fizoxy

There’s accommodating your Coopers and Russels, then there’s accommodating your Ainsworths, then there’s accommodating your Bigi’s. He had plenty of chances to show what he can do, and while he was a decent enough player he didn’t offer enough of anything to overcome his defensive shortcomings. He’s a great character but far from the best player we’ve let go in my time.

we made two good signings, and the players that have left would have made no bearing on the rest of our season (3 of whom were probably on decent money by our standards). I think everyone would feel more fuzzy if we had made the two signings at 11pm today though, but that’s the hype of deadline day. I’m happy they came in earlier and had some part in us getting those two big wins. With that freed up cash we should hopefully be able to offer contracts to all the young players on the fringe of the team, since it looks like hastie, Scott and maguire are all up at the end of this season. McHugh, Cadden, Grimshaw, Gorrin, Main and Frear are all going to be out of contract too (and all the loanees going back) so will be another busy summer.

Difference is he was probably playing for Dundee and they wanted to keep him.

Most likely we’ve saved on wages and no more, which is still good for us. Our attackers know his weaknesses* so it will be interesting how he does against us. * you can run right past him.

If I remember correctly the manager said that we needed someone to step up to the role of the lone striker, and didn’t explicitly say that we were going to sign a big target man. Even if he did, we’ve won two games since then and we’re almost certainly safe, so it may be that the club don’t want to spend money someone when there’s nothing to be gained for it financially.

I’m not really fussed what other clubs do. Our lineup is pretty set, save a striker and a left back (and even those could prob wait until the summer). We’re not really chasing for anything so don’t see the point of throwing money around.

Is he going to right the wrongs of the May/Kirk/McGrillen farce?

Aldred is only on loan, and Hartley has barely had a run of games since being injured and is only 30, and our captain. We can’t just punt everyone who isn’t in the first XI at the moment, injuries, suspensions and loss of form are things that happen, especially to us.

They’ll have to show us the money

I’d vote for Dougie Imrie. His playing career is ending, so this would continue the pantomime.

They’ve sent a scout to the Royal Rumble tonight. I’m not impressed though, cos with Wrestlemania on the horizon I just can’t see them getting up for Killie away. If they come back with Zack Ryder I’ll be furious, it would be a shambles. I think burrows should resign.

Motherwell won, so they just stuck a random player from us in there? They might have remembered his name from last season.

I thought that was good situational awareness by Campbell. We were winning and only seconds were left on the clock. If he runs straight for goal he gets caught, and gives them possession in the middle of the park and he’s out of position, if he waits and plays someone in there is no guarantee of a goal. He took the less selfish option and knocked a bunch of time off the clock, and it worked. The only argument I can see for pushin gforba goal there is to boost our goal difference, but let’s face it, if this season comes down tongo difference we’ve royally fucked up. I see that some have taken to having a go at the chief exec again for some reason (I’m guessing it’s just hard for some folk to be happy). Say what you want about individual decisions he might have made, but to say he’s out of his depth is just daft. He didn’t achieve his position in a vaccum, and he seems to have a great reputation with our board and his peers, never mind the whole improvement in our financials whilst till making long needed improvements to the pitch and the stadium.

Ace.

Dundee pressed us the whole game, and really should have had more than a shot on target, but that is why they are shite. Frear coming on gave us that little extra width and opened it up enough for us to make our one chance of the game, and we took it. Main’s excellent trap and attempted lob from the edge of the box, followed closely by his long ranger for a throw in summed up his game, but I’d rather he tried these things than totally hide. Can’t really fault his work rate right now. Ariyibi never got into the game, nothing worked for him at all, but that’s the life of a winger, good thing we have a spare one. not sure what the deal was with our defense, but we looked shaky all game. The Dundee fans and commentators are the whiniest of all. Everything was a foul and a yellow, and apparently they had a bunch of penalty shouts. One of their shite strikers was throwing himself around all game, and collum wasn’t buying it, but their fans were all over that. At one point they accused Gillespie of time wasting for going down after being punted in the knackers. They seem to feed off the dourness of Paul mcgowans face. His hair is just a travesty.

Dundee have wasted 3 or 4 decent chances to at least get something on target when pretty much clean through. The defense looks shaky today. The wingers haven’t been in the game, and the high balls aren’t even being sent in the general direction of main. Turnbull and Gorrin are trying to keep it down, but the movement of the front 3 isn’t good enough so far.

Yep yep

Any additions will be contingent on someone leaving (with bigi, main and Sammon being the rumored ones), and you’ve got to wonder that if we were able to get a win tomorrow would the club decide that more signings aren’t necessary? Would the money we spend on a couple more new guys cancel out what we’d get if we finished 8th instead of 9th? On the other hand, we may not want to risk being complacent then Dundee and St Mirren pull a couple of big signings out the bag on the last day. The next week is shaping up to be a very interesting one for the league, with so much still in play and plenty of banter to be had.

Maurice Ross confirmed as head of Reserves and u18s.

Mains performance aside, signing a goal scorer in January isn’t easy, since we’re probably at the back of a very long queue of clubs wanting one, and the players/clubs rightfully ask for more money. Yesterdays performance was one of the best of the season, and part of that was putting main in for Johnson. We’ve not had a settled lineup all season, so hopefully this is the start of one, as every player who started deserves another start on Saturday.

I’m disappointed it wasn’t McCulloch, only because of the potential patter of an umbrella-gate introduction video.

I didn’t mention grimshaw earlier, but he’s great to watch when he plays like that. I’d take Tait at LB if Liam plays like that at RB. Playing against him and Campbell (and now Hastie) must be a royal pain in the arse. We’re going to have to balance getting McCormack fit and keeping the lineup as strong as possible. I doubt we’re going to get a full 90 out of him while he’s here based on what we’ve seen so far. However, i didn’t think he let us down when he came on. Im not sure why Ariyibi is taking the set pieces either, we have 3 or 4 guys in today’s lineup alone that can put in a better dead ball. I also enjoyed Bigi’s wee cameo, he slowed the game down when needed and helped see the game out. before the game I feared a doing from Hibs, but I’m assuming they are dealing with some injuries, or more likely overhyped like their Edinburgh counterparts, because they didn’t look anything special.

That was a really good reaction to Saturday, we pressed really well and fought for those points. I don’t think we can question the players or managers commitment after that. Main really needs a goal. He worked hard and did a decent job of keeping their defenders busy and holding the ball up, but was powder puff when it came to taking a chance. Watching the direct running from hastie and Ariyibi was fun. It didn’t always come off, but I’d rather we tried that than punting it. The goal was a thing of beauty, what I’d give to see hastie, Campbell, Cadden and Turnbull together for one more season. This was the first time I’ve seen Gorrin really contribute, and I think he had by far his best game for us, Campbell also looked like his old self. Didn’t think the defense looked too troubled, hibs were always going to make a couple of chances but we were pretty organized. We know how inconsistent we are, so I wouldn’t get my hopes up for Saturday, but I’d definitely put out the same team for that game.

Gillespie Grimshaw Aldred dunne tait campbell gorrin ariyibi Turnbull hastie main Frear injured, Sammon, bigi, McCormack, Johnson and Hartley on bench.

The club website has him contracted until 2020