Kmcalpin

A boring end of season game with nothing at stake? Not a bit of it and possibly the game of the season. As Santheman wrote "You could tell by the look on his face when we scored the 4th that he knew Turnbull had got him out of jail". I'll reserve comments on the match officials for a separate post. A cracking game and those who stayed away expecting a borefest were the losers. 7 goals, some great finishing, end to end stuff, controversial decisions, a red card and a last minute winner...what more could a fan ask for? Overall we deserved the win agianst a spirited Dundee side which carried a bit of luck on the day. Robbo got it 100% right by leaving out Hastie. Even when down to 10 men we played good football and pressed forward. The nature of the game clearly fired the players up and there was no shortage of effort. Plenty of pluses on the day: a great display by man of the moment David Turnbull; a first senior goal for James Scott; and a short but promising debut for Jamie Semple. Some great goals - a terrfic strike by Turnbull, an absolute beauty from the impressive loanee Ethan Robson and a well taken and difficult winner from the man of the moment again. Ariyibi also caught the eye. Some weaknesses too though. James Scott doesn't quite look comfortable yet in the loan striker role and he's taken a real battering two weeks in succession from the likes of Kilgallon and Kusunga but the experience will do him good and I'd like to see him play in our 3 remaining games. I wonder how many jerseys he goes through? A spell out on loan will toughen him up and he needs to work on his upper body strength. We're still suspect defensively especially on the wings and we need to get the full backs right. Tait needs to revert to the right. Gorrin's red card has been coming for some weeks now and in hindsight should have been taken off at half time. Far more positives than negatives though. We're comfortably in 8th spot with a real chance of finishing in 7th and doing so with a lot of academy graduates. David Turnbull is probably the best young prospect I've seen at Fir Park in decades and that includes Faddy and Uncle Phil. IF he continues to develop the skys the limit for him.

I would think Tanner on reduced terms with McHugh and Frear on the same ones and Main, Cadden and Gorrin on increased ones. That said I suspect that McHugh and Main will almost certainly leave.

Pretty much my view. Both will be on decent wages too.

We might well do. The management know more than we do about contract negotiations and may choose to select players who could be leaving as oppopsed to those, like Hastie, who are definitely leaving. The lad himself could be subject to some barracking from the support that other players may not be. That, also, could be a factor, as could attitude and form.

The figure is a lot less than that probably circa £4k per week. Our best offer was also considerably higher than that which has been quoted on this forum ie £800 per week. I bear Jake Hastie no ill will. He is exercising his legal right to move on and we should exercise our legal right not to select him for the remaining games. I do however feel that he led our fans up the garden path a bit with his public quote that he wanted to stay at Fir Park and hoped to sign within the next fortnight. That was before his head was turned. At the start of my career I was told to be nice to people on the way up as you may need their help on the way back down. Thats still as true as it ever was and he should heed that. I will not be barracking him if he is selected and I hope our support doesn't either.

So it would appear that no-one has actually told Robbo. Maybe the club hasn't been officially told either. Different attitude to Gary Holt.

We might well start with the same team but we have to find a way of upping the effectiveness of the wingers. Other teams have us sussed as we've seen in recent weeks. Scott to start up front with Sammon or perhaps Main on the bench. I'd like to see Jamie Semple feature at some point.

Shea Gordon scores for Partick tonight.

If Hastie departs for Ibrox, then the clubs will try to negotiate a figure. If that isn't possible it'll go to an SPFL trinbunal. I'm sure there's some kind of formula in place taking into account such factors as age, first team appearances, wages etc. It would seem that we've done internally this some time ago and arrived at a figure of about £350K which has been fairly well publicised since. In negotiaions we might acccept a lower figure in return for add ons. Expect Sevco's opening bid to be about £50k.

I also counted cup goals.

Vic Davidson did it two seasons in a row.

Just a quick post to let everyone know that the Society will be organising a Bucket collection this coming Saturday at the Dundee game. They were looking for volunteers but I haven't heard any updates.

Accies were given far too much leeway down both flanks today and that was from 3pm. As you've said switch Tait to right back and bring in a new left back. Maybe give Adam Livingstone some game time as long as he has a decent player in front of him. I'm not fussed about Frear's contract being renewed - he made little impact today. Ariyibi flattered to deceive. Teams have our wingers sussed now.

A reasonable summing up. A share of the points was the right result today. Accies provided the commitment and work rate and we provided most of the skill on show. Apart from the first 10 minutes or so we controlled the first half but rarely threatened the home keeper. Some nice but ultimately sterile football without much punch up front. Had Aldred's header gone in instead of crashing off the bar then we might have taken all 3 points. We deservedly led at half time. The second half was pretty much a non event with Accies dominating the game. Maybe a mixture of Brain Rice booting Accies up the jacksie, making changes; us thinking the game was won and going into holiday mode. It became increasingly obvious to me that Accies would get a goal but maybe not the quite the way we gift wrapped it for them - a friendly neighbourly touch and I hope they appreciate that goodwill gesture come the end of the season. After they scored it was full panic mode for us as we completely collapsed. Still we held on for the draw. As Ya Beezer wrote above, our defence and defensive midfield looked uncomfortable all afternoon and we looked especially vulnerable down our right flank as Accies noticed from the off. Campbell and Gorrin weren't quite their usual combative selves. Turnbull had some nice touches in the first half but largely disappeared after the break. Our starting wingers did nothing of note and both were rightly hauled off. That said the much vaunted Hastie did nothing to enhance his reputation when he came on either. Scott looks a bit raw yet but in fairness wasn't helped by the service and lack of protection he received. I'm surprised he still had a shirt on his back after 45 minutes with the amount of jersey pulling he suffered. Referee was poor and made 2 game changing errors. Firstly he should have red carded MacKinnon but simply bottled it. Secondly he made a bad call when he yellow carded Campbell for simulation after he was clearly barged off the ball. Accies took full advantage of the wrongly called foul to score. At the end of the game maybe Robbo and his management team benefitted as few, if any, of the out of contract players did anything to impress watching eyes or them.

After today's game I think its become clear , if it wasn't before, that we're going to need a whole new strikeforce. Sammon will leave at the end of his loan period. Danny Johnson just doesn't fit our current style of play. Main, who was unhappy today at being left out of the squad will be offski and James Scott is not ready for first team football yet - a spell out on loan in the Championship will do him a lot of good.

It seems that Robbo is now playing hardball with our out of contract players. He's stated publicly that we won't wait forever for them to put pen to paper as we will have to find suitable replacements. Quite right too. From various sources I reckon the six we've offered contracts to are: Gorrin, Tanner, Cadden, Hastie, Aldred and McHugh. Frear may not be included.

I suspect this saga has a wee bit to run yet.

Naivety maybe but I would think his agent would try to control what he says in public.

Perhaps a shift in emphasis at least in part. Other Scots clubs such as St Johnstone and Hamilton Accies have cast envious eyes over our recruitment from English lower leagues and have now turned their attention to this source of talent. Maybe hotter competition then this particular pool of players.

Yes, basically that. He didn't want to leave Fir Park and hoped to have a new deal signed with us within a fortnight (of the quote).

Pretty much sums up a lot of previous discussion on here but like yourself didn't know the details. The club's general policy on this is pretty good but there will always be one or two it gets wrong. We were caught out with Hastie but few, if any, predicted his early impact on his return from loan. We all know he's had his head turned hence his apparent U turn on what he said publicly earlier. It wasn't wise to come out and say what he did. He's been made a very good offer, by our standards and its now up to him. He's quite entitled to move on but we can't wait on him forever though.

Thats my immediate thoughts too.

Its more likely that we'll receive bids that are in line with their contract clauses and their agents' valuations rather than the club's probably higher valuations.

Definitely a plumber. A family member was quoted a minimum of £136 per hour for a call out on Saturday morning plus petrol expenses (he only lived 3 miles away). Another plumber who came termed it killing the goose who laid the golden egg (or words to that effect).

£1.75 m for Phil O'Donnell. Seems like chickfeed these days doesn't it? A plumber's annual salary!