Dibbles old paperboy

I think Guy may have signed for Carlisle as he has been in their team for pre-season games and wasn't listed as a trialist.

Both clubs actually missed out on Europe, with ICT finishing 4th and Ross County finishing 5th. St Johnstone got the lastEuropean place for finishing 3rd. So ICT and Ross County won nothing last year in terms of trophies or European places, and can only really get excited about the achievement of finishing 'top 6'. I'm not really that jealous on missing out on top 6.

I thought you kept telling us last season that we had a great squad which was stronger than most of the other SPL teams' squads and we should have been finishing well into the top 6 with the vast array of players that our under-achieving manager had at his disposal?

It would appear that it is Tedious Tom rather than Danny Lennon who is saying "no more signings". According to Danny Lennon with McGowan re-signed, Harkins signed, 2 goalkeepers secured, and a youth player added to the mix on top of extending contracts for our U20 players and getting Barron, Reilly and McGregor back from long term injuries all the manager said about future signing targets is the next few weeks will be "quiet". That suggests to me that with McGowan back for another year and Harkins added and competition for goalkeeper places sorted now that most of our business is done and we will probably only add 2 or 3 more players (most likely in defence and attack) before the window shuts. Presumably we will be spending a slightly bigger budget on a slightly smaller squad than last year, an indication that that we may see a more settled starting XI and bench if things go to plan and fewer fringe players.

Dummett and Newton have both signed extensions to their Newcastle contracts: http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11678/8792260/Conor-Newton-and-Paul-Dummett-have-agreed-new-deals-at-Newcastle

DL's track record on signing left backs: Travner, Tesselaar, Dummett and also Carey means I am not overly concerned.

Under new SPFL rules Rangers can play the players they signed while having a transfer embargo, because outwith the SPL, clubs can play trialists in elague matches. So, The Rangers, can sign players before the transfer embargo ends and now they can also play the players they signed.

Why did SMISA put up the money for the dome instead of the club / directors?

My guess is that lovestreet is saying that although we don't have any bank debt we are not debt free and that at points in the season there are cash flow issues and the club gets temporary loans from the directors or their companies? Also, if we have a bad season for home atendances and visiting fans and went out the cups early then despite budgetting for 11th we could make a loss, or if there is a drop in TV deals and sponsorship money we could make a loss if we are locked into some contracts with high earners.

As far as the BoD putting their own money into the club goes, there are plenty of interviews from the time of the move to the new ground, and the club being put up for sale, and the League Cup win when SG has said directors remortgaged houses / cashed in spouse's pensions, loaned the club their own money to keep it afloat pre-Tesco-deal, and even since the deal with Tesco there are points in the season where the club (like all other SPL clubs) has cash flow issues and where they have had to loan the club money before getting it back when the SPL prize money is paid out at the end of the season. The floating charge held by REA's company against SMFC was because they loaned us money to help us out with cash flow issues.

McKie was supposedly part of the Blue Knights, who along with Brian Kennedy, offered about £1.5m to buy Rangers and offer a CVA of about 1p in the £ to creditors, and lost out to Charles Green. If I was a Hearts fan I wouldn't be placing too much hope in McKie and Kennedy rescuing Hearts when they are broke and have already spent 70% of next season's season ticket sales and have a few different sets of tax arrears and unpaid wages to sort out.

I wonder if Hearts end up liquidated by Christmas if Neil Doncaster will claim the events were unforeseeable? There surely have to be doubts about whether Hearts can honestly fulfil this coming season's fixture list.

They've sold 7000 season tickets for this season and have literally no money now, that's about £2m for the 2013/14 already spent and they haven't paid wages and have various outstanding tax bills and then a CVA to try and negotiate. Average attendance at Tynecastle last year was about 13k, so you are looking at 50% of the money from ticket sales for next season already spent and facing a winding up order from HMRC on one set of tax bills, with other tax bills for VAT and PAYE due before the season kicks off. If they make it to the start of the season they will get money from the SPL (based on finishing 10th last season), sponsorship money and money from corporate hospitality to add to the 50% of matchday ticket sales left to sell for the season. The administrator hinted that if another 3000 fans buy season tickets in the next fortnight it should mean there is enoough money around during preseason and the first few months of the season to 'honour' the 10k season tickets which would have been bought for 4 months... which means they are looking at cash flow being OK only until November and they are hoping a CVA can be agreed and someone else can come in and buy the club and see them through until the end of the season. It didn't look as though the administrators might not rule out cancelling the 10k season tickets mid-season and asking fans to stump up a second time to watch their team.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/andrew-smith-the-price-to-be-paid-for-hearts-1-2968753 plenty of figures in this article which demonstrate why Hearts deserve little sympathy; eg almost 5 years of wages being paid late, a wage bill that tripled under Romanov and which wasn't reduced much after Setanta went bely up, losses of £5m and £6m in the last few years...

Was Hearts debt under Romanov not a lot higher than the £1m mentioned? Didn't they reduce the amount of debt Romanov had run up by swapping it for equity / shares? Any club that has the good fortune to flog a goalie for £9m and still run up increasing levels of debt kind of deserves all they get. They've had 10 managers in 7 years, and at one point had 60 full time players on their books, and also been unsuccessful in trying to dodge tax. The 3rd best supported team in Scotland should be capable of breaking even if it is run on a sound financial footing. Even before Romanov took over PWC said that alongwith Dunfermline, Hibs, Dundee and Livingston, Hearts were technically insolvent in 2003. Out of that grouping of clubs only Hibs got themselves out of trouble by banking the money they raked in from selling guys like Riorden, Brown, Thomson etc. Hearts could have done likewise with the money they made from selling Gordon, Hartley, Webster etc but instead they had a ridiculous sized squad on crazy wages and kept hiring and firing managers every 9 or 10 months or so.

According to the club's official facebook page: "Grant Adam has cancelled his contract by mutual consent this afternoon". Nothing on the official website yet.

The guys we want to offload will not be wanting to lose out financially if they move, and would no doubt rather stay in the SPL if they can rather than drop a division and Morton have said they ar dramatically slashing their wage bill this season. I can't see Morton deciding to a] not try and get a transfer fee for Tidser or b] wanting to pay 2 SPL players in terurn for losing 1 off their wage bill.

If we are going to compare Carey and Robertson being on or off the wage bill, who do you think was signed on a higher wage, the guy we signed from Cowdenbeath or the guy we signed from Celtic? If Robertson isn't on a particularly high wage then I don't mind if he is kept as cover. The chances are that Carey was signed and given a contract on the assumption that he would be a first team / starting XI player.

Maybe we are showing the door to so many so that we can buy Isma outright?!

Not fussed either way on Carey being released. He was potentially a great signing but spent about 3 months of his first season back with us trying to get fit again after piling on the pounds. He's had a couple of purple patches during his time with us and some great goals and a handful of great games but for me he hasn't lived up to his potential and when the chips are down his is usually one of the heads that are down too. Carey may well personify our problem of having a seemingly strong squad on paper but then over the course of the season we seem to lack the attitude and dig to grind out enough wins to reach the top 6. Not surprised at Mair either, after Goodwin took his place in defence that seemed to sort out the alarming number of goals we had been leaking last November, and when Dummet was getting moved to centre half in Goodwin's absence that seemed to signal that he wasn't in DL's future plans. I'm sure it is also partly a financial decision, that he will be one of the highest earners and maybe we reckon we can bring in the much fabled commanding centre half on a lower wage than Mair was on, or on Mair's wage but if we had kept Mair then we wouldn't have the finance to bring anyone in. If we are set for a season of wholesale changes then all in all I am encouraged that DL and TC and the board are taking the view that if we are to have a crack at top 6 then a lot of the squad are either not good, or are good enough but not working hard enough to get us there and we are going to try again with different personnel. Danny's signings in the last 2 years suggest he can probably bring in some decent finds within our budget.

Yeah everyone would be better off listening to you as a reliable source of information

Maybe get Hugh Kerr MSP involved since he was keen to speak up on behalf of Celtic fans in the Scottish Parliament a few weeks ago, I'm sure as a Paisley MSP he'll be glad to help.

I do think there is a stewarding and policing issue here that the club need to try and get a grip of. Namely, 2000 Celtic fans stand, set off flares, sing questionable songs and no action taken. A few Aberdeen or ICT fans stand at the back of the away stand and are removed... one St Mirren fan shouts "Free Palestine" and Celtic security staff are instigating having them arrested. When Celtic fans invade the pitch during goal celebrations no action taken. There does seem to be one rule for teh Old Firm and one for everyone else and we shouldn't stand for it in our own ground and when we fork out so much to pay for stewarding and policing costs. Having said that, if we think it is wrong for the Old Firm fans to sing about Ireland, Ulster, the Queen, the Pope, King Billy, the Irish famine and terrorist organisations it does seem a bit hypocritical to say it is OK for us to shout about Israel and Palestine when it is not as if we have a player or staff directly involved in their situation. I'd much rather see us leave politics and the misrepresentation of religion left out of our songs and chants and back our own team positively.

Well done to DL and TC and the team again today. Third game in a row against Celtic where we have either matched or outclassed them.

Why do we allow Celtic to bring their own security and minders to St Mirren Park? They are nowhere to be seen when all their fans stand in an all seated ground, when Neil lennon and fans invade the pitch, when Neil Lennon swears and gestures at opposition fans, or when Celtic fans sing some of their dubious songs. For the record I don't think "Free Palestine" has much place being shouted at a football match or at a Jewish footballer, but it also strikes me that it is a positive political aspiration that was being shouted rather than a negative comment, or sectarian or racist abuse. We had Celtic fans reporting a ballboy to the police, celtic calling for Phil to be sacked and now this... can't they just concentrate on keeping their own house in order. Perhaps the police would have been wiser to be seen to warn DSS rather than arrest and charge?