Kmcalpin

A good effort by our young lads and a few took the opportunity to promote themselves. Overall a lot of positives. The red card was nothing short of ridiculous. At the most a yellow card was warranted and going by what we see week in week out even that would have been harsh. The referee was not going to take any action until he was badgered by the County players and Cowie's reaction was farcical - a yellow card would have been in order for simulation. I don't condone Mbulu's action but he didn't do it do for no reason. Players such as Cowie should be setting a good example to youngsters but instead he sets a poor exapmple and was no doubt congratulated by his manager when in point of fact he was probably congratulated. A sour end to a fine cup run. Good on our youngsters though.

Yes.

I don't think its right to discuss potential replacements as long as a manager is still in post. However the vast majority of posters and fans in general are not party to information on potential candidates in the same way as potential employers are. How many of us would have known about the likes of Ian Baraclough or Jim Gannon for example or indeed Craig Brown?

Good post. Setting club budgets is not an exact science as we all know. There's no guarantee that if we set the budget at say 10th place we'll finish 10th or above. Outwith the big, city clubs, Kilmarnock and Dundee will be paying bigger wages for sure. However I wouldn't have thought that the likes of Livingston, Partick, Accies, St Mirren and St Johnstone would be paying much higher if at all. If they are then questions need to be asked. Now I'm not suggesting that we up our playing budget hugely as we just can't afford that, with debts to service, but if we are paying say 10th highest then that is cutting things just too neat for my liking. Other things being equal we'd finish in 10th but if a few variables go wrong that leaves no room for error at all. I've seen a few figures being bandied about and quotes being made to the effect that we pay/were paying the second lowest in the league. If that is indeed true then we might well get what we're paying for i.e. 11th or 12th spot. Balance that outlay against the cost of relegation.

Thats exactly it for me Greg. I like Aldred but he's too similar to Hartley. We needed a towering centre back who could "body" attackers but did not sign one despite having months to plan for Kipre's inevitable departure. And yes, you can get them on a budget (maybe not to Kiptre's standard though). As for our strikers, they are too similar with the exception of Johnson and Sammon. Johnson must be our top scorer despite limited gametime and Sammon just hasn't worked out. I could understand these signings to some extent if we had had to sign them in a panic but Robbo had months to plan his recruitment and still got it badly wrong.

Not sure about your formation comment, maybe true, but your comments about wing backs and width are spot on. In the first half Cadden got left exposed a few times as did Frear in the second. At times both had 2 men running at them. Cadden seemed to want to play in the middle whilst defending and that gave Saints space on the flank. We do play very narrowly and the "wing backs" have some distance to cover before they can threaten the opposition defence.

Only two positives for me yesterday in what was a disastrous result. Good to see Charles Dunne back and David Turnbull get his chance. The youngster is an upgrade on Bigi as he can defend a bit better. However he tired badly at around the 65 minute mark. I wouldn't criticise Robbo for taking off ATS as he was involved in 2 heavy, maybe even foul, challenges in the early exchanges and picked up an injury. Saints had done their homework well and set out to park their bus on the basis they clearly thought we would lack creativity and be toothless up front. They were right. We had perhaps 2 or 3 decent chances up to the 60 minute mark, to their 1 or 2, but we spurned them. The team was devoid of confidence and guilty of trying to walk the ball through serried ranks of big defenders or launching aimless punts at their huge centre backs. We were crying out for a few shots at goal. Turnbull at least tried to play on the deck and gave me some encouragement. Cadden has had worse games but clearly looks burned out as did Allan Campbell who uncharacteristcally lost the bulk of 50/50 challenges to bigger and more energetic opponents. Saints were no great shakes but defended well against admittedly poor attackers. Still they worked hard off the ball to deny us any space. Up until the 60/65 minute mark we had the bulk of the pressure courtesy mainly of Saints defensive tactics. Despite that we totally failed to trouble their keeper. For whatever reason we then began to tire a bit and they realised that the game was there to be won and started to push forward. They looked dangerous and created more than we had in the previous 60 minutes or so. The goal when it came was late but deserved and in no way unexpected. Yes, we were unfortunate in that Aldred was off the park for treatment but what a shambles. Jason Kerr was dumfounded by the space he was afforded to score. A bad, bad defeat and I really don't know where we go from here without a change of manager.

Thats it for me too. Stephen Robinson is a decent guy but I'm afraid he's run his course. We don't have the most talented squad in the world but he plainly isn't even getting the best out of them. Anyone at yesterday's game will have seen that they're totally devoid of confidence and more hard work won't change that. He has stuck stubbornly with a 3-5-2 system that doesn't suit the players and which rival managers have sussed out. Irrespective of how attractive the system might be it just isn't effective and thats the bottom line. Now fans are starting to vote with their feet and thats never a good sign. Try as I might I just can't see how he's going to lift the team and make the changes required.

Turnbull my MOTM. Good on and off the ball. Tired a bit though. Carson and Dunne also had decent games but not MOTM material.

A euphemistic way of saying he's suspended.

Any uptodate team news apart from McHugh being asked not to play?

It helped of course that Uncle Roy backed him with a very large wad of cash in transfer windows. Ultimately however he failed and was sacked.

Yes, he was indeed Iain. However Humphrey played right back" on perhaps 3 or 4 occasions through necessity and looked the perfect "wingback" as we call them today. He could bomb up and down the wing all day long attacking or defending.

Sorry to see Chris retire from the game in such circumstances. He did well for us in his 4 years with the club, and its nice to read his comments about his time at Fir Park. He was the original wing back. All the best to him in his future career.

Does anyone think that Campbell and Cadden should be withdrawn from their international squad? IMHO they are both suffering from burnout.

I've been critical of Pie and Bovril for some time but of late its definitely improved. This very recent post by Casagolda this morning really caught my eye as its spot on. " It’s a worry that we’re now 18 months and 3 transfer windows into Robinson’s tenure and his most trusted 11 still has Tait/Cadden playing out of position at wing back and despite having about a dozen central midfielders, we still can’t find a decent balanced, functioning midfield. How very true. Stephen Robinson is a safety first manager and to that extent is reticent to bring in flair or individuality, a point made by Captain Oats on the same forum. Ok, the midfield is not our only problem by any means but is at the root of many of them. The January window is going to be important although we just don't have the cash to undertake a wholesale reshaping of the squad. We are paying the price though of a poor summer window.

Good post. You can get good all rounders like the late Phil O'Donnell but they're not that common. I agree about Bigi though. Yesterday he wasn't interested in 50/50 challenges and you can't have that when you're under pressure and especially down to 10 men. As someone said to me yesterday before the game - he's good to have in the side if you're better than the opposition but if you're not then he doesn't pull his weight. Time to give young Turnbull his chance if we want creativity.

My expectations and hopes for yesterday's game were more modest than many on here I suspect. All I was looking for 3 points, irrespective of how we played. Sadly that was way beyond us. As it turned out it was the poorest Well side I've seen for several years. In addition to the long ball, our sole outball was Cadden and of course Livingston knew it. I'm not Frear's biggest fan but I think yesterday was tailor made for him. Maybe he was injured? Livvy could have been 2 or perhaps even 3 up inside the first 10 minutes. Our defence was shambolic with the midfield sitting far too deep. We did recover a bit after the initial period and for a short spell looked like doing something as we scored against the run of play. That bright spell soon disappeared though. For the rest of the first half and all of the second Livvy steamrollered us and pinned us back. I cannot understand how Stephen Robinson could see much in the way of positives. In everything his footballing ethos stands for we came a poor second best. Our off the ball work rate was poor, we were physically bullied and indeed intimidated and we failed to pressurise their defence. Despite the glut of midfield players in the squad they simply didn't show up and almost played in the South Stand, they were that deep in the second half. Overall, I'd give pass marks to Carson, Aldred, Hartley and perhaps Bowman. I wasn't looking for great football just 11 players fighting for the side and getting stuck in but they couldn't even achieve that. We had no Plan A never mind Plan B. The sight of a player, in the second half when we were down to 10 men, shirk two 50/50 challenges, really annoyed me as it did quite a few POD Stand punters. If I'd been SR he would have been hooked PDQ. Charles Dunne's return will help matters but our troubles lie far far deeper than that. Yesterday's failure to win was a huge blow and if we can't pick up full points in our next 2 games then I think SR' coat will be on very, very shoogly nail indeed. The fans will simply not put up with this much longer. I like SR as a person but he is running out time and the goodwill he earned last season, quickly as a manager.

Today's game threw up a lot of talking points and I'll cover our team's performance later after some reflection. There were however, other understandably less discussed issues. I thought Collum had a very poor game throughout and he simply lost control in the first half. Dolly Menga was very fortunate indeed to see half time as he gave Collum 2 opportunities to red card him, both of which were ignored. Had he been given an early bath I've no idea how else we would have shot ourselves in the foot. Didn't see much wrong with Livvy's chalked off goal although Carson was not pleased at all. I wonder if Livvy will attract as much negative media attention for their robust style of play (and gamesmanship) as we did last season. That said, they haven't beaten media favourites in semi finals! (transferred from anothr thread).

At least the pitch was in great condition!

It seems like Rodriguez Gorrin is now out injured according to the Official site. Will Davy Turnbull get his chance tomorrow?.

A tough one to call. Given Livingston's great start to the season, and our poor form, you'd expect them to come out on top if only narrowly. However, we need the win and badly, very badly. Injuries will no doubt play a part on who starts but it'll be interesting to see who Robbo drops. Despite our collective need I'd be tempted to rest both Cadden and Campbell or bench them. Gorrin and Turnbull must be hoping for a start. I'd like to see us revert to a 4-4-2 formation, with McHugh returning to the midfield. My greatest fear is that Livi score first, maybe through a blunder, and then sit back safe in the knowledge that we can't breach their defence. Frear to start when the game is more open. I'm not in the least concerned about "hoofball" as long as we win.

Yes, a good mix of skills, expertise and and experience. Some strong candidates.

I'm with Welldaft Mk1 on this. I was keen to see Bigi being given his chance and against lesser opposition he played well offensively and brought some creativity to the team, which we'd been sadly lacking. However even in those games he was weak defensively. That was especially apparent at Livingston in the Betfred Cup. He wasn't working hard enough off the ball and wasn't closing players down. Against better teams like Aberdeen and Hearts he created very little and was again defensively poor. If we play him, then we have to pick the rest of the midfield to compensate for his weaknesses ie play defensive / hard working midfielders. In short, I just don't think he's been that good to warrant such an approach. We have other players with a bit of creativity like Turnbull and Gorrin who are now due their opportunity to show what they can do. Now I'm not suggesting for a minute that all our our midfield problems are down to Bigi; far from it. Our defensive midfield has been very poor this season and thats been the main reason for us shipping goals. Bigi apart there's been a lack of creativity, pace, hard work, positional awareness and dare I say it, physicality in the engine room. We have shed load of midfielders but very few have been performing and put bluntly many may just be mediocre. Lads like Cadden and Campbell badly need a few weeks off and if I were Robbo I'd ask for them to be withdrawn from their respective Scotland squad.

In terms of more creative players we also have Turnbull and Gorrin waiting for their chance. Maybe the deciding factor is whether or not they can defend.