wellsince75

You may be right @wellfan. what he has on his side is he’s managed to improve results . Points tally is still higher than last season so some progress made . run since been early move has been horrendous. I don’t see anything changing until the rest of the season unfolds

of course it makes a difference. From an attacking sense we certainly miss Miller, the boy is heads and shoulder above everyone. Suspect we also miss Robinsons work rate , no other striker has put in that level of effort. That said I don't think it's all down to injuries though and I fully accept we won't be brilliant every game. I dislike our approach to football, even when we were winning it was rarely easy on the eye. We simply need to get back to looking like a team who work for one another and understand what role each player has. We've lost that since October/early November.

Thanks David . Personally I’m not looking to replace manager and can’t see us being worse than 9th - probably somewhere between 6-9th . i don’t think sacking a mgr for 9th is sackable either . It’s not for me purely about points For me SK needs to evolve and develop as a mgr . In sep we beat st j 2:1 as we had 10+ shots and 6 on target - the energy we had has gone , and has been lacking for months . sk needs to learn how to adapt and have more than 1 string to his bow .

David - suspect it’s more about where we’ll finish no debate we are 5th . 6 wins in early part of the season are key . 3 wins in last 14ish games don’t give confidence we’ll remain in this position. unless of course we get back to basics with good energy , work rate , get in the faces if the opposition.

Even a fit Callaghan is a pretty poor signing . He struggled with spl level with hearts and stjohnstone albeit had an OK spell with Raith . Risking a contract on 30/ 31 year old who had an injury would be understandable if it was someone making a big step down in their career but to do it on someone who struggled with other spl clubs is poor .

I don’t think SK is anywhere close to being sacked . Results have improved year on year since he’s come in. this season likely to finish between 5-9th spot . At our best we’re a hard working unit that wins a lot of 1st and 2nd balls . Battle hard and get some wins . We did this aug-oct and with average 4 shots on target per game were top 4 + semi final . Most fans happy , albeit not amazing to watch . At our worst we still work hard but stopped winning 1st and 2nd balls with average 2 shots on goal . This has been the case since October. There never been a plan B plan A is simply set up to work harder than the opposition. re the injuries , I think it’s a bit of a red herring . Assuming we had everyone fit I think our style of play would be exactly the same - but we’d pick up a few more wins . none of this means SK will be sacked. For me I don’t like our brand of football under SK and although stats are improved year on year I find it a tough watch . if we finish top 6 I’m guessing majority of fans will want him to stay .

With the exception of 3 games we’ve been horrendous since the semi exit . in the last 14+ games we’ve averaged 2 shots on goal and conceded twice as much as scored we had an excellent first round of games and since then been other than a couple exceptions been utter tosh Annoying this result isn’t a surprise

Bowman is pretty much what I was thinking and appreciate the big man worked hard. What I find disheartening is the solution to fixing midfield seems to fall to ignoring the midfield and getting a big man to punt the ball up to. Each to their own, SK favours physical and work rate over guile/finesse.

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.