BigManTam

As bad as it was, I'm happy to let Ward away with that one. Until now, his passing hasn't come into question - it's mistakes with his hands which have been the issue. Hopefully a lesson learned for him and one he can grow from. Another enjoyable game though it has to be said, even with the late defeat. It had a bit of the Hearts draw about it...in a great position and we just didn't quite know what to do with ourselves. Maybe Jens needs to add another string to his bow and get the team able to play low block, hoof it away type stuff when required.

Could see this one being a nil-nil or maybe a late goal to win it.

Watching back the highlights, Aberdeen fans will be gutted they didn't score. The two good chances from the first half aside, one of those 2 chances they had at the end of the 90 with Keskinen and Lazetic are converted more often than not. Could easily have been a 0-1 defeat! Imagine how different we'd be feeling if that were the case. Having said that, we missed a couple of our own great chances and we have earned that bit of luck over these 6 games. Make no mistake, that was a huuuge win last night. Could be the foundation for a solid season.

Went for O'Donnell as I just can't get over his improvement so far this season. I was desperate for him to leave the last two summers, but what do I know?

I thought we played fairly well. Better than the first couple of league games anyway and probably better than last week. Really enjoyed it. Viva the JBA revolution!

I should say having posted a couple of negative comments that (regardless of outcome) we're generally playing very well and it's been an entertaining game!

Ap "nearly man" stam at it again.

Said is doing my box in.

Could have been watt, fadinger (anyone else struggle to tell the difference between these two?), TJ or Longelo. Went for Watt to spread my votes out a bit.

I'll take it over 2 wins and a draw playing hoofball. Admittedly though, it does need to produce the wins at some point. The way I see it, it's basically a few few freak errors which have prevented us picking up AT LEAST one win.

Aye, if we had a van veen, moult or even a Bair up top we'd really be a force to be reckoned with. AP lacks the cutting edge, Osong has looked powderpuff in his (admittedly) limited game time. Our last great hope is Hendry - fingers crossed he can make an impact when he's back and gets a chance at a full 90!

Disagree on both accounts. We have played well, should have scored 1 if not 2. Dundee have only had one real chance, which was a lump in the box they managed to convert. We're heading and shoulders above the rest of the dross in this league (bar celtic).

Who is this new SOD look-a-like we've got at right back? Not a half bad player!

At risk of sounding like a broken record...AP just ain't gonna do the business for us. Said so frustrating as well. Lots to like about him, but seems a bit blunt when it comes to the final ball/shot.

For me, it just looks like AP is missing that X factor. Every shot of his seems to be blocked, easily pushed off the ball, always struggling to keep hold of it. Lack of pace and strength. I think he might be out of his depth, and I think he knows it too. Hendry, from what I've seen, looks like he does have a bit of confidence, pace and strength. If he gets a bit of momentum going, he could be the missing piece of the front line jigsaw.

Hendry will come good. Will get circa 15 for us this season.

Has anyone else noticed SOD's distribution has improved considerably? Quite remarkable, he was always one of the worst offenders for aimless lofts up the park.

I thought the opposite RE Hendry. Think he may be the missing link we're looking for up front. Good touch, strong and looked like he was well up for it. Osong- Didn’t do a whole lot, but it's early days. Thought stama was poor again today. Can't hold the ball up, too lightweight!

This rangers team are poor btw. Think Martin will have his work cut out.

Very happy with that. Watched the game on the TV today, but I think I'll have to get a long to Fir Park a few times this season if we continue to entertain like this. Longelo MoM (others played as well but he got the goal). Shout out to koutrombis and maswahnise. Man, that rumoured 800k for Stama is now starting to look like no brainer. Get Hale in or take a punt on a couple of unknowns. Very happy this evening though all in all! COYW

I'm not so sure. If possession football is not done correctly it can be as dull and frustrating as hoofball. And less effective to boot. Previous attempts at various Scottish teams have turned out this way (only exception probably being celtic under Rogers). Why are middling teams from similar sized leagues (Denmark, Croatia, Czech) able to play better football than our mid sized teams? I don't know, exactly. If i had to guess, I would say it's more down to individual technical skills and a more positive mentality than playing the right brand of possession football. Culture, you could say. The best Well team I've ever seen (I'm mid 30s) was our McGhee 1.0 team with Porter, Hughes, McCormack et al. Did they play possession football? Not in an intentional way, I dont think, like JBA is attempting now. There were some good technical, experienced players, who found form and the team just clicked. Anyway, I'm not trying to be negative about the possession stuff. I think it may well work out, but there's also good reason other teams have tried and failed with it in the past and it could still be the case with us, even if we are patient. However, let's get behind the team and see where we end up!

First glimpse of the team I've caught this season. Only tuned in for the final 30 minutes and caught the 2nd and 3rd goals. Impression: You can clearly see the style JBA is trying to implement on the team, and there were some promising moves. Individually, you can see there are some players in the team eho really struggle with the idea of retaining the ball and looking for a pass. It goes back a bit to that general lack of quality in Scottish Football. It's not even just technical ability, it's also creativity and confidence. We've seen with the national team how painful it can be to watch players playing a possession game, but without confidence and quality. There is a real risk we end up going down a similar path this season. However, I've seen enough to look forward to the new season and hope to see further improvement. As many have said, anything new is better than the pish which has often been served up in recent seasons. COYW

In all seriousness though, how did our team finish 11th that season? When you look at all the good talent we had...Marvin Johnson, Ainsworth was decent, young Lee Erwin coming through, experienced players like McManus, Pearson, Hammell Keith Lasley and John Sutton. Maybe I'm viewing the past in an overly-positive light, but that team could have been top 5 in the season just passed. Has Scottish Football gone so far down hill?

Central defence today looked solid and in control. Central midfielders all played well and looked creative going forward. Bair up top didn't look like scoring and I'm not sure he ever will. About passable as a back up, but we'll struggle to get goals if he's our starter all season long. The main positive with Bair is at least he's not Mandron, who's no good at even the basics of holding up and running with the ball which Bair can do. Wing backs good enough defensively, fairly poor going forward. Young Georgie Gent came on towards the end and, although it's too early to tell yet, looked like he might be able to make a contribution. Him at left back and McGinn/Spencer at right back would be a big improvement. We were a bit unlucky today. I'm not sure we deserved to win, but we were the better side. Perhaps due this one as we seemed to ride our luck at times against Killie and Hearts in the previous 2. If one of our strikers comes good, we could be on to a top 6 season (and Euro football?!). If we keep struggling to find the net, we could be looking at 7th-9th position-wise. Onwards and upwards!

Not a classic today by any means, but feel I got my money's worth by the end of the 90. To start with the negative stuff, we were pedestrian for large parts of the game. As some have mentioned previously our 2 wing backs (Souare/O'Donnell) don't offer very much going forward. They lack pace and can't do much with the ball except boot it long. There also seemed to be an issue transitioning the ball from defence to attack more generally. The central midfield seems to be lacking a reliable CM/DM (a la Goss - although himself not exactly perfect) who can take the ball in and distribute. Slattery and Spittal seem to be better in attacking positions and young Miller, although he looks alright, probably doesn't have enough experience for such an important role. On a positive note, Hibs didn't really cause us too many problems. This is, in part, because they're shite, but our defence and midfield did generally look solid. On a side note - Lee Johnson has to be favourite for first sacking of the year! Spitall and Slattery had some nice touches and should do as a turn this year. Wilkinson and Bair didn't have much to work with until Beireth came on, although they didn't look great together. Beireth could well be a find - more than anything he just looked really up for it and fought for everything, adding that little bit of quality for the assist and the goal when it counted. I hope he'll be starting next week. All in all, we look worse than the tail end of last season but, if we can get the strikers set up and sort out our ball retention in midfield, we could have a decent season. I'm not concerned about relegation at this point, it's just a question of how far we can kick on up the table, which will probably depend on whether we can find a winning combination up top. COYW!