Kmcalpin

That will depend on whether he's returned from injury and playing well by the end of January. If he is, he'll be off and we'll see perhaps a few weeks of him in the first team at best. If he doesn't depart in January, then we may get more out of him if he can get back to his best. On a personal note, good luck to the lad as he's been through enough for a youngster of his age. I also think we need a goal scorer up front. This coming Saturday will prove to be a good early test as Livingston will be an upgrade in class compared to who we've played so far this season.

Once again I ask can they afford it?

A close choice between Donnelly and Grimshaw for me, but I opted for the latter. Grimmy had a good engine and was great on the attack with his surging runs but isn't so good off the ball when defending.

Does anyone know the prize money on offer, by round and including TV cash, for this year's League Cup?

This 100%. He's showing up well but will shortly start meeting taller, heavier, nastier and more experienced central defenders once the league action starts. He did struggle towards the end of last season. Don't forget either he's only 18 and has a lot to learn. He'll also struggle more to get the close support he needs from others and he'll need to learn how to hold off hulking defenders until the cavalry arrives. Robbo has alrweady said that he needs how to use his body better. I'd like to see him get gametime but I don't think he's quite ready to shoulder the burden of being our main number 9 week in week out just yet. His time will come.

Reading is looking at Ben Heneghan. Maybe a sell on fee is in the offing?

Hearts, Forfar, Morton, Accies, Partick, Dunfermline,

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.