Kmcalpin

We were certainly diabolical today with few in the management team or on the park deserving much credit. When I heard the team at 2.00 I groaned - why on earth were we going 4-5-1 (or some similar formation) with a lone striker in the form of MacDonald. Its never worked before and it sure as hell didn't work today. You don't have to be a brain surgeon to work out the results - a lone isolated striker; and a very deep midfield. We wasted the first 45 minutes with this horrible formation, with hardly one effort on goal. As more than a few commented, the midfielders didn't seem to know what they were meant to be doing. Ainsworth and Cadden don't play well together and this was again borne out. why leave out our top scorer? The right change was made at half time but the players ensured that it didn't succeed. Ripley was the only player who received full pass marks from me. Cadden had a funny kind of game - overall not bad with some good runs but interspersed with some bad decision making and naive defending; but he's young and he'll learn. I exempt MacDonald, Moult and Johnson given that their service was abysmal. Thomas looked impressive when he came on but his final ball again let him down. The defence had an absolute shocker with Hammell in particular looking culpable at both goals, ably assisted by McManus. Law simply looks out of his depth at this level. Pearson had a poor game and Gomis looked erratic. Ainsworth didn't seem to know what he doing. Would Keith Lasley have made any difference? In short no. As an aside I've never seen us take so many poor corners. Killie worked far harder off the ball to close us down whilst we afforded them the time and space to entertain their fans. Their much criticised defence protected their keeper very well. Its hard to say where we go from here. Again it was our experienced players like McManus, Hammell, Pearson and Law who let us down.

Only player in contention for me was Conor Ripley.

Yes, he'll be missed. The game badly needs huge characters like him to create a bit of atmosphere. In a playing sense it'll be neither here nor there.

Yes, I think it has to be 4-4-2. Midfield as usual will raise questions for us. I'd like to see Pearson play in an attacking role, which he is best suited to. Gomis would play in the defensive role so that leaves Cadden, Ainsworth, Johnson and Lasley vying for the other 2 places. I'd probably start with Johnson as Cadden and Ainsworth are both right sided. Decisions decisions!

Just noticed that a woman who smashed a plastic tumbler into a man's face (he required 4 stitches just above his eye) was given a £250 fine and ordered to pay £250 compensation. Just like referee's decisions our sentencing policy is totally inconsistent. A custodial sentence in this case would have been fully justified.

Yes, according to the media everyone loves Partick Thistle.

Not quite sure where this came from. He publicly acknowledged errors in the Ross County game. I don't recall Ian Baraclough, Stuart McCall or Craig Brown acknowledging their errors.

How far back should we go? 3 years? Maybe 5 years? What about 20 years? Times have moved on so should the BBC.

No problem with him leaving us for more cash but allegedly he or his agent tried to hoodwink the fans by saying that he wanted to stay but the club wouldn't talk to him when in actual fact he wouldn't speak to the club about a new offer.

Interesting article on the BBC Scotland website about artificial pitches. It says that our pitch has been criticised in recent years. Whilst that might be true although, not in the recent past, they could and should have used a better and more up to date example - Fir Hill for example. Our pitch is reckoned to be one of the best around just now. A bit unfair and lazy journalism I'd say.

I'll be neither up nor down - he didn't leave us in the best of ways.

There's not been a lot wrong with MacDonald's performances when he's played in the correct position ( as one half of a twin attack) and given the right service ie not balls 8 feet in the air. To see Moult and Macdonald at their best we'll need to see a supportive and creative midfield. I'm confident that if they're given the right ammunition they'll do the business.

I recall when Ian St John was in charge, he placed great emphasis on fitness and stamina. He was quoted as saying that when a player became tired the first thing to suffer was his skill.

I would doubt it. The more some fans know the more they want to know. Fan ownership will serve to increase this phenomenon. Other fans like Al B feel threatened by information overload and that has to be dealt with.

I don't know about that Jim - thats precisely what Las hasn't been doing these past few seasons. Not just him of course but all our central midfielders. They retreat into our box tortoise like when the going gets tough. For the past few years opponents have had free rein to take pot shots from the edge of the box and just beyond. The law of probability says that eventually some will find their target.

Spot on Andy. The Police will have vetted the kick off time, ticketing arrangements, segregation, number of stewards, location of stewards, behaviour of stewards et al. As you say they take a keen interest in arrangements beforehand but if the s**t hits the fan afterwards, they're nowhere to be seen. Police Scotland really is in a mess but I digress. I've yet to see the full report and the club's response to it.

Presumably the SPFL are also under that mistaken impression. Has anyone actually seen the full SPFL report yet?

I'd be tempted to drop Law but the only other realistic alternative to him is Luke Watt, who for some reason hasn't seen first team action under MMcG. Kennedy is a makeshift right back at best. Right back is a problem in my view. Again the question of midfield balance comes up. If you swap Ainsworth for Johnson where does that Cadden who is right sided and favours playing wide? Decisions decisions!

Absolutely. More often than not it means that our striker is isolated and / or he has to come very deep with the result that the opposition defence and midfield is encouraged to push up the park.

Some good points there. However sometimes you make tactical changes that suit the opposition and thats just what happened on Saturday. I don't think our midfield competed that well especially in the closing stages. Age wise Pearson and Lasley are over 30, Gomis is 30 and Cadden is a teenager I think. Draper simply steamrollered Lasley. Stevie Hammell has got a great first touch but his passing and positioning was awful against Inverness. I agree 100% about Marvin Johnson. Great point about the 15 X 15 box and its costing us goals and games.

Absolutely. The statement, and thats all it is, is ludicrous. We can't condone the actions of the fans who invaded the pitch and knew no good would come of it so fair enough. Thats said we don't know what was in the full report, all we have is a statement, a summary. As Toxteth suggests above you'd think the findings will have wide ranging implications for almost every club in the land. How do you prevent Celtic/Sevco fans from gaining access to "home areas"? Should the club have opened ticket sales for Sevco fans only before home fans? Allocate them the South Stand, and wings of the POD Stand. If that wasn't enough what about allocating the Cooper to them too? Once away demand had been satisfied home fans could buy what was left in the East Stand or POD centre stand. It seems the SPFL didn't like the Sevco allocation and the way the sale of tickets was implemented. Surely then this idea/suggestion/decision should apply to all other clubs from now on? The pitch invasion - granted it should not happened and was stupid but what more could the club have done to prevent it? Identification of supporters: is the SPFL suggesting that the club identifies all the supporters who ran onto the pitch? How many would that be exactly? 1,000? If the Police can't do it is it reasonable for the club with its much more limited resources to do it? What if they do achieve this - is the SPFL expecting the club to ban 25% of its support? What did the SPFL say about the Celtic fans who damaged seats in the South Stand? Were Celtic asked to identify them? If large numbers of fans are no problem why haven't Celtic and Sevco been asked to identify thousands of their fans for sectarian chanting? There was no mention made in the statement about Sevco fans throwing missiles, including seats at the pitch invaders. Was that acceptable behaviour? An investigation was justified and it appears to be a suspended sentence if you like but it does appear to be a witch hunt against an easy target; but also more significantly, appears to have ramifications for every club. Has the SPFL made a rod to beat its back with?

I can't recall any previous manager building up a provincial team as much as Mark McGhee did with Inverness on Saturday. From his comments he's left me, never mind his players, s**t scared of playing them ever again. They have a very good midfield granted but are they really that good? Did we treat the likes of Ross County, Aberdeen and Hearts in the same way at Fir Park - from memory I don't think so. In fairness he may have told the players something entirely different but actions spoke louder than words at the weekend in terms of team selection and tactics. In short I think it was a tactical disaster. Was the defeat all down to tactics? Of course it wasn't. It was also down to rank bad play at both goals. Shocking defending played a major part as did some players just not playing well throughout the game. However, is it not up to the manager to factor in his players' weaknesses and also leave room for error? If a team plays as we do ie defend very deeply and narrowly then any error at all can be very costly. By defending this way we have lost 3 costly late goals in just over a week to: a refereeing error; a wicked deflection and a speculative wonder goal. All we missed was an individual blunder. I believe in defending higher up the pitch - if you make mistakes there then you can recover. If McGhee says that we don't have the players to do that then fine, but damn well bring them in at the first opportunity. Other provincial clubs on a limited budget can source them why can't we? In fairness Stuart McCall and Ian Baraclough also played this way.

I'm more concerned when folk don't get sucked into the emotion of it all. As long as we show respect to each other a bit of argument and discussion is no bad thing. Its healthy to get matters off your chest when things go wrong, or even sometimes when they go right.

I don't think there is one but if thats the case set up your own one. That way you would be able to put in place car sharing arrangements.

Yes, at the moment he is the better option of the two but I think his deal at Tynecastle runs out in the summer of 2017. I don't see a future for him there though. Big decisions at the end of this season for us. It would be totally wrong to blame Keith Lasley for yesterday's defeat and I'm not. In his defence he was playing in an unfamiliar midfield where players weren't comfortable with what they were being asked to do. However he was bullied by the much bigger and faster Ross Draper but you can't fault him for that - it was simply an unequal contest. He did though hold up our attacks by dithering on the ball and as I said earlier repeatedly passed to colleagues who were being closely marked, Marvin Johnson being a perfect example. Others' off the ball movement didn't help him to be fair.