Kmcalpin

Tonight was never going to influence our position much. It was the hardest of our remaining games and a narrow defeat was very much on the cards. Our season starts next Friday.

I wonder what Dundee United pay for youngsters (from professional clubs that is)?

George Long is quite entitled to feel hard done by at the goal. The scorer should never have been allowed time and space to get so close to goal and be able to fire off an almost unstoppable shot unchallenged and at close range. It was the level of defending you'd expect to see in a school playground.

Or only clubs who don't want to be ripped off.

You've hit the nail on the head. Defending is a team game and we should look also at the amount of cover in front of the central defence prior to the ball being passed out to our right but yes, Josh Law appears to be in no mans land. Whatever the reason, we tend to lose this type of goal quite often. In the second half Magennis continually had acres of space on our left but fortunately his teammates didn't use him much.

Maybe I'm biased but the amount of diving going on in our past 2 games is nothing short of ridiculous. Managers are standing and watching this cheating from less than 10 metres away and doing nothing about it. It makes you wonder if players are actively encouraged/coached to do this. There was one instance yesterday of a Killie player going down, as if poleaxed, when in fact there had been no contact whatsoever.

Johnson for me. Law was good on the ball but poor off it.

A point won and we're off bottom so thats progress but in reality we dropped 2 points. In general we're playing far better now and creating far more chances. Poor finishing and bad luck denied us though I guess. Referee's decision to book Johnson was nothing short of absurd and if the Referee Assessor agreed there was contact then the yellow card ought to be struck off. Straker was the better of the 2 full backs as Law started out badly and suffered a bit of a roasting but then settled down came on to a better game. Skippy's fine goal was just reward for a cynical Kilmarnock side. Gary Locke ought to take a hard look at his charges, watching at close quarters as he did, several of them take blatant dives, none of which were punished. In fairness though Killie looked a half decent side. Onwards and upwards.

The club will not have paid Gunnar off in full - that would simply cost it more money and be of no benefit. Some compromise will have been reached.

He could never produce his undoubted talent on matchday and thats why he wasn't our number one choice. Two managers came to the same conclusion. An extremely talented goalie by all accounts but he never lived up to the promise.

Agree in principle but the problem is that some wingers, like players in general, may look fantastic in training but don't translate that form to the pitch on matchday.

We shouldn't underestimate our achievement Graeme. Admittedly Brill, Warren and Watkins were all out but the latter two were suspended not injured and that reflects indiscipline. It was also Ofere's first ever game for Thistle, having just signed. We had injury and absentee problems of our own and you equally well argue that the loss of Hammell, ZFA and Lawson weakened us.

I'd go along with that. They're by no means free of the relegation mire. St Mirren also have a toughish run in. A lot will also depend on how the authorities arrange the post split fixtures. As it stands I think numerically we will be due 3 home games and two away. However, we would only be due to play Ross County and Kilmarnock at home on the basis of fixtures after the split.

He should play again this season though there's no guarantee when.

Had a recent setback - 3 weeks. Maybe back for split?

And yet Dundee United and Inverness are two very physical sides who throw their weight around. Inverness were lucky indeed yesterday not to pick up 2 straight reds.

Very much so Andy. I suspect that most of us thought that Saints and Ross County were capable of picking up points yesterday and they did. On the other hand they knew we hadn't won a game in 2015 and weren't going to win yesterday and to be fair many of our own thought that too. On the contrary we did. They would have thought they were playing for the play off place. That would have sent shock waves through their respective dressing rooms. The C & A down and outs aren't down and out after all. Whats more Scott MacDonald wasn't fully fit and will only get better and the same could be said for Stephen Pearson. They'll know we did well yesterday but that we'll only get better.

The point I was trying to make, obviously not successfully, was that we've discussed many weaknesses/failings/issues on these boards, call them what you will. I had assumed that IB did not agree or was just oblivious to them but that isn't the case. He sees players on the training pitch during the week and that isn't necessarily translated onto the field on matchday. He comes across as a courteous polite articulate guy who can talk well, but there's much more to him than that.

Grant does impress me and was a standout at Dingwall. As you say though he's not a wide midfielder and we can't really judge him until he's played in the centre with someone outside him. Keith Lasley too was never a wide player and he looked far better when he was moved into the middle a few years ago.

What has an anti lock braking system got to do with football?

Having spoken to Ian Baraclough on Thursday night, it soon became clear that he is very aware of our shortcomings - many of which have been articulated on these boards for some time. However they are not as simple and straightforward to remedy as I had thought.

A great win today against a hard and cynical Inverness side. Possibly our best performance of the season, with plenty of fight and determination on offer. A good team performance with Pearson and MacDonald pulling the strings. Skippy added much needed mobility and energy to our attack and he didn't give the Inverness defence any time or peace - just what we needed. He also encouraged the younger players and brought out the best in Erwin. Pearson added some much needed drive to the midfield. Can't wait to see him fully fit. A cracking first goal with Grant supplying an inch perfect cross for Laing to bullet home. The goal we lost we very annoying with Law and McManus not covering themselves in glory although overall they played well. The former was posted missing when the Inverness had all the time and space any player could ever want to sling over an inch perfect cross for their debutant striker to outmuscle the latter. The one disappointing thing for me today was Inverness's behaviour. A fantastic young talent like Ryan Christie should not be throwing himself to the deck every time he loses control of the ball, and certainly not right in front of his manager who ought to have taken action. The Inverness scorer was very fortunate indeed to see half time having committed two horrible fouls for which he ought to have been disciplined. The ref was very pernickety and inconsistent. For our part we still had weaknesses. Our midfield was still too narrow at times especially on the left hand side but luckily Inverness never took advantage of this and it looked a wee bit devoid of confidence for short spells in sitting too deep and allowing ICT to have sight of goals. Not sure about bringing Sutton on but we did win and you can't argue with that.

It was very noticeable that Stephen Robinson was extremely active on the touchline. OK he wasn't jumping up and down or shouting and roaring at the players but he was continually coaching them - pointing out positional advice and encouragement. Almost certainly he had a hand in the tactics.

See you there big yin. Coffees / bovril are on you.

Yes Jack Leitch is back in training although nowhere near match fit I'd guess. Good news for the lad. His biggest drawback is lack of pace and so will need some speedy lads to support him. If Pearo is fit he has to play wide left to plug that huge gap there and give the LB some cover. If he can do that then we'll lose less goals.