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I'm very much reminded of the little Britain sketch where the spokesman stands outside the house excusing the behaviour of the politician. I don't buy this. Another form of tinkering and another negative on his part. Playing Hodge out of position against Celtic is the problem - so you are correct Hodge wasn't the issue. The manager playing him in that position was. There is so much chat of win a couple of games and we will be absolutely fine. I'd say there is more chance of losses. Look no one wants to be negative. I'd be happy to have got this all wrong come end of season but I'm forecasting I will be correct, in a safe space to do so.

You’re not mistaken. It’s his MO on here at times. Just look at my recent ‘debate’ with him.

Interesting, you did seem to use a lot of the words and phrasology in my post, so forgive me for being mistaken! For what its worth, I do get your general point. Managers do have to contend with a lot of stuff that we as fans just dont see and a lot of tactical stuff is beyond your average fan unless you happen to have studied for your coaching badges. That said, I dont think thats what happened on Sunday, and I suspect that our issues are systemic rather than tactical game to game. We all know Willy hasnt been great in the opportunities he has been given. We can all see that he hasnt grasped any of them. Some of us suspect he is the player that needed an arm thrown around him. Im 100% behind supporting the player, getting him happy and trying to see if we can coax out whatever it was that convinced us to sign him. But Celtic isnt the game to throw him in for his first start in months. It just isnt. Its fine to suggest that a player having a stinker may not be their fault, but in this case its hard to avoid the evidence of your own eyes. I dont like to single players out, but in this case its unavoidable. We want to be a progressive front foot team that presses and wins the ball up high. On Sunday our press totally broke down because when SPH and Lowry went, Willy was too slow and allowed Celtic to play around us. When the ball went his side, he was too slow to engage. He also didnt get back quickly enough to engage Celtics players down his side, leaving Sparrow in all sorts of trouble. That led to problems all over the park. So when you say the midfield being overun maybe wasnt a midfield problem, to an extent, you are correct. Bottom line is, if Alfred wants to continue to play the way we want to play (and ge was very clear its what the executive board want him to do) then he needs to get our best players in their best positions and stop tinkering. If we want consistency, select consistently, then players will get a chance to build the relationships he talks of and we might see an uptick in performance. I get that hasnt always been possible due to injuries and suspensions but that doesnt excuse what he did on Sunday with 1 decision to help one player out at the expense of the team.

Your point about wanting to see an improved performance over a victory is pretty much what I said ahead of the Dundee defeat. And that gets to the heart of the issue here. Most of us aren’t complaining simply because of the results; we’re complaining because the performances have been awful and are getting progressively worse.

You’re doing it again. Your attempts to deconstruct my opinions don’t make your own interpretation of the evidence any less subjective, or mine any less valid. Reframing what I said to suit your own narrative doesn’t make your argument any more convincing, either. I’ll continue to call out your verbose word soup for what it is. You talk a good game, though. A bit like Alfred.

If there was ever a game we need to score first it’s this one . Im confident that killie will score - we need to find our way as a team and do what we’ve not done since the Utd game and find at least 2 goals

Another defeat. Probably 2-0 again.

Nope, I’m not twisting it. You said I seemed “overly interested in policing” your opinions because I wrote a detailed response challenging your original post. That is exactly what I’m disputing. A long response to a strongly worded argument is not “policing” it. It’s just disagreeing with it in detail. You’re free to say Alfred is out of his depth. I’m free to take the reasoning you used to get there and pull it apart. Calling that “policing” is just a distraction from the actual argument.

Oh, it wasn't a direct response to anything you said! Your initial comments sparked a few thoughts, and I just rolled with it from there 😂

Not really looking forward to this one given the form we have been in. But its a home game for me, so I will be going regardless. Thankfully Kilmarnock arent Celtic and McCann seems to be struggling to get any consistency out of his team, so should be a slightly more level playing field this week. Always nice to win these games as it means I get the bragging rights locally, but will be happy just to see some sort of structure and improvement around our performance. Saving grace is that Hibs play Falkirk, so even if we do lose heavily, we cant go bottom of the league as one of them will still be below us!

Wow! Really dont know where to start with all of that, so Im not going to bother with most of it. Fair bit of misrepresentation of some of my post, but that all seems pretty incidental to the point you were trying to make. Lets just say you lost me when you suggested that the problem with Vogt, maybe wasnt Vogt!

A win would be nice on their new grass pitch.

Absolute bollocks. You’re twisting things now. Recasting my observation about your apparent need to police my opinions as an issue with how I’m “allowed” to express myself is a disingenuous misrepresentation of what I actually said. I said you seemed overly interested in policing my opinions, given the lengthy response you wrote picking apart my original post. We can debate and disagree all day long, but misrepresenting what someone said isn’t debate.

Still laugh when every Celtic fan I know told me he wasn't "Celtic class". We miss his passing from the back badly: with Watt and Just ahead, he could unlock defences in an instant.

I love comments like " players not listening to him/"buying into" his instructions." based on absolutely fuck all. The amount of utter pish spouted about what is happening in the dressing room grows arms and legs with every defeat.

Did you have to?

A fresh start ,no Willy starting 🤞 a big pitch with spaces to run into, the chance to revert to early season winning style and home a team that's playing shite. What could possibly go wrong .

I hope that AJ turns things around and we improve as a team, both in respect of performance and results. How will it turn out? Who knows. What I do know though, is that if the length of AJ's reign is threatened by poor results, the fans may well force the board's hand. Thats how football operates for better or for worse.

First off, that post from David is the longest thing I have ever read!!! It was however a good read and made some really good points. Better than some of the analysis you read from the Scottish media pros. I did not read the debate above as policing or particularly confrontational. It made for good reading from two posters who are clearly articulate and give some thought to the game. My only gripe Wellfan is that the conclusion generally comes round all to quickly to the manager being on an inevitable path to the exit door. That apart I think most of us empathise with what you say and share your frustration about the team. You might be right about AJ. I don't think there is one of us that is not concerned by the current direction of travel. We have to all hope however that you have got it wrong. Anyway the debate is a good one on both sides and not just argument for the sake of it.

Won't detain you all for long. Basically, AJ needs until Christmas to organise the squad imho. After that, the board need to re-assess. I hear comments about players not listening to him/"buying into" his instructions. Most of my working life was spent under managers who a) couldn't do my job or b) hadn't done my job, but I still went into work and did my best. I expect them to do their best The club needs to pull together to get us out of our mini-slump, and by "the club" I mean the supporters too.

I'm not policing how you express anything. You made a statement, I challenged the reasoning behind it, and now you're reframing that challenge as an issue with how you're "allowed" to express yourself. It isn't. You're entitled to say he's out of his depth. I'm equally entitled to say the evidence you've used doesn't support that conclusion yet. That's debate, not policing.

You seem overly interested in policing how I express my opinions on here. You’ve decided the evidence doesn’t justify my conclusions, but that’s your interpretation, not some objective threshold I’ve failed to meet. I think Alfred’s out of his depth, and I’ve explained why. You don’t agree and think it’s too early to reach that conclusion. Fine. Who cares? We’ll soon find out, won’t we?

Will we win this one? Who will be getting Pelters this week? COYW

I'm not confusing anything. Your latest reply is a lot more sensible than the original post I quoted. Saying you're concerned by the performances is absolutely fair. If you'd said that to begin with, I wouldn't have replied. But saying there's "absolutely no" progress, that he's "incapable" or "too stubborn", "out of his depth", and that failure is becoming "inevitable" is entirely different, as you know. My point is simply that the evidence doesn't justify that level of certainty yet, especially when we've recently seen with JBA how misleading an eight-game snapshot can be.