Kmcalpin

1 Celtic 2 Aberdeen 3 Hearts 4 Dundee 5 Dundee United 6 Ross County 7 Inverness 8 St Johnstone 9 Partick 10 Motherwell 11 Kilmarnock 12 Hamilton

Problem was that they received very poor quality service. Again that must have been a concern pre match. In Fletcher's case he was given a tad too many high balls which he was never going to win. Johnson did not receive the kind of passes he likes and it must have been frustrating to receive the ball a yard behind him, when his game is to run onto it. On the plus side, the team can and will play better.

Problem is that Law played like that at the end of last season too with Ainsworth in front of him. All too often he was caught out of position. Yes, we missed Pearo's presence and energy in the middle and he was a huge loss today. He is awaiting his scan results but was walking about ok today. We simply have no one else capable of playing that role in the middle and Skippy would be better off playing further upfield.

Don't blame MacDonald for this. He's simply not suited to playing in that role. This was my big fear pre match that he'd be asked to play deeper to compensate, in part, for the loss of Pearson.

A close run thing but United probably just deserved to shade it. We had our chances but failed to take them. What they lacked in flair and skill they more than compensated for in terms of physical presence, solidity and competitiveness. They were also very streetwise as you would expect from a United side. They'll comfortably finish above us but we're a better team than we were last season and will finish above 11th place and thats all we can ask. Impressed by Ripley but even he was dwarfed by the United keeper. When United took the field it was immediately obvious that high balls would be a waste of time. For me and others nearby Law looked out of his depth, and it seems like a mistake to have awarded him a 2 year deal. He looked uncomfortable all game and United soon cottoned on to his weakness. Luke Watt must surely now stake his claim. As you say Pearson and Ainsworth were always going to be massive losses and Skippy looked completely out of place playing so deep leaving Fletcher so isolated. The game largely passed Leitch by and whilst Lasley wasn't bad on the ball he was posted missing all too often off it. United were granted much too much space on the edge of our box. Our problem was always going to be competing in central midfield and feeding Johnson, Fletcher and MacDonald decent ammunition and so it proved. Thomas tried just too hard and justified Ian Baraclough's decision to keep him on the bench as opposed to awarding him a starting slot. I was concerned a week or two ago that we hadn't improved our central midfield or defence and early indications are that that is the case. Right back is an achilles heel for us unless Luke Watt can step up and we desperately require 2 central midfielders. Joe Chalmers looks useful and hopefully will take over from Stevie Hammell in the not too distant future but he is no left midfielder. As others have said the referee was very poor but you must hand it to United as they played him well.

Ripley followed by Laing for me. Nobody else in the frame.

Ian Baracough said on Tv that we'll know the extent of his injury in the next few days. It doesn't appear to be as bad as we feared at first but he will not feature tomorrow.

Presumably also Police Scotland would have advised on the amount and nature of police presence and acted accordingly? In short what more the club have done?

Presumably Killie have compensated him? I know your management were hawking him around other clubs.

What is your experience of joining the Society - have you encountered any problems? As for me I've experienced a few minor annoying snags but nothing major, although I can understand Weeyin's issue. I think you're exaggerating a bit when you wrote about the Society "grabbing everyone's cash". That kind of implies a Society rep is going around mugging fans and demanding payment. At the end of the day the Society, through its members, has prevented the club from entering administration and thats good enough for me.

Exactly what I was thinking.

Yes, probably a bit more so than ICT. Since the days of Craig Levein, United have been a very physical, competitive and bellicose outfit. Yes they have had talent too but come Sunday morning the team will know they've been in a game win, lose or draw.

I suppose the rise of the car is in large part responsible for the demise of the supporters bus. Cars provide more flexibility and are faster. Apart from that you can choose who you want to travel with. Coaches are now much more expensive than they used to be and in many cases fans are being ripped off. Finally many folk have to have a drink on the way to the match. No doubt there are other reasons. If you are running an organised bus you have to factor in reduced priced for juveniles and charge adults more or subsidise fares..

Nearest station with decent connections is Kirkcaldy. Markinch may be nearer but connections not so good.

Ah, a home game for us!

If you read my quote above you'll see that I have not written the lad off and said that he's due a chance. What I have written is my assessment to date. You can manipulate statistics or selectively quote examples to prove pretty much anything. I note that you didn't cite the Albion Rovers cup defeat, when he came on as a sub or the 5-1 drubbing at Tannadice the season before last in which he played from the start. Now, there are many factors behind a player's performance in relation to the team's performance and just as you can't attribute the team's defeats to him you also cannot attribute the team's successes to him. I am not simply basing my initial assessment on the Hearts, Celtic, Kilmarnock, Albion Rovers or Dundee United games but over 16/17 appearances. Young players tend to be erratic and have good games and bad games. Taken over these 16 or 17 appearances first team appearances to date I have doubts if he is going to make it as I wrote. However he is due a chance to prove himself and I wish him good luck in that.

I'd say his appearances to date. He's due a chance, yes, and I might be proved wrong, but so far hasn't overly impressed.

Quite a win 21-0!

Celtic will predictably win the league at a canter, and the bottom three, in no particular order, will be Partick, Kilmarnock and Accies. I'm not sure that Hearts will fare as well as they and the media are suggesting.

Just watched the highlights and it seemed we were fairly impressive, creating quite a few good chances. On another day our luck might have been better and we'd have scored 3 or perhaps 4. From comments above I've one or two continuing concerns about our midfield but really so far so good. We picked up 3 points from a difficult game. So well done to the management and players. Fingers crossed a better season lies ahead.

Thats worrying. Same weakness as in previous years? Hopefully we can get in a decent central midfielder soon. In fact we probably need two - a defensive one and an attacking one. Probably the one area of the team where there is a real lack of competition. If Pearo managed to last until half time then perhaps his knock is not too serious. Still we're off to a good start.

Great win and start to the new campaign and a clean sheet to boot. Didn't see that one coming!. That should boost squad morale. Safe trip home for our travelling fans - journey will be a bit shorter now. Sorry - wrong thread.

A tough call for the manager but thats what he's paid for. He has to go with the best option for the team.

Yes happy that we have brought in a new keeper if only for the first part of the season. He certainly seems the part and given his size shouldn't be pushed about too easily.

Quite - he is far less effective when our midfield sit very deep and there is a huge gap between it and the main striker.