Ya Bezzer!

For me all the pressure was on St. Mirren on Wednesday, if we had lost we had a few other eventualities we could cross our fingers for, including winning a play off, but for St. Mirren it was do or die. For this match all the pressure if on us. With Ross County almost certain to get 3 points on Saturday we have to win or it's going to take a miracle for us to get away from the play off spot. Partick Thistle are in pretty good form and 5-1 victory aside we have a pretty poor record at Firhill. We played very well but St. Mirren were abysmal, we will be playing a much better team at the weekend. I expect this to be a tough, tough match. Fingers crossed!

McCall made a complete cunt of the beginning of the season but you can't blame him for relegation. We were clear of the play off place by a distance and then we had a terrible run through January and February when we were utterly pathetic. As well as not getting any points some of the major drubbings we got at that time could still put us in the play off place on GD. Baraclough tried to change too much, too soon and the risk he took is still wavering on a knife edge going into the game on Saturday. I was never McCall's biggest fan but if he'd been allowed to bring in two Champions League level players in Pearson and McDonald it's hard to believe we would have struggled so badly in the first place.

Jury is still out on Baraclough. We were 5 points clear of the play offs after the win against St. Mirren in December and the horrendous run afterwards under his charge might still put us down. Certainly we've improved massively over the last month or so but it could be too late. Hopefully not, obviously, but it could be. Saturday is massive because with Ross County playing St. Mirren I think we really need to get a win or we are overwhelming favourites for the play off place. Whatever happens I think if we can perform at our recent level till the end of the season, then he deserves the chance to continue.

For me you could give it to Erwin, Ainsworth, Lasley or McDonald. Tough decision but I'm afraid I'm going for Lasley again. He played the full 90 minutes.

Superb performance, although it has to be said St. Mirren were terrible. Totally dominated the 90 minutes and with better final ball and a wee bit of luck with offside decisions it could literally have been 10. I honestly don't know who I'm going to give the man of the match award to. Erwin was outstanding in the second half maybe faded a bit in the second half. Ainsworth ripped them to shreads. Lasley was tremendous, as was Pearson until he got injured. Johnston did well, Sutton came on and scored 2 goals, Dom Thomas has come on and produced some outrageous skill to set up the 5th..... Unfortunately Ross County won so Saturday is going to be a huge match.

James McFadden playing his first match in a while for St. Johnstone. Do us a favour James!

Permanent.

I came on here to be very bullish about the match and then something crept into my head. "What if Alan Gow scores?" The answer to that is I'll probably have to be diamorphined by four sturdy men and a doctor.

I'd be very wary about bringing Hammell in. Sure, we've missed him but he's hardly played this season and he's come back only to break down again. I don't think he's essential to defeating St. Mirren tonight and I'd keep him back for now.

This. We might not score 3 but this is the attitude you have to have at the bottom. We have the points advantage, the GD advantage, we've got better players, we are at home and we are in better form. Go into this game with nerves and we are a Championship club next season. St. Mirren HAVE to win, all the pressure is on them and we should be piling it on them instead of worrying like some old dear. If we score the first goal their moral will collapse.

Probably favourites now, with Hibs bottle crashing. However Rangers next game is away at Qos, and the last two matches of the regular season are against Falkirk and Hearts. They have improved but they are not putting teams away, even their recent 4-1 against a terrible Cowdenbeath team needed 2 very late goals to make it look more convincing than it was.

2013-14 - 11th - Hibernian - 35pts 2012-13 - 11th - St. Mirren - 41 pts 2011-12 - 11th - Hibernian - 33 pts 2010-11 - 11th - St. Mirren - 33 pts 2009-10 - 11th - Kilmarnock - 33 pts 2008-09 - 11th - St. Mirren - 37 pts 2007-08 - 11th - Kilmarnock - 40 pts 2006-07 - 11th - St. Mirren - 36 pts 2005-06 - 11th - Dunfermline - 33 pts 2004-05 - 11th - Dunfermline - 34 pts 2003-04 - 11th - Aberdeen - 34 pts 2002-03 - 11th - Dundee Utd - 32 pts 2001-02 - 11th - Motherwell - 40 pts 2000-01 - 11th - Dundee Utd - 35 pts In an average season 36 pts keeps you safe. Doesn't look like it's going to be an average season.

Obadeyi, from what I've seen of him this season, is a very good player. He's going to give any full back problems.

Partick are actually in pretty good form at the moment. They've beaten St.Johnstone, Dundee Utd, Inverness and got a draw at Pittodrie recently. The only team to beat them in the last 5 was Ross County. Given our record at Firhill, which if you take away the 5-1 victory last season is pretty poor, I don't think anyone should be too bullish about beating Partick. That is going to be a difficult match for us. We are also going to be under a lot of pressure in that match because even a draw probably isn't enough, assuming Ross County beat St. Mirren. I believe the Ross County/St. Mirren match is played on the Monday which gives them a bit of advantage there as well.

We need to be utterly ruthless on Tuesday and plunge the sword right into their chest. No fucking about, no nerves, no harking back to previous games, no thinking about Ross County. We are in a gladatorial battle with two others, fighting for survival and on Tuesday one of them is on their knees and we have the chance of finish them off. Of course we could have done the same to Ross County earlier in the season and we turned in an insipid performance and they haven't lost since. Obviously not seen St. Mirren since the last match but by all accounts in the last few matches they've looked like a beaten team and they've only scored once in about 5 or 6 matches. Tuesday is do or die. Kill or be killed. That simple.

Long was garbage yesterday from virtually the first minute. He missed everything not just the cross that led to the goal. The first time he caught the ball was in the 32nd minute and Kilmarnock must have had 5 or 6 crosses in that time and a couple of shots. For a big boy he has no presence about him. He doesn't use his height and weight at all and as far as punching the ball goes Twardzik is much better. Twardzik has made some errors but over 25+ games and he's turned in man of the match performances and kept us from getting right drubbings. Long has probably had as many mistakes now as Twardzik in a quarter of the matches. Twardzik has a better clean sheet record than Long, and Long has been playing in a team that's performing much better with a half way credible defence in front of him. I said after the match yesterday that Baraclough will have to have a hard think about it. The stakes are huge now and I'm afraid confidence in Long is being whittled away, something we really don't need when we are battling for survival. No one wants to change a goalkeeper at this stage in the season, in our position, but we just cannot afford any more mistakes. However it is in goals has to perform. End of story.

Not exactly damning evidence.

St. Johnstone are in decent form, I think that's our best bet of any other team beating them at the moment.

It actually looks EVEN worse in the highlights and it looked pretty bad at the time. It's like he was blindfolded or something.

I don't go with this argument. If it's 0-0 and a forward misses a sitter it's still 0-0. If the goalkeeper makes a howler it's not. The two are not comparable in terms of consequence. At the end of the day you can't put a goal that was actually scored next to a theoretical event that might have but didn't happen. However I do agree that Erwin is getting plaudits because he scored a late-ish goal and because of that people forget the preceding 60 minutes of the match. The manager brought on Sutton and switched Erwin's position for a reason.

We were much better with Sutton at centre forward than Erwin. Defenders fear Sutton, they don't fear Erwin. Just having Sutton on the field changes the whole KIlmarnock approach to the game. Also, Erwin was a completely different player today when he went out wide. Bringing on Sutton and putting Erwin out wide was the key decision in the game and we looked miles better for it. I never said anything about Sutton being MotM, I just said we looked much more dangerous as a team when he came on, which was undeniably the case.

Are you saying we were better in the first 58 minutes than we were in the final 32+? Kilmarnock slightly shaded the first half. Second half we were well on top, especially after Erwin went out wide replacing Grant who contributed nothing.

First of all after a pretty ropey start to the match I thought it was a well deserved victory and pretty encouraging because Kilmarnock aren't a bad team on the evidence of the last couple of times that I've saw them. The second half performance was strong, particularly after Sutton came on. On the negative side though I can't agree with some of the posts I've seen saying Erwin was man of the match. I thought he was pretty poor today until Sutton came on and he got shunted out to the left. From then he was good, you felt from his body language that he had a point to prove and he took his goal very well but he is still very, very raw. Other areas of concern were Conor Grant at left midfield. He just can't play there and is a waste of a shirt, when he came off and we moved Erwin out there we improved enormously because we had play coming down both sides something that just hadn't happened before in the match. Thirdly, George Long is mince. Another goal conceded today that should never have happened. He looked like a bombscare from the first whistle and it was hardly a surprise when the goal happened. He has his team mates to thank for getting him out of jail today. 2nd half performance was very encouraging but I think Baraclough should be thinking about the points I've raised above. Long is worse than Twardzik and I think he really needs to look at it. We simply cannot afford any more mistakes from him in this run in. Secondly when Marvin Johnston isn't around Conor Grant just isn't an option in that position. And thirdly we look much, much, much more dangerous with Sutton on the park. Big disappointment concerning the Ross County result but we have the chance to bury St. Mirren midweek. If we play like we did second half today we should be up to the job.

I'm pretty sure that to this day Tommy Coyne is the only player to finish a season in the top league as top scorer with three different clubs.

Got my biggest ever football related kicking after this game just outside Queens Park station. Proper on the ground kicking/stamping the fuck out of me, type deal. The fact that they were so fucked off about the result means I can have a chuckle about it though! 2-0 up was it? Oh dear!