David

I've talked about this subject before, where it "appears" as though we're happy to sit back and so forth, when in reality, I believe that much of that is to do with the opponent pushing forward. I don't believe for a second that outwith the games against the Old Firm, we go into any match actively not trying to win.

I feel the same way if we lose a turgid game 1-0 or if we lose an exciting and entertaining game 4-3.

Personally, I go to games to see us hopefully win. That's the be-all & end-all for me. If we win a boring game 1-0 I'll be happy. If we lose an exciting game 4-3 I won't be happy.

Let's cut back on the back and forth niggling, please. Want to discuss and be critical of the manager? Fine. But this stupid tit-for-tat isn't happening.

I always laugh when I see anyone saying that, as it's something that fans of about 90% of football clubs in existence say 😂

There will always be better players out there than the ones we’ve got, but the real question is whether we can afford them and if they’re actually interested in joining us or have other options. It also comes down to whether the manager and coaching staff believe there’s potential to improve and address the issues a player might have. Let’s be honest—finding a player who makes virtually no mistakes is extremely rare. If someone was consistently performing at that level, they’d probably be well beyond what we can afford. In the case of someone like Casey, we need to ask ourselves whether he’s consistently making errors and misjudging situations, or if he’s doing what’s expected and delivering at a level suitable for a club like ours. Can the mistakes he’s making be addressed through coaching? Is there room for him to grow and improve?

He clearly lost his temper on the touchline at the weekend and paid the price for it. He’s not the first manager to do so, and he certainly won’t be the last. Personally, I’d rather have a manager who occasionally lets his passion get the better of him than someone who comes across as overly passive. You also raise a valid point about his inexperience. At 40, and with last season being his first full campaign as the sole manager of a professional club, it’s fair to say he’s still learning the ropes. That said, chasing a top-six finish and leading us to a cup semi-final in only his second full season? Not bad going for someone who’s still relatively new to the job.

Not by me he didn't.

I completely understand your perspective, but I’d much prefer having a manager like Kettlewell who refuses to doff his cap and simply accept the status quo. In my view, the more he calls out the shambles that is officiating in action, the better. It’s worth noting that his approach could easily boost morale and foster an "us vs the world" mentality in the dressing room, which is no bad thing. I’m not referring to you here, but the reality is that Kettlewell can’t seem to win in the eyes of some fans. If he manages with passion, wears his heart on his sleeve, and kicks every ball like we do in the stands, he’s labelled a "twat." Yet, if he kept quiet about the poor decisions, avoided making waves, and let it all slide, he’d likely be called a "twat" for that as well. What I hope is that fans recognise a manager and team who are clearly on the same page, putting in the effort and having a decent season. We should be backing them, supporting the manager and club when they call out dodgy decisions, not tearing them down for it.

Yup, the sooner Kettlewell learns that it's only the "big teams" who get to question match officials and learns his place, the better, eh?

The changes Rangers made at half time and in the second half made the difference. As is usually the case with the Old Firm, they can call upon the quality needed when our players are tiring, and the quality we have on the bench simply isn't of an equal level. Losing Stama and Miller also hurt us.

It seems like a fair result overall. We were clearly the better side in the first half, but Rangers' changes at the break, combined with us losing Stama, Miller, and Kaleta, swung the second half in their favour. As for the two VAR incidents, they seemed straightforward to me. You simply can't put your hands on the keeper during a set piece and expect to get away with it. It’s a frustrating rule, but it’s been in place for some time now. The offside decision was correct as well—no real debate there.

That's a bit of a stretch. I know we all love a good manager-bashing on this forum, but I think the three injured players we've had may have been more of a factor in it all.

I can’t dispute that we were cautious at points on Friday (as were Kilmarnock, by the way). However, I’d argue that it’s not as straightforward as a deliberate, one-dimensional plan to sit back after scoring. Momentum is a massive factor in football. When a team concedes, it’s natural for them to respond with urgency—pressing higher and taking more risks. This often pushes the leading team deeper. Players react instinctively to pressure. When the opposition throws everything forward, the priority often shifts to holding shape and defending—more out of necessity than by design. There’s also the psychological and tactical side to consider. Protecting a narrow lead can lead to a subconscious shift towards caution. Players might hesitate to make risky forward passes or push too far forward, not because they’re instructed to but as a natural response to the situation. This is especially true if confidence in the defence isn’t at its peak. Context is also key. Playing with ten men for any length of time inevitably changes the dynamic. Even when we had eleven men on the park, there’s a recovery period—both physically and mentally—where players need to readjust after a period of sustained pressure. The caution you mention may well have been a mix of regaining composure and ensuring we didn’t concede a soft equaliser. I’m not saying we couldn’t have been more proactive or that the tactics were flawless, that's never the case, but I think these situations are rarely as straightforward as they seem. What looks like sitting back might be the result of Kilmarnock’s pressure, the game’s momentum, and the very human instinct to protect what we had. You’ve raised some fair points regarding the flow of the match and the timing of substitutions, but I think there’s a bit more to consider when assessing Kettlewell's decisions. Firstly, while the momentum did shift in the second half, making an early substitution isn’t always the answer. The manager has to take multiple factors into account. Which players to take off, how a substitution might alter the team’s shape, and whether the change will genuinely address the tactical problem. Bringing Maswanhise on later in the game clearly paid off, but there’s no certainty that the same impact would have been achieved earlier. Substitutions are rarely a magic fix, and their timing involves balancing immediate needs with the broader game plan. Secondly, sitting deeper isn’t always a deliberate tactic but often a response to the opposition’s increased pressure, as I mentioned above. If Kettlewell instructed the team to push higher or play out more (which he was, by the way. He could be seen and heard from the main stand urging players to push out), and they struggled under that pressure, it’s less about managerial hesitation and more about the natural ebb and flow of the game. Momentum shifts aren’t always within a manager’s control, especially when the opposition steps up their intensity. It’s also worth considering how finely balanced the match was. With a narrow lead, making changes too early carries risks, as they might leave the team more exposed. While an earlier substitution could have disrupted Killie’s rhythm, it also might have left us vulnerable, particularly as we went down to 10 men later on. Finally, I think Kettlewell has demonstrated his ability to make impactful in-game adjustments, as shown by Maswanhise’s introduction. It’s easy to look back and argue a substitution should have come sooner, but in the moment, the manager's job is to assess the bigger picture: how the team is coping, the risks involved, and whether the players on the pitch can resolve the situation themselves. That’s not hesitation—it’s a measured, calculated approach in my view. We’re in a strong position in the league, and while the manager's decisions may not always be perfect, they’ve played a significant role in getting us there. Momentum shifts and spells of sitting deep are part of the game, and they happen to every team in almost every match. I do think it's easy for us to sit here online and talk about what should have been done after the game is over, but maybe not quite as easy to do when you're the man in charge mid-game and the result is still there for the taking.

It’s all relative, isn’t it? I’d see your point if we were Celtic, consistently facing teams clearly below our level. But we’re not. We’re competing against sides with either equal or greater resources—that’s the real context. Do we, though? I think we’ve all watched enough matches to know that when a team goes behind, they often raise their game and pile on the pressure. There’s more to the tactical side than just our own decisions. Kilmarnock’s approach, how they adapted after us scoring, and other factors also come into play. We’re not operating in isolation. I don’t think our manager has any illusions about us being defensively solid enough to grab a goal and then say, “Right, lads, let’s sit back and trust our brilliant defence to shut Killie down.” I genuinely think it’s about the momentum of the match. I’ve seen it far too often, whether it’s us or other teams, where conceding a goal sparks a reaction, and for a spell, they go all-out to get back into the game.

I'd take that for sure. A point from Celtic away is a good result.

We're fourth because we've beaten teams like Hearts, St Mirren, St Johnstone, and Dundee United at home, while picking up points away against County, St Johnstone, Hibs, Dundee United, St Mirren, and Kilmarnock. Any team putting together that kind of record over the first 18 games of the season is bound to be closer to the top of the table than the bottom. As for the overall quality of the league, that's a separate debate. Scottish football is what it is. We're a smaller nation, comparable in size to Slovakia, Finland, Norway, or Ireland. How strong are the domestic leagues in those countries? Are they known for their quality? Within the context of Scottish football, we're sitting fourth—behind the two biggest clubs in the country and a big city club, and ahead of at least three sides that, given their resources, ought to be doing better than us. It’s easy to look at our relative success and dismiss it with, "Well, the league isn’t any good anyway." If that’s your view, fair enough.

Maybe it would have been best to go a step further and not even mention it? Unless it was just an excuse to let "the nobodies" know their place.

If it were the club who was revealing the name then sure. But on a fan forum? It's basically just speculation, no matter what anyone claims about being "in the know".

How so? You think posting the guys name on a fans forum could put the deal in jeopardy?

A new manager always gets a bit of grace. How long has Simo been there now? A couple of months? At the moment he's lost twice as many games as he's won, and his team sit in 11th. I certainly wouldn't be trading places with them. Are we really reverting to the tired old "we're fourth, so every other team must be rubbish" narrative? It seems some people roll that out every time we break into the top six. The fact is, we’re exactly where we’ve earned the right to be. Right now, we’re the fourth-best team in the league, and whether other sides are brilliant, dreadful, or somewhere in between is irrelevant. Heading into Christmas sitting fourth in the table, with a cup semi-final secured, is a brilliant position to be in. This is such an important point. A lot of our supporters focus solely on what we’re doing, assuming that if the manager selects the “right” team and employs the “right” tactics, everything will fall into place. But football doesn’t work like that—our opponents play a massive role too. Many of the common criticisms and complaints could probably be addressed and explained by the manager, highlighting factors most of us wouldn’t even consider. For example, when we argue that TJ should start ahead of Watt, are we factoring in how McInnes might set his team up to counter that? Or how that decision could create vulnerabilities elsewhere for Kilmarnock to exploit? No, we see TJ come on for the last 15 minutes, play well, and think, “Well, he should’ve started—surely he’d have delivered that same performance over the entire game. Poor choice by the manager.” It’s rarely that simple.

That's true 😂

I could be mistaken, but I’d attribute it more to his youth. With youth comes inconsistency—it’s inevitable. As for quality and entertainment, no matter what fans might think, those will always take a back seat to results. I’ve yet to see a club at the foot of the table with fans delighted simply because they’re playing entertaining football. People’s livelihoods are at stake—managers, players, and even backroom staff. Relegation can mean the difference between someone keeping their job in the office or getting their P45. Last time I checked, you can’t pay your rent with entertainment tokens in place of wages. I don’t for a moment believe any club in Scotland deliberately sets out to play poorly, but they’ll do whatever is necessary to get results. Sometimes that means an exciting 4-3 like we saw against United, and other times it’s the grind of a 1-1 like last night. I’ve also long supported the idea of summer football. I realise most people aren’t in favour, which is fair enough, but when matches are played in dreadful conditions—rain lashing down, wind howling, fans freezing and soaked—it’s bound to affect the quality on the pitch. Countries like Sweden, Norway, Finland, Latvia, and Lithuania all run their seasons from March to November, and there’s good reason for it. We’ve chosen not to, so we have to accept that on a cold, wet, and windy December night, the football will often reflect the weather.

All this talk of who should and shouldn't be playing. Maybe time to dust off the ol' tombola.

I'm a happy clapper, mind? My hands are rid raw.