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To understand the change to this format, you have to understand what they're trying to get to. The final goal is a European league(s). This gets everyone used to the idea by creating the format first, and then slowly increasing the number of games you play within the format. It doesn't make sense now, but in a couple of years, you'll maybe have 8 games in Europe rather than 6. Then 10. The closer you get to the final format, the less pronounced are the differences in fixtures but, paradoxically, the effects become more visible (team X played exactly the same fixtures as team Y, bar one fixture which they lost and finished three points behind them, missing "promotion"). At that point, the calls are then switched to shouting for a full round of fixtures for everyone rather than questioning the tournament itself. It's basically using the sunk cost fallacy to get what you want. Governments, businesses and football cunts do it all the time. The most obvious example is VAR. Your goal is to remove all refereeing errors from football, so you introduce a shite system. You then slowly chip away at each type of decision until you get what you want. At a certain point, people stop questioning the existence of the system itself and they are the ones saying "well we've got this system, why aren't we using it for throw-ins?". Aided and abetted by morons in the media who have discussions about "how we can make VAR better", rather than "how can we organise to get rid of VAR", not realising that the former discussion doesn't mean impartiality, you've already agreed with Thatcher's TINA (there is no alternative). It's not just football. Every single town and city on the planet is setup in the most ridiculous fashion to accommodate car travel, for example. We must bail out banks, and so on. We don't have a say. We all know that the correct answer is to rip it up and go back to knockout tournaments, unseeded. We all know that what makes European football magical is its scarcity.

Yeah, it was one of the reasons why I wanted Thelin, because I thought his "long pass" style of play would actually suit Scottish football. Elfsborg usually played a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1, quick transitions, outpaced defences, and their inside forwards were generally the goal scorers. The striker was a mere link up man. But Thelin has moved away from that. When we have been at our best under Thelin, it's been a 4-2-3-1 with a second striker. M**** in the few games he played under Thelin was in that number 10 role, Nisbet did it last season when he had Gueye with him, and together they'd find space for Duk and Morris to run into. Now we have Karlsson on the edge of the box. He waits for an overlap, or cuts inside and takes on three players. Armstrong has to do the same on the right. Whoever is the striker barely touches the ball. I know it wasn't working at the start of the season, and we leaked too many goals and didn't score, so moving to a back three shored things up. However, it'll be interesting to see who he signs in January and what our "style" is in the second half of the season and whether the system changes again.

If the team was even weaker than it was last night, then that 3-0 could have been another 6-0. Thelin had to balance it with giving some players minutes and still being relatively competitive. That said, not sure playing Karlsson for the full 90 minutes was helpful if you plan to play him on Sunday, while Shinnie's 86 minutes suggests he won't play either at a venue where you would quite like your captain being in the face of the referee arguing against every shit decision we're likely to get against us.

Anyone flying home today Be warned get to the airport early as at least two hours to get through passport control and bizarrely that is actually before security

Well thank fuck that’s over- a total waste of everyones time. We’ll get all the usual guff about learning from the experience, but there’s no learning that can bridge the gap in basic technical ability & game intelligence with this lot. Only positive, no serious injuries on that horrific surface. Crocked two of their own players. Yes it was a tough draw, but we finished behind 2 Irish teams & Lincoln fuckin Red Imps. I bet theres a few others in there with smaller budgets than us too. We’re absolutely miles off it at this level, miles. Jesus wept…

Maybe Nilsen wrote JT a really ace poem on the plane back and will find himself back in contention for Sunday, to replace Shinnie. Joking aside, nothing should surprise us about a Thelin team.

Talking shite, I just remembered It was Donscarf

I've always had a theory that was the case in a few games, autocorrect when typing out the teamsheet

We don't generally shit the bed under Thelin. We just seem to confidently brush off the glaring errors, before doing exactly the same twenty minutes later. Milne didn't give the ball away for their third last night through panic or having given up. He confidently tried to thread a ball through to a retreating centre half in the name of passing out from the back. A crazy decision drummed into them on the training ground. Ignore the score, just keep doing it until it works seems to be the philosophy. Equally as likely to lead to a 0-6 tanking as shitting the bed like.

2-0 down at half time, storming back to 2-4 after 114 minutes Aouchiche Nisbet Schmeichel (og obvs) Bilalovic

I'm not so sure of that last bit. It's not impossible but there does seem to be a growing resilience in this team, I also think our front line will get a lot of space against their defence if they stick with the back 3. As such I'm really hopeful of a strong performance from Karlsson, he is usually double marked in domestic games and I doubt he will be on Sunday. I am wondering if Jimmy starts Bilalovic. He seemed to slot right in and looks pretty quick to boot.

To take a player, with an alleged poor attitude, in from being out in the cold, then not play him correctly, reflects more badly on the manager rather than the player. He (Clarkson) might be a petulant dick, who wants out of the club, but last night was more on Thelin than Clarkson.

Buddy Guy - Meet Me In Chicago

True, they say the league doesn’t lie, but that’s definitely not the case here with the ridiculous format. Doesn’t change the fact we’ve performed poorly overall again and are absolutely miles off it at European level. I’d also suggest that tonight showed exactly why Polvara and Clarkson are deemed surplus to requirements - though they’re not the only ones tbf…

So we played 6 teams and 5 finish in the top 8. Not a great experience but we were not outplayed/beaten by shit teams.

It's not a league though, is it. It's a contrived bollocks set of games where different teams play others at random. It's tragic as fuck that people actually came up with it in the first place. You can't even properly slag us off for finishing bottom because we played different teams than others around us. I'm fucking glad we're avoiding this format for imbeciles next season (unless we win the league).

I’m looking forward to the bit when managers realise that playing out from the back is a sack of shit

The only constant with our midfield players, is their inconsistency. Find it very hard to believe, from the outside looking in, that Polvara is going, but Palaversa is staying. I'd say Palaversa is even more inconsistent than Polvara. I'm not overly fussed with what Clarkson allegedly said to JT, you have to apply a bit of context around it. The lad was pissed off and told JT his feelings. I don't have an issue with that. Maybe Jimmy is a sensitive soul. If I was being benched, whilst seeing some of the shit performances, from all our midfielders this season, I'd probably have said far worse than that to him. I still say Clarkson is the best midfielder at the club and a shame it appears to be ending like this.

Arguably the worst of the three. In fact, not even arguable. Not remotely controversial. If I won the cup with the Dons, I'd try and reproduce with myself.