MelvinBragg

Longelo, Fadinger and Said looked capable at this level last season. Koutroumbis and Priestman also although they've been unavailable for pretty much all of this season. Lowry looks good enough. Others, the jury is out... Problem is, of those players who have proven to be good enough at this level, none are centre halfs or centre forwards. So in both boxes (where it counts), no one proven. And very little leadership or experience anywhere in the side.. Are the players simply not good enough or could another manager get more out of them? What counts against the manager is the fact that the more training time he has had with the players, the worse we seem to play.. This is only going one way for the manager...

Happy enough with the squad we have. Slight concern that we're an injury to Paulsen or Connelly away from a very inexperienced goalkeeper as backup. Last season we had Oxborough available to recall. I imagine we have a list of free agent goalkeepers in a drawer somewhere...

Good to know...

Roma ladies away strip would be better..

Several people have said to me without fear of argument "Well, the keeper is an upgrade on Ward". I'm not so sure...

I think Priestman was showing real signs that he could fill that gap prior to his injury. I agree they're all excellent players. Interesting to see when they're all fit, how we set up. Don't think any of them could play the role Lowry is playing so you figure one of the three drops out...

Priestman is injured...

Maybe a bit of experience for game management...?

I think you're being harsh on O'Donnell given the season he had last season. He may be 34 but he definitely contributed a lot. And although this may be seen as a poor reflection on our wingers, he's probably still the best crosser at the club... EDIT Also provides cover as you only have three centre backs listed...

What senior players? The 25 year olds in the team..?

And Riku Danzaki...

Someone saw it on Instagram and sent it to me. If you look at the other posts this person has made, it's clearly nonsense...

Injuries happen but it seems to be that whenever we get people injured, they take ages coming back. Might be just bad luck.. Numbers wise, this season we've had McGinn Maswanhise Longelo Koutroumbis O'Donnell Sparrow Williams Priestman Bjorngolfsson Stamatelopolous Hendry all still injured or having been injured at some point (suspect I've probably missed someone as well). It's a long list barely two weeks into August...

On top of the ones we came into the season with, we've lost Williams, Sparrow and Priestman (maybe for some time, I'm hearing) already. So there's definitely something in that...

I think most of us get the need to rest some players today. My own personal opinion would be start with more of your first team to set a tone (I'm sure Stenhousemuir got a lift seeing our team lineup) and sub first teamers off rather than on. I know the first team guys didn't make a huge difference today but I kind of feel the tone had been set by the time they came on... One of those things and there's no guarantee that we wouldn't have lost anyway but just think we probably gave an unbeaten opponent an unnecessary boost...