Tweed

McManus for me. Outstanding at the back and his run for the goal was outstanding. Carswell and Sutton also worthy of consideration but not quite as good as Mick today.

A couple of things about McFadden for me. 1. In the first few games most teams doubled up on Faddy. That was a luxury they couldn't afford last season because if you double up on him you were leaving one of Humphrey, Law or Ojamaa free. We don't have the same creative outlets this season so that is probably making his job that wee bit harder than it was. 2. Craigan said during the Kilmarnock game that if you don't get a full preseason in your thirties it takes you a month or two to get into the season. I've never been a professional footballer so I can't argue with him. As the season has now been punctuated with an injury we're probably not yet at a place we could judge him. Made some mistakes today, but you could see his eye for a pass and a run today. If we could get the match sharpness up to the same speed as his brain we could still have a good player on our hands. If Vigurs and Angol had been outstanding every week, would argue it wasn't worth persevering with him but seeing as one has been disappointing and the other inconsistent I'm happy for us to persevere. Maybe worth giving him a run as a ringer in the U20s if they have a game this week and try and build the sharpness up.

Yes, thought he was pretty good until he booked Hutchinson for the perfect slide tackle and it was if he realised he made a boob and went on a last 30 minute crash course in pretending to be Stevie O'Reilly. However, thought we really struggled at the start with Hutchinson being very poor in keeping the ball and Hibs, like they did in the game they won 4-0 last season really cleverly dragged him wide but today without the ability to kill us off. Hibs should have been 2-0 up before we lost Ramsden but poor finishing kept us in it. It seemed as if Fraser Kerr coming on gave us a bit of belief because the rest of the 1st half was pretty good and Sutton and Carswell both were close and Lasley's long ranger didn't appear to be that far away either. I had a feeling Jimmy Nicholl might gee them up a bit so really wanted a 2nd but it wasn't to be. Second half they had most of it without ever really looking like scoring until the hairy five minutes at the end. We should have tied it up with the ball Ainsworth should have played Anier in with but for some reason went high and heavy. No complaints about the red card and I thought we did the defending bit of the game really well after that but on the few occasions we got rid of the ball we should have done better at retaining it rather than inviting wave after wave of attack. You'd think that after watching Aberdeen play the textbook game with ten men on Wednesday for 78 minutes, we'd remember how to do it for five minutes. However, losing becomes a habit and having lost a couple any win was a big win and that's what that was. 21 points out of 21 against the teams in the bottom six. May not be pretty but we are a damn effective team and do seem to have a great ability of beating teams we are better than, problem comes when we play those at our level and are better than us.

Just a cunning brainwave but we are meant to be at Easter Road on Wednesday 26 March and both Hibs and our game on 1st February have been postponed as our opponent is in League Cup Semi Final so perhaps we could play that on that weekend, clearly subject to the semis not being in Edinburgh.

Real sore one last night. We had started the game well, even taking the disallowed goal out of the equation we seemed to bubbling about quite well. But a red card always changes the focus of the game and it really did. We suddenly seemed to get impatient and our ball retention was suddenly much slacker. We should have been keeping the ball, spraying it from side to side and trying to force them out to give us round to play round them and if the chance arose bombing to the by line. What we did was meat and drink to the Aberdeen defence. Second half we started excellently and doing exactly what we should have been doing beforehand in running at players, creating room to cross and putting balls into the box. As McCall said, Aberdeen defended excellently but I feel our midfield should have been supporting more as when the headers went out Aberdeen shirts tended to be picking up the balls in and around the D. However as the 2nd half wore on, Aberdeen became more of a threat on the break and I felt we were running out of steam and the momentum was swinging from us and we appeared to be running out of ideas. Real lack of an attacking force at times and we really need to work on our options in the final third. Other than on Sunday, every domestic game we have lost this season, game turning goals have come from shocking defending at set plays and given the height in our team and the experience we have that is unacceptable and it came to roost again last night. Lots to work on but the sad reality of matters is we are a middle of the road team this year and last night proved, if there was any doubt that Aberdeen are better than us. For nothing else they have an ability to defend.

Look at our league results this season, we have beaten every team in the bottom six and taken one point from the teams in the top six. Quite obvious where our level actually is. What alarmed me last night was it seemed as we got on the game, despite playing 77 minutes with ten men they looked fitter than us. I think for the first time in many years we have had a series of injuries but they are small niggly injuries rather than serious ones and because of a lack of numbers guys are ending up on the bench who shouldn't be and when you look at the injuries they are down the right side of the team. On top of that we have some players who aren't quite on it. Vigurs, I like but he has only shown what he can do in flashes of games and that is reflected in a number of our players. I think this season is going to be one of absolute mediocrity and the only thing we will be fighting for is a top six place and the moment our half is determined it will be meaningless friendlies for us.

Don't want to become too negative after today because we have bounced back from woeful performances in the past but that was one of the worst for a long time, possibly the worst under McCall. However that doesn't mean we are a bad team, problem is our opponent on Wednesday are playing well and are defensively sound so we'll have to play well to get in behind them. Logic tells me Anier and Ainsworth probably didn't have two games in four days in them or they'd have been on today however I don't understand why they were taking a seat on the bench when there was no inclination to throw them on when we were on insipid and still in it at 0-1. That does tell me though that they should both make it and the team on Wednesday will be different than today's. Could see it going either way before this weekend and nothing that has happened has really changed that.

To be honest, there is the width of a fag packet between us, Aberdeen, St Johnstone, Inverness and Dundee Utd playing at their best. Just need to hope we can play as we can and get the breaks on the night.

Just watched the highlights - for the first one, he had one hand high but the ball hit his other hand which was in a natural place so I think that was fair enough. The one on Danny Wilson was more of a claim but I think his hand was retracting to a natural position so I can understand his decision for that one too but to be honest if it was given against us I wouldn't have had too many complaints. This was one of these decisions where the referee's definition of intent is everything and if you sat ten of the referees down you would never get consensus. At the game I never even noticed the second one by the way.

Not watched the highlights yet, but at the time you could see the defender's hand was high but had no idea where the ball had actually hit him.

The game changed when Lawson came on..... Seriously, I thought Sutton and Lasley were involved in everything positive. Vigurs has his flaws but his set pieces put Hearts under the cosh every time. Not since Cooper have we looked so dangerous from just about every corner. However for all round performance Sutton was the best for me today. McManus had a real good game too.

I think there is something in that. We brought in lots of players who are proven at this level plus retained McFadden and none of them are excelling yet. Yes, you could argue we could be so much better had we bought wiser but on the flip side we have brought in lots of players who know to win. I think it was very evident today that we had lots of players who would accept nothing less than a win and kept going and it is not impossible had we brought in a more ambitious player that determination would not be replicated. McManus is improving every week and we saw a lot more from Vigurs today than we had previously.

Programmes are a dying breed sadly and the more stuff you put in about the visitors, the more you might be able to flog to them.

Did we not always moan about how Butcher set us up at Parkhead and Ibrox too?

Thought that was Calum Murray? He has however undoubtedly shafted us several times, like the penalty he didn't give us in Inverness.

In order to keep you interested, it is Iain Brines.

Faddy started on Saturday, aye? So we dropping Faddy because he doesn't have the engine or are we keeping him in? Said the pedant!

The reason we won the fair play league under McGhee was he instilled proper discipline into the team. Not that we didn't get players booked for tackling and fouls etc but we never ever got a player booked for dissent, celebrating a goal etc. Amazing how things change if you cut out the nonsense bookings. I don't think there are any really dirty teams out there. Got to remember as well we only played eight games and we got five yellows against Aberdeen because we were frankly knackered and tackling late because the minds were too sleepy to do anything else.

That's what I was thinking last night, but I was drunk last night so was trying to have sober reflection if it is still a good idea! Now someone else has independently said it I think that's what I would do.

Considering where James McFadden's career has taken him and some of the highs and lows he has had, I imagine being dropped and subbed by Motherwell in the last week is pretty close to the lowpoint. It could be that the end of last season was his swansong and he got a bit more room to play because the 2012/13 Motherwell team had so many different ways to unlock defences no team could afford to overly concentrate on McFadden or Ojamaa, Law or Humphrey would open them up whilst this team are a bit more sturdy and patient in build up so it is easier to pick one special player and mark him out the game. Like a poster above I think next week is exactly the game for letting him play as he loves the big occasion but it is how you get the team around him to play is the question and one worthy of mulling over for the next few days.

First home game I'll have missed since big Higgy scored a hattrick against Inverness last season. We played well for the most part in Sunday and my inclination would be to play the same 11 as then and keep Ainsworth and McFadden in reserve.

How Simon Mensing got their MoTM before Scougall is one of life's unsolved mysteries. For us, I think we had eleven steady eddies tonight rather than any standouts but I think on balance I would give it to Lawson.

I was playing a game of count how many times Lawson won the ball back, I only started doing it because he had done it three times in the first couple of minutes. I have up when he won it for the twelfth time after about 20 minutes. Not saying he was outstandingly brilliant but I actually thought he had a very good game. McCall made the four changes I wanted him to make and added in McHugh for Anier. Good result, professionally done. Bit annoyed at the way we defended the corner at the end but overall very content.

Well, first domestic cup tie in the season and we haven't had a cup tie success since we thumped Morton 6-0 19 and a half long months ago. However, this is by far the easiest one we have had since then and serious questions will be asked if we fail this time. For the team I would like McCall to make three outfield changes from yesterday which is Sutton out, McFadden in; Vigurs out, Ainsworth in and Lasley out, Lawson in. Purely as against a weaker opponent it could play Faddy into the season and letting him be up top gives him his best chance. Ainsworth deserves a start after yesterday. And finally the Lasley one is just based on him being 34 and three games in seven days. Additionally I think it would be prudent to give Neilson game time although Hollis has done enough to remain number one for me.

Took a bit of time to explode into life but that was a really good entertaining game of football. Thought we had the better of the first half without being brilliant with the exception of the class goal. Angol's run was an absolute highlight and unlike when RObertson did it in the 2nd half he was challenged and used a combination of power and skill to get through and Anier's finish was pretty good too. Second half we contributed to our own problems with poor poor defending although the forward play by United was good. I don't really understand why Ramsden was in such an offensive position for the first one when we were 1-0 up, that is where I'd expect my right back to be ten minutes from the end if we're 1-0 down. The second one was a super break but the lack of a challenge from anyone in claret and amber was soul destroying. We took a few minutes to respond but when we did, we responded well. Lasley's free kick was the turning point in the game as it was from that near miss you could see the belief coming back and Ainsworth's hit was as sweet as a nut and got us the deserved point. Both teams had chances after that but was encouraging that even as the away team we were dictating the play and they were happy to hit us on the counter. Certainly we didn't have the hanging on by the seat of our pants we've had in the last three games. All in that is an excellent point away to an improving team. Also, after the clowns we've had in the last few games, nice to have a referee who seemed to understand the game and was consistent throughout.