Kmcalpin

A good summary. We qualified as seeds, collected the maximum of 12 points and withourt conceding a goal. Compare that to the poor start made by other Premiership teams. You can only beat the teams in front of you and we did that. However like you I wonder how we'll compete against other Premiership sides. I've only seen two games but we looked a bit lightweight today, at times, and against Morton. How will we fare defensively when put under some pressure? Some thoughts from today's game. I thought we missed Gallagher's aerial ability today at set pieces. Donnelly is fairly hitting the net but I wonder how he'll cope defensively against better sides. I quite like the look of Long but he's no number 9. Without having seen Cole, I think we'll need to sign an experienced one before the window closes. For long spells we seemed to lack a killer touch in the box. The wingers today were less effective against a team who predictably came to park their bus. Defenders doubled up against them and we can expect to see more of that in the coming weeks. I must say I like the look of Ilic and am sure there's more to come from him. The same goes for Sloth and it'll be interesting to see what he can do once he's fully match fit. Semple had a reasonable game and the experience will have done no harm. Would liked to have seen something of Adam Livingstone but it wasn't to be today. Annan were a bit fortunate today not least in keeping 11 players on the park after some quite dreadful challenges. Hopefully we'll get a decent draw tomorrow - its time we had one.

He was in the POD Stand today walking on crutches.

You assume that he will actually go to the USA. Time will tell.

Manzinga being brought in to replace Johnson as a squad player and given the chance to prove himself?

Who knows, but he was obviously signed for a reason. As with all new faces we need to give him a chance to show what he can do, apart from scoring with overhead kicks.

Rumours of Danny Johnson to Dundee.

Depends what you mean by"screw". We signed Coke when he was 23 I think thereby depriving Northampton of a fee. All legal and above board. Clubs have been doing it ever since.

We'll agree to disagree about that Greg and also about Gorrin. The team is shaping up nicely this year but has still to gel fully which is understandable. Lets also remove Turnbull and the wingers from the discussion. We were always going to miss him and finding a replacement was never going to be easy. That said, I agree with you about Polworth. A creative player with a great cross in his armoury. I wasn't at Dumfries or Dumbarton last night but base my initial observations on the Morton game. For spells, the midfield struggled a bit, especially in the first half and in the early part of the second half. They sat too deep when defending but despite that, gave Morton a bit more freedom than they should have done. Morton also came out on top physically for a fair spell. In the middle we lacked a bit of pace, aggression and ability/composure to hold the ball. As the game went on in the second half though our midfield did dominate to be fair. Yes, Gorrin was rash at times, no argument there. Its not being negative to suggest that the midfield, or more accurately central midfield, looks to be a bit short. New players yes; Turnbull missing yes; players not fully matchfit yes; and its not realistic to expect the engine room to be firing on all cylinders already. Every team has weaknesses at this stage, as we've seen from other group games, and the management will not be 100% happy. If they are I'll be extremely surprised. We're doing well so far and playing attractive football for the most part, but haven't yet met another Premiership team. Work in progress as they say.

Thats my fear too so far, without having seen Sloth play. Gorrin was able to support our defensive midfielder but also support the attacking midfielder - a true all rounder who was comfortable on the ball and I'm not sure Maguire or Donnelly fit into that category.

Those were my prematch thoughts as well. I had the suspicion that Dumbarton would make life more difficult for us than they did for either Morton or QoS. Against those 2 sides they may have felt slightly more confident about playing more open football. Against us it would damage limitation from the off. I didn't reckon on them leaving the grass longer however. Still a win is a win and we record another clean sheet which isn't bad going. More players getting game time too. Seems we took a decent crowd to the game. How did our 2 ex players fare?

Much has been made of our wingers and our ability to play decent football, and rightly so. But, if we are break into the top 6 and go to the likes of Rugby Park and McDiarmid Park and get results, then we will also have to be confident of defending well. This means reliability, solidity and competitiveness. I'm not yet 100% convinced that we have this. We'll also need strikers who can hit the net working with meagre ammunition. Getting results is more than just playing sexy attractive football. Cautiously optimistic about our prospects.

I was thinking more in terms of the sale of alcohol in stadia. A tricky decision isn't it? Where do we draw the line?

I'm not a betting man myself but I can live with it. On the same tack, we sell alcohol in the stadium and I'm sure that there's a connection to addiction and suicides there too. Where do we draw the line?

According to the club, its a "record breaking" deal.

As usual rival teams will start to panic and we'll see a flurry of signing activity in the next 5 weeks or so. Whether or not these signings prove to be effective is another matter entirely of course. St Mirren, for example, will be signing a good few players. Kilmarnock too will make some signings. As far as St Johnstone go, they'll be in the market for a striker at the very least, but I don't think Stevie May will be their saviour. In recent years he's played like a headless chicken and reminds me a lttle of Curtis Main in that they are more interested in wrestling with the opposition than playing football. As far as we are concerned we look to be improving although its too early to draw conclusions and the jury is still out on several new players. From the limited evidence I saw on Friday, I think there are still question marks over our midfield. Will Robbo make achieve his first pick signing before the window closes? I'll predict we won't be in the relegation dogfight. More than that is unclear, although I do think we'll continue with the attractive and entertaining football. Cautiously optimistic about our prospects.

Yes it does seem a bit dodgy Allan. For me, the underlying problem is FIFA rules on compensation. Would it be sensible to base club ranking on average attendances instead of the leagues in which they play? That would in effect be a proxy for category.

£10 donated.

Outwith the top 5 teams sizewise, its now very common for the other 37 teams to have substantial rebuilding jobs on their hands over the summer. Maybe Kilmarnock and St Johnstone are possible and current exceptions. Most medium and small clubs, including ourselves, can't afford to dole out 3 or 4 year contracts on high wages. Large turnovers in personnel are now the norm. This season though we seem to be ahead of the pack in bringing in replacements early, giving the new lads time to settle in. Teams like Morton, QoTS, Dumbarton and St Mirren seem to be struggling for numbers now and will no doubt be frantically sourcing players in the next 5 weeks or so. Hopefully this will give us a slight advantage in the first few weeks of the new league campaign.

The other Saints fans are also in meltdown after their 2-1 home defeat. I think in their case they're just too used to finishing 7th or higher. We appear to be ahead of the pack in terms of rebuilding.

Presumably there is scope for the referee to use his judgement and ignore the rule in certain circumstances? For example if a player from the team in possession loses control or makes a bad pass which is clearly going to an opponent or out of play and the ball hits the referee and then goes to an opponent then he can ignore the ruling?

Agree with many points alweady made, so won't repeat them in detail. I was especially impressed with the 2 wingers and Illic when he came on. When on the ball you had the feeling they could do something unexpected. Hylton's finish for his goal was sublime. We played some exciting expansive stuff and although we have to take into account the quality of opposition things are looking good so far. No failures in the side and a good all round team perfomance. Carroll and Polworth did well enough too although the latter, although creative, lacks a bit of pace, but we knew that before. As with some others probably not fully match fit. I though Donnelly did ok but see him as being more of a squad player. Pleased to see Scott notch a brace and that will do him good. He's developing very nicely but at this stage he might struggle a bit more against bigger and nastier defenders from the better clubs. I still think a spell out on loan would benefit him. My pick of the bunch though was Gallagher. Maybe not fully tested but he strolled through the game. Won almost everything in the air, is pretty fast and can pass. I think he'll turn out to be a really good signing. Not flashy but you really need these type of guys in the team. Negatives last night? Yes there were a few and although we should put them into perspective we shouldn't ignore them. Early on I though we showed Morton too much repsect and they were able to test Gillespie a few times without being hassled. Our midfield sat too deep at times and gave them the opportunity to have an avoidable crack at goal. Also for a spell in the middle of the game our midfield struggled to compete with them although they weren't especially dangerous. We definitely missed a "Gorrin" type player to tackle, hassle and hold the ball. Willie Collum? I've seen him have far worse games but he let a fair few very bad tackles go unpunished. In his defence he let off our lads once or twice as well. Luckily no-one was badly injured. Propsects are looking good with the likes of Cole, Long, Sloth and of course DT to return.

A few very strong contenders last night but Declan Gallagher for me. Virtually unbeatable in the air, has pace and can pass a ball. Looks to be an excellent signing.

Yes he's one and the same. I think he'd be signed for the development/reserve squad rather than the first team.

I've a slightly different take on his quote. I took from his interview that we're pursuing one more "quality" player, who has to be be a starter, but if we don't land him/them Robbo is happy to go with who we've got.

I'm pleased with this news. They have both done all thats been asked of them so far.