Sunny Saint

Andy Kirk's now scored 11 SPL goals (two today so far) for a really shitey Dunfermline team. He's 32 but his scoring record with the Pars is almost one goal every two starts. He's decent in the air too and clearly knows where the goal is. Worth a one-year deal for us next year as that competition/back-up for Thommo? He would surely not break the bank either... http://www.soccerbase.com/players/player.sd?player_id=16412

I'm getting incredibly bored of all this Rangers chat now from the media. It's been brilliant and funny to see everything that's happened, but I wish they would now just hurry up and die.

I heard this was just a cover for him looking at young prodigy John Potter.

From the ones I've seen play, I'd take those. I don't think any of the rest would improve our squad. I think we've got hee-haw chance of landing any of them, though.

Not really - I think more people are now turning to public transport for various reasons. However, it's not always cheaper and is often more inconvenient. For example, a return on the train for a 45-minute journey between Glasgow and Edinburgh is 21 fecking pounds. That's ridiculous. You can do that on about £10-£15 petrol easy, even at today's prices. On the flip side, on Megabus, it's about £3.50 standard single fare between the two cities. Now that IS good value for money - the only problem being that it generally takes longer than both the car and the train. Similarly, the pricing can be really disproportionate to the distance you're going. I know of some bus fares which cost £2 more just to stay on for another town 10 minutes along the road - that's despite the fact you've already made a 40 or 50-minute journey before getting to the previous town. So, essentially, it's about £1.50 for three-quarters of the journey, then another £2 or more for the other quarter. That kind of thing hardly encourages people to use public transport.

No, it's the clowns who read into it completely wrongly that cause the panic. I also need to fill my car up on Saturday to get to the game - I hope they've fecked off by then.

Typical B&W Army response. Guy hasn't played for more than a year, fears he might never even play again, is clearly miles off football again and it's only two months til the end of the season. But, of course, we could 'get him and keep him fit' on a deal before the end of the season?! Of course we could.

Caught a few fish there, insaintee...

2/10 - The line about Potter and Camara was quite good.

And you posted this on Black and White Army, why? This is exactly the kind of attention these arseholes are looking for and you've just given them it. I bet 99% of them wouldn't put their name to it, rather they'll just post it anonymously on a forum. They're cowards and wind-up merchants. You should leave them to fester in their own rotten little world.

Jim Traynor tonight is a belter, bickering galore. Chick Young's so far up David Muray's arse it's cringeworthy.

I thought Hearts were trying to get rid of players? Beattie wouldn't exactly be on pennies either. Would have been a very good addition to our team - he has a bit of pace and is a striker IIRC - but doubt we could afford him.

Incredible hypocrasy from r*ngers fans. All those clowns outside shouting abuse at Whyte just now are the same who would've lauded the signing for £12 million of Tore Andre Flo, to name just one of many. They didn't ask questions while they lorded it up and basked in all the glory, so what right do they now have to lambast those who made those decisions? Get it right up them!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/14183743.stm That signing walk us into the top six. Shame we'll never, ever be able to afford him.

I'd take all these players. I haven't seen enough of Buchanan to comment. Paterson and one of Hogg/McLean would be decent additions to our squad, in my opinion. I'm surprised at Hogg, actually - he was Hibs' captain after Jones left and always seemed half decent. Maybe for a club like us he'd be good cover. I don't remember him being the tallest though, so perhaps McLean would fit the bill. Given who we've already got on the books, I'd take Nish too. I was always impressed by him at Killie, he seemed to give our defences a hard time and was probably better with the ball at his feet than in the air. His wage demands may be too high for a squad like ours, though. I can see why people would be happy with Barron at LB, he was decent there, but with Thomson in the team I think we need players on either wing who can ping the ball into the box comfortably. Div can't really do that on his right side, never mind his left. LB has to be THE main priority before going any further.

And the award for best close season thread so far goes to...

Would rather Antoine-Curier but can't see it myself.

I never said anything about people who criticise the manager - I criticised him yesterday. What I'm pointing out is the sad attitude that some people seem to have that they were all right that getting rid of Gus was a mistake, and we were all wrong, and the apparent pleasure they're having in the manager failing, so that they can come out and say "I told you so". Some people haven't said one good thing about Danny Lennon since he arrived, and have not given him their support, and it's a total joke if they consider themselves fans.

Absolutely spot on. The likes of 'The Silent Majority' have been on here since day one, spouting how we are definitely going to go down (I never knew St Mirren fans could see into the future), and as soon as we get a few bad results, they're on here with their "I told you so" attitude. It is such an attention-seeking attitude to have, to berate our squad and manager then come on and say they knew that would happen all along. No they didn't; no-one knew. 'The Silent Majority' and his backers seem all too happy to watch our new manager fail, which is a disgrace, to be honest. It's an absolute joke if they're pretending to be St Mirren supporters, and quite frankly, they can f**k off and support the vermin down either direction of the M8 because our football club doesn't need them. Now can we please give our team and manager some more time to blend, gel, and find their feet? Otherwise, if we don't, the fans can take as much of the blame if we do go down as the manager, board and players themselves.

I'd take any of themin our team right now, every day of the week. For your above post, I think we can all ignore the stuff you're posting about Harte Let's be honest, in our team we've got the likes of John Potter, Jim Hamilton, Dennis Wyness. All as slow as a week in the jail. None of them have played in a higher level than the SPL. This guy's got 64 caps for a better international team in recent years than Scotland, and played in the Champions League and the English Premier League. How the hell can anyone say he looks anything other than a fantastic signing?! He left Blackpool because they couldn't afford him. Not because he's past. His experience could be vital. Of course he could fail, but if players like Steven Pressley can still play at this level, then I think he'll be fine. Most of us would be in uproar if he signed for another SPL team.

Yeah, a shot which was heavily deflected and went in...had he been a good striker he would've been on the end of all the good crosses by Miranda earlier in the match. He was awful for the whole game until that point. I agree with above posters, you have all slated Mehmet for 2 years and no-one would have been sad to see him go in the summer, yet he's now a great player who can do all sorts of things, things that he's never been able to do before the Gretna game, like win headers and take the ball past players! I find all of this quite unbelievable. He's scored 6 league goals for us in 2 and a quarter seasons. Kean, as bad as he has been recently, scored 5 last year alone. Even that isn't very great, but it shows you how poor Mehmet's goalscoring record is for us. Everyone goes on about him scoring important goals, and to his credit he's 'won' us 6 points this season, but have a think - if we'd had someone who scores goals for a living in our team every time Mehmet has been there, we would probably have gained oursevles far more points than we have. I couldn't believe it when Mehmet was offered a new contract in the summer, and obviously Gus sees something in him that so many of us don't - maybe this is an indication of Gus as a manager. He needs to be more ambitious, we need to go out and buy a striker or two with a good goalscoring record, even if it's from the First Division; Sutton scored well at First Division level and yet wasn't out of his depth in the SPL. You may mention Dargo, but we didn't buy him and he is probably one of the most injury prone players in the country. If we want to get better and go higher as a club, we can't afford to have Billy Mehmet as our main striker/goalscorer, because it just isn't going to get us there.

He does give the ball away, and far too often.

I don't believe what I'm reading here. Did no-one go and watch Mehmet play against Falkirk and Kilmarnock, to pick two games this season, not to mention the past two seasons?! He was awful in both, gave the ball away almost every time he had it, never won a header, and was pushed off the ball every time a player came near him. In both games we created a hell of a lot of chances, particularly with crosses into the box, and where was Mehmet? Most of the time he wasn't even in the box, and if he was, he was shying away and letting other players have a go, other players that weren't there because they weren't playing up front. In the Kilmarnock game, O'Donnell, McGinn and Birchall had more attempts at goal than Mehmet did, not to mention the rest. I'm sorry, but he is just not good enough at this level. Why we persist in playing him up front time and time again is beyond me. He scored on Saturday but that was against a Gretna team who would do well to compete in this year's First Divison (as would we actually). Fair enough, he might work better as a link-up player from the midfield, but even at that his inability to go forwards with the ball at times would hinder him. I'd be willing to give him a go behind the strikers but I fear he'd just be another midfielder we do not need, especially now we have Molloy coming back from injury, and the likes of McGinn who I think fully deserves his chance in the team ahead of Mehmet.

Mehmet is crap, simple as that. He's had 2 full seasons to scoe goals and he scored 4, how sensational. If it wasn't for Mehmet and we actually signed someone who knew what a goal was we might be much further up the table. He scores a tap in and all of a sudden he's God...Have you all lost the plot?

Our two strikers were non-existant today and ruined every good move we put together with their general inability to win headers, complete passes, pressure defenders, anticipate chances and situations or generally play football. When Mehmet got the ball and managed to actually kick the ball in the direction of the goal (first time he managed it in the game), it was more poor goalkeeping than anything else that allowed Mehmet's goal. We only won today because we were up against a very poor Falkirk side who failed to turn up for the game, looked disinterested at times, failed to put real pressure on us, never had a lot of posession and posed very little threat up front. The other 10 teams in the league, I can almost guaruntee, won't be so forgiving - just look at the amount of goals being scored at games every week, today being a perfect example. We must have created about five or six chances (all through Franco Miranda) in the first half alone today, and all were perfectly good crosses into the box. Where were the strikers then? Nowhere. Kean barely featured the whole game and was second to every ball, and Mehmet ran around with no contribution to the game until his strike at the end (and I wasn't the only one at today's game who thought the same - many members of the crowd seemed equally frustrated by him). OK, he scored his annual goal and well done to him for that, let him have his moment blah blah blah, but I'm thinking to the future, and he is not up to this standard - if he was a good striker, he would have been on the end of at least some of those chances we created. They're the sort of chances GOALSCORERS like Sutton relish, but Mehmet is no goalscorer. And neither is Kean. I'm talking of the sort of goalscorers that bag 12, 15 + goals a season, not one or two at the start or end of the season. You are all having an absolute laugh if you think we will go far this season with those two players up front. I think Mehmet's St Mirren record thus far proves that he's not what we need and never will be. Apart from the two strikers, I thought we played well today and looked quite solid throughout; Potter was better than he has been, Haining was very good, and I thought Miranda had another good game, although there were a few hairy moments. But after today's result at Celtic Park, I fear for us next week. I am no "boo-boy". I'm a realist. Wake up you lot and realise that we need far more than Mehmet and Kean. Roll on Dargo's debut - if it ever comes.