Ya Bezzer!

You can't blame McCall for playing Ferguson. It's obvious that he only played him because there was no real choice but what you can blame him for is from deviating from our normal tactical set up and putting out a formation where we played a narrow three in midfield and left a huge wide open space in from of a young player making his debut in an unfamiliar position on his wrong foot; and what protection he did get was from another young player, making only his 3rd league start, again in an unfamiliar position of wide left attacker. To compound that even further the central midfielder furtherest left, was Josh Law, another player out of position! And Law was, in my opinion, the worst performer out of the midfield 3. If we had played our normal 4-4-2 at least Lasley and Carswell are both used to that set up and playing in those areas of the pitch, something Josh Law clearly wasn't. And even if Law had had to play at left midfield due to no one else being available, at least he would have given Ferguson a bit more protection. We played as follows .........................Twardzik........................ Reid...........Kerr..................McManus.......Ferguson ........................Carswell........................... ...............Lasley...............Law.................... Ainsworth.............................................Erwin .........................Sutton......................... You can see the gaps down the side above but, believe me, it was much more apparent on a 100 yard football pitch. Ferguson often had about 40/50 yards of wide open space in front of him. No wonder he was clearly shiteing himself!

Stevie Woods was a great survivor but any time we had a good goalkeeper in the squad he found himself on the bench. Sieb Dykstra and Scott Howie, his predecessor and (first) replacement, were streets ahead of Woods as goalkeepers. It goes without saying that even a reduced Andy Goram was far better. Mikko Kaven was a better goalkeeper than is remembered. Go back and watch the highlights if you don't believe me. Francois Dubourdeau was a poor to average keeper, similar in standard to Woods, which is probably why they switched places a couple of times. Mark Brown was also much better than Woods but wasn't incumbent for very long due to administration. When Gordon Marshall came in it was like night and day after Dubourdeau and Woods. Someone that could actually organise a defence and catch crosses. No coincidence we started to improve as a side after a period in the doldrums that more or less coincided with Woods periods of first team action. He was a good penalty saver and a decent shot stopper but I always say those are the easiest part of goalkeeping. His handling, competency at cross balls, ability to command and organise the penalty box and, infamously, his distribution were all poor and often very poor.

If Carswell and Lasley are to blame for our dearth of creativity and goals then perhaps the critics need to ask themselves how we managed to score so many goals last season. The creative players in our squad are Ainsworth, Vigurs and Ojamaa. Vigurs didn't start and has been injured. Ainsworth has been terribly off form and Ojamaa didn't start and isn't match fit. How the above facts can be laid at Carswell and Lasley's door I'm not sure. I also said at the start of the season that we'd miss McFadden and I think that's proven to be the case so far. Our creative players aren't there right now and that's why we aren't creating, blaming other players is a nothing but a deflection.

I think it's nonsense to say our player of the year last season isn't good enough after watching him 3 times this season. Lasley's performances have been poor but they have to be put into a team context and the facts are the entire team haven't performed in 5 out of 6 halves of football. Our defence is out of sorts with the injury situation, we are missing experienced players like Ramsden and Hammell, the one player in the squad with a bit of vision, Vigurs, has also been missing, we don't have a wide left player at all and Ainsworth hasn't kicked a ball. We need to get our strongest XI out as soon as possible in our favoured 4-4-2 formation and after half a dozen games then we can make judgement calls but now is far too early to be writing players off, no matter how they have performed up till now.

Lasley was very poor against Stjarnan and mediocre in the two league matches but I don't think he's been the worse offender. Josh Law has been dire since he got those two early goals against Stjarnan and far and away our worst two players so far this season have been Lionel Ainsworth and John Sutton.

This is how we lined up today ...................Twardzik........................ Reid........Kerr..............McManus......Ferguson ...................Carswell........................ ............Lasley............Law.................. Ainsworth..................................Erwin... ....................Sutton......................... We had 5 in midfield and it did not work.

People are talkng about our lack of fitness. Is it lack of fitness or is it because we are chasing the game from the first minute of the match to the last?

The two centre backs and the goalkeeper were the only ones that could be satisfied with their performances. Twardzik made a couple of good stops and had no chance with either goal. Kerr was the pick of the outfield players and I've given him the nod.

I agree mostly but as far as I could see we had three central midfielders today. Law and Lasley were the central midfielders, Carswell was playing behind them and Ainsworth and Erwin were out wide.

The first half was an absolutely woeful. The worst I've seen us in a long, long time. It reminded me of the Kevin Christie era performances where we didn't even look like a professional football team. Our positional awareness was terrible, we could not keep the ball, the movement was poor, everyone had their head down and no one was trying to take the game by the scruff of the neck. The second half we improved slightly but not enough to ever look likely to score a goal. There are two points I want to make about the game today. 1 - Our formation was all wrong today. I didn't see how we lined up against Dundee Utd but against St. Mirren we played our standard 4-4-2 and St. Mirren dominated the midfield by having 5 in there. Today we played a sort of 4-3-3/4-5-1 style formation, presumably to stop us being dominated in the middle of the field and it was a complete disaster. The poor young lad Ferguson isn't good enough for this level right now but he was hung out to dry by not having a midfielder in front of him. 2 - I've seen us three times now this season and every game we've been technically poorer than the opposition. St. Mirren and Inverness have passed us off the park in the space of a week, while we constantly give the ball away. Even Stjarnan were better than us. People are talking about our fitness, well our basic technique is well below where it should be. A big improvement against Kilmarnock is essential our else it might well set the pattern for the season.

Chat like this gives me the fear. Considering we still have an injury crisis, we've not really played well this season and our two new loanee signings are probably miles off the pace I don't think we can afford to be that confident. I'm hoping we will win but at this stage that'll do me.

Well, he is now!

He wasn't even the worse goalkeeper at the club last season!

We shouldn't be playing guys in the wrong position. Ferguson should play if Angol and Hammell aren't fit.

He'll be hoping his centre backs don't malky him like the last guy!

Didn't surprise me that he went off injured on Wednesday because I thought he was really struggling on Saturday. He could hardly move. Fair play to him for going out there but it was a shame for the guy.

Can't read too much into form at this stage in the season but Accies gifted Inverness their goals on the first game of the season and they couldn't score at home to Dundee. Also worth noting that Foran hasn't taken part in either game, I assume through injury. Don't think Inverness will be high scorers but they have 2 clean sheets out of 2 so far and I think that shows where their strength lies. Ryan Christie will be the danger man as Billy Mackay's goals have dried up since Hughes took over.

Yes, but I would have been more annoyed if we had gone down the Man City youth team route as was suggested. I'm happy to have Ojamaa back but its important to remember he won't be at the same level as when he left us as he's not been playing. The young players, Erwin in particular must still get game time, it's up to McCall to make sure they get minutes on the park from the bench and that the team is rotated more than it has been.

Worth noting that Player of the Season Kris Commons scored 26 league goals from 104 goal attempts last season of which 5 were penalties. Sutton scored his 22 league goals from 66 goal attempts of which 1 goal was a penalty. I'm guessing Sutton had the best goals to chances ratio of any significant goal scorer in the league last season, as he also had a much better record than guys like Billy Mackay, Stevie May, Niall McGinn, Kris Boyd etc. He's also on course to beat Stevie Kirk's 63 league goal total. The highest player goal total in the top league since the beginning of the Premier League era. Erwin deserves a chance but he needs to play with experienced players, not replace them.

I think we probably have lost fans because of our wretched cup performances and European matches but I'm not sure if cup success would actually increase our fan base. Have Kilmarnock or St. Mirren seen an increase in support? Did we after our cup win? I'm afraid there is just a general decline in Scottish football and until we have better players, more money and real competition that decline isn't going to be halted. People aren't stupid. They know they are watching poorer and poorer fare at higher and higher prices. The only answer as far as I can see is all league income being pooled and evenly distributed and the chances of that happening are probably zero.

There are about 700,000 people live in North and South Lanarkshire and within that boundary there are four professional teams which if you added up the average attendances of you'd have something like 7,000 supporters. Clearly there is just an apathy and lack of interest in local football.

Kevin Kyle? Direct replacement for Anier, aye? Kyle has more or less given up on professional football because of his fitness and he makes John Sutton look like roadrunner. No chance we are even looking at him.

I think he played in Dougie Arnott's testimonial as well. Had put on a few pounds!

Hopefully he can make a good recovery. Was it him that went on the speedway bike to hilarious consequences? Think it was but my memory isn't what it was.

Dundee United are a counter attacking team so hopefully we are smart enough not to give them the room to attack into.