Ya Bezzer!

Generally, I think if you go toe to toe with a team that's on a different level of quality you are likely to come off the worst, whereas if you try to tactically nullify a teams advantages you have a fighting chance. The thing is we are going into a game tomorrow and we don't really know how good or bad either team is.

BIGIRIMANA, Gael BLYTH, Jacob BOWMAN, Ryan CADDEN, Chris CAMPBELL, Allan CARSON, Trevor CLAY, Craig DUNNE, Charles FISHER, Alex FREAR, Elliott GORDON, Shea GRIFFITHS, Russell HAMMELL, Steven HASTIE, Jake HENEGHAN, Ben KIPRE, Cedric LIVINGSTONE, Adam MacLEAN, Ross McHUGH, Carl McMANUS, Stephen McMILLAN, Jack MOULT, Louis NEWELL, George ROSE, Andy TAIT, Richard TANNER, Craig THOMAS, Dom WATT, Luke Of course Dom Thomas and Craig Clay have left and Ellis Plummer has come in. I mistakenly included Craig Clay but that still gives you 27 players.

Loans can be used as a form of player development. Unfortunately in recent times we've used loans to simply move youth players out of the way and sideline them until their contracts run down. See - Dom Thomas, Dylan Mackin, Craig Moore, Tom Fry, David Ferguson, Luke Watt.

I've voiced similar concerns many times and I won't repeat them but on top of what you are saying above I think it's worth noting that we now have a first team squad of 28 players. That doesn't seem like a sensible number on a whole number of levels.

Funnily enough although I'm not Heneghan's biggest fan I think he's been decent in the recent matches against Rangers.

Great analysis comparing Berwick Rangers, Edinburgh City and Queens Park to Dunfermline. Add in Morton and the Dunfermline still have about 2,000 more supporters than the average of all of them.

Do you want me to post a list of lower league teams that have put us out cups? If only we could dominate Hearts at Tynecastle.

Called it.

Dunfermline have been in very good form for the whole of 2017, only lost 4 out of 25 matches - including 3 draws against Premiership teams. Think they will be up there challenging for promotion this season and I think this would be a tricky tie with Motherwell with the dreaded 'favourites' status.

Ross County away is my prediction.

He'll have another week to work towards full fitness but yeah, perhaps a place on the bench would be best. In my view Moult hasn't often played that well without McDonald to support him and today was certainly not one of his best performances. He also just didn't look happy today whether it was fitness, lack of support or perhaps behinds the scenes stuff and all the speculation around him.

Kipre. Strolled through the game. I guess we'll find out if he can actually defend next week.

Impossible. His Twitter is shite.

A wins a win but today was pretty laboured against a team three leagues below us. Berwick never really threatened us and parked the bus but they did it fairly well and perhaps we could take some tips from them about defending. Overall Moult was kept quiet and we struggled to create much in the way of chances for much of the match. In the latter stages Berwick tired as you'd expect and they started sitting even deeper. This allowed us to start getting a few decent crosses into the box which is where our goal came from but it was pretty basic stuff. You'd have expected more from all our forward going players today. Newell came on and showed a little bit of movement, Fisher was anonymous though. Frear scored the goal again you expect a Premiership level winger to doing more against part time defenders. He's got the ability to beat players but too often his final ball is poor. Very difficult to judge the team on these league cup matches as we've been handed a pretty weak draw. We've had virtually no defending to do over the four matches but I can see problems from diagonal balls being played into the space between Tait and Kipre. Look out for that. Still big question marks over players like Dunne, Fisher, Tanner, Rose, Carson etc. We'll almost certainly learn more next week than we will have over the last month.

Had most of the ball but as the game has gone on we've looked increasingly desperate and sloppy. Can only remember one save from the Berwick keeper. Berwick are well organized and have defended pretty well up to now and can't break them down. Getting nothing from the right today, need more from Tait and Tanner. Frear has been more involved but his final ball hasn't been good enough. Cadden doesn't seem to know what do when a team in sitting deep and there is no space to run into. He's been ineffective playing behind the strikers.

Looked like a facial injury - perhaps a trip to the dentist!

Will surely be 3 at the back with Tait playing right midfield and Cadden and Tanner supporting the striker.

I think making wholesale changes is a pretty stupid idea. First of all it weakens the team, secondly I think it has a psychological effect on players performance in the sense that you are giving out the idea that it is an 'easy' game or that it doesn't matter much. It's also not fair on younger or less experienced players who aren't getting the same level of support that arguably they need more than established first team players. If you want to introduce other players you should be playing your strongest XI with maybe 2 or at a stretch 3 alternated in or out. Once you start making 4, 5, 6 changes I think you are not even really learning much about the players you are putting out there.

The structure of the league hasn't changed much in 40 years in which time we've brought through a list of youth players as long as your arm, in fact, the major change over that time has been to go from a top league of 10 with 2 relegated to a top league of 12 with 1 relegated. It's simply a matter of priority. If we hadn't brought through guys like Ally Maxwell, Dougie Arnott, Phil O'Donnell, Chris McCart, Jim Griffin etc when the standard of the league was much higher and staying in the league was much tougher our last cup win would be on the very edge of living memory. The strategy is just all wrong when we release Dylan Mackin while paying out the second year of a contract to Jacob Blyth to be our fourth choice striker. That just doesn't make sense either in youth development or from a financial point of view. As for Zak Jules - the mistakes he made in a Motherwell shirt were purely negative. If they had been made by a youth player we might actually have got some benefit out of them in the long run.

Season 2017-18 Former players plying their trade in the Scottish Leagues Carswell, Stuart - Dumbarton Clarkson, David - St. Mirren Chalmers, Joe - Inverness Caledonian Thistle Cummins, Adam - Queens Park Currie, Max - Stranraer Ewings, Jamie - Dumbarton Fitzpatrick, Marc - Airdrieonians Forbes, Ross - Morton Hateley, Tom - Dundee Hetherington, Steven - Alloa Athletic Higginbotham, Kallum - Dunfermline Athletic Higgins, Chris - Ayr United Lawless, Steven - Partick McDonald, Scott - Dundee United McHugh, Bob - Morton Mackin, Dylan - Livingston Martin, Alan - Queen of the South Mensing, Simon - Forfar Athletic Moore, Craig - Ayr United Murray, Euan - Raith Rovers Neill, Morgyn - Stranraer O'Brien, Jim - Ross County Page, Johnny - East Fife Reid, Craig - Ayr United Reynolds, Mark - Aberdeen Samson, Craig - St. Mirren Smith, Darren Lee - Stirling Albion Smith, Graeme - Brechin City Stewart, Ross - St. Mirren Sutton, John - St. Mirren Thomas, Dom - Kilmarnock

McHugh was a class apart today.

I try to give as balanced a view as possible. Seems like you are the one only seeing the negative. Didn't read the bit about liking the look of Tanner? Or me saying McHugh has the potential to be one of the best midfielders in the league? Or the positive contribution of Bigirimana? But I don't mind. Steam right in with your reading comprehension issues if you like. I'm all about discourse.

I've been told by someone at the club that the strategy is definitely to move Heneghan on.

A very low key match that was almost too easy for us. Morton, I thought, were abject. However you can only beat what's in front of you and we did that convincingly. Just a few thoughts on the new look side. I like how Carson looks to distribute the ball from hand as quickly as possible but you suspect if Samson had completely missed a cross, as Carson has in both games now, there wouldn't be a jovial 'swing on the bar' chant. Defensively we've not really been tested especially today with Morton offering next to nothing but I just have a creeping fear about the back four. Kipre is good on the ball but unfortunately that's about 10% of defending and I just feel that there are errors in his game. Dunne also looks like better opponents could perhaps take advantage of careless play from him and we know all about Heneghan. I suspect this is going to be the weak part of our game this season. In central midfield we look like we have a good pair in Bigirimana and McHugh. Both look good but I thought McHugh was tremendous today and if he can keep that level of performance up, and last season seems to suggest he might, he can be one of the best midfielders in the division. Bigirimana looks energetic and quick thinking too with decent ability. If we can keep both fit then it should be a definite improvement on last season and a strong central part of the 'spine'. I also like the look of Tanner. On what we've seen he perhaps doesn't have the technical ability of Henrik Ojamaa (Mk I anyway!) but I think he can play a very similar role cutting in from wider positions into the middle. Something we lacked dreadfully last season was midfielders getting into the box and being offensive minded and on that note it's good to see Cadden getting another goal and attacking those central areas of the 18 yard box. When you have midfielders doing that it makes it much, much harder for the team defending and it's something we need to keep doing, although it should be noted that Cadden did well in the league cup group stages last season before he reverted to type and his form dropped off in the league. It's something he needs to really work on and hopefully he can go some way in the coming season. On a less positive note I have to bring up Elliott Frear. There's that much thrown up "7 assists" stat but I remain to be convinced by him, both last season and from what I've seen this season. In all three matches I've watched so far this term Frear has really been a very peripheral figure who has contributed very little. RIght now he's the player that needs to up his game the most out of what looks like the starting XI. Up front Bowman looked more like the Bowman from last season than last week. He gives you a lot of effort but considering how dominate we were in the match he never really looked like scoring. Fisher hasn't really impressed me either which leaves us with Louis Moult. Another fantastic free kick from a class act. If Moult does leave before the window I hope we have a good quality replacement lined up otherwise we might be lacking in that department. Overall a decent display against poor opposition but it's one of those one's where you aren't sure how good we really were because the opposition was dead in the water after a couple of minutes.

In what little I've seen of him he seems a lot more comfortable on the ball than off it. Probably most of what makes defenders good defenders is off the ball, reading the game, positioning, communication, holding a line, discipline, awareness etc. Like the rest of the team we'll only be able to judge when they play better quality opposition when the league season starts. Morton will be a step up but still below Premiership level.