching.

May I say, on this Hogmanay, I wish all the petty squabbling, personal insults and never-ending bickering between posters on here can be left in 2022 and we move forward with a more dynamic and well rounded football discussion forum in 2023. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone here, just asking for a line to be drawn in the sand as the calendar flips to a new year. There's plenty for us football fans to debate and discuss without going down the undesirable paths of insults, threats or whatever else has been spouted here in the past. We can all do better, let's aim to do so in 2023. Wishing everyone a Happy New Year when it arrives. Cheers.

Thanks. Appreciate you reading. Was trying to get it to them ASAP after the news broke as they wanted to run it that evening. Wanted to go more into his club achievements, but then wanted to keep the word count low too. Did my best and am happy with the end result. My editors over there are superb, jazzing things up with the pics and headline etc. Thanks again!

Thanks mate. Yeah got to agree with that regarding the full names.

https://nyfights.com/worldwide/rip-pele-the-greatest-footballer-of-all-time-1940-2022/ Editor over at NYF asked me for some words on Pele last night after the news broke. It was my honour to write this. Anyone interested, check it out.

From this era - minus Messi and Ronaldo - I'd have Modric and Ibrahimovic as the two top players simply for their high levelof play over a very long time. Also nod of the cap to Lewandowski for continued goal scoring excellence.

With Messi and Ronaldo separating themselves from everyone else during the recent era, who do we see as being the players from the next generation who will be as dominant and potentially enter themselves into the GOAT argument? Likewise, take Messi and Ronaldo out of this era - who would have been the most highly regarded player(s)? And if comparing era isn't too silly, who, in your opinion, is the very best player ever? Or top 5. Whatever you want to add. Just a thread to maybe get some discussion going during the week between Xmas and New Year.

The entire SPFL, or just the Premiership? How was he measuring it - or did he just throw in "pound-for-pound" and then follow it up with his opinion? What if a League 2 club with 100 season ticket holders takes 50 fans to every away fixture? - including the far away ones - then that's 50% of their season ticket base. Surely that out pound-for-pounds a few thousand out of 15,000 or so.

Remember the "clear and obvious error" thing with VAR. Just saying. Obviously that is widely open to interpretation and will differ from match to match depending on who is the VAR. Until fitba is fully refereed by automation (definitely heading that way at the highest level) there will still be errors made - different interpretations of the same decision. Also in Scotland - look at the abilities of our officials.

Rematch with Catterall finally confirmed. March 4th at the Hydro.

https://www.spitballingpod.com/football/2022/12/20/qatar-2022-conclusion-the-qatar-experience-part-2 This one rounds off my series of articles on the World Cup for Spitballingpod. Thanks to anyone who read throughout the tournament.

https://www.spitballingpod.com/football/2022/12/16/qatar-2022-semi-finals-the-qatar-experience-part-1 semi-final piece and some other stuff. A little sad that things are coming to an end, although I do need a little break from the coverage.

Does anyone else think it strange that the Scottish Premiership is back up and running tonight - before the scheduled end of the World Cup? Is there that much fixture congestion in Scottish football? To the best of my knowledge the other European top flights, with the exception of England, are taking their winter breaks after the World Cup and getting back to it in January. I guess it presents a historic situation where one could've watched a World Cup semi-final on a Wednesday followed by Scottish Premiership fare 24 hours later.

Most appropriately named piece of the tournament so far. There are a few words 😁 https://www.spitballingpod.com/football/2022/12/11/qatar-2022-quarter-finals-going-the-distance

Grant Wahl passing away at the Netherlands-Argentina game last night while working is absolutely shocking. Read and enjoyed some of his coverage over the years. Seen a few tweets this morning suggesting, well there's no other way to say it, foul play. Need to wait to find out more information before going there - but then will the information be accurate. Terrible that a relatively young man went out to cover the tournament and he won't be returning home to his family. My condolences to them.

Yeah you're not wrong there. It's a dark cloud that hangs over every club in League Two, the possibility that one bad campaign can see your club finish as Club 42 and then get flushed down the pan in the playoff by an ambitious Lowland League club. But it is also the way it should be, finishing in that position should have consequences. Hopefully whoever Stenny bring in gets us moving in the right direction. A few weeks ago Forfar made the change and brought in Ray McKinnon, they are languishing in bottom place right now but I think McKinnon will see them comfortably safe over the remainder of the season.

Yeah, it's been shocking really. A more than capable squad is in place at the club, the performances have been way lower than expected though. It's a tough league, many of the teams are evenly matched so need to turn up week in, week out with an organised tactical plan and play well. That's been beyond us so far this season. Hopefully whoever comes in can get us to a promotion playoff spot, as that is the bare minimum of expectations. Winning the league is probably already gone, sorry to say, both for our prospects of being in League One next season and your accumulator.

what's going on there?

After a poor run of form my club, Stenhousemuir, saked manager Stephen Swift and his backroom team today. some of the lowlights of a season that began with optimism thanks to a strong squad being assembled...... being unable to keep a clean sheet since the opening day of the season four points out of the last 21 available has us firmly bottom of the form table in real terms the club are now only 4 points ahead of Club 42, currently Forfar who we play on Saturday haven't won in the league since Oct 1 - shambolic I realise a League Two club binning their manager isn't going to move the needle or anything but thought I would post anyway.

Couple of articles to share today 1) my usual roundup and preview of the next round for the good folks at spitballingpod https://www.spitballingpod.com/football/2022/12/7/qatar-2022-last-16-established-order-returns-pretty-much 2) editor at SportsLook - the Japan-Forward sports section asked me to predict the rest of the way through the tournament https://featured.japan-forward.com/sportslook/notes-on-the-fifa-world-cup-so-far-and-predicting-the-rest-of-the-way/ Enjoy the words anyone who chooses click n read Actually was working on both of these pieces simultaneously yesterday - found it incredibly difficult to go from using our way of using English on the Spitballingpod piece to changing to American English as is the format for SportsLook.