Ya Bezzer!

We can't have had many teenage central midfielders that get into double figures in league goals having missed the first quarter of the season. In fact I'm struggling to think of a central midfielder that got 10 in a season of any age.

Today was a huge reminder of how much we owe Turnbull and Hastie this season. It was a match full of mistake and errors but we deserved the HT lead, Accies were surprisingly passive and you'd have it thought it was them that were safe. Even then there were signs all through the match that defensively we'd blow it - despite not coming under a huge amount of pressure. Second half we just got sloppier and sloppier while Accies came out a bit more aggressive. Given the warm weather we had to make substitutes but the guys that came on regressed us and then it was Grimshaw that made the mistake we'd threatened to make all game. After conceding we completely lost the place and we're lucky not to lose it.

I'm not saying throw all the academy players in but I think their is a scope for giving two or three of the front runners 4 or 5 games and others cameos. You are right there is a cash difference there between 7th and 9th but if we could establish over the next 5 matches and perhaps even the league cup group matches that these young players are good enough, even as squad players that would save us considerable monies. How much money have we spent on bring in players who made no impact? We must have spent a fortune on duds in the past few seasons. AND we still have a chance of finishing 7th.

7th would be better than 8th or 9th but the rest of the season should be geared towards preparing young players for next season. Instead of pitching them in next October when our arse is hanging out.

And I was just saying why I don't think he's a winger.

Fair enough, you've put your cards on the table there, but he doesn't have the technique to beat a player from a standing start which is about 50% of what a winger does. In fact he is one of the players who was always giving the ball away pre season revival. We've been much better since him, McHugh and Bigi all disappeared because their combined ball retention was shocking. All Cadden can do in that position is to gallop after long balls and we are supposed to have moved on from that. For me Cadden has a lot to do to become a first team player again. Nothing against the lad, I was a fan of his three seasons ago but I think that says it all. He's been going backwards for too long and he seriously needs to carve out a niche for himself because right now, he's a guy you bring on at the end of the game for a wee bit pace. Needs to improve his basic technique big time and add goals to his game. Cadden has 6 goals in 109 league matches. Hastie got there in 14 matches....

What position would you play Cadden in? For me he's a player that's lost his way to such an extent I don't even know what he is any more. Right back - no. Winger - no. Attacking midfielder - no. Defensive midfielder - no.

Let's just hope he doesn't get played in midfield.

The only way to combat this is if anything is thrown on to the pitch the match is abandoned and awarded 3-0 to the other team. Of course no one wants something as draconian to be put in place but unfortunately I believe there is no other way to stop it. The people doing this are walnut brained roasters and only the harshest punishments are going to make an imprint in their feeble minds.

I'd agree with you on the second goal. Turnbull was more to blame for the third goal than the second one but the truth is all three goals were down to failures right across the board.

No one really set the heather on fire but by a process of elimination I got it down to Grimshaw, Campbell and Hastie. Out of that three I think I would go for Hastie. Seemed like our best bet to do something in an attacking sense and like in the recent Hibs match he looked to me like the only guy who was making himself available to forward balls. Didn't quite come off for him but he tried hard under difficult circumstances.

Richard Tait gave the ball away twice in the first three minutes of the match. Ball retention has been a big problem right through the Robinson era and it's the single most important aspect in modern football.

I'm not discussing other games, I'm discussing this match. We had to make a change and didn't. Would it have won us the match, salvaged a draw or even got us a consolation goal or a better 2nd half performance? I have no idea. What I do know is it was obvious we had to make that change or cede the match to Rangers and that's what happened. At 0-3 the game was dead. Robinson then made changes that improved us a bit long after the horse had bolted. I'm certainly not criticizing Robinson for losing to Rangers, I'm criticizing him because he didn't make the decision to change it while it was still cogent.

Well I said he was better than McHugh or Hartley, so his come back did improve us, but I think my point still stands. Dunne is fine when his physicality and pace can get him through matches, last week for instance against a Chris Kane level player. When he's up against actual footballers I don't think he's defensively good enough and his poor distribution is also amplified when we are playing against better quality teams. If you want to finish 7th, 8th, 9th that's probably achievable with Dunne in the side but I'd question how much further we can go with that level of central defender.

I'm afraid Robinson is back in my firing line again after that. I read Japanese better than Robinson reads a match. It was obvious at 55 minutes we had dropped right out the game, nothing was happening, Rangers were gaining more and more ascendancy and the third goal was more or less inevitable and Robinson sat and watched and guess what....Rangers score about 5 minutes later to kill the game. Coaches can take the team during the week, the line up came be picked by a committee but that is when managers earn their money. A decision was required and Robinson wasn't up to it. Also his tactical inflexibility isn't good enough. You can't just go with the same shape every match and then run that into the ground until it's useless. We've lost 4-1 v Celtic, 2-0 v Hibs, 3-1 v Aberdeen and now 3-0 v Rangers. Any team with any semblance of quality about them is hammering us. Maybe the manager needs to pick up on that and try and identify the problems, our own shortcomings, what the opposition brings to a game, our strengths, our weaknesses. But no, the Robinson way is just to do the same thing over and over again because at some point we had a wee bit of success doing it. Overall the match was sub standard and sloppy from both teams. We weren't outclassed but in an error strewn match we made worse mistakes. All the goals we lost today were poor, poor goals to concede which only strengthens my opinion that we aren't good enough across the back line. At 0-2 down we showed little heart until the changes were made far too late in the match. Since there is going to be a fairly major rebuild in the summer I'd suggest that Robinson uses the matches to blood younger players and experiment with formations. Let's try and actually learn something from the matches and I'd much rather do that than win 5 out of 5.

I'm happy with Campbell, Turnbull and Gorrin as a midfield three. Of course Gorrin has been linked to other clubs and you'd be daft to think Turnbull won't attract attention but if we can keep this group I think the midfield is decent. The Hastie thing is still unresolved but we will need at least one new winger, perhaps two. A striker is obviously a must. As I've mentioned previously I think we need to re-work the back 4. If we want to challenge for the Top 6 I think we need to be stronger in this area. Gillespie as goalkeeper has been great, for me he's the number 1 now. However I'd like to see Tait go back to the right back and a new left back brought in. Aldred will leave which is a pity and while I think Dunne is fine for bottom 6 football, I don't think he's good enough against the better teams. The other guys we have, Hartley, McHugh are behind Dunne so I think we need to ship them out and bring in two new centre backs with Dunne in there for competition. So just for starters, in terms of starting XI, we need a left back, two centre backs, one or two wingers, and a striker - say 5 first team level players at the very least. Then we might have to replace the likes of Hastie, Turnbull and Gorrin. So just for the first XI next term I think we are looking for between 5 and 8 first team level players. Robinson is going to have a busy summer.

Aberdeen are weird. Turn Sam Cosgrove into a goal scoring machine but have the opposite effect on Stevie May and Greg Stewart. So if Main does go to Aberdeen he'll probably get 15 league goals.

I've since caught up on the midweek football and it looks like it'll be Defoe rather than Lafferty starting. Also no trains running to Motherwell/Airbles tomorrow, wonder how it will effect the attendance.

I'm be more excited about Morelos missing out if Lafferty wasn't coming in. In some ways I'd rather Morelos started than Lafferty. Rangers missing Kent though is probably the biggest boon. He is their major creative force. Hopefully Gillespie will be fit and make it. I was on holiday last week so I've not seen any of the highlights yet and I don't know how serious a knock it was but I'd be a bit worried about the young keeper starting because I think defensively we've still got a lot to do and we aren't that good at back when we come up against even a wee bit of quality. In fact I think our back 4 will have to be re-invented if we want to compete for a Top 6 place next season. With that in mind I was also thinking about Liam Grimshaw. A player 4 months ago I'd have fired out the club but over a period of good form won me over. Since he signed this new contract he's been pretty poor again against Hibs and St. Johnstone (didn't see Aberdeen match, see above). I know, it's only two games but you start to think maybe this is a guy that only plays, consciously or subconsciously, when a contract is to be won....he'll be a player I'll be watching with special interest tomorrow.

I'm on record as saying Hastie would score the winner in this match. I stand by my prediction!

If only Jim O'Brien had scored that last minute penalty it wouldn't be quite so bad!

It was just a throw away line at the fact our striker has 1 goal in 19 matches. Untwist your knickers.

Put it this way. Accies went up there and won between a 5-0 pumping off Rangers and a 3-0 pumping off us. Aberdeen have won 2 out of their last 8 matches. The goals they conceded against Hearts were a joke. We can totally go up there and get something but I was a bit concerned by the almost 'end of season' feel to the match on Saturday. Hope we can stay motivated with Top 6 more or less done now.

Yeah, that's what I was doing....

It's going to be a case of rip it up and start again in the summer. Looks like at least half of this current XI is not going to be here next season and most of them are players that have been crucial to the turn around. You'd also be daft to think clubs would be circling around Turnbull just cos he signed a new contract. It's going to be another big summer for Robinson and he'll need to do a lot better than last time. Re-signing Gorrin is actually quite a big deal I think, so I for one hope it happens.