Diamond Scot

It wasnt a slight, it was a fact as part of the summary of his career to date where it is also a fact that he has not as yet ever held down a starting position when another RB is fit. Hickey is a better full back and a better wing back. Hickey isnt great going forward but for Scotland he provides the platform for McGinn to do what he does. A right hand side of Hickey / Gilmour on RCM and then Hickey have shown that they can create chances whilst being really solid defensively. I doubt Gilmour starts against Germany but he is more than good enough to start against Swiss and Hungary. Afterall Gilmour is now starting every week in centre mid for a team much better than Everton and in Europe so he must be doing something right.

What a wild take on pricing for entertainment. Especially for a sport that is generally associated with working class. Uefa's remit is to grow the game not just to make maximum profit. And even if maximum profit was the objective, such a pricing structure would be short sighted.

Lets not rewrite history, he properly broke into the Rangers team when Taviner got injured towards the end of the 20/21 season. Thats the season Rangers won the league and stopped 10 in a row. As soon as Tavinier was fit Patterson dropped back to bench, only really making cameo appearences at the start of the next season when Rangers were reigning champions. As Aaid says I also dont think this is a massive slight against him but it is the facts. He then moved to Everton in Jan 22 when Benetiz quickly got sacked. He didnt get a look in until April when he started due to Coleman being N/A and Patterson himself then got injured. Since then he has been in and out of the Everton team, never holding down the position when another recognised RB was available. In fact Dyche played a CB out right instead of him on a good few occasions. Ive not said he is a bad defender. Ive said he isnt good defensively. All the stats show this and you would be hard pushed to find anybody who watches him that thinks that defending is one of his strengths. He will / should improve and I really hope he does however if we are talking about our best players for each position, Patterson doesnt win that at RB and isnt currently good enough to change things about for imo. (Unlike Tierney who was too good to leave out so things got shifted). If Patterson was at Tierney levels then by all means try moving Hickey elsewhere.

Agreed. Hickey is so good he could play in a number of positions. Will be interesting to see where he ends up playing for us in a few years time.

I dont think anybody on here has been giving Patterson it tight. Several have said he isnt good defensively and his main strong points are going forward. I think thats a fair assessment. He has potential and in certain games for Scotland he may be preferred over Hickey due to his attacking. He is a great backup to Hickey and we have come a long way from SOD and Palmer however lets also be honest about his career to date. He couldnt displace Taviner at Rangers (although he was younger), got a good move to Everton but under 2 different managers hasnt come close to establishing himself. He is currently 3rd choice RB at Everton behind 2 players long past their prime. Given his manager id guess that this is mainly due to the afforementioned defensive vulnerbilities. You are correct though, he is in the right place to develop and im sure he will.

Not disagreeing as I also think Hickey would be solid as a RCB but do you not think Porteus in particular has played really well at RCB for us?

All McTom needs to score goals is to play in one of the 2 attacking midfield roles. The last campaign literally proves that. It could be argued that changing things and having McGreggor operate a new role, getting forward more etc could hinder McToms goalscoring. We play with 4 in midfield. 2 playing deep and 2 playing further forward. Currently McGinn plays on the right and McTom on the left (when they both play further forward). Both have proven that they not only can but will score reguarly for Scotland in those positions as things are. Why would we change how we play in an attempt to have them score more? If you are using stats then go and look at Hickeys individual defensive stats compared to Patersons. They are light years apart defensively. Paterson is not a good defender. Hence why he is 3rd choice RB at Everton. He is good going forward and suits the RWB role, especially in some games for Scotland where we dont need to worry about the opposition attack as much. Thankfully Clarke has his system and I cant see him ripping it up at this stage. McGreggors best performances for Scotland have come in the last few years playing his current role. As have McToms and McGinns. The main question imo is what games to play Gilmour in because in some games he dictates play and in others he looks to weaken us. As I said previously, I suspect against Germany McTom will play deeper with Christie / Armstrong beside McGinn. In the other 2 games it might be Gilmour with McTom and McGinn.

As others have said, its Uefa who are to blame here for the stupid prices. I understand that some high pointers want to feel some extra reward for their efforts however where do you draw the line? Should high pointers get 1st dibs on having tickets seated together aswell? High points guarentees tickets, nomatter the game or stadium. Thats what the travel club was created for. Realistically most high pointers will have got fans 1st or cat 3 tickets. The cat 3s werent out of this world stupid money. Its really the 11 pointers that have been shafted by the prices as they were basically left with missing out or remortgage.

You think to get the best out of McTom he needs a holding midfielder after just scoring 7 goals from open play despite not even starting the 1st game? Paterson is better than Hickey going forward however Hickey is light years better than Paterson defensively. This is important for Scotland as McGinn tends to play on the right for Scotland and although McGinn has many attributes and brings loads to the team, covering back is not one of them. Its the opposite on the left, as you say both Robertson and Tierney like to get forward but are both good defensively and tend to cover each other, in addition the left attacking mid has either been McTom, Christie or Armstrong. All 3 of whom are workhorses and provide great defensive cover. Id also disagree about McGreggor, his best position imo is deep playmaker, he is our tempo setter, keeps the ball moving and is also good for organising the guy playing alongside him. Do you think he plays the high tempo high energy attacking mid role as good as McGinn, McTom, Armstrong or Christie? I totally get the want for a defensive mid but as I said, what game when we have played a 5 has it been really obvious that we need one? Everytime we have been hopelessly exposed its been when we play a 4.

I agree that we dont currently have a decent holding midfielder but we only need one when playing 4 at the back. The majority of the time when we have played a 5 we have looked quite solid. So in reality you would be taking our best RB away to put him into midfield presummably to play 4 at the back. A formattion where Paterson is less effective than 5 at the back. The easier solution is for games against similar opposition we play McGreggor and Gilmour deep with McTom and McGinn in front. For better teams we play McGreggor, McTom and either Jack or McLean deep with only McGinn in front. Allowing McTom to get forward when possible.

I dont neccesarily disagree with your post however who would you have as 2nd choice right back then for if Paterson got booked early doors, got injured etc? Would you then slot Hickey back to RB and have to change several other players positions at the same time or put in a considerably less talented RB? Another thing to note that effectively you would be leaving Gilmour out to accomodate Paterson. I know which one id rather have in my team.

Marshall has been performing very poorly for over a year. If forced into a decision id be tempted to use McCrorie only on the basis that he performed well for Rangers in the few games he played at tale end of last season. Although as stated previously im against that idea as he should be moving on and then we can really see how good or otherwise he is. Im still hoping Gordon replaces Clark at Hearts and then that solves the problem.

Im pretty sure that you have to name 3 GKs

The more I see of Clark the more I dont think he can be our backup GK. Similar to the recent Scotland games he just keeps doing thinga that good GKs dont do. Take last nights game for example, Rangers goal couldnt go down as a GK error but he is still in the middle of nowhere. Your starting position either has to be to get the ball or deep enough that the striker has to take it in and thus allowing the defence a chance to recover. There was also the obvious fumble but more to the point there was a shot which he saved as was expected but a good GK put the save out and wide, he put it straight into the path of a Rangers player. I dont know the solution as ive said previously that I dont think McCrorie should be rewarded for his stance at Rangers. Lets hope Gordon gets back in at Hearts.

Happy with the draw. Out of the pot 1 teams I only really wanted to avoid France and England as they are the 2 teams who are head and shoulders above the rest. Pot 2 were pretty similar standard and although it would have been good to get a playoff winner from po4, the main thing was avoiding Italy as Italy know how to play tournament football. We have 3 games where if we play well we have a good chance of taking points. Thats all you can really hope for in a tournament. Like others have said, keeping our big players fit is going to be key to our chances.

There isnt many traditional torys in Dumbarton area to be fair.

Dumbarton is a weird place politically. Historically Labour got in because of all the shipyards and whisky industry. More recently alot of families linked to fastlane stay there. It used to be that voting would be split by where you stayed in Dumbarton. Ive never met 1 person who has a good word to say about Bailley though and yet she gets in on the stregnth of her party.

I presume if you pick a game and select a price point thats sold out they just direct you to another price point for the same game?

Just remember that next time everybody is adament that im a Rangers fan lol

Personally I think its a combination of a few things. In no particular order. 1) The OF have alot more of the ball in the opposition half so its natural that they will get more pens and conceede less pens. 2) There is a natural subconscious to be swayed when 50,000 fans shout for something compared to say 7,000. 3) Refs err on the side of caution when it comes to the OF. Ie make an error against St Mirren and its forgotten about quickly. Make an error against the OF and its a huge issue in the media etc. This will naturally make refs lean towards the OF in a 50/50 call. 4) The non OF teams are somewhat submissive / complient to the OF and the league. Nobody rattles the cage or challenges authority in any type of thought out way. This will again naturally result in refs / authorities taking the path of least resistence. 5) A number of refs will support or have leanings towards the OF. Although ive never really fully bought into this as it follows that if you have 3 Celtic fans and 3 Rangers fans being refs that the Rangers ones would give decisions against Celtic as much as for Rangers so in theory this would balance out. My big gripe with Scottish football is the other clubs refusing to stand up to the OF / SPFL / SFA. I mentioned practical things they could do in the cup final allocation thread. In relation to Sunday they could write to compliance officer to get Cantwell a 2 game suspension. They could also ask for written reasons why the penalty was given. They could then post the responce on their own website. Of all clubs did this everytime then there would be much more "evidence" to challenge the dodgy decisions that we are seeing. The clubs need much more of a joined up approach. Im sure the OF and west coast media would call it petty etc but its far beyond time that clubs started ignoring that and represented their own fans.

The block isnt relevent imo. As you said the tug (foul) starts before the block so the block cant be used as a reason why its not a penalty. Its not a penalty because the tug is not at the extreme end of the scale along with Goldson not going to get near the ball. These are the criteria setout by the refs and reiterated only last week but simply havent been followed. Aberdeen should be asking for clarity on these points. Focusing on the block takes away from the real points imo.

Ferguson was a good player, as were Brown and McGreggor however Ferguson had the potential to be great. And you become great by challenging yourself, to playing with and against better players week in week out and at the top end of European competition. Do you think Robertson becomes the player he is now by staying at Dundee Utd or McGinn at Hibs? Ferguson left Rangers too late, immedietly regretted it and couldnt wait to get back up the road to have his home comforts. Be a big fish in a small pond. All the best players play in the best leagues. Its just the way it is and has always been.

He did and by his own words stated that he regretted it within a week. He had options to stay south with clubs like Newcastle being talked about but he just wanted to come back "home".

I have zero time for Robinson but under what law can / should he be arrested? Its a slippery slope imo. Watch him like a hawk and then the minute he steps out of line, arrest him with zero tolerance but he has to do something illegal 1st. There are provisions already in the law where parties can apply to have an order in place to prohibit somebody attending a function / approaching a person. As far as im aware these werent sought or in place.

There is scope in the rules to give Cantwell a 2 game ban. Aberdeen should be showing some teeth and writing to the compliance officer to enforce it.