Leaderboard

A few dicks recently as well

I am as much for conjecture as the next guy. That's 95% of what football forums are all about. Tell me this thought, if ( and it is an if) we lose at the weekend to go 5 defeats in a row with a lacklustre performance will you know for a fact that it's not because of disquiet in the dressing room? This has all the hallmarks of a David/ Wellfan Rd 2. I better go put the kettle on just incase it turns into an all nighter! Utter nonsense. How dare thee!!

I think there are two possibilities this weekend. If the team is pulling together and behind the manager I think we will win the game. I think we will have more to offer than Kilmarnock. If there is some disquiet in the camp I think it will be fairly obvious in the performance and it could well be the beginning of the end for AJ. A defeat with a poor performance would be difficult to recover from. Actually, I have thought of a third option. It could be a draw!!! I like to pin my colours to the mast!!!

Yes please - think we’d all be happy with any level of progress tbh

Irrespective of starting 11 - which may depend on people coming back we need to play as a team . not expecting Barca levels . If we’re going to find form it needs we need to get back to being a cohesive unit . Start the way we did against Utd - that’s got the be the blue print. mission critical that we don’t regress any further .

Much as I would love a 6-1 victory I’m afraid I’ve not been on the beers as yet to see the team through beer google eyes yet so I’ll stick to my 3-1 albeit any victory scoreline will do! 😎

Though if you had predicted a 6-0 win for us , then as Willy Wonka once said "you are in a worllllllllllllllld of pure imagination '! 🤪🤪

Would pretty much agree with that starting 11, I’d just keep SOD at RB with JGR as a decent defensive sub, I’d like you give Kanga a start in his position and Mas on the right wing cutting in, would want Longo use to his full potential against a Killie side that leak goals so no Willy Wonka anywhere near the squad, and hopefully our midfield and the team as a whole can find those forward passes and desire that have been missing, fancy us for a win 3-1 the super well.

It was at that point Alfie dropped his murray mints underneath Willy Vogts chair. 🤣

Think we all need a joke? Will I volunteer? OK......I'll take that as a No. 🤣🤣

Update for the week to 13 October. A big week. Citations are now at 30,052, up from 19,684 at the last update. 104 of the 107 full club histories have been rechecked against the papers of the day, and the Scotland men's chapters have more than doubled their citations. The site still covers 209 clubs. New section: Scots Abroad Eleven pieces on the Scots who took the game overseas: Alexander Watson Hutton in Buenos Aires, John Harley in Montevideo, John Madden in Prague, John Dick and Jacky Robertson in Central Europe, Thomas Donohoe and Archie McLean in Brazil, the Clark Thread works team at Kearny, New Jersey, the five Scots in the United States side at the 1930 World Cup, the American Soccer League of the 1920s, Celtic's 1931 tour of America, Galt's Olympic title of 1904 and the game in Otago. Corrections A reader in Cowdenbeath put us right on North End Park, the club's ground until 1917: it isn't a sports field any more but a retail park with Lidl and B&M. Now fixed, with two sources, and thanks for writing in. Montrose's colour is royal blue, adopted in 1902, not red. Across the Highland and Lowland Leagues the recheck corrected title dates, cup finals and first matches, and took out claims we couldn't source. Crests and photographs 27 more clubs have given permission for their crests, among them Morton, Motherwell, Livingston, Dumbarton, Cove Rangers, Brechin City, Edinburgh City, Berwick Rangers and ten women's sides. Thanks to all of them. And thanks to the Pie and Bovril members who let us use their own photographs: Le Tout P'ti FC, Dirty Sanchez, The Mantis and AyrshireTon. Their pictures are now on the club pages, credited. As ever, if you spot something wrong on your club's page, the corrections page is there and I fix things in public. https://scottishfootballhistory.scot

😆 Love that sketch. It's the politician and his family standing at the gates of their home. Could NEVER make that stuff again. Haha

Aye. Not expecting the team to reach Jens levels anytime soon, if at all this season. But Id like to see a shape, structure, patterns of play, any evidence really that we are trying to implement the clubs/managers philosophy. We really havent controlled games in the way we did last season, even in the games we have played well. Thats led to more pressure on our defence and in our box, so no surprise we have conceded some cheap goals. We either need to get back to the fundamentals that made us successful last year, or just not play out from the back quite as much, especially when teams have shown they are ready and equipped to deal with that. The little chipped ball into midfield or into wide areas seems to have been disgarded in favour of the long ball to Seb. Whether thats because Paulsen just isnt as good at it, or Alfred doesnt want him playing it, I dont know. But there are still opportunities to find space on the pitch that we are not utilizing right now.

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.

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 he 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 upturn 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.

Another defeat. Probably 2-0 again.

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 😂

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!

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.

You're completely missing the point. Of course football analysis is subjective. The issue is whether opinion is being presented as certainty. JBA having no league wins in his first five games is a fact. Eight points after eight games is a fact. AJ also having eight points after eight is a fact. Playing 11 competitive games in 37 days is a fact. Saying AJ is "incapable", "too stubborn", "out of his depth" and that the outcome is becoming "inevitable" isn't fact. That's your interpretation. Same with saying JBA had a clear identity "from day one". That's much easier to say now because we know how his season developed. Go back and look. The usual suspects certainly were not saying that at the time. My point was never that my interpretation is objective fact. It's that you're drawing conclusions from a very small sample and presenting them as though they're obvious. They're not. At all.

Stephen Welsh. Just checked out the Swansea City fans forum. would say Welsh is the best CB we have had in a very very long time. He has ages on the ball and his passes can almost unlock a team 2/3 times a game. Felt chuffed he was 'made ' in Motherwell . Needed a lift after yesterday.

You are funnier than those two.

I have a st but didnt go , I dont have any inclination to go and be amongst Celtic fans , its a task hearing it all on TV. Ive seen the banner on FB that was in the block e area too although it wasnt being displayed by the official block e. Very important distinction. That's a fn red neck, its like something celtic would display, saw one comment on FB saying " banner fc" at it again. First time they have a problem, they will be wanting the cops to attend. All these things make it not such a good way to spend a Sunday, thats before we get to the fitba.

I couldn't have coped a minute longer with having to watch Liam Kelly cosplay at being a goalie. As good as he was when he first came in end times Liam Kelly is one of the worst goalies we've had.

Kelly couldn't catch the cold he was terrible at cross balls. Never an international keeper in a month of Sundays. We were his leval . Liked him when he played with us.