Ya Bezzer!

I'm not discussing other games, I'm discussing this match. We had to make a change and didn't. Would it have won us the match, salvaged a draw or even got us a consolation goal or a better 2nd half performance? I have no idea. What I do know is it was obvious we had to make that change or cede the match to Rangers and that's what happened. At 0-3 the game was dead. Robinson then made changes that improved us a bit long after the horse had bolted. I'm certainly not criticizing Robinson for losing to Rangers, I'm criticizing him because he didn't make the decision to change it while it was still cogent.

Well I said he was better than McHugh or Hartley, so his come back did improve us, but I think my point still stands. Dunne is fine when his physicality and pace can get him through matches, last week for instance against a Chris Kane level player. When he's up against actual footballers I don't think he's defensively good enough and his poor distribution is also amplified when we are playing against better quality teams. If you want to finish 7th, 8th, 9th that's probably achievable with Dunne in the side but I'd question how much further we can go with that level of central defender.

I'm afraid Robinson is back in my firing line again after that. I read Japanese better than Robinson reads a match. It was obvious at 55 minutes we had dropped right out the game, nothing was happening, Rangers were gaining more and more ascendancy and the third goal was more or less inevitable and Robinson sat and watched and guess what....Rangers score about 5 minutes later to kill the game. Coaches can take the team during the week, the line up came be picked by a committee but that is when managers earn their money. A decision was required and Robinson wasn't up to it. Also his tactical inflexibility isn't good enough. You can't just go with the same shape every match and then run that into the ground until it's useless. We've lost 4-1 v Celtic, 2-0 v Hibs, 3-1 v Aberdeen and now 3-0 v Rangers. Any team with any semblance of quality about them is hammering us. Maybe the manager needs to pick up on that and try and identify the problems, our own shortcomings, what the opposition brings to a game, our strengths, our weaknesses. But no, the Robinson way is just to do the same thing over and over again because at some point we had a wee bit of success doing it. Overall the match was sub standard and sloppy from both teams. We weren't outclassed but in an error strewn match we made worse mistakes. All the goals we lost today were poor, poor goals to concede which only strengthens my opinion that we aren't good enough across the back line. At 0-2 down we showed little heart until the changes were made far too late in the match. Since there is going to be a fairly major rebuild in the summer I'd suggest that Robinson uses the matches to blood younger players and experiment with formations. Let's try and actually learn something from the matches and I'd much rather do that than win 5 out of 5.

I'm happy with Campbell, Turnbull and Gorrin as a midfield three. Of course Gorrin has been linked to other clubs and you'd be daft to think Turnbull won't attract attention but if we can keep this group I think the midfield is decent. The Hastie thing is still unresolved but we will need at least one new winger, perhaps two. A striker is obviously a must. As I've mentioned previously I think we need to re-work the back 4. If we want to challenge for the Top 6 I think we need to be stronger in this area. Gillespie as goalkeeper has been great, for me he's the number 1 now. However I'd like to see Tait go back to the right back and a new left back brought in. Aldred will leave which is a pity and while I think Dunne is fine for bottom 6 football, I don't think he's good enough against the better teams. The other guys we have, Hartley, McHugh are behind Dunne so I think we need to ship them out and bring in two new centre backs with Dunne in there for competition. So just for starters, in terms of starting XI, we need a left back, two centre backs, one or two wingers, and a striker - say 5 first team level players at the very least. Then we might have to replace the likes of Hastie, Turnbull and Gorrin. So just for the first XI next term I think we are looking for between 5 and 8 first team level players. Robinson is going to have a busy summer.

Aberdeen are weird. Turn Sam Cosgrove into a goal scoring machine but have the opposite effect on Stevie May and Greg Stewart. So if Main does go to Aberdeen he'll probably get 15 league goals.

I've since caught up on the midweek football and it looks like it'll be Defoe rather than Lafferty starting. Also no trains running to Motherwell/Airbles tomorrow, wonder how it will effect the attendance.

I'm be more excited about Morelos missing out if Lafferty wasn't coming in. In some ways I'd rather Morelos started than Lafferty. Rangers missing Kent though is probably the biggest boon. He is their major creative force. Hopefully Gillespie will be fit and make it. I was on holiday last week so I've not seen any of the highlights yet and I don't know how serious a knock it was but I'd be a bit worried about the young keeper starting because I think defensively we've still got a lot to do and we aren't that good at back when we come up against even a wee bit of quality. In fact I think our back 4 will have to be re-invented if we want to compete for a Top 6 place next season. With that in mind I was also thinking about Liam Grimshaw. A player 4 months ago I'd have fired out the club but over a period of good form won me over. Since he signed this new contract he's been pretty poor again against Hibs and St. Johnstone (didn't see Aberdeen match, see above). I know, it's only two games but you start to think maybe this is a guy that only plays, consciously or subconsciously, when a contract is to be won....he'll be a player I'll be watching with special interest tomorrow.

I'm on record as saying Hastie would score the winner in this match. I stand by my prediction!

If only Jim O'Brien had scored that last minute penalty it wouldn't be quite so bad!

It was just a throw away line at the fact our striker has 1 goal in 19 matches. Untwist your knickers.

Put it this way. Accies went up there and won between a 5-0 pumping off Rangers and a 3-0 pumping off us. Aberdeen have won 2 out of their last 8 matches. The goals they conceded against Hearts were a joke. We can totally go up there and get something but I was a bit concerned by the almost 'end of season' feel to the match on Saturday. Hope we can stay motivated with Top 6 more or less done now.

Yeah, that's what I was doing....

It's going to be a case of rip it up and start again in the summer. Looks like at least half of this current XI is not going to be here next season and most of them are players that have been crucial to the turn around. You'd also be daft to think clubs would be circling around Turnbull just cos he signed a new contract. It's going to be another big summer for Robinson and he'll need to do a lot better than last time. Re-signing Gorrin is actually quite a big deal I think, so I for one hope it happens.

124 appearances and has never scored. Bringing him in as a striker coach?

Are people forgetting Cadden has been flattering to deceive for a quite a while? The fact that we've won these games without him shows he's not really been missed. Ariyibi wasn't at the races yesterday but unless he has a sustained spell of poor form I don't see how Cadden even gets in the team. And next season we will need to sign a 'proper' winger because Cadden isn't one. He's not a full back either and the centre of midfield is just fine with Campbell, Turnbull and Gorrin.

St. Johnstone have conceded 2 or more goals in 8 out of the last 10. Livingston put 3 past them recently having only score 3 goals in their previous 9 matches. Basically St. Johnstone are honking right now.

Didn't hear any boos today but there was certainly booing at the Accies match.

Two match changers were Gillespies penalty save and Frears opener. Then on the other hand Turnbull was probably the best player and scored a goal. Going to go for Gillespie.

Weird one. Great result but the match was howlin' and our overall performance was pretty poor. Substitutes changed the game by actually giving us some width and it was a nice finish by Frear. Pretty much everything before that though was bad. The full backs had their worst games for ages and the wingers just didn't get in the match at all. Main as usual worked away, held the ball up but showed little striking ability and was a blunt knife. As a result it was looking a 0-0 all day or even a 0-1 with St. Johnstone nicking it. Shout out to Mark Gillespie who's probably saved the match for us with another penalty save.

Raith Rovers also equalized against us with a last minute free kick. The last game of the season I seem to remember St. Johnstone got relegated despite beating us. It was also Tommy McLeans last match as manager and Stevie McMillan's debut.

As others have said our best chance is to leap frog Hearts. Hearts are absolutely shite as far as I am concerned, I've seen them three times this season, but you don't need to be good to get points in this league as most teams are as bad as each other. All you can really do is take care of your own games. St. Johnstone are on a really bad run. The interesting thing is they have gone from a run of clean sheets to conceding multiples in virtually ever match. Given that they don't have much going up top, they could give Curtis Main a run for the 'least prolific striker of the year' award, I think this is a match we should be winning. It's very noticeable that we've beaten the bottom clubs fairly comfortable but when we've come up against Kilmarnock, Hibs, Celtic it's been a different story. Today will be a good gauge of how better we've really got and what work needs to be done in the summer.

I know that you know that's not what I said. I said he was most responsible.

How about when we won three out of four in October/November when Turnbull came into the team and scored three goals. Did he combine with Ariyibi and Hastie then? Facts are Turnbull has been a huge contribution to almost all our wins this season, is our top league scorer, our top league assist provider and clearly the most accomplished player from a technical point of view. Tait and Aldred might be two of the better performers in the squad but they were part of a team that couldn't win a game and was dire to watch pre Turnbull. Like I said for Turnbull not to win both awards would be ridiculous considering his own personal performances and the transformative effect he's had on the team in general.

Went for Turnbull. On a day when we were lacking a bit of quality and final ball Turnbull was the only guy that really looked comfortable out there.

Turnbull is most responsible for turning the season round than any other person at the club. For him not to win both awards would be ridiculous.