Kmcalpin

Very sad news and condolences to his family and friends. An amazing player, who struck up a telepathic understanding with Willie Pettigrew. I believe that came about by chance. I seem to recall he was a quiet, under the radar, type of player with his prolific sidekick receiving more publicity. Bobby had the knack of having great foresight and positional awareness and brought out the best in others. RIP Bobby.

A shame but maybe the owners badly need the cash or they have no interest in or knowledge of football or Johnny's career.

Arguably two last Saturday, at least in part?

Digital tickets are fine but many older fans still prefer a paper copy for various reasons.

Rumours suggest that we had a central defender lined up to join but that deal fell through when he failed a medical. Who knows? Stephen Welsh has the right physical attributes and is ostensibly the kind of defender who would fit into our system, from what I can gather. My main, probably sole, concern, is that he is injury prone. Fingers crossed we carried out a rigorous medical.

As far as Ewan Wilson is concerned, you're right. However that tells me that JBA is quite happy to see him move on, irrespective of our needs as a club. He's on his way out. I'd say the window has been a mixed bag. We've brought in some really decent midfielders so thats that box well and truly ticked. Up front, the striking department has been found seriously wanting and the jury is still out as to whether we've really addressed that area. Defence, I'm not sure at all. We're short at left back. Central defence has been a serious weakness of ours for quite some time and, despite that, we bring in one injury prone loanee with an hour or so to go before the window closed. Goalkeepers? Our problem surfaced too late to actively address. I get that there's still the free agent market that we could tap into. So far this season, our defence and attack have been two weak areas and I'm not convinced we've addressed those parts of the team. I hope I'm wrong of course and its early days.

With our record on injuries? I guess that's Ewan Wilson well and truly out of the picture then.

That's taking a huge and unnecessary risk. What if Longelo is out for several games?

No left back then? If so, it's weird that we let Ewan Wilson go out on loan.

I get that, but what if we'd have been unwilling to budge?

Sun reports Wesh has now signed a season long loan deal. Medical passed.

The window does close at 11pm

Good point. Patrons of other stands need to voice complaints also. Pipe up folks.

I think I heard somewhere that it was a different injury, but my memory may be playing tricks.

A few of us have had to do it ourselves Allan. Not very pleasant. BYOD (Bring your own Detox).

This 100%. Not a clumsy challenge but a deliberate foul nonetheless. Where is VAR when you need it? Good point about centre backs. Both were posted missing when they should have been protecting Ward. Overall, I thought the referee was poor. Very weak and inconsistent as shown by his booking of Gordon. Why wasn't the Killie player carded for a very similar foul on Said earlier?

I saw nothing wrong with the challenge from my perch in the POD, next to Spiderpig, but having seen the highlights there's a definite nudge in the back and not an accidental one either. Still, very poor goalkeeping.

Agreed. Ox has his faults too but I can't see JBA bringing in another keeper now. January maybe but more likely next summer. SOD has been playing well and we cheered him off the pitch yesterday in recognition of that.

I'm enjoying the new brand of football too; the best I've seen in years and I'm not Generation X or even W. I'm also on board with the Board's direction of travel on managerial appointments and JBA's philosophy. No manager will achieve 100% success, be it in terms of results or transfer dealings; nothing like it in fact. However for some, maybe even many, fans, its important that we convert good football and high possession percentages into actual goals and stop conceding soft goals. As far as JBA is concerned I fully back him and his methods. At some point though he's going to have to prove he can do that. So, there is a an element of uncertainty as to how successful he'll be. Time will tell.

We might well not get them, but they are certainly required. Our ability to identify and sign them will be a huge factor in shaping our season. A few calls after yesterday for a new keeper as well but I'd stick with the Ox for the time being.

Where did you hear or see this? A lot of confusion about his unavailability it would seem. I heard a rumour in the POD yesterday that he'd be out for a good number of weeks.

I'm a 70/30 supporter of JBA but its early in his reign and he's got a few issues to sort out. Its how he deals with those that will determine his legacy. Yes, we're playing the best football we've seen for many years. A huge tick. However, we're weak at both ends of the pitch and those deficiencies need addressing, possibly using different methods. Attractive football is all good and well but it has to be accompanied by good results. Yes we're unbeaten in 4 but we've also not won in 4.

I'm not one to get worked up over grammar or spelling. Its what the message says thats important not how its expressed. An old boss of mine had an annoying habit of refusing to answer any letter or memo, irrespective of their importance, that contained a spelling or grammatical error and if they did, just tossed them to someone else to deal with or worse still, into file 13.

If any doubt persisted about our recruitment needs before today's game, then Killie helpfully removed them. A huge couple of days coming up for us that could make or break our season. Clearly we need cover at left back following Wilson's temporary departure. If, as rumours indicate, that Slattery is out for a period of time, then another midfielder is a must. Finally we require 2 new centre backs whether Balmer departs or not. Our defence has largely been ignored in JBA's rebuild but its critical that its now addressed and quickly.

Today was the first I've seen us play for a few weeks and I have to say its the best I've seen us play for many a year. A good crowd today but I thought our fans were a bit flat. More games like this though and they'll come back in even bigger numbers. It was encouraging to hear the applause and cheers at full time and smiling faces talking about the quality of football. The game itself panned out pretty much as I expected and both sides could have won it. We were the better team and dominated possession but weaknesses at both ends of the pitch cost us. There's no doubt we missed Callum Slattery badly and hopefully he'll be back well before Christmas. I thought Killie tested us rigorously with their long ball approach and hopefully that lesson will feed into our recruitment. We did seem a bit vulnerable on the flanks. Some good performances from the likes of Just, Watt and Said. I remain unconvinced about Ap Stam though. He seemed very lightweight against a big intimidating defence. For me though this weekend was never going to be about today's game; rather about our transfer dealings. A final word on Callum Ward. I was 100% against dropping him after last Saturday, as every keeper can have an off day. However, 2 games on the trot? Its rare that a keeper makes not one but two glaring errors in conceding a goal. Time to bring the Ox back.