wellsince75

I hope not . im struggling to see why we need another striker , particularly one who struggled in league 2 and found his level in the national league . I’ve lost count of the number of journeymen who have been at several clubs in the lower English national leagues that have churned through . At this stage of the season would much prefer we went for loanee players and give promising youngsters a chance

Our strategy should be reasonably straight forward Balance of squad , defenders/midfield/attack. young homegrown talent - who would be better than we can afford and ideally sell them on. 24/25 year - who didn't make it with bigger club and need a chance. average Joe- established pros who we can afford. seasoned pros - who're past their best and stepping down to our level to help improve out youngsters loan signings - compliment your squad/short term gaps. It's about balance - these all need to be balanced out. Recent years we've lost basics of not enough mix of players for positions and for me too many risk players with injuries. eg more strikers now than midfielders ! Add to that there's several players who don't even seem to make it to testing them out - guys from NZ, Japan, Australia , Stupavic etc - complete lack of due diligence. Bottom line. I'm far from convinced we have a good recruitment team.

SOD comes across as really good guy but for me he's inconsistent. Defensively he switches off, lacks concentration and costs us goals. Several managers dropped him for long periods of time due to this. He was decent moving forward 2-3 years ago but this has become less a feature of his game. Ok as a squad player /sub but not a starter for me. Similar to likes of Mugabi & Lamie who do 90% right but pretty much every game switch off at the wrong time.

I agree it's not all bad luck re injuries - some are but not all. Players in their 30s as an example - it's more likely that the body will get stresses/strains. Players who have often had injuries - likely to continue. Given what we knew about players it was reasonable to expect SOD, McGinn, Blanley, Slattery, Halliday , Paton, Callaghan, Nicholson, Vale all to pick something up. That's 9 of our squad with previous issues.

Sadly this is likely the end of McGinns career, he'll be 35 this year and understandably has picked up a few injuries in last few seasons. At this point of the season I'd be looking at young fit loanees from English Prem/Champs league - it's been mutually beneficial over recent seasons.

Bair might struggle in the current team. Last season 'feed the Bair' was the chant with likes of Gent and Spittal feeding. For me we need to sort out the creative/feed part of the team . I think we've got enough strikers who can put the ball away.

Really good share - thank you . im stunned that our first half performance overall is net positive - think this shows how decent the first 12 games of the season were . I’ve had the belief that we never shoot never mind score in the first half and only come alive in the final 15 mins- these stats disprove that . so to answer are we entertaining - yes until the end of our cup run - since then it’s been poor, not last season horrific but poor . lets hope we pick up again moving into spring

Absolutely - get out at them early . Confidence in their camp must be low and a coming out the traps and getting an early goal would be ideal. we give too many teams too much respect and sit back - now’s the time to seize the day !

no denying our league position overall is strong for this point of the season , whether we maintain is for me less obvious . some of the injuries I feel we could have avoided or foreseen . Nicholson , Callaghan , Paton , McGinn all predicable and Slattery was known. I feel we are delicately balanced . A few wins and yes we may stay top 4-6 equally we’re only 6 points ahead of 10th position . Our gap against many has reduced - hibs are a perfect example . i would expect hibs to pass us before long, hearts may also . suspect we’ll fight out out with likes of Dundee, StMirren and Killie for 6-9th . Overall our depth and quality is more akin to their level than chasing European football . id love to be wrong though .

I’ve had a look at the stats as live down south and don’t get to many games . general stats are horrible . Possession, number of passes , number of shots , shot on target Last round of 12 games has us score 1.1 per game and concede 2 per game . so pretty uninspiring. that said I read many of st Johnstone stats . Better possession, passes , shots etc but they’ll get relegated . overall I’m convinced we have the building blocks of an ok spl club and the points tally doesn’t lie . what I’m not convinced over is whether SK has the ability to make is both hard to beat whilst introducing more for us to cheer on . to be clear I don’t believe we need to change manager , perhaps a few additions /inpprovments to the broader management team would help

League position is still reasonable . Hard to predict where we’ll end up 5-9th all possible Recent form is a concern . We’ve had 13 games November since November . Won 4, scored 14 , conceded 26 . Given we’re now in the habit of 2-3 shots on target per game we need to bring in some quality and attack minded players

I don’t think SOD has ever been a very good defender . He used to offer more moving forward. SK brought in 2 right wingbacks at closed season and neither are better than what we had . It’s easy to pick individual errors and there have been plenty but equally we’ve offered very little offensively

That must feel awesome for Slatts - he’s been out for such a long period of time .

Exactly this and not asking for SKs head or total football . the team are tired and I understand that with injuries and amount of games - to add to that though when you’ve only got 30% possession, play 70% less passes with a lower accuracy than your opponent then you will expend more energy . in part it’s our own making, why shouldn’t we have equal possession or passes against the majority of clubs . For me it’s the obvious free area to work on .

A decent point and very decent league position . feels very like the GA era where we offer bugger all moving forward . to have the ball 1/3 of the time , manage 2 shots and only make 120 passes against killie is poor , but not surprising

Another game against a very average team and we continue with 30% possession and 1 shot at goal . i know many will point to the point tally etc but it’s absolutely atrocious approach to football .

That's improved from the 10 mins someone mentioned - at this rate he'll at least get a couple of games . Suspect that by the time he leaves we'll be gutted he's moving on. Already on the brink of the 1st team in the championship - the boy is likely to be pretty damn good.

SK obviously cares and does the basics well. He's proud to be the manager of this football club, we know this as he tells us in every interview & remind us how much he cares about the football club and uses the term football club about this football club quite a lot. After all it's a football club don't you know. I've backed him during his tenure as he does the basics well. We're very good at the ugly side of the game, win lots of the battles , work hard. as a unit to stop the opposition. In many respects we mirror how SK was as a player, which is a positive albeit slightly worrying as it's not clear if there's better to come. For me he needs to build on the basics and be more than a hardworking unit. We need better passing accuracy and more attack minded football. If the masterplan was to get the basics and then build then that's ok , I'd like to see more signs that we are looking to entertain at this football club.

Im less fussed about getting a striker - if we can get signings who are able to provide opportunities to our strike force that would be ideal.

ideal type of loan signing. Young, Promising, Midfield - sounds ideal.

Im a big fan of Watt - he’s got great football intelligence . id be happy for him to sit just behind the main strikers as he could link up midfield to attack - something we’ve missed for quite a while

Excellent to pick up 3 points. A great result which we'd have taken before the game. For me loads to work on. We need to learn to keep possession and 2 shots on target at home against 10 men is poor. Thankfully we had the rub of the green and 3 points banked.

our ball possession is a disgrace. Looked earlier and Aberdeen had 60% possession and made 130 passes v's our 50 passes. I know it's not all about possession but we have zero ability to keep the ball. you'd think these are the basic things teams work on.

With Miller being out for the next 2 months we really need to bolster midfield. (that already needed improving) 3 from 7 midfielders are injured and wouldn't bank on Paton lasting the rest of the season without picking up injuries. Same with Halliday given he's knocking on a bit. Given how tough this window is I'd much prefer to go do down the loanee route - first ask would be wee Al Campbell back to get him in the shop window.

Aberdeen have been on a very poor run of games - that will come to an end some time soon. Reasonable to expect that could be against us. Generally speaking they've been misfiring recently but they still have c60% of possession and 15-20 shots per game. A mixture of poor finishing and poor defending has led to the poor run. If we are to take anything from the game we need to approach it the way we did against Dundee Utd . Aggression, pace and urgency from minute 1. Sadly that's been the exception in terms of our approach rather than the rule but we need to have pace in the team to hit them hard on the counter attack.