Ya Bezzer!

Just noticed that we've only scored more than once in a league game twice this season and both times were against Ross County.

Latter rather than former, I think.

Wouldn't bet on todays match because it's a bad match to bet on. 1 win and 9 losses between them on home/away form.

Baraclough intimated that Nielsen might be on his way but nothing was certain, I'm guessing maybe a Scandanavian club was sniffing around and he would agree to a release if he could sign for another club. ZFA is injured. Cummins is mince and has been appalling on his two previous loans and no one in their right mind will want him, Carswell and Ainsworth are probably still required as part of our first team squad.

Lots of changes. Let's see if the results change!

Wrong to say they aren't interested in viewing figures. Anyone selling advertising wants as many viewers as possible. However the TV companies know that only Rangers and Celtic matches are likely to bring in a mass audience. As long as Rangers and Celtic attract advertising loot they will tolerate having to show Ross County v Kilmarnock.

The thing is I doubt BT/Sky/Whoever are even that interested in this game. The television audience for an Aberdeen v Motherwell match is extremely limited; some matches between two provincial clubs the audience will only be a few tens of thousand compare to Rangers or Celtic matches that attract TV audiences of a quarter of a million and upwards. These televised matches are to the benefit of the clubs more than the television companies and I'm sure if it wasn't written into the contract that they had to cover clubs like ours the only time you'd ever seen TV cameras there would be for Rangers or Celtic games. To all extents and purposes Friday night football is a television dumping ground for contractual obligations. You'll note the Rangers v Hearts match, probably the only match of mass appeal on BT's upcoming live schedule is being played on Sunday afternoon.

Ross County have put together a couple of strange runs. At the same time as they have picked up at least a point from 7 of their last 8 away matches, they have also lost 7 on the trot at home. With that in mind I think this is one game where we can go in fairly confident. But then you see that we have lost 7 out of the last 8 away matches. Hmmmm.....

If we've paid £50,000 for Johnson you'd have to expect it to be a longish deal, so that sounds about right.

I think it's important to keep a sense of perspective. We've not seen any of these guys play and it takes a while to form a team when players don't know each other. That's a problem because we need to win the next match. I don't think supporters should expect us to suddenly become a great team, I still think it's going to be a real scrap to get away from the relegation area but hopefully these signings will help. As someone else said above - this is Baraclough's team now and to an extent his honeymoon period is over.

If Baraclough doesn't see something in Dom Thomas he shouldn't be a football manager. I'm just repeating what I said last night but I think the other Thomas will play right wing (it's apparently his primary position) and Marvin Johnson, who I will say for the record I have a good feeling about, will play more through the middle, as a sort of second striker, so I see him more as a replacement for Ojamaa. So I see this as a problem for Ainsworth rather than Dom Thomas. In fact I don't think Ainsworth has really been interested since the beginning of the season. He took ages to actually sign a contract and when he did it was only for a year - hardly committing himself was he? He obviously wanted a move off his 11 goals last season and has been in a mood ever since. Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if Ainsworth was released.

Apparently Thomas is primarily a right winger. who can also play on the left. The days of Ainsworth are numbered I think.

Expect all these new guys to be injured or suspended within the next two weeks!

Sounds like Grant might be the sort of midfielder I was talking about earlier in the day. Let's hope so.

I remember there being outrage when we signed Tim Clancy from Kilmarnock, a player we knew about and he did a job for us.

Can't compare McDonald to any of the guys we are bringing in. McDonald played at Premiership level with Southampton. Having said that I'll literally take anyone right now. You can say we have so many defenders right now but most of them are absolutely gantin' and have been for 6 months. We've conceded 19 goals in our last 6 matches and if that continues we are dead. Finished. Might as well give up now. Bring in another 10 defenders if you like as long as two of them know the basics. Hopefully we sign a few more guys in the next couple of hours.

Complete cretin that ruined a potentially great career.

Most goalkeepers stick to the line these days because they are coached to. Same reason they punch. It's the defenders job to protect the goalkeeper, not the other way around. I just went through our last 3 games and I didn't see a single goal conceded that a commanding 6'3 goalkeeper would have prevented. It's the 30 to 10 yards where we get ripped to shreds, not the 6 yard box. I think the only goal we lost in the 6 yard area from the last 8 was a van Dijk header where the central defender lost the challenge. Did you see the league cup semi finals at the weekend? 4 out of the 5 goals were down to poor goalkeeping.

He's our POTY so far because he's performed better than any one else over the season. That simple and it's the same criteria as any other season. This new guy might be an improvement, if so good, but we'll see how he deals with some of the charlatans playing in front of him. Kerr, Ramsden, McManus, O'Brien and on Saturday, Laing. All terrible over the piece. Twardzik I think has lost some confidence since the Dundee match but I'd challenge anyone to list the good saves he's made against the poor goals he's conceded. I think one of those lists will be quite a bit longer than the other.

Don't really think he's the type of player we are looking for right now. He's a tigerish ball winner with a bit of composure on the ball. Long term he might make a good replacement for Lasley but right now, with relegation hanging over us and limited funds I don't think he's quite what we are looking for. Wouldn't be gutted by any means if he signed on just not sure he's a priority signing in our current dire emergency. Straker didn't look like a winger on Saturday so maybe that wide left position needs to be filled and as I said earlier a sort of Colin Cameron style midfielder, someone who is going to make the runs into the box that Murray Davidson did for St. Johnstone on Saturday. We have badly missed Ainsworth's goals from last season. His goals last term won us 11 points last season.

Don't really think he's the type of player we are looking for right now. He's a tigerish ball winner with a bit of composure on the ball. Long term he might make a good replacement for Lasley but right now, with relegation hanging over us and limited funds I don't think he's quite what we are looking for. Wouldn't be gutted by any means if he signed on just not sure he's a priority signing in our current dire emergency. Straker didn't look like a winger on Saturday so maybe that wide left position needs to be filled and as I said earlier a sort of Colin Cameron style midfielder, someone who is going to make the runs into the box that Murray Davidson did for St. Johnstone on Saturday. We have badly missed Ainsworth's goals from last season. His goals last term won us 11 points.

Well Pearson got goals here and there but he was never really a high scorer and at 32 I doubt he'll be have the legs he had first time round. I've not seen him yet since he came back but I'd expect him to be a slightly different sort of player.

Midfielders that can make runs into the box and score goals are the most valuable commodity in football. We need one. Still 11 hours to go!

Fraser Fyvie was a good player but he's hardly kicked a ball in three years.

Maybe Barraclough wanted to keep it tight and then gradually introduce more attacking players as the game went on. He seemed very unhappy about the goal we lost as if players hadn't done specific things he'd asked them, but as poor as we were if you think about it St. Johnstone didn't really trouble our goalkeeper too much over the match. So in that sense it 'worked'. It seems pretty obvious that keeping us competitive means not conceding goals because when we concede the heads go down. And while a lot of us want the likes of Moore or Thomas to start games I do think there is logic in holding these players back. If we start with them and it's a poor performance and we aren't in the game what do we do then? There is not a lot on the bench that has a proven ability to turn the match around. If, on the other hand, we are poor and not performing well, at least we have these guys who can come on and make an impact on the match. The kid was saying "oh, we are going to get thrashed again" and I said "As long as it's 1-0 we have a chance" and that's the truth. What we need to do is really stay competitive in matches for as long as possible and any points we can dig out will be absolutely crucial, otherwise these familiar scoreslines 1-3, 0-4, 1-4, 0-5 will keep coming round.