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Shocking challenge there, as clear a red card as you'll get.

I see where you are coming from with that but don't think that'll happen. He's got another two years left on his contract and will be 36 when that's up. I don't think he would be that attractive a proposition for Rangers at that point in his career. There's also the consideration of whether he'd fancy it himself as there is a section of the support that see him and Naismith as doing the club a bad turn by leaving without a transfer fee when they did. I don't think he'd get a universal warm welcome back. I suspect he's more likely to end up in either the MLS for the experience, China or the Middle East for some stupid last big pay day or a nice deal as an experienced backup goalkeeper in the EPL.

The P&J covers all of Northern Scotland, not just Aberdeen.

I can vouch for this. In May it took about 15-20 minutes to get from the airport to St. Julians, however, that was at night. The return trip in the morning took an hour and I ended up at the airport 30 minutes before my flight left. Fortunately I'd already checked in online, only had hand baggage and got through security quickly or I'd have been Donald Ducked. Gridlocked doesn't come close to describing the traffic around Valetta.

I think all the other titles' website traffic is up which is some sort of trade-off I guess. However, the Scotsman's web traffic is also down. They can't be far off pulling the plug.

Yip. It got better, in the summing up at the end, he said "Well we can stick with Jeremy Corbyn or". No idea what he said next as he brought the house down with that. I haven't really paid much attention to the labour leadership campaign or Owen Smith up to now. I think Corbyn is basically useless as a leader but Owen Smith comes across as a sleekit wee nasty piece of work.

This hustings is a right hoot. Owen Smith, "I think Kezia Dugdale is doing a great job as leader of Scottish Labour" to howls of laughter from the audience.

Stayed in Augsburg for the European Cup final in 2012. It's a nice enough place but nothing special. I was there previously and went to a match at the old stadium when they were in Bundesliga 2. Freiburg is much better IMHO.

Good post. The only players over the last couple of years that you could legitimately say have been overlooked would be McCormack and Bardsley. In McCormack's case, it does look as if Strachan doesn't fancy him for some reason. I suspect that's probably down to him either preferring the other options and/or thinking that they fit into his team better. While we're not exactly overflowing with options up front, there are at least options and I can fully understand Strachan's point about wanting different types of players up front. Bardsley is a bit more of a puzzle. To a greater or lesser extent, a right back is a right back is a right back and for the last few years - until Calum Paterson came on the scene - we've basically had one, Hutton. so Bardsleys omission looks a lot like there must be something more to it, ie, not just down to football reasons. Who knows if that's the case or what the issue is. I think it's pretty interesting that he's never really asked about Bardsley by the press.

Because as with McCormack, he's in the invidious position of being an established Championship striker but completely unproven in the Premier League and at International level. This means he's basically overpriced and would represent a risk and poor value for a Premiership team. This probably means that he could command a fee of around £10million to a championship club but a premier league team wouldn't see him as being worth that. If he were to stay at Middlesborough, play regularly and score maybe 10 goals then that would see him established as a "Premiership" player and would be of interest to other clubs. A very good parallel would be Stephen Fletcher who was promoted with Burnley and did relatively well although they were relegated. That basically led to him getting a move to newly promoted Wolves and then to Sunderland. If Burnley had never been promoted that season, Fletcher would never have been transferred to a premier league team.

I'm not asking you to change your opinion but maybe accept that others disagree

The period I'm talking about is the first year or so when Strachan first took over, things were on the up and we had a string of good results. The manager could obviously see it even if you couldn't. http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villa-gordon-strachan-alan-6310736

I'll tell you what Fletcher or McArthur wouldn't do. They wouldn't be caught so far out of position as Bannan was for the first goal. He's wide on the right and when the ball breaks forwards, look how much space the Leeds number 9 is in, in exactly the position that a supposed deep lying midfielder should be. To me that highlights the reasons why Bannan shouldn't be in the team, let alone playing in such an important position, he lacks discipline and will wander off wherever it suits him. Scotland don't have any players that are good enough to give them a free role.

Hutton was actually pretty decent for Scotland during the period that he was frozen out at Villa, probably one of our better players at that time.

He was asked about McCormack in the press conference and outside of some platitudes about McCormack being unlucky to miss out and wanting him to settle in at his new club his main point was that he wanted to have variety in the squad as far as forwards were concerned so that gives him options for different tactics. On that basis it looks to me as if he essentially sees Griffiths and McCormack as competing for the same spot but that he prefers Griffiths.

It's been nice knowing you. Have a good life.

At least you had a seat. Seriously, how can you not know a full block of seats are missing? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3752044/West-Ham-launch-investigation-fans-complained-no-seats-sit-in.html

Bill Forsyth had a similar experience with BBC Scotland. http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/14400577.Makers_of_Gregory_s_Girl_and_Mad_Max_declare_war_on_BBC_Scotland/

The latter according to this. http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/middlesbrough-fc-striker-jordan-rhodes-11778906

Fraser starts for Bournemouth. Interesting.

Jason Kenny and Laura Trott's flat in Bolton has five golds.

Fair enough but let's not big it up either.

A game in which he was completely anonymous

For me McArthur's never really been given a proper run in the team to prove himself either way. A lot - if not most - of his caps to date have been late substitutions. The other thing is that in his position, you're probably not going to notice him much unless he has a stinker.

And which was accompanied by the inevitable shouts of "get him capped" on here. Used to love the Bells Hotel/Balmoral Lounge back in the 1980s. First pub in Aberdeen that had a video jukebox which seemed to have ZZ Top, Dead Ringer for Love, Girls on Film and Pat Benatar on repeat. Madam Butterfly by Malcolm McLaren was very popular as well - youngsters will have to YouTube the video. Was as gutted when I was last in Aberdeen a couple of years ago and it was shut.