Bart Verheul

As I said in the man of the match thread was impressed with cadden even though he was at fault for the opener. He didn't let it affect him and he was a plus point today in a game where a draw would probably have been fairer but if you can't make your possession count then you are always going to give yourself problems. Didn't think that grimshaw being missing made too much of a difference as cadden played the roll well, for me it was the front two guys not being able to (or not being allowed to hold the ball up) that was our undoing. On a side note, how much would I have loved us to get Jackson irvine in the summer, he's a big long haired sheila but he ran the midfield today

Would have been cadden had it not been his fault for the opening goal, but unfortunately he totally got caught ball watching when he should have been tracking Irvines run. To be fair he'll have learned a lot from that and he didn't let it affect him and thought he had an accomplished game apart from that one lapse of concentration. I thought mcdonald and moult were poor by their own standards today and the man of the match is between Pearson and mcmanus for me but pearo gets the nod for the goal

Referee wasn't bias against us as mcdonald clearly handled the ball for his 2nd goal, it was almost as blatant as picking it up and placing it at his foot to score. Agree he was gash though and how Crawford was still on the park is anyone's guess

The thing that I really like about moult is he looks as if he appreciates that he's got one of the best jobs in the world, in that he's a pro footballer and gives everything he has got every game. His movement off the ball is excellent and a wee mention to the much maligned josh law who put in 2 brilliant corners for a set piece that was obviously worked on in training leading to moults goal and then in the 2nd half the exact same routine but louis put it narrowly over the bar. No failures today and similarly nobody who was head and shoulders above the rest, a really good team performance today and if we play like that most weeks you'd like to think we would be fine.

Would agree that Kennedy was poor in the first 15-20mins but he actually did well to forget his mistake for the 1st goal and I thought did well the rest of the game. I would also agree that Ripley didn't cover himself in glory but he had one outstanding save quite late on when hearts had about 3shots at goal in a row.

I'd like to see the tackle on mcdonald ( I think) at the halfway line in the build up to marvins goal. Looked a shocker and as we scored the ref seemed to forget about it and I don't think even talked to anybody about it

For once it was quite hard to pick an individual for the right reasons, rather than who was the least sheehite. Went for johnson but admirable mentions to grimshaw who tackled anything that moved and skippy who looked more like his old self apart from a couple of bad touches

Hopefully marvin hasn't injured himself badly but he was definitely holding his right hamstring after he came off. I really enjoyed that today for about the first time this season and was encouraged by the number of chances we created. We still gave away our usual soft goals but to be fair their strike force is amongst the best in the league, big and strong and able to play a bit for big guys However Juanma Delgado has to be one of the most odious individuals to grace fir park in a long while moaning about every decision, diving, leaving his foot in with certain tackles and for a moment I really thought he was going to fire the ball into the East stand at the final whistle. Keith spotted this and rightly had a word before mcmanus stepped in and pulled Juanma out the way before it all kicked off.

To be fair I would have clapped that whoever had scored it. Not only was the finish superb, how many times will they have tried that in training and the guy hitting the corner will have overhit it or hit the first man. Okay it's not ideal that it was against us but how many times a season do you see goals like that in the flesh. My natural reaction was just to clap it and not anything to do with it being vigurs who scored it

I'll be the first to say it (and the last probably) but I'd rather have straker in at left back than chalmers at the moment. At least you were guaranteed at least one piece of jaw dropping skill in amongst the other 99.99% of dross from Tony, but it was 0.01% better than chalmers today. Ok maybe not... but you get the idea. Hammell will hopefully make a difference to the team going forward, as I lost count of the times chalmers got it with a bit of space ahead of him only to stop and either pass it inside or back to mcmanus.

Conor grant scoring on his Doncaster debut too

A name that I doubt few will remember but is ingrained in my memory as my pals used it as a stick to beat me with when it came to judging players potential is paul shepstone. If I remember right wee tam signed him from Blackburn rovers and I'm sure we had a football manager style inter squad friendly in the pre-season and this guy ran riot. I went to a few reserve games that season and he always did the same. I don't think he ever made an appearance (I can't be bothered checking on Wikipedia) but as I say I told everyone who'd listen this guy was the next big thing. In my defence I must have been about 12 at the time. Eta he did make one appearance and was never seen again. He also had an England youth cap so he must have had something about him at one point

Sutton trumpton all of those guys to be honest

I dont get the love in for simo, good player who did a job for us in the 90s but what has he done in management? Is winning the Finnish league with a team with a massive budget compared to the other teams a better achievement than winning the Irish league with sligo rovers? In my opinion no its not and at this stage it's too much of a gamble and not what we need right now. Simo may go on to be a great manager and we may miss our one opportunity to get him but I'd be willing to take that chance at the moment. Anyway Finnish managers remind me of tractors on the pitch for some reason and greig miller....

Agree with all of that welldaft, never really got the hatred thing with mcghee but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. For me I would always rather have a manager leave to go to a bigger club as it means he's done well here as opposed to having to sit through defeat after defeat meaning we have to wait for them to resign or sack them. Finally on the point on bringing through the youth, there has to be something to develop first. And the evidence points to the fact there isn't much and hasn't been much for years coming through that we can develop. I haven't noticed any of the guys we've released getting big money moves to England which suggests that maybe the youngsters we've had aren't/weren't good enough.

Robert Maaskant has been sacked by NAC Breda this week. If my Google translate is any good, he was binned because the players had lost confidence in him after they were relegated last year and are only sitting in 6th in the juliper league this season. Was going to say we dodged a bullet there but unfortunately it ricocheted of a bit of English cheddar shipped over from Ireland and still skelped us on the arse.

I actually thought it was a good bit of management by taking moult off. He was getting nothing off the ref who seemed to take a dislike to him and I thought he was itching to give him that 2nd booking. Maybe changing the system and bringing on leitch wasn't the ideal change but he can point to the scoreline at the end and say he got it right.

You two have suspicious minds I'll get my coat

I also seem to remember Jim Gannon bring touted as having amazing knowledge of even the u18s or something when he was appointed. Bobby Robson got his players names wrong Go figure...

3-2

3-1 there is a jacket with the initials ib lying on the ground, who is going to pick it uo

2-1 morton

Bara is like that bloke in the green mile who gets electrocuted without the sponge being wet. He's doomed but he's sure as he'll dragging it out

I think there are still enough people who are willing to give him the next few games at least to see if things finally click, but the numbers in this group are getting smaller by the week. I do think the vast majority of fans will want a change if we don't win both the next two games. On the other hand I'm sure there are people who have had enough and can't see how it is going to get better and therefore would probably be quite happy for us to lose either one of the next two in order to speed up the changes that they feel are needed to save the season and avoid a repeat of last season.

I have always been a defender of bara too david and agreed with your assessment that it wasn't really his team last season and that he deserved a pre-season and transfer window where he could get his own players in as I always maintained (probably incorrectly in hindsight) that he couldn't implement his own philosophy with the players he had last season. However, what is tipping me over the edge (if I am not already over it) is that yes on paper the squad looks better but we are still playing the same hoofball/counter attack hybrid that didn't work last season. I have to admit having seen us preseason versus Preston, I thought we looked like we were going to see a refreshing brand of football but for whatever reason it hasn't happened. Is it down to having no plan b - Pearson and Fletcher can't be that vital can they? Is it down to a lack of confidence that the players have resorted to long balls to moult or is it just that the manager is unfortunately looking out of his depth? Sadly it looks like the latter, which would be a shame as I genuinely think bara is a good guy and his ideas are the way I like the game to be played but and it's a big but he doesn't seem able to translate these ideas across to the players.