MJC

Are we signing crocks or is there is something we are going in training that puts players out for months on end? It’s never just a week or so and it’s happened far too often to too many players over the last year for it just to be bad luck. Nicholson being out is another hammer blow and Stuparevic carrying an injury too just makes our start to the season all the more chaotic.

Life happens, I get that. People have genuine reasons why they can’t get to games regularly or atall. But there are fans out there who could be at Fir Park but instead opt for the pub/the golf/the bowls etc. That’s their choice obviously, but the it’s just a pity that we have a lot of fans who don’t prioritise going to support the team and the club. Correct, both Dundee sides look significantly better than us. Both have better forward options and both have players who can create opportunities for those forward players. And both have better managers than we have. It’s going to be a long, tough and uncomfortable season.

The club have tried everything to increase our gates but to no avail. Be it free tickets for kids, bring a friend for a fiver and John Boyle’s £5 for adults £1 for kids when he took over, our attendances never increased. And onfield success like winning the Scottish Cup and finishing 2nd two years running did nothing to increase it either. The simple truth is that outwith the small faithful core of diehards who never miss home games our overall support is poor. We have lazy, fair weather fans who turn up for Cup finals and trips to Hampden (a lot of whom shout long and loud about how big a Well fan they are and who they are so superior to Old Firm glory hunters without a shred of irony or self awareness ) but run of the mill games they are nowhere to be seen.

Yes because Semis/finals and a big day out at Hampden are appealing in themselves, the same goes for Euro games. But league games against Ross County or St.Johnstone don’t have that glamour and it seems that it’s that glamour and appeal that a lot of our ‘supporters’ really care about, not the club itself.

Our attendances are never going to increase regardless of the product on the park. Regardless of prices and financial climate our support is lazy and apathetic and has been for as long as I can remember. We have fans who just aren’t interested in going to run of the mill games but will come out of the woodwork for Cup finals and European games. And let me be as clear as I possible can be here. I am not talking about people who for whatever reason can’t go to games be that location, money etc. that’s their business. I am talking about people who absolutely could be at the game but they just don’t go, instead they’d rather sit in the pub or go to the bowling, the golf, the races or whatever. I’m sure most of us know at least one person who falls into that category. The sad reality is we are a poorly supported club and nothing that happens on or off the park will ever change that.

I get that. The problem is that we were saying the same things this time last year about us signing a lot of players and injuries and we now look weaker as a squad than we did back then. We’ve not moved forward, that’s the main point. It’s impossible to say that we will be relegated at this point in the season. My personal opinion is that Kettlewell is done and can’t offer us any more and a change of manager should take place but I think that that’s unlikely to happen in the near future. And Stephen O’Donnell is finished at this level. I’ve never been a fan of him with us as I always questioned his application, but there was never any doubts over his ability, but he is getting older and slower and we cannot, absolutely CANNOT rely on him to be a regular starter for us this season. And the least said about him being ‘vice-captain’ the better.

What are you expecting? After that dirgefest along with what we’ve seen in the League Cup Group games then there are genuine concerns for us as a team. Obviously it’s early doors and anyone nailing their colours to the mast and saying that we are getting relegated based on what they have seen so far is a bit much and definitely kneejerk but it can’t be denied that we have serious problems with the team and the manager.

Dreadful stuff.

He should be nowhere near our first team squad, he’s totally done.

Well Half Time and pretty dismal stuff so far. We’ve probably slightly edged it but that doesn’t say much as County have looked even worse than us. We are so, so slow as a team and better sides than Ross County will punish us for that.

He won’t do in the system we are playing and with the players we have to ‘support’ him. He’s completely isolated and getting no support. Who didn’t see that coming though?

I suspect Kelly being ‘club captain’ and the ‘Scotland internationalist’ had something to do with that.

Spittal and Kelly on the Hearts and Rangers benches respectively today.

Fuck them.

The reality is that we have done absolutely nothing wrong and so a replay would be an unfair and downright outrageous outcome for us to have to pay the price for Scottish football incompetence. But nothing would surprise me.

The thought of having to sit through that turgid shite all over again with no doubt the same outcome or worse…suffering f**k

Not just because we didn’t beat Partick Thistle yesterday, but because in the eighteen months he’s been in charge we have done nothing but regress under his management and I have seen nothing in these group games so far to suggest there is any improvement on the horizon, the opposite if anything. His tactical set up and approach to games is all wrong and his transfer dealings have been dreadful, regardless of ‘limited budget’ and all that guff.

1-1 with a late equaliser to get us a point we scarcely deserve after County miss some guilt edged chances and we create next to nothing for 80 minutes with our lone striker completely isolated again.

Exactly. He is 33 years old and his best spell in his career was with us. He hasn’t come close to replicating that since he left us, either at Groningen or Killie. We definitely got the best out of him when he was here but that’s past now. Re-signing him would be akin to signing McFadden for the third time in 2015.

van Veen wouldn’t work in Kettlewell’s current set up. There’s no Spittal anymore to support him so he’d be completely isolated upfront. Besides that he has had his purple patch with us and peaked. We wouldn’t get the same van Veen back as the one that we last had in May ‘23.

The last minute levellers against County, Dundee and St.Johnstone along with coming back from 0-2 down in Perth early November kept him in a job last year. And to his and the teams credit those results showed that they had a bit of spirit about them to come back and get those draws. But we appear to be a team set up not to concede a goal rather than score one ourselves and then when we do concede we are more effective when chasing games as opposed to scoring first and defending a lead. That’s no use in the league we play in and it’s not going to get us anywhere in Cup ties.

A drab draw was the right result today between two mediocre teams. We are no better or stronger than we were at any point last season, if anything it’s the opposite as I said earlier. There is nothing to indicate that we are going to have anything other than a turgid, eye-bleedingly poor season again this year, but this time we might not be so fortunate to scrape so many points with last minute equalisers.

The proper football? Today was a League Cup tie, that is proper football. It wasn’t a pre-season friendly it was a match in a major tournament. And in that match we struggled to a 0-0 draw against a Championship side and created very little before losing a penalty shootout. Alarm bells are ringing loud and clear ahead of the start of the league season for me. And SK is going to have a full squad to pick from next week? Is he really? Or are the injuries to Slattery, Paton, Nicholson and Seddon going to miraculously clear up between now and next Saturday??

He won’t do. I’m sorry but he just won’t. His tactics, lineups and general attitude is awful. I want to back him but I just can’t because he is taking us nowhere. Time to go. #troll #pantywetter

Yer a troll! Ye couldn’t wait for this opportunity bla, bla bla. On a serious note your concerns are completely valid.