he meant stained

Which players are actually injured? And who has a chance of being fit?

It's marketing Red, nothing more, nothing less. Do washing powder companies advertise their product as "Well, it's not the best but it's fairly OK, so please buy it"? No, they sell their product as the latest miracle, and we recognise that hyperbole for what it is.

The club seems to be damned if it does try promotion and damned if it doesn't. We all knew the quality of the signings, they are well known players and we all knew what level they were, and what baggage might have come any of them, so I don't buy this idea that the club was somehow disingenuous.

Apparently it's Elima, now officially defined as 'bruised' and not the ligament.

No, I inadvertently missed out the word "largely" when apportioning blame, sorry.

I found it surprising that Macca chose to go with a full back (Kearney) at no. 6, rather than a specialist and I was equally surprised when Potter seemed to go with the same, though he did bring in Briggs and Herbert I always felt it left us 'exposed' if injury struck, which is has. I have said before that we lacked back up in the halves, and don't feel Southernwood is ready for the first team.

Herbert hasn't the same ability as Orford imo and this has possibly been the biggest problem, and one which might not have been if only we could have off-loaded Matt Orford much earlier.

The club made noises that we as fans would be excited by the signings, but I don't know about anyone else I certainly wasn't excited.

I was excited we'd signed the likes of Matt Diskin and Bryn Hargreaves, as they were damn improvements on what we had in 2010, and came with excellent reputations.

I thought and still think Elima was a class signing.

Hear hear. I think people were expecting Cameron Smith to replace Wayne Godwin, Watmough to replace Worrincy and Darius Boyd to replace Sheriffe.

Hargreaves is an English Glenn Hall. Nothing better.

Nah I wouldn't say so. I'm not saying he's international quality, but he puts a lot of hard work in, and certainly earlier in the season was making a load of hard yards after the collision. He also spends about twice as long on the pitch as Hall did.

Hargreaves to me is a solid if unspectacular player.