weeyin

I doubt this will be a game for Semple. St Johnstone are going to be in full bully mode today trying to kick us out of our rhythm.

It's listed as a video stream for tomorrow.

I missed us accepting any bids for him in January.

Grimshaw does just fine at right back. It's the left back position where we find ourselves short again with Dunne injured and Carroll suspended. Apparently Mugabi also played full back at Yeovil from time to time, but that was on the right side. So no help there.

Have you been watching any of the EPL this season? VAR has not changed the decision on any of these kinds of incidents. The referees (and these aren't refs who magically get better because they are sitting in a VAR booth) who review the decisions are set the standard that the on-field decision has to be "obviously wrong". They have been taking the stand that literally none of the decisions are obviously wrong and letting all the original decisions stand. Even when there have been blatant penalties and obvious violent conduct fouls, no action has been taken. The only time VAR is changing things is during the mandatory review of a goal where sometimes they are being disallowed due to an offside or a foul in the build-up. And even those are controversial when they are tight. Partly because it's a human being rather than a computer that draws the line on the screen to assess offside decisions. So the decision can be different depending on who draws it and where. And partly because the resolution of the images means that you can't freeze at the exact moment the ball left the passer's foot. The biggest issue, however, as I mentioned above is that it's the same pool of Football Association refs reviewing decisions that are refereeing games. So the same level of incompetence is applied.

I wasn't joking when I posted that in the summer.

Tait's biggest weakness is his lack of pace. In the past, his other talents have compensated for that. When he plays like he did against Hearts in the cup game, his lack of pace just amplifies his mistakes. (Unlike, say Dunne, who has the pace that can get him out of trouble when he screws up). I don't know if he was injured or sick for that Hearts game, but it was one of the poorest performances I have seen from him. The fact that we won the next 3 on the bounce when he was dropped meant there was less chance of him making a come back.

I thought Polworth went off because he was injured. Just a guess mind you, but he did take a thump in the first half in particular. Regardless, Robinson is spot on when he pointed out the stupidity of taking a quick throw when we were trying to manage the game. We didn't make mistakes like that against Hearts.

It could be a smart PR campaign by us, to add weight to our case for compensation.

It's reached that stage of the season where Scott and Cole need to start scoring. (And Long picking some more up would be useful too). I thought they both had decent games, but like Main, if they end up as hard working non-scoring strikers, their value is diminished. Cole was a little unlucky with the goal as he was setting himself up for a 1 - 2 that fell nicely to Campbell instead. He has been looking fitter and sharper the more game time he gets. Scott works well out on the wing, so his scoring opportunities are more limited, but I'd also still like to see a goal or two from him. Thought Campbell was the best of the bunch, and one of the few that played at the tempo required to have won this game.

If we get through the winter and still think we have too many players, then fair enough. It wasn't that long ago we lost out on a top 6 place largely due to our inability to field 11 first team players in December. If we get to February and it still feels like we have too many, it's not the worst problem in the world.

I was the exact opposite. The Accies, Hibs and to a large extent, Hearts games, I felt we bossed for the most part and created enough chances to score double the amount of goals we did. On Saturday, it felt like we were slightly lower tempo, and we weren't creating anything up top. First half in particular I lost count of the number of passes in the final third that ended up 20 yards in front of the intended target or drifted out the pitch. The County keeper barely had a save to make. Compare that to last week when we were hitting the bar and the keeper was pulling out saves to keep the score respectable. I also felt the defence was a bit slack throughout the game and had been so used to attacking in recent games, were forgetting their defensive duties at times. County have some good players up front that need close attention. When the decisions started going against us (disallowed goal and penalty decision) I had a feeling that it wasn't going to be our day. The first time I have felt that this season - outside the Celtic game which I wasn't expecting much from. I don't think we were terrible - we just dropped below our recent standard. And as Robinson always likes to point out, in this league, if you drop your standards most teams are capable of taking advantage of it.

Could see this coming after we proved incapable of turning all our possession into clear chances. County always capable of scoring.

Poor defending to let County back into the game. Need to make more chances when we have possession.

County started like they wanted to bring the game to us, but after the first 15 or 20 mins we pushed them back deeper and deeper, without any real quality in the final third. They still look dangerous when they break forward, but those breaks have been less and less frequent. We started the 2nd half with a higher tempo, and that has paid dividends with that nice goal. (It's only really Gardyne that has been falling over easily, but that's nothing unusual). Couldn't see much wrong with Gallgher's goal unless there was a foul miles away, and we could easily have a pen (that should at least have seen us awarded a corner).

Lacking quality in the final ball right now.

Ridiculous. 4 - 3 (Erwin hatrick)

I think the general point was that he'd do better in our first team (or an English lower league's first team) than warming Ranger's bench. And so far that is proving to be true. If Rangers follow their usual path with youngsters and move him on after 2 seasons, then he'd have been just as well signing for Rotherham. All that said, another good advert for the quality of youngster we develop. Most teams seem impressed by the professionalism of players they get from us.

Indeed. I've also noticed a spike in the "Arbroath player is a bin man" and "non-league FA cup player is a plumber" stories recently. It's like the 70s have made a comeback.

TBF (and I hate to be fair to Sportscene), as the first goal didn't impact the overall result, there was no real need to cover it in the time allotted.

I agree that the prices are too high. On the other hand, I'm not sure what the answer is, as the majority of income for Scottish clubs (including ourselves) is gate money. If you drop the prices, the number of extra punters you need to bring in to make up the difference is significant. The other option is cut expenditure, but that brings its own set of challenges given how tight budgets are these days. In an ideal world, we could bring in extra cash from better sponsorship and TV deals, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.

The comments I've heard from Craigan is that he's definitely a good footballer, but sometimes lacked the confidence to get as many goals as he should. Hopefully those goals will come - although it's not as easy when you're out on the wing.

I thought the O'Dea move had happened weeks ago. The announcement certainly wasn't news. I guess he must have been working his notice.

The great thing about Wullie P is that, when you look at the highlights on youtube, he's still as good as I remember. Which isn't always the case when you reminisce wearing C&A tinted spcs.

I'm still waiting to hear the story behind Jake Carroll never going to play for us.