MJC

“Whenever he plays” I don’t hold out much hope for that being any time soon. Fully expecting the social media post telling us “Filip Stuparevic will be missing for a significant period of time due to X injury. Speedy recovery Filip” any day now. The type of post we’ve seen all too often about too many players in the last year.

I’m sure they’re used to it.

Looks like Aberdeen fans are outnumbering the home fans, which isn’t really a surprise.

We’re a team that’s set up to be the ‘underdogs’ and chase games instead of take the game to the opponents. We saw it last season with good results at Tynecastle, Dens Park, Celtic Park and Ibrox whilst losing at home to Aberdeen, St.Mirren and scraping draws against Ross County, St.Johnstone and Dundee. That’s why I have a bit of confidence that we can get some kind of positive result at Hampden on Saturday, because the onus is all on Rangers to come at us and take the game to us. If we don’t concede an early goal or two then we have a good chance here imo. As for the ticket prices, they are obscene.

So a rare trip to Hampden for us, no doubt the only one for us this season. I actually think this type of game is one that will suit our ‘approach’ better and might just go in our favour. 3-2 away win

No doubt we’ll bring in at least two more full backs on deadline day.

Are we signing crocks or is there is something we are going in training that puts players out for months on end? It’s never just a week or so and it’s happened far too often to too many players over the last year for it just to be bad luck. Nicholson being out is another hammer blow and Stuparevic carrying an injury too just makes our start to the season all the more chaotic.

Life happens, I get that. People have genuine reasons why they can’t get to games regularly or atall. But there are fans out there who could be at Fir Park but instead opt for the pub/the golf/the bowls etc. That’s their choice obviously, but the it’s just a pity that we have a lot of fans who don’t prioritise going to support the team and the club. Correct, both Dundee sides look significantly better than us. Both have better forward options and both have players who can create opportunities for those forward players. And both have better managers than we have. It’s going to be a long, tough and uncomfortable season.

The club have tried everything to increase our gates but to no avail. Be it free tickets for kids, bring a friend for a fiver and John Boyle’s £5 for adults £1 for kids when he took over, our attendances never increased. And onfield success like winning the Scottish Cup and finishing 2nd two years running did nothing to increase it either. The simple truth is that outwith the small faithful core of diehards who never miss home games our overall support is poor. We have lazy, fair weather fans who turn up for Cup finals and trips to Hampden (a lot of whom shout long and loud about how big a Well fan they are and who they are so superior to Old Firm glory hunters without a shred of irony or self awareness ) but run of the mill games they are nowhere to be seen.

Yes because Semis/finals and a big day out at Hampden are appealing in themselves, the same goes for Euro games. But league games against Ross County or St.Johnstone don’t have that glamour and it seems that it’s that glamour and appeal that a lot of our ‘supporters’ really care about, not the club itself.

Our attendances are never going to increase regardless of the product on the park. Regardless of prices and financial climate our support is lazy and apathetic and has been for as long as I can remember. We have fans who just aren’t interested in going to run of the mill games but will come out of the woodwork for Cup finals and European games. And let me be as clear as I possible can be here. I am not talking about people who for whatever reason can’t go to games be that location, money etc. that’s their business. I am talking about people who absolutely could be at the game but they just don’t go, instead they’d rather sit in the pub or go to the bowling, the golf, the races or whatever. I’m sure most of us know at least one person who falls into that category. The sad reality is we are a poorly supported club and nothing that happens on or off the park will ever change that.

I get that. The problem is that we were saying the same things this time last year about us signing a lot of players and injuries and we now look weaker as a squad than we did back then. We’ve not moved forward, that’s the main point. It’s impossible to say that we will be relegated at this point in the season. My personal opinion is that Kettlewell is done and can’t offer us any more and a change of manager should take place but I think that that’s unlikely to happen in the near future. And Stephen O’Donnell is finished at this level. I’ve never been a fan of him with us as I always questioned his application, but there was never any doubts over his ability, but he is getting older and slower and we cannot, absolutely CANNOT rely on him to be a regular starter for us this season. And the least said about him being ‘vice-captain’ the better.

What are you expecting? After that dirgefest along with what we’ve seen in the League Cup Group games then there are genuine concerns for us as a team. Obviously it’s early doors and anyone nailing their colours to the mast and saying that we are getting relegated based on what they have seen so far is a bit much and definitely kneejerk but it can’t be denied that we have serious problems with the team and the manager.

Dreadful stuff.

He should be nowhere near our first team squad, he’s totally done.

Well Half Time and pretty dismal stuff so far. We’ve probably slightly edged it but that doesn’t say much as County have looked even worse than us. We are so, so slow as a team and better sides than Ross County will punish us for that.

He won’t do in the system we are playing and with the players we have to ‘support’ him. He’s completely isolated and getting no support. Who didn’t see that coming though?

I suspect Kelly being ‘club captain’ and the ‘Scotland internationalist’ had something to do with that.

Spittal and Kelly on the Hearts and Rangers benches respectively today.

Fuck them.

The reality is that we have done absolutely nothing wrong and so a replay would be an unfair and downright outrageous outcome for us to have to pay the price for Scottish football incompetence. But nothing would surprise me.

The thought of having to sit through that turgid shite all over again with no doubt the same outcome or worse…suffering f**k

Not just because we didn’t beat Partick Thistle yesterday, but because in the eighteen months he’s been in charge we have done nothing but regress under his management and I have seen nothing in these group games so far to suggest there is any improvement on the horizon, the opposite if anything. His tactical set up and approach to games is all wrong and his transfer dealings have been dreadful, regardless of ‘limited budget’ and all that guff.

1-1 with a late equaliser to get us a point we scarcely deserve after County miss some guilt edged chances and we create next to nothing for 80 minutes with our lone striker completely isolated again.

Exactly. He is 33 years old and his best spell in his career was with us. He hasn’t come close to replicating that since he left us, either at Groningen or Killie. We definitely got the best out of him when he was here but that’s past now. Re-signing him would be akin to signing McFadden for the third time in 2015.