Jags Press
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Great start to the season for </font>the Jags of Firhall. <Br>
We are happy with the early form, we haverun up against 4 of the so called big sides.<br>
And we have come with 3 wins.><br>
Only losing to our bitter, twisted neighbours.<br>
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<font color ="ff0000">That loss hurt the side, but we sat down, put out a so so kind of performance in the cup, thought about needed personal and brought in the top defender in auction.<br>
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First game for the club, Jock Stern scores and claims man of the match, another top performance in his next game as well, and we'd picked up 6 pts from the weekend.<Br>
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Unfortunately, the team plan was not fully thought through or implemented, so our fitness for the return cup game is in doubt.<br>
And just as importantly we've missed out on the chance to train up some players.<br>
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As for the mess that is predictions, here is one. PT for the Title.

Is it quite cold up Firhill way Brian?

You kept typing "Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr ! "

DUNFERMINE PRESS - GAMES 6&7 PREVIEW

After a decent start to the season, Dunfermline and their new manager Foss come up against still opposition this week in the form of Partick Thistle and Saint Johnstone. Foss knows that life is not likely to be easy for his players

"Both teams have distinct qualities. Brian has built a squad with depth and he has a particularly mean forward line. Saint Johnstone have less depth, but they have two outstanding attacking midfielders who can give any team the run around if they are on form. We will not be taking any of these sides lightly"

Looking to the future, Foss realises that his own side is lacking on the depth front, and he aims to put that right - but he might not get there until next season:

"We have brought in a couple talented but very raw lads in Kalala and Smeeton, and we also need to consider blooding a keeper at some point. But these players will take time before they can be considered up to the standard that DFA fans demand".
(br> "I know that some fans were concerned at the deal I did with Hibs, sacrificing two excellent players. But this leaves us in a good position to strengthen down the line, and that is exactly what I am to do."

"We have 60 TP left this season - and believe me, most of will be used. Getting some more CP in is my priority now - I will consider the right deal for DFA if any manager is looking for training points and is willing to give up coaching points." DFA will wait developments with baited breath.

Stenny Press

Heres the la-*test*-('") Verbal release From the powers that be at STE.

The season so far:

...has gone to plan, we are happy with the first part of the league season, alittle dissapointed with the opening defeat to STJ which we felt we deserved to win, but hey-ho! The 5-2 win against PET was a superb team display, but unfortunately our only league win so far.
a 0-0 draw with GRE was a game we went out to win, and i still am confused as to how we didnt! as long as there arent too many games like that we will bve OK!! a 3-0 defate at the hands of CEL was no suprise, a very weak team took the field as all major players were rested for a crucial return leg in the cup!
on that note, the first leg of the CECIL cup round against HIB went exactly to plan, a 1-0 defeat away from home is just fine.
We are fully aware HIB will go for a vitory at our place in the return leg but we will come out all guns blazing if we have to, we WILL be looking for a victory!!

As a manager i am still happy we will survive the season in the top flight making it our longest run here and that we CAN progress through the CECIL cup this week,,,,

**************** DUNDEE UNITED PRESS ********************

Well 5 games in and we are exactly where we hoped to be. The fact that 4 of those were at home meant 4 wins out 5 was a minimum requirement. 2 decent results in our last session, 2-0 against Ayr and 3-1 against Aberdeen have set us up nicely for the season ahead. Whether we can maintain this form on the road will be another question. As well as win these games we have been able to vary our tactics and even give a debut to and train new signing Dave Bowman. A versatile youngster who can play defence and midfield we expect Bowman to develop into a real star of the future. The main difficulty will be getting him gametime in what is a very tough and unforgiving league. One weak player can easily be the difference between getting a result or not. Bowman was given his debut against Aberdeen and asked to man mark their star striker Crawford. We felt that Aberdeen didn't really have the firepower to trouble us at home and this gave us a chance to blood the youngster and rest a couple of players including star keeper Stillie.

Prior to these games we played Raith in the cup and were a bit disappointed to come away with only a 1 goal advantage. To be fair Raith Boss James called it spot on but I have to admit we expected to take this comfortably and be able to use the 2nd leg for a bit of rest. Anyhoo wasn't to be and we'll have to look a little differently at this one now.

League wise we have a couple of tough encounters to come, away to Killie and home to Stenny. Having already given up 1 result away to Celtic we really cannot afford to drop points at this stage if we want to hang on to the coat tails of the leaders who show no sign of dropping points so far. Something though will have to give this weekend as the old firm meet at Ibrox. Celtic face an especially difficult task holding on to their unbeaten record playing both Rangers and Hibs this weekend.

Participation bonus has been posted on the bloggy part of the site.

The changing value of age 1 players in SESL?

or, - the changing value of CP and TP in sesl !?

So far no age 0 have been transferred, but if we glance at trades, here are some of the more straightforward trades completed for age 1 players so far this season:-

1/7 DF 2 cp
1/8 DF 4 cp
1/8 FW 3 tp
1/9 MF 5 tp
1/10 MF 6 tp
1/10 DF 5 tp + 50k
1/12 MF 7 tp
1/16 GK 9 tp

The GK seems to stand out as 'best value', but then if you can get a 1/7 for just 2CP that may be seen as top value also!

More analysis to follow later this week!

At the risk of not getting a participation credit for posting out my division....

The 1/16 GK for 9 TP is a bargain. A seasoned 0/5 trained with 9 TP and aged is a 1/16, so the team that got him effectively saved 200-400k apprentice cost as well as extra training costs and not conceding goals.

Now the 1/9 and 1/10 for 5 or 6 TP. Without further training they might make a T17 player but it would be much cheaper to buy an age 5 or 6 player so I'd assume these were going to be trained.

Is it worth it?

Well yes I think so for weaker teams. We can't all afford to have 17 SL 25 players and with loads of TP per team it's free resources to train these players. And within reason it doesn't matter where SL goes once you've decided how much to spend on GK and star strikers.

An age 6 player given an extra SL is as effective as any younger player given the same as long as he will still play after mid-season. It's whether he'll play next season and maybe the season after that you have to decide whether it's worth it. With Deveronvale last season it was worth it because it got me promotion and every player I spent CP on (some age 4) is in my best 13 players and will be after mid-season (assuming I don't buy anyone else). But I had the CP to spare.

Steve,

The cats are kind of like Santa...even if you're not at home on Christmas Eve, you still wake up with goodies under the tree!

Meow,

Clyde & Calvin

:-)

Well its been an interesting week the best part of it was that
Hibs picked up some points 4 in total !!!! could my luck be changing ??

HIBS are still a very powerful team and dont deserve to be in the bottom 4

I'm hoping this next weekend we can pick up 2 wins which will help us to
chase down the league leader "OLD SCUM"

Any great thing about this weekend was watching Celtic get beat TWICE and one
of those was by us and the other by Rangers - Man Bill has to be cursing

Its 6 games into the season and HIBS management are still unsure of this season
goals. we were going to rebuild but the taste of glory is always hard to resist !!

Rangers Press

Top of the league after 6 games having only dropped two points possibly my best start ever. Still in the cecil cup too and with Home advantage in the second leg we are hopeful of qualification there too.

Pleasing so far has been our wins over some of our closest challengers and neighbours namely Partick and Celtic , Brian has recovered well from the early setback however and I'm sure Bill will too , nice to see Peter back on the road again after a bit of a breakdown at the start of the season


Our relentless training program is now almost complete with most our players at the levels we were looking for at the start of the season, it has been a huge drain on our cash reserves but hopefully it will be a worthwhile investment in the long run.

till next time

Stenny are battling hard with SM in some frantic last minute transfer options, cut off time Thursday. There may yet be an agreement to be made between these two crazy, stiff, hard negotiating clubs.
If not it is thought STE are prepared to sign up a local youth player in to a prim GK position by the end of the week!

This week STE have two VERY VERY tough games, the "easiest" being against HIBS, i think Hibs have done enough to prove now that they are a great outfit, they are the 2nd best squad in SESL and an incredibly tough team to beat. There league position is absolutely shocking and they will be looking to improve on it, if we thought there may be a game to sacrifice ourselves, might this be it?