StAndrew7

The abuse Higginbotham got that day was tremendous after he celebrated in front of the East Stand. Sure he got a double? Personally, it's the 6-5 Aberdeen game, was on the sofa ill watching the 6-6 game.

I voted no because it's not an appointment that has inspired me at all. I'm inclined to agree with others that I'm not going to wet my pants and never go back to FP but I certainly won't be singing from the rooftops about it. I guess I wanted the experience etc. but hoped for someone that hadn't managed the club before. I suppose the thing to bear in mind is that of the team he managed originally in his first tenure at FP only Hammell, Lasley and Clarkson remain, so I'm hoping he'll do what he did first time around with the remainder and get some arses kicked into gear. I wouldn't be surprised to see several faces disappear in January, right enough.

No thanks!

I'm fairly sure Dempster likes him, hence why he was named a few times when she was Chief Exec at Motherwell and he ended up at Hibs. Can't see it; like superward says he's in the mix for the Rotherham post, too.

Certainly haven't seen him around the club as much as he was at the end last season. Nowhere near the subs at HT like he was before.

We played better, if not spectacularly. I'd be incredibly concerned if Craggs got the job on the basis of that performance, though. I can really see Moult playing well off Fletcher; Skippy too. Need to work out how we'll get the three of them on the park together. Still got the fear at times at the back; Ripley is still learning his trade and it showed for their goal. Recovered well after and took a lot of pressure off the defence with some good takes from crosses. Grimshaw is miles better than Law at RB and Kennedy looks a player, some stray long balls aside.

He's had that time since East Fife papered over the cracks. This is a results business and his have been, frankly, shite.

Worse than Malpas. Players clearly don't want to play for him. No desire, no commitment and second to every ball. If he's any sort of decent man he'll resign tomorrow. Ps. I'll not be back again until he's gone, for serious. I'm not wasting my money on that again. I have better things to do with my time and money than watch the same gutless shite week in week out.

This Football Manager chat is absolutely dire; I can't believe the Beeb would even entertain it. I understand Sky jumping on it for sponsorship but it's absolute nonsense. I remember thinking the same last year when there was a guy live blogging signings using Fifa stats as his benchmarks for them.

Not exactly mobile these days, either. Wouldn't go anywhere near him.

Down in Dunoon that week, we sail over the water and a booze. Excellent.

God forbid a business recognising the rights of individuals to privacy and confidentiality regarding their employment, eh? Tell you what, I'll go and ask at your office/work/wherever about the details of your contract and see how far I get, shall I? If someone enquired about mine I'd fully expect my business to tell them to shove it. Quite frankly, the club can tell us as much or as little as they want to regarding certain things, whether we like it or not. I'm all for transparency but we don't need to be told what we want to hear when we don't need to know the answer or it steps over a confidentiality line.

Jackson Irvine was in discussions with us over a move before going back to County, seemingly.

If we lose to Killie on Saturday and then he doesn't have the team sorted post the international break (i.e. we lose/don't win the game after versus County at home) I'd fully want and expect someone else to be in charge come the Hamilton match. That'd be what, 2 wins from 8 games, one in the cup? Not good enough.

Taylor's suspended, is he not?

We'll have to agree to disagree then, but I take your points on board. I've (genuinely) never played Football Manager, though.

Thomas without a doubt, mentions to Kennedy, Chalmers and Moult.

He clapped his hands a few times, that's all I could see, really.

A bit harsh to say it's laughable. A right back who consistently lets players skip past him and chases the ball rather than marking the men he's supposed to is always going to cause problems for the centre half on this side. The first thing you're told as a full back is never show your number to the opposition; Law does it every time someone's running at him. Laing was consistently left exposed because Law left him with too much to do; every single person around me at the game last night agreed with that. I lost count of how many times he was caught high up the park and jogged back to help out, or the play bypassed him entirely, or he wasn't strong enough in the tackle to stop someone or at least slow down a break. It's no coincidence that East Fife stopped getting in down the right side of our team when Law went off and Watt came on. It was instantly obvious where the problem was from about 15 minutes in; East Fife had 3 players around Law waiting on him making mistakes they could then exploit, something they did time and time again. Laing was turned inside out a few times - he still did more than Law did in the air and in possession (when he didn't make mistakes, which I will acknowledge he did with the ball at this feet and he does need to be stronger in the tackle at times). He's far from the finished article but he looked a lot more assured with Watt beside him for the last 20/25 minutes than he did with Law.

Fair play!

As an addition to your post, Al; I thought Leitch's distribution and performance picked up when Thomas came on. Perhaps the familiar face helped him?

How on earth could that be construed as Moult's fault?

This is a bit of a mishmash of thoughts on last night's performance and how we can apply them to Saturday, so apologies: I really, really hope Baraclough learns from last night in respect to how we go about Saturday. Chatting in the car on the way home, he seems to want to shoehorn in (what he thinks is, anyway) his best 11 into the formation he wants to play. Just because it worked twice against Rangers doesn't mean it's going to work against every team we play; I hope tonight gave him the scare he needed. He certainly went ripping through the players at full time just before ET started. My biggest problem with this selection process is that we don't really have enough players on the bench capable of coming on and changing a game in our favour (Dom Thomas' performance last night aside). Josh Law shouldn't be anywhere near our team on Saturday (or for the rest of season, if my wish comes true); East Fife recognised he was the weak link in our back 4 and had 3 players marking him waiting on a mistake. Every meaningful attack came from him conceding possession or being caught too far up the park and not tracking back. Luke Watt looks far more assured and reminds me of Paul Quinn in his early days. Certainly had more dig about him than Law; time and time again Law half heartedly tried to win the ball and his leg bounced off the opposing player's. Simply not good enough. I'd potentially start Kennedy again; question is instead of who? Kennedy looks to read the game well and has some pace and ability to bring the ball out from the back and find a good pass through the midfield. I thought Laing was great in the air last night but was caught out with the ball at his feet a few times (after having won it back) and with their number 9 driving at him he was turned inside out a few times to the point he nearly lost the plot. You can see the potential he has; he reminds me of Hutchy when he first came in, raw and talented, just needing to use his brain a bit more and clear his lines one or two touches earlier. Not every ball he plays from defence has to be a through ball for a winger. Sometimes row Z or a booming clearance down the pitch is what's required. Dom Thomas showed more in his first 10 minutes on the pitch than Johnson did in the entire first half, so I'd say Marvin needs a spell on the bench and the chance to come on and prove with 20/25 minutes to go he can make an impact and change a game or put it out of the opposition's reach. He's certainly a rough diamond that needs nurturing and developing. He also looks to have lost some pace; not sure if the injury he picked up in pre-season is still causing him some problems. With Taylor suspended we'll have to go for Lasley and Leitch in the middle, which is fine (contrary to quite a few other posters, I think Leitch had a decent game at points last night; just not consistently over the whole match and some of that was down to having to cover for other players' mistakes; Ainsworth and Johnson being particularly wasteful with 5 yard passes and stupid back heels causing us all sorts of problems). McDonald needs to be in support of Moult and playing little 1-2s with him. That substitution and formation changed Moult's performance completely and he started to look a lot more assured with help around him. Also, long balls from the keeper over the top to wingers and a striker with no support around him; no, just no. We scored 3 goals from playing good, passing football in attack. Back to that and forget the long ball routine, please. Too easy an option to just keep lumping it from the keeper.

Aye, very good. As for signing another striker; are we forgetting that Fletcher is injured and we're not aware of when he'll be back yet? Would you have signed Marvin based on his before coming here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Johnson_(footballer,_born_1990)

Fixed.