Kmcalpin

If the ref had done his job properly he wouldn't have been half as effective.

Game still on as I type. I saw a post on P & B from Livingston FC (X account) warning those in seats AA-D to dress for bad weather. Now, as the stadium will be nowhere near full, I'd hope that common sense and decency will prevail and they'll open up further sections to allow those affected to sit nearer the back. No need to pen us in 2, 3 sections or whatever.

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Thats fair comment. With the best will in the world, opposing teams soon suss us out and we have to keep them on their toes. Saturday's game will be interesting in that a lot depends on who domiates. If its them they'll be happy to shell long balls all day long. If its us we can play through midfield. Certainly it'll test out Bair's skills as a target man.

Good luck to Stuart McKinstry. A thoroughly decent lad and I hope this kickstarts his career.

Just joking of course but hopefully he's been banned from Fir Park.

Presumably he was arrested by the police?

Agreed. The club can only do so much. This was really down to the police. The club cannot postpone kick off. Only the ref and police can do that. I know its on a different scale entirely, but given what happened at Hillsborough, you'd think that the police would be very wary of break ins. If the overcrowding had been the result OF MFC overselling tickets, the police would have been very quick to act. I have a lot of sympathy for our police given severe budget cuts but we were paying them from our own funds. However, due to political sensitivities this will be swept under the carpet by Police Scotland.

IF thats the case, then the midfielders will need to step up their, admittedly impressive game, in terms of finishing.

Good thought provoking post and I agree with most of it. SK is doing well and the team has improved immeasurably as you say. We can all see that. However, a glorious defeat is still a defeat at the end of the day. In the long term they may well help our goal difference if we're talking about practicalities. As OTF rightly says we'll now see what SK is really made of after 3 defeats on the trot. SK has indeed been forced into making large scale changes due to a horrifici injury list; not just in terms of personnel but also in terms of formation. At our level, there are always trade offs/ swings and roundabouts; however you want to describe them. Theo Bair is what he is, although hopefully he'll improve under the management's guidance. He's a good target man but no goalscorer and relies on the midfield to get forward to feed from him. If they can't do that or don't have the goalscoring instinct then we're in trouble. The flipside is that we have a strong midfield who can protect the defence, up to a point in my view. What happens when our strikers are fuilly fit is anyone's guess. Maybe it'll be horses for courses? One, less highlighted, concern I do have is that we play fairly narrowly and that puts pressure on the 2 wing backs. In recent games we've seen teams take advantage of that to notch a few, a few, important goals. I'm not getting at individuals here but I'd like to see Gent and Spencer start to see what they can do. They might provide us with more energy. We know what O'Donnell can and can't do but the jury is still is still out on Souare for me and I'm yet to be convinced. The next 4 games are important and will allow us to see how things pan out. I don't doubt David Martindale will have been watching St Mirren's and Celtic's goals against us with interest; so lets hope that particular loophole is closed firmly shut on Saturday.

What was the attendance yesterday?

That's fine. However later in the second half the midfield was out on its feet / was defending so there was no-one advanced enough to feed off the knock downs.

Paton was a clear winner for me. Stood up to the impressive Celtic midfield even when others flagged.

100%. I think it was Melvin Bragg commented a few weeks ago that we were thin on the ground in midfield. When Butcher returns and is matchfit, I would hope he'll slot back into central defence. We have missed his aggression and organisational ability there. Given budget constraints it may need to be one midfielder. That said we may revert to playing 2 strikers when that department is fit and fully functioning. .

I'm confident that SK knows where we went wrong today and will work to address that. Striking problem is mainly out of his control. We can't say that of quite a few previous managers.

Good post Grizzly. Sums up my view.

I think the likes of Butcher, Gent and Biereth will make a big difference when they're all fully fit. That'll give a much needed and timely boost to the defence and attack. I'm not overly bothered if we play well in the next 4 games or not (although that would be nice) as long as we pick up the points. In short, follow the old Alex Ferguson / Matt Busby philosophy of "Just do it and don't get caught".

I think he made a mistake by not refreshing the midfield with about 20 minutes to go. Slattery and Miller were out on their feet and most fans thought that Celtic would come at us strongly in the closing stages. No one's perfect; everyone makes mistakes. He's young enough and bright enough to learn from that. To put that into perspective we're doing well and he's doing really well. We've just played the 4 best teams in the league. The next few games will be a test as to how we react. The encouraging thing for me today is that, apart even from our weakened strikeforce, we could have played better especially in defence. Butcher and Gent have still to reach fitness and have yet to come in. Given the players we had at our disposal I reckon we were at 80/85% of our potential. Defensive errors let us down.

Don't fully agree. Yes, we all know we're toothless up front. However we usually defend well , but not today. That exposed right flank ought to have been sorted out well before half time and the midfield looked knackered with 20 minutes to go. Schoolboy defending and you can't get away with that at this level. Changes ought to have been made but were not. We ran them close, so nothing to be ashamed of, but at the death we were well short. Onwards and upwards.

Easier to take than defeats against Sevco and St Mirren though. We blew it simple as.

We've played well, up to a point, but have been toothless up front, and slack at the back on the wings. Off the field mistakes also cost us. No complaints from me. We blew it.

Self inflicted. Who didn't see that coming? We've been badly exposed on that right hand side.

Fresh legs needed I think.

Bair too often isolated up front. We're pretty toothless up front again.

Yes, a few avoidable errors at the back and we're putting ourselves under pressure. No threat up front so far. .