Kmcalpin

We do however need to sign at least one striker who is match fit. In the past we've signed players who've taken 6-8 weeks to get fit.

I wouldn't have thought that the conditions of the surrounding pavements etc was an issue for the Police given the conditions at Firhill a week or two back when folk were falling all over the place. A few of us can also remember wading through a foot of ice and freezing water to get into Inverness' s stadium for a midweek cup game during Craig Brown's reign. Anyhow a thaw is forecast to set in. Onto footballing matters and presumably McHugh will be a certain non starter if he sustained a head knock on Wednesday? Far from ideal but lets see Newell start and inject some pace into our attack, if only for 50 minutes or so. Accies will be short of defenders but that won't matter if we can't pressurise them. No doubt they'll play as streetwise as they usually do - time waste, break up play, niggle and foul. The ref will need to be strong from the off, but don't hold your breath. they'll also be a bit fresher given their midweek cancellation. It won't be a classic and no doubt it'll end up a midfield street scrap or brawl. Being realistic, a 0-0 draw will do me fine, although a win would be even better.

When did we last have one, if ever, who could do that? Lukas Jutkiewicz? Its a very, very tall order.

A well reasoned post, which I lalregy agree with. This was my big fear pre match that our midfield would be unable to compete and protect our defence and so it proved.

We'll agree to differ on that.

Not really. McHugh is a deep lying, slow, holding midfielder cum centre back; Campbell is a terrier like aggressive midfielder; Rose is a box to box cleaner upper if you like; and Grimshaw is an aggressive all action sort who can play wide.

Hammell can certainly pass and indeed cross better than Dunne, I wouldn't disagree on that. However Dunne is quicker, stronger, better in the air and a better defender. Stevie Hammell could never defend and his positional sense was always his achilles heel. Don't forget too he part and parcel of one of the worst Well defences in years. Most of that was not his fault of course but he played his part. Dunne may not be the answer but turning the clock back isn't the answer either.

I looked at both sets of highlights and concentrated on Sevco's efforts on Carson not just their goals. They attacked our box at will, with little or no resistance from a weak midfield. We had little or no width. Covering in the box and not just by Dunne was very poor. Weaknesses that evident aginst Dundee, and probably before that.

I think Ross MacLean can feel a little hard done by given that we're currently hardly awash with attacking midfielders. Other than him I don't know.

Wherever we finish in the league, big changes are required in the summer. In the meantime we need to make as many changes next month as possible. Our defence is a bit stretched, but basically ok. We have no strikers worth the name (I except Newell from that comment). Central midfield needs toughening up with a bit of creativity thrown in. Too many fringe players and one or two first picks just haven't performed, despite being given chances.

We live in very strange times indeed. Normally I'd consider myself to fall within the most pessimistic 30% of posters but not tonight. Too much pant wetting and panic and thats saying something coming from me! What exactly were folk expecting tonight? I said a few days ago that we could pretty much write off tonight and probably the best we could hope for would be a draw on Saturday. I stand by that assessment more than ever. Whatever the result on Saturday we'll be in no lower than 8th spot going into the January break. I'm comfortable with that. We do need to make signings in January however - 2 strikers and a defender at least. Given our toothless strikeforce we were probably never going to score tonight and we didn't - what a surprise. The result was always going to depend on our midfield. Could they compete with, not even outplay, their Sevco counterparts? I didn't think they had it in them and they didn't. To earn a draw they would have needed to keep their opponents out of our box and I just couldn't see them do it. We have a decent defence, albeit with a half fit goalie, but even they would buckle under constant pressure and sure as fate they did. We had no outball to take the pressure off them. It didn't take a neurosurgeon to work out that we went to Ibrox to contain Sevco/not get beat/to limit damage whatever you want to call it. If they scored one it would game over. Did we pick the wrong side? Probably, but we had very limited options. What we did find out, to reinforce recent lessons is that a good few of our signings are simply not good enough for Premiership football. Our defence isn't bad, strikeforce non existent and central midfield not nearly as good as we thought and not good enough. I'm not happy at all with recent results or performances, including tonight's, but its no time to panic. Starting from Monday its time to sort things out big time.

Was he yellow carded for it?

How was McHugh injured? Was it as a result of a foul?

I've never come across so much additional time before.

Pretty much the line up I expected, with the exception of the lack of a fast attacking midfielder ie Petravicius or MacLean. A safety formation but with no obvious outball. I agree with resting Bowman given the resurgence of negative media publicity in the past week. Fisher and Tanner may have a lean night. We're putting a lot of pressure on our captain to shield and protect our defence and it'll be interesting to find out if he's up to it. if we're still in it with say 30 minutes to go we may see changes.

The injuries to Cadden and to a lesser extent Frear is a blow to the squad and means that our avenues fro an outball are severely limited. We also have a toothless strikeforce. Given that its going to be difficult to score against Sevco and Accies. I think most fans accept that. Thats going to impact greatly on our chances of winning or even drawing these matches. The Accies cup game is a different situation altogther. If we can bring in a striker or two preferably without losing Cadden or Kipre, then we stand a good chance of progressing. We'll have 3 weeks or so after the break to bring in a goalscorer or maybe him plus another striker. If we can't secure one until late in the window then that changes things. I think most fans are being patient and understand that things will improve but if our run of poor form extends into February some may become restless. Moult's replacement will be crucial.

Although we're going through a bad spell just now we need to take a bigger view. We had a huge rebuild in the summer with a lot of new players coming in. Our tough schedule has meant that many of them have been put under the microscope moreso than usual. Some have done well, sone not so well, but thats only natural for a rebuild. Other things being equal I reckon it'll take Robbo about 3 years to get the squad he wants, so given our achievements this season so far, as another poster said to me recently, we're ahead of schedule. Next month will be a big month for us and I'm sure there'll be a few squad changes. I know the club has a few irons in the fire, no doubt including a few surprising ones, if past dealings are anything to go by. Players could also leave. A critical issue will be who we bring in to replace Louis Moult. We aren't awash with cash but do have some. That might make squad adjustments a bit easier.

Sevco are not that good but neither are we just now. For once our defence is ok, but our midfield isn't performing defensively and fell into long standing bad habits last Saturday. Our attack is non existent. Some of thse issues can be put down to tiredness and injury but others are more deep rooted. However, as others recognise, if we can limp along to Saturday evening without taking on too much water we can take the ship into dry dock next month for a refit. I can't see us scoring tomorrow except through a set piece and penalties don't come along too often at Ibrox. A win is not out of the question on Saturday but a draw is much more likely and I'd settle for that. The best we can realistically hope for tomorrow is a draw or narrow defeat, but a win would be great.

I think it largely depends on how fit individual players are. Traditionally managers rest players for trips to Ibrox or Parkhead. I tend to go along with Shaka in that the Accies game is the more winnable of the two. What happened to Fisher yesterday by the way? I've heard contradictory explanations.

Sorry, I was referring to an incident near the centre line. A bit rich of McGowan to eyeball Tanner for supposedly diving eh?

No, never in a million years. MacGowan's effort however was plain dive - he was on the deck even before the challenge came in. For some reason the referee took an almost instant dislike to Chris Cadden -is there history there? Agree with Andy P's assertion that "In the very short term however we're creaking again numbers wise and absolutely powder puff up fron. It seems very much a case of limping through the next two games and re-grouping after the New Year with some refreshed players and new additions."

Very true. One can't attack the other can't defend.

Normally I'd agree with you but not now. Given our injury situation and Moult's "unavailability" the games starting with Hearts and ending with Accies next Saturday were always going to be tough. Prior to this game, I didn't expect us to win today but hoped for a draw. My thinking was if Dundee score its game over unless we can score with a set piece. I was expecting a 0-0 stalemate. I don't expect anything other than a defeat on Wednesday. Next Saturday will probably be similar to today (hopefully Robbo has learned some lessons) and I'll be happy with a draw. I'll be comfortable with 8th or 9th spot by Hogmanay. We can then regroup next month by refreshing the squad and bringing in a strikeforce, as we don't currently have one. If we do that I'm comfortable we'll kick on from there. Big mistakes were made today off the pitch. I did wonder if we knew anything about Dundee beforehand as I got a shock when I saw the size of some of their players at kick off. Surprise surprise they won most evertything in the air and physically bullied us. Robbo would not have liked that. Quite clearly Cadden was nowhere near fit and we were a man down at 3pm. Bowman and Tanner just didn't link up. The former worked hard but thats it and the latter looked good, took his penalty well but all too often there was no end product. To be fair he's not a striker and never will be. Newell looks promising but is a youngster recovering from a long term injury and should be nowhere the first team just now - thats how poorly off we are for strikers. I thought Tait, Kipre, Hartley and Dunne played well and were let down by a powder puff midfield in fron of them. MacGowan's goal was a shocker. He took it well but had all the time and space in the world to pick his spot. Unlike our attackers he did better than just bring out a good save from the keeper. Carson did very well with one fantastic save in the second half to give us a point. Midfield was very poor and got steamrollered at times. McHugh let his defence down badly with poor off the ball play. Grimshaw battled away well but was bested by bigger and heavier opponents. As they say in boxing, a good big un is better than a good little un. Bigi had reasonable game. Robbo made more crucial errors just after the break with a double change. I would have kept Bowman on, as he was the only experienced striker we had. By all means change Campbell for Grimshaw. Frear should never have been brought on. I'd like to have seen Newell feed off Bowman, however limited that may have been. Make one more change yes but keep a sub in reserve as I always had the feeling someone was going to be injured and we'd be left short. I'm just not sure of these big changes after half time - it smacks of getting the orignal line up wrong. Overall we were fortunate to win a point but we were due a bit of luck.

I don't get the acrimony towards Frear. Cadden wasn't stretchered off nor did suffer a head knock. He too had hamstring problems. We sit by the half way line and Frear walked, not hobbled, off the pitch - exactly the same as Cadden. Both were clearly injured and both should have been taken off sooner. The longer they stayed on the worse any injury might be. I don't want to see either play again until the Accies cup game.

Me. I thought he had an excellent game defensively despite having little or no cover in front of him. Yes, his passing wasn't great but overall my MOTM.