Andy_P

Perhaps. But in fairness despite the fact it was County who equalised in injury time that afternoon, we were the team fortunate to get a point that day.

Just about built up enough of a stomach to venture on to the match thread for the first time since last night. A thoroughly depressing night and results today have only magnified the frustration. I have to say I expected better. We didn't play well but did have chances and had we taken them and had a bit more luck we could quite easily have won that game. But coming away from it never for a second did it feel like we hadn't got what we'd deserved. Again like Firhill it was so reminiscent of earlier in the season where you get the feeling our number is up if we don't happen to get in front. The team's confidence looks so fragile that some of them give the impression they don't believe they can recover from adversity. And that makes it all the more frustrating when some of them appear to chuck it with a fair chunk of games remaining, Given the recent improvements desperately disappointing as Firhill was I could give the team the benefit of the doubt in having a bad game. They happen. But last night was pretty much the same all over as soon as Hamilton got their second. What's gone before has gone before but last night was the first of a series of games where it demands 100% regardless of score or circumstances from the first to the last and it's up for debate if we got that from everyone. Miserable.

This doesn't go towards the fans player of the year.

Serious. Deadly serious.

Blah de blah de blah......

Perusing Soccerbase and there's Motherwell in big bold letters. Not really in a good way though.... http://www.soccerbase.com/news/football/motherwell-5-4-to-claim-playoff-success/1862058/

I can't quite remember if it was one or both of them, but as far I know at one period of negotation there was an off-setting of a slight reduction in terms with what the player(s) would garner through a Testimonial Year. I'm pretty sure though that each of their last three contracts with us have all been two-year deals.

Aye, same as last time BT Sport.

You wouldn't think so but this is the SPFL and SFA we are dealing with here! Or perhaps I should rephrase that, this is the SPFL and SFA's broadcasting partners we are dealing with here...

Top flight team is at home in the 2nd leg of the play-off so the Scotland game at Easter Road is a bit of a red herring when considering the dates.

Current scheduled dates are Thursday 28th May and Sunday 31st May. With the Scottish Cup Final on Saturday 30th May and the Champions League Final on Saturday 6th June, they don't have much scope for movement. It appears it would either be Tuesday 2nd June and Friday 5th June or Wednesday 3rd June and Sunday 7th June.

I'm looking no further than Accies but if dealt with properly then the fact we are in action on the Friday night can only be a good thing for me. Get three points in the bag and see how the rest deal with it on the Saturday. The second Friday, we'll need to see how the land lies around that point before we know how significant it is playing a day early.

Good to see the steady stream of guests continue to be lined up! Just a thought though? What's the plan for the close-season. Hopefully you'll continue to be recording throughout the summer yeah? Without knowing how extensive your contact list is, is it maybe worth holding a guest or two back to tide you over the close season when discussion material might be that wee bit more thin on the ground?

Crikey it's amazing how reading one line can spark your train of thought. For some bizarre reason the closing song of Tiger Tim's radio show from about 30 years ago came into my head reading Yassin's post. "What are you going to do after the Tiger's gone" I think it was with its line about I think I'll cry cos he didn't say goodbye. From this I remembered the football quiz they used to broadcast on a Monday night. This is what passed for Monday Night Football in those days for those fortunate enough not to be around then! And it struck me that 30 odd years ago when I was listening to that quiz we'd probably have been in the First Division. I brought my reminiscent wandering to a speedy close at that point. I blame Vigours......

Suggesting the odds and probabilities are we will finish no higher than 11th, given where we are today, would seem perfectly realistic to me. If on the other hand you were insisting that we were doomed despite having a slim chance to get out of it automatically and have a play-off beyond that, yeah I would have termed that as being negative. No need to request a formulae to disprove your belief though. I haven't read them personally as I believe it's better to re-assess the battleground as it were on a game by game basis. But enough have already posted potential escape routes however fanciful they might be if you are seeking inspiration. Interesting that you've chose to throw in the "better supporter" accusation though. Not quite getting that. Everyone has an assessment of where we are and where we will be come the end of the season. All I've consistently tried to do is offer an alternative mindset of dealing with the situation than running about shouting to anyone who'll listen that we're doomed. I'm no less or no better than any other supporter because of that. But I will "fuck off and gee you piece" as you put it. Said my bit a few times over now. Each to their own how they deal with it, I know how I'm approaching the games ahead.

I would hope you aren't including me in this apparent "holier than thou crew"; or feeling I've somehow harangued the guy? I've hardly been indulging in the Jim Murphy style shouty pointy finger stuff when responding to his posts. Perhaps expecting the worst, hoping for better is Milo's emotional defence to the unravelling of things but I'll go back to the statement made in the Thistle thread about effectively being relegated before the split as the trigger for me responding. I thought it was daft, said it was daft. Milo responded much more reasonably I felt thereafter. No outrage here. But whilst there's there's a chance of staying up automatically, never mind winning a play-off I don't see that it does a great deal of good, asking that we consider life in the Championship. The time for that for me is when we are confirmed as playing in the Championship. That's the time to let rip with the fury about the manager, the players, the worries about the future and whatever else. The focus for me has to be on the here and now and dealing with it as positively as we can. Everyone is entitled to post their opinions and views no question but what I'd say is that a drip-drip-drip effect of negativity in this current situation is only likely give people the jitters and add to any anxieties and the concern for me is that if you go into a game with your support tensed up and ready to explode if things immediately don't go well, then that's not going to help the situation much. I often read people justify rants and outbursts on forums (not specifically here I hasten to add) by saying they are doing it online, not at a game and so where's the harm. But remember too that some folk come on to forums not to vent their spleen but to reassure themselves that others too believe as they do and to find hope. Is it so much to ask that for the greater good, if you genuinely think we're up shit cheek you haud your wheesht for a few weeks and just try to be positive? Plenty of time for I told you so's and finger pointing further down the line if the worst does indeed come to the worst.

I very much doubt it Jim, but you never know. But if you go back and see the post immediately above the reply you've quoted you'll see the reference to being effectively relegated by the split. Milo has come since back with a much more reasoned and reasonable response but seeing that on the back of a few other posts and tweets prompted the remark. It all sounds horribly happy chappy but painful as the predicament is, we dust ourselves down, focus on the next game and back the team as much as we can. Negativity and defeatism that transmits itself to the team won't do us much good.

Tedious reading how many supporters appear to have thrown in the towel.

Today illustrated the difficulty of the predicament that were in. Great as it has been winning those last three games there is virtually no margin for error and the implications of anything that doesn't go our way is all the more severe. So not only are we gutted at the defeat the chances of finishing 10th now appear to be hanging by a thread. As regards the game I thought we edged the first half although never at any time did we look particularly good, and the closer it got to half-time the more Thistle were coming into it. Sutton scores that chance after 2 minutes and who knows how it might have turned out. But we really missed Johnson, and the changes made in his absence appeared to inhibit us greatly. Easy to say in retrospect but should we have gone for Dom Thomas as a direct replacement? Could we even have putt Luke Watt in at left-back and had Straker in left-mid? I don't know but we were crying out for a change to return the Erwin-McDonald partnership up front and it never happened. The second half display was pretty awful and akin to much of the dross that has put us in this very position. We never looked like getting back into it from the minute Thistle scored and they ended up comfortable winners. About the only sensible piece of management that was visible today was removing Lasley before Bobby Madden did. We can only hope St Mirren do us an unlikely turn (though if they win that and then get pitched against us in the first game after the split that might bring it's own new set of worries), regroup and rebuild with hopefully the return of Johnson, Grant and maybe even Hammell if we're lucky in a fortnight's time.

Your thoughts and votes please...

It would be nice if there's a little subterfuge at play here given he missed the Kilmarnock game last week. If we can't decide whether it would be Erwin, Grant or Thomas as possible replacements then Thistle won't know either. And all the better if in the end it was Johnson after all!

I'm not sure to be honest. In certain circumstances I think yes, others no. I like the idea of it being another avenue for a First Division team to get to the top flight through it but think perhaps it's quite a long drawn out process to get to the play-off final. I mean was it six additional games Hamilton had to play over and above the regular season to get promoted last season? And when you look at the Second Division where after the league season is concluded, 40% of the league will then be involved in a play-off then I think that's surely taking it a bit far. Yet by the same token in much the same way as the split in the Premier League has the potential to extend the interest factor right up until the end of the campaign, so too do the play-offs. The only thing I'm really certain of is that it'll be a helluva nervous few days if we ever happen to find ourselves involved in them.

Well I can't give you the minute detail you are seeking in terms of fitness YB but we have subsequently employed a Sports Scientist/Performance coach to tackle the issue and I have heard both Les Hutchinson and Baraclough speak directly about it. If folk as high up the tree as those two are speaking about it then I'm quite inclined to believe there was indeed a concern. You would need to go back and listen through the podcast he did with the BytheMin guys but Les Hutchinson clearly referred to the fact his eyebrows were raised that when he came in and saw a training set up that was at best along similar lines to what he'd been involved in as a player thirty years ago. If memory serves me, he went on to make the point that was also made at the AGM that injuries had cost the club a six figure sum in medical bills for operations that were required - the inference pretty clear that things could have been better. Again going back to the AGM Baraclough referred the fact that more preparation work was being done than previous, before the actual training sessions themselves started. There was a focus on strength and conditioning with a much more more of a personal emphasis. From memory there was a mention about yoga being one of the new routines employed with senior players buying into the ideas when seeing the potential benefits of having their careers extended. An ongoing benefit is the signficant reduction in strains, pulls and soft tissue injuries that our players have been receiving. So yeah there's a difference between appearing unfit and actually being unfit. There's also a clear difference between having a player available for selection and as well prepared as he possibly can be to one sitting in the stand injured.

Who signed Pearson and McDonald? You're not going to suggest to me it was all down to Flow and Baraclough had no say whatsoever in it are you? Drastic changes? Like changing training routines to get the players fitness levels up? Like giving Thomas his debut and regular starts for Erwin? Changes of which we are seeing clear benefits now. Look, I think he's got plenty wrong and the jury is still out. On that I can't disagree, but do think it a bit unfair to suggest that everything that went wrong before is solely on him yet he has had minimal influence on the recent turnaround. That to me i a bit skewed in thinking.

Whether you intend it to read as much I don't know, but you almost appear to be implying that everything that happened on the shocker of a run was down to Baraclough but almost everything in the recent turnaround has been in spite of the manager. Evidently you're not a fan of his.