Ya Bezzer!

As I can keep telling people, people who possibly only turn up for the cup games, we've been atrocious for ages.

Accies have shown nothing and we have almost completely dominated the match but for all the sound and fury we've had one meaningful attempt on goal. Given the amount of possession we've had I'd expect us to eventually get a goal but there is a distinct lack of creativity and far too many lumped balls. Bigi has been at the centre of most of the good bits.

First of all you don't need £200 million to pass a ball so that's a non argument. It's quite possible to do so on our budget, in fact you only have to go back as far as our last league fixture to see that it is when we had ball playing youth players and a striker who's not a heid-the-ball up front. Secondly the managers preferred style of football has gleaned a whooping 6 wins from the last 26 league matches. Therefore it's open to question whether it's actually successful - especially this term when we have lost some of our stand out players (Moult, Kipre). Also the element of surprise is an important factor in this. Robinson won 6 out of the first 10 matches last season and then 7 wins from the subsequent 28. That's a win ratio drop off of 60% to 25%. Does that tell you? That maybe other teams have us figured out now, know what to expect and can counter it fairly easily?

The Accies team we beat 3-0 will be similar to the one we face at the weekend - ie, it was minus all the better players that Accies have had over the past couple of seasons. The December side still had a core of good players all of which are now gone.

I said last week the luckiest break we will get all season is having Accies in the second week of the season. With Rangers, Hearts, Aberdeen and Kilmarnock all coming up it's essential we win this one and get some points on the board. This seasons Accies are as poor a side as you are ever going to play at this level, since last term they have lost Skondras, Devlin, Gillespie, Crawford, Brophy, Templeton, Lewis Ferguson and others, the core of a decent side, and replaced them with nobody of any note. They scored 1 goal in three league cup matches against Annan, Airdrieonians and Livingston and got pumped off Hearts last week. No excuses, I'm afraid.

Aldred did well last season but I agree that, outwith Aldred's own merits as a player, this is a signing with problems - the defensive balance, bringing Maguire through, an apparent commitment to playing McHugh in midfield, where it leaves Donnelly. For me Robinson is really backing himself into a corner here with his signings. Right now it looks the squad is not versatile enough and we don't have the personnel to play anything other than Robinson's favoured style - the merits and effectiveness of which remain open to question.

Mains has 2 league goals since the end of January, a run of 14 matches. All his appearances were in the starting line up.

Sammon played well alongside Bowman in the league cup. He also has played well when the style was less agricultural. Main on the other hand hasn't played well with anyone this term and his poor form extends back to last season. Right now I'd much rather see Sammon/Johnson than Main/Johnson.

It's a bit depressing to start a season and be making exactly the same points as I was a year ago. The midfield is atrocious and guys lIke Liam Grimshaw need chased. Moult bailed us out last season early in the campaign. When he left we became relegation form cloggers and we were lucky to have the points in the bag from the first round of matches. 4 wins out of 24 league matches was no where near good enough but relegation was unlikely and everyone had cup fever. Well this season we are playing without Moult. Robinson has to change his philosopy and if guys like Frear, Bigi and Johnson don't start featuring in the starting line up then you are guatenteed to get what we've been getting since last October - 1980's style dross. Don't give me all this nonsense that you need a £20 million budget to pass a ball. Teams in League 2 play that way and do it better than we do, as we saw in the League Cup matches. Luckily we have Accies next week. That's the luckiest break we'll get all season so how about using that opportunity to fashion a football team Mr Robinson.

Playing a 4312 or 41212 if you prefer. Thought both teams have been pretty sloppy but Hibs have certainly carried more threat than we do going forward. Perhaps unfortunate to go behind in those circumstances, didn't look like a deliberate hand ball, nevermind a booking, but if you have zero creativity going forward more often than not your going to go behind in matches. Poor defending for the second goal though. Scoreline flatters Hibs cos I don't think they've been great but going forward we have very little outside set pieces and until that is sorted out you are always going to struggle. Next goal will be huge.

Does anyone know how to play sweeper these days? There probably hasn't been any proper sweepers around since the 90s. The holding midfield is the modern incarnation. Anyway with the sweeper system you need full backs that can play comfortably as centre backs, we don't have those, and you need to bring the ball out from the back and build the play from deeper positions, not something a Robinson team is ever likely to do. Also the sweeper has to be technically accomplished and, eh, yeah I think you can see the problem there.

You guys know that Hibs conceded less goals than we did last season, right?

Top four spots are bolted on - Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen and Hibs - and given Hearts hardly ever lose at home they should make it Top 6. That leaves one spot for the rest. I can see St. Mirren and Hamilton being the strugglers. I actually saw Livingston a couple of times last season and think if they can hang on to their best players (Pittman etc) they will do OK next season. Not much between most of the rest but in terms of league form in the second half of the season last term St. Johnstone and Kilmarnock were better than us and I'm a bit worried that none of our summer signings really seem to have significantly improved our first XI over the start of last season. In fact without Moult we are a lesser team than we were at the start of last season. Therefore I'd expect us to be somewhere between 8th and 10th with 2 places either side of that as best/worst scenarios. Cups will be entirely down to draw and performance on the day so it's a bit pointless making any predicts. Top scorer is a coin toss between Main and Sammon, I'll say Sammon based on what I've saw so far this season. Seasons wishes - better standard of football and the introduction of youth talent (Turnbull, Scott, Maguire)

Slim pickings. I might go for Danny Johnson simply for getting the goal that put us ahead in the tie - the single most significant action of the tie. However, don't think anyone was anywhere near the performance levels they need to be.

The whole thing is a little bit bizarre. First of all McHugh is playing in the middle of the three - where you'd expect the captain to be while Hartley is on the periphery. Secondly, especially evident last week at Stranraer when you could hear the players, it was McHugh that was giving all the instructions, egging the team, chastising, encouraging, telling players what to do. It certainly wasn't Hartley. Hartley's not leading by example or behaving like you'd expect a captain to do. So far at least he's essentially been a model for an armband.

We won and are in the next round but barely. Why the Clyde boy didn't shot at 2-1 when he was straight through only he knows. Otherwise an utterly honking performance. We look slow, laboured, devoid of skill, devoid of ideas, devoid of effort. Just didn't look anything like a professional football team. Anyone looking forward to Martin Boyle vs Peter Hartley next week? Should be a hoot!

Can't really argue with any votes that go to Carson and Sammon but for me Cadden was the MotM tonight.

Miles better at centre back. Been our best defender across the three games.

Against Stranraer we were rotten from the start and got a 'little' better in the second, at least in terms of attacking and putting pressure on the opposition goal. Edinburgh the game was won at half time and more often than not when a team scores that many in the first half they often switch off in the 2nd. Tonight, we were 2-0 and fairly comfortable and at this stage in the season I don't see talking the foot off as a big problem. One worry I would have though was defensively, against lower league teams, we've not looked great. Stranraer should have scored at least three against us on Saturday and had other chances besides while tonight QoS started strongly and three decent chances in the opening minutes. Once we took the lead they lost a lot of their puff but although we've only conceded 1 goal in the three games our defensive solidity would be the major concern for me at this point. Need to get the video analysis out and have a look at whats happening and how it can be stopped.

Carson had to make three saves in the first 8 minutes but after that we were fairly comfortable, our first goal took a lot of the wind out of their sails. Decent first half performance. Bowman and Sammon linked up well and there was noticeably fewer high balls being played. Sammon is a better player with balls to his feet if tonight is anything to go by. Sammon was pretty clinical in taking his goals (although he probably should have got his hat trick with a couple of chances in the 2nd half) but for me the star man was Chris Cadden. Looked back to his best tonight although he did reasonably well in the group stages last season before falling away. However if he can take his form from tonight into the Premiership we will have a decent player back. 2nd half wasn't quite up to the same standard and Carson pulled off another very good save from Dobbie but at 2-0 up and fairly comfortable, with that one exception, you can live with that.

Noticeably less hoofball tonight. Two well taken goals by Sammon. Cadden excellent, the difference between the teams so far.

Carson. No blame for the goal and made three good saves in the penalty shoot out. I'd elevate Cadden slightly above the rest of the outfield players but the rest of them.....yikes.

Well I went to 35 matches last season I went nearly 6 months without seeing us winning a league match. So cup runs aside.....

It's hard to imagine how bad Kipre and Hartley were if you weren't here. I hope with Hartley it's just fitness or even poor attitude and noting to do with his injury but he actually looked done today. Glaciers have moved faster. The rest should be more familiar. Prehistoric long ball tactics. Non existent midfield sans Campbell Atrocious youth development Here comes the new season, same as the old season. I usually have people lining up to disagree with me but if the super fans were actually here today how can you disagree with any of the main points I've been making for a year now?

Old story but no Campbell means no midfield. The midfield hasn't been addressed in over a year now.