Kmcalpin

Even that isn't enough. We also require an impartial referee.

I get that. However, our problem is that our midfield, even with the likes of Nicholson, Paton, Slattery etc is simply not set up to, or capable of, screening the defence. That immediately puts the likes of Wilson, Gordon and the Ox under pressure. We badly need an Ally Mauchlen, Stewart McLaren, Colin O'Neil, or Steve Jennings to stick their chin out, get in their faces and make tackles 40 or 50 yards out.

Agreed but we don't have the midfielders for that. They will outmuscle us in midfield. No red cards or injuries please. Surely that's not a lot to ask for?

Agreed. Its a feature of modern day policing that tolerance is shown to large crowds, irrespective of behaviour, and they are afforded leeway that isn't extended to other smaller groups. That said we can look back to Helicopter Sunday as an example of how policing at football matches was carried out even then. I was encouraged by the official Police pre match hard line about ticketless fans and Celtic fans in the home stands. In the event they turned a blind eye. Thats what they'll do on Sunday. Thats not a criticism of individual officers incidentally, more of the higher echelons and politicians.

I get where you're coming from, but Stama doesn't seem like the kind of player to leave up front on his own, especially without support. We'll also need pace if we want to break out of defence quickly so should we introduce Kaleta for Wilson? I agree with Sparrow's introduction, if fit, of course.

Is SK's preferred 5-3-2 / 5-3-1-1 / 3-5-2 / 3-5-1-1 working for us? More often than not its some variation of 5-3-2 as we rarely have more possession than the oppostition. Do we have the players to play it successfully? To play that system successfully you need one or two fast wing backs and we only have one in the form of Kaleta (came on in 77 minutes on Saturday), who hasn't featured much. I can't comment on Koutroumbis, as we've never seen him. Such a set up also needs pace elsewhere for it to work successfully and the only other quick players we have are Vale, who is injured long term and Maswanhise (introduced on 61 minutes on Saturday). Another relevant factor is that many of our goals this season have stemmed from set pieces. Anyone who was at Fir Park on Saturday would testify to the chronic lack of pace and laboured pedestrian build up. Now its impossible to be 100% certain of course, given our long, but nevertheless still increasing injury list, but this does point to recruitment failures. Players might not necessarily be poor acquisitions individually, but they have to gel together as a side to complement each other's weaknesses and strengths. At the moment, even with injured players being unavailable we do seem to have an unbalanced squad. The team is unquestionably not greater than the sum of its parts.

Probably but they worked damned hard off the ball to close us down quickly and harass us.

100%. We badly need a physical defensive player who can hold his own in a midfield battle. That would take the heat off Lennon Miller and protect the back line. It might well have nullified the energy of Cameron yesterday. Davor is that kind of player but isn't at the level we need.

You're on the money. We have a number of strikers, with different styles, but none that really work together. So far, they have simply not delivered, for a variety of reasons. Some of that failing is down to a weakened and unbalanced midfield. In short, some of these problems are down to ineffective recruitment. Likewise, we have an unbalanced midfield. We have one lightweight and ineffective defensive midfielder in Davor. Again that's down to recruitment. It was very evident yesterday. Yesterday's game was similar to many of our wins this season. It was very tight and we lost out possession wise. The difference was that we didn't convert any of our few chances and our set pieces were unproductive. Some fine tuning of the midfield and strikeforce required in January. That will probably require a departure or two and some wheeling and dealing

It is a big problem yes, but not the big problem. We also badly lack a decent defensive midfielder hence one reason for the poor possession stats. Robinson is lightweight and can't compete with hulking centre backs. He can't hold the ball up. He might be OK as a secondary striker but the problem with that is that we already have Ap Stam, Ebiye, Vale Watt and Stuparevic for that role. Despite our plethora of strikers, we lack a main striker, someone to take the weight off the others if you will.

It didn't take its toll on Dundee who had 6 away on international duty including the energetic Cameron.

That was it for me. This game was lost off the pitch. Dundee had done their homework and nullified Wilson and Miller. We had obviously never heard of Lyle Cameron. They applied a high energetic press, knowing that our defensive midfield is non existent. Today our midfield was not at the races and that caused us problems at the back and for our 2 strikers. We afforded a grateful Cameron the freedom of Fir Park both before and after he scored. Their goal was anticipated by almost everyone around us. That was down to SK. The front 2 struggled in the first half and quite plainly high balls isn't their forte. One look at the Dundee defence at 3 pm should have told SK that. Ap Stam apart its not clear what our best striking partnership is and SK clearly doesn't know either. Time for the ineffective Robinson to be rested and Watt brought in. I assume Ap Stam went off feeling ill. He looks useful but a bit lightweight. The ball simply isn't sticking up front. A priority for me in the January window is a solid physical defensive midfielder. Davor is simply too lightweight.

Spot on young man. We'll also see if Dundee's international travellers make it.

As I understand it, the panel must have concluded that, in Soutar's case, had he not handled the ball, there was very little chance that the attacker would have managed to get a shot on target. In other words there was no goalscoring opportunity. Soutar's handling of the ball was irrelevant to any potential outcome.

So how does this translate into actual overall numbers of tickets sold?

This video covers many issues, but I'll restrict my comments solely to Lennon Miller's goal. On watching the highlights, I quickly came to the conclusion that it was impossible to tell whose arm the ball hit first. It seemed to me that the ball was sandwiched between between the defenders's arm and that of Lennon MIller. That seems to be the review's conclusion. I'll probably be banned by the BBC now for making inappropriate comments - not hard these days though!

Will Ap Stam have recovered enough from his international duties to play a significant role?

Yes, these days keepers need to be 6-3 minimum. The Ox is 6-4. Goram got away with it because he rarely need to take an aerial ball as the then Rangers central defence was huge and well capable of cutting out any airborne threats. Jocky Robertson was great for his height but he was from a bygone era.

Probably started before Stevie Hammell took charge of our Academy. Down to good coaches.

Sounds a right down to earth young man. Good luck to him. It would be great to extent his contract.

I've watched Ap Stam's goal over and over and will never tire of it. It wasn't just any old goal it was a real striker's goal, as they said on Kingdom FM. The lad can certainly finish. A venomous strike. A phrase I hate hearing when we're attacking is that it was a good strike but the keeper made a great save. That usually suggests to me that the finish wasn't quite 100%. Certainly not the case yesterday. Josef Bursik is a damned fine keeper but there was no way he was saving Ap Stam's effort. I'm looking forward to seeing more of his finishing!

Yes the figures don't stack up. Assuming the away stand was about 60% full (just over 1,000 fans), then the rest of the stadium must have been about 96% full. It certainly didn't seem that way. Still a healthy crowd though.

With the nature of the news and media these days, and changes to the way our Police operate, its very, very difficult to get an informed and objective report on events, be they international, national or local. In such cases as this, its a known unknown. Most of us know very little, if anything, about what actually took place.

That's why the attendance was so impressive 🤣

I wasn't at the game but watched the highlights. A good, but close, win at a difficult venue. What a finish from from Ap Stam from a very tight angle. I'm sure there's more to come from him. Disappointing to lose an avoidable goal so quickly through SOD'S dithering on the ball. What a throw from Balmer to set up a classy volleyed finish from Halliday. The Kettle is still boiling!