fizoxy

I like Maguire, I was more coming from his lack of involvement prior to this run, and the likelihood that if it wasn’t for injuries and swearing he might not have had a look in.

Killie were well up for the game, and for most of the game looked the better team up until the final delivery. However, they rarely got in behind us, and they generated mostly half chances, while we had 3 clear cut chances to score despite our disjointed play. As said elsewhere in this thread, we've been on the other end of games like this this season, so it was nice to see us turn that around. Everybody worked hard in difficult conditions, and it's great to see Campbell get on the scoresheet again and Lamie and Mugabi having another solid game.

I went with Lamie. He's essentially the one keeping a place warm for someone else, but despite his fondness for a mishap we have kept it tight in the run of games where he started. He was solid tonight alongside Bevis, and they both handled just about everything thrown into the box. It is amazing that our settled winning XI contains Lamie, Mugabi, Crawford and Maguire.

It's a great opportunity for him, he can use the plastic as an excuse every other game.

He's going to get them fired up to get revenge for us choosing Alexander over him by getting some St. Johnstone fans to talk about how great he is over zoom.

I don't like to spend too much time on the root cause analysis for every goal we concede, because on one side we have us blaming someone for losing their man and other the other side the attacker is praised for finding space. Attackers will always have the advantage when it comes to movement on and off the ball. Lamie isn't a great player, and is a liability with the ball at his feet, but it's a bit much to attribute the 2 goals we lost to Celtic to him alone. There's plenty of positives to take from the game, particularly how we had them on the ropes at the end. It's good to see a settled front 3 too, and hopefully Cole isn't cited for his kick. It will be interesting to see how we set up if we do lose him. My guess would be a straight swap for Smith. I enjoyed watching carrol and o'donnell pull down those pinged balls out to the touchline with ease, and their form will be key if we want to go on a decent run.

When did we decide he doesn't want to be here?

I would have liked to have seen polworth rather than Smith on for Maguire. Long and Cole ran their arses off and polworth may have been better placed to exploit their movement. I wasnt at all impressed by Roberts, he's fast but looked very rusty. Lamie avoided major blunders, and overall the defence was pretty comfortable after they sussed Turnbull out in the first half. We were pretty composed throughout the game and had some good passages of play when we did have the ball. I thought the fullbacks were excellent. We lacked a killer touch throughout the game. We so often made a good interception, or created an opening, to then screw it up with a lazy pass. Both Maguire and Crawford were guilty on a few occasions of being careless when we just needed them to take the extra touch. Overall I can't complain. I expected us to struggle, and I thought it was going to be embarrassing after that early goal, but we stayed organized and stuck to our plan, and in the end it was luck that saved Celtic.

So unlucky in the end, thought that one had just creeped in. Great performance to almost turn that around, when earlier in the season we would have collapsed after the first goal, never mind the second. Without seeing it back, and based on how our season has gone, I expect that the ball was about a yard over the line.

Alexander just needs to print out the match stats and pin it to the changing room wall. That's how you motivate players.

It looked like a stonewall penalty live, but the replay shows it just outside the box. Nice work by long to win it. After that start we've restricted them to few chances, and started to look a bit more comfortable in the ball. We probably shouldn't still be in the game, but we are, so no complaints at this point.

This is an ideal situation to avoid rushing people into the lineup before they're fully fit, plus it rewards those responsible for the last two wins. We're telling players they are in control of keeping their spot, which is healthy. Now, that does mean lamie and mugabi against Celtic at parkhead and little likelihood of a clean sheet, but the pressure is off.

The website has him until 2022

The back to back wins takes the pressure off for this game, and I wouldn't be surprised if we go with the same lineup as Wednesday, save any injuries. I don't think that would be a particularly good idea, but can see it happening. I'd like to see us keep the same formation though, rather than try to be too clever, I think that's our best chance of getting anything. My biggest worry in that regard is the center backs, we still look shaky there and the clumsiness of Lamie and Mugabi terrifies me since Celtic will get those marginal penalty shouts. Either way, St. Mirren have shown it can be done, so I'm looking forward to it.

The summer out of contract players are: Fox, Chapman, Bevis, Gallagher, Campbell, Polworth, Semple, Cornelius, Long, Seedorf, Cole, and McIver. Didn't count new guys or those who already extended. My guess would be Polworth, Campbell, and maybe Long.

Shankland is indeed pish. Siegrist is their MVP. Lamie did a decent job, but he did have his customary brain farts, and I can't imagine he'll start against Celtic. The rest of the defence had a pretty good game, and it's great to see Carroll settle into a run of games. The midfield was overrun, but all three put in good performances, with Maguire sticking out in the first half. Hopefully he can get a few more games and solidify a place in the side. As said above, not all youngsters need to be saleable assets, we also need reliable long-term players. It will be interesting to see who makes way when players return from injury. The forwards all had excellent games and ran themselves into the ground. Long showed again what he is capable of when it comes to finishing, and Cole is deadly from 6 yards. Watt is indispensable at the moment as he links well and gets us up the park, but he really needs to improve his finishing.

We handled the onslaught pretty well considering the personnel, but we really should have had been out of sight but for some poor finishing. Doesn’t matter though, huge win and Utd are in deep deep trouble.

Is this the start of an actual run of games for Maguire? He's been pretty good so far, building on his performance v county. Clever finish from Cole for our first, it's good to see him and long playing with confidence. Hopefully watt can grab a goal. Lamie is still terrifying.

Great finish after some good interplay with Campbell and Cole.

A lot of assumptions being made here, including that that club are total mugs. Let's hang fire on the pant wetting until we know some facts.

I'm not worried about the squad size at this point. Half the players we had before the window got us into this situation, and we've had to replace them with (hopefully) better to get us out of it. We also have a good few injuries. I doubt were going to try and find ways to get everyone a game. It's not always possible to ship players out, due to contracts and stuff, but maybe we will see some loans to the lower leagues tomorrow.

I like Dunne because he would deliberately set up opportunities to race people, and he reminds me of happier times.

Happy enough for Crawford to stay, if nothing else it strengthens our bench, but he has been decent in his starts. Dunne is a case of standing by our ethos of not letting players leave injured. He's only 27, so there's always the possibility of him staying on longer if he gets fit.

For those deafened by the silence Flow on Twitter: "We are looking / hoping to be doing more business by Monday night. This has, and I am sure most clubs would agree, been the most difficult window to recruit, perhaps ever, but we’re working hard. If we can get players who will improve what we have, we’ll try and bring them in."

It seems the rest of the league are in the same position as us, with most teams making pretty underwhelming signings or none at all. I'm trying to think of a player that's signed elsewhere that I wish we'd got first. Jackson Irvine to hibs maybe, but we're never going to compete with them on wages. It also doesn't matter how much money we have if players just don't want to come here, which is enough of a problem when there isn't a pandemic. Kelly has been a good signing, and we can't judge the other 3 until we see them play for us. If you look back at previous January windows, the successful signings were all unknowns at the time. I hope we're not done strengthening, but I wouldn't be surprised if we are. I'm more worried about keeping our players at this stage.