Kmcalpin

Agree that you do want a spread of ages, including younger fans, but if I recall rightly the club asked for volunteers. To my knowledge no-one was rejected (does anyone know any different?). If thats the case it implies that no younger folk volunteered.

Thats a point in itself. Ability/effectiveness aside, it might take a few weeks or even month or so to get him match fit. It'll depend on when he last played. If we look back to Alan Gow it was a good 4-6 weeks before he was able to play a full game.

Can I ask how many posters on here have seen Francis Jeffers actually play, as opposed to watching him on the telly. Just curious.

The same was said of Derek Adams whilst he was at Fir Park.

One of many such incidents I'm afraid. He decided to "take one for the team" and rightly paid the penalty for it. No sympathy for him absolutely none.

The problem is we would have to rely on them which is totally wrong. By all means introduce them gradually but we shouldn't be relying on Under 19s. We need a short term solution or it will cost us cash.

Not bad luck just bad decision making by the management team. Stevie Hammell pulled up and indicated he wanted to come off. The management team told him to stay on despite Craigan's pleading. You could see the Killie bench telling Clancy to start bombing up and down the wing and Stevie couldn't track back. The rest is history. Quite a few POD Stand punters weren't pleased at Black & McCall, but everyone is entitled to make mistakes. A bit of a smash and grab last night but the script was obvious early on. A lot of pressure but problems getting efforts on target. Strikeforce was lightweight to put it politely. Killie might be a decent footballing side as the media aren't tired of telling us but they also have a nasty cynical side which wasn't pleasent. Rough justice on Frazer Wright though. He tried to "do" Chris Humphrey, but failed fortunately, then one of our lads took exception and Wright came off worst. Its going to be a long hard run up to the end of the season. On the evidence of the past few games we'll finish about 10th. Off the field issues are costing us dearly.

I saw little over the 90 minutes to encourage me. He contributed little and looked far too lightweight. Still give him another chance.

Pretty much with you on that Al. I'm not for blowing cash for the sake of it, but this smacks of short term gain long term loss. What would it have cost to have brought in a good striker on loan for say 4 months? Maybe 15 X £4,000 a week = £60,000. Now there's no guarantees of course but that could translate into a higher league placing or two worth say £80K/160K + increased crowds. The probability is that it would at worst break even. Thats not even taking into account a decent cup run. As it is I can foresee us finishing in about 9th or 10th place. Our squad was paper thin at the turn of the year and we lost 4 members of that and only replaced two. Its not rocket science to envisage that even one or two suspensions or injuries at the wrong time could be very damaging for us.

Spot on. Sutton: limited and not suited to playing as a lone striker. Murphy: not an out and out striker Casagolda: untried. McHugh: inexperienced, the jury is still out, and he's out for up to 6 weeks. Smith: young and inexperienced. That doesn't fill me with confidence.

Yes Jim. He was an under 19 and thought himself too good for us and couldn't wait for his first team chance. A young man in a hurry.

Couldn't agree more. I can well understand the need for a cautious opening to avoid an early goal but I cannot understand sitting too deeply when opponents are running at your defence. It doesn't matter how poor the attacker's shooting might be in theory, he might hit an uncharacteristic one off thunderbolt, it might take a deflection, the goalie might make an error. You just can't take unnecessary chances - we did and it cost us. Even the poorest of opponents can deliver on target if given sufficeint space and time.

+1 Surely the scope of this investigation is limited? Given that you'd think things would have been concluded by now. Had we acceded to the SFA's request not to play Steve Jennings how long would he be sitting on the sidelines for? Its time this was put to bed either way.

Thought we played reasonably well yesterday and couldn't be faulted for effort. We played at something like 80% - 90% of our potential whereas Rangers played to something like 60% of theirs. Understandably Stuart McCall was anxious not to lose an early goal and we didn't although we gave Rangers far too much respect in the first half. Their first goal as a bit of a let down as our midfield retreated, exposed Randolph and allowed their lad to fire in a shot at goal. Their second goal was a bit of a disaster for Stephen Craigan, although we were stretched at the time. Steve Jennings was rightly MOTM for his effort and industry in the middle of the park (wonder what the SFA will have made of that ). Thought Shaun Hutchinson too put in a good shift. Overall though our midfield lacked creativity an we needed a good box to box player. Again service to Murphy and Humphrey could have bene better but in fairness Murphy is not a left winger (or left back). A typical Hampden semi final defeat for us - so near yet so far. Still we avoided a hammering and collected some cash in the process which is what most of us would have settled for at 5 to 3.

Stuart McCall got his tactics almost right but not quite. Agree Murphy can't play wide left, and he should not have played there. In the first half we played far too deeply and that possibly cost us the tie. Rangers' first goal was horrendous defending and there really was no need for it. Second half we were too slow to make changes. Still SM managed to prevent us from sustaining a hammering so he did something right. Report card: reasonable but scope for improvement.

On the basis of a total 58,000 attendance, I'd guess about £150,000 net plus programme and catering sales tomorrow.

I and a good few others think the same. Over the years he's been relatively steady with the odd blunder here and there but over the past 12 months his weaknesses have become more frequent, and he's also lost a bit of the albeit limited pace he had. We need to plan for nwext year. If he wanted to stay he'd provide good back up to younger players.

Surprised that the highlights didn't show Chris Humphrey's amazing sprint back to save a certain goal when Darren Randolph advanced up the park for a late corner. One the most amazing sights I've seen for a long time. What a run! Probably the only highlight of the game for me.

Good post and I agree with a lot of that. Giles Coke wasn't the greatest and he was a bit mercurial but we badly need someone to fill that role - someone with a good engine to motor up and down the park (a Vauxhall Insignia rather than a Bentley). The central midfield hasn't been right for some time now and neither has the striking partnership. Many of our problems stem from these areas of the team. Its worth noting that CB couldn't get it right. Jamie Pollock and Steven Meechan may make it time (equally they may not) but right now they are not the answer, and we shouldn't expect them to be.

It may have looked greener but the surface was poorer - one of the reasons why the ball was in the air so much. During the game the ball also took quite a few horrendous bounces.

An interesting comment, if you don't mind me saying so. Yes, it is very early days - far too early to judge SM. We have to wait until he's had time to bring in his own players and put his own stamp on the team. However, usually when a new manager takes over there's some kind of uplift in a team's confidence and performances. This simply hasn't happened. When you say you haven't noticed any dfference, do you mean compared to Craig Brown's team or Gordon Young's temporary reign?

That about sums it up. A dire, lacklustre performance. Although we may have had a lot of possession much of it was in our own half, passing back or across the field. St Johnstone weren't great but had much more desire to win than us. We came off second best physically helped by yet another shocking referee. A controversial penalty settled the outcome and the players' reaction at the decision speaks volumes. I can stomach poor play, misplaced passes and errors but I can't accept lack of effort and bottle. Too many players simply weren't prepared to go into 50/50 tackles and thats no good in my book. The defence, Humphrey and Jones (who had a good second half) can be exempted from that criticism. Whatever the reason we showed no fight whatsoever and thats not acceptable. Our build up was painfully slow and the front men showed no movement off the ball. Central midfield was nothing short of abysmal - no fight, no pace and no creativity. John Sutton is simply not cut out for this style of play and Stuart McCall has to learn this quickly. We played to St Johnstone's strengths and our weaknesses. All too often our only ploy was to pump the ball up to Michael Duberry in the air. Substitutions came too late and were ineffective in any event. Apologies for the downbeat view but it really was that bad. Our players are no world beaters but they are capable of turning in better displays than that - someone has to ask why they aren't.

If you're going to Perth on Wednesday you'll see a really poor pitch. As for tractors damaging the surface...a complete red herring. Every club uses them as it simply isn't realistic to do everything manually.

The Kingom Dossers will be there. A poor rutted pitch won't make for silky football but it'll be a good test of character for the team.

I missed the numbers yesterday - does anyone have a note of the winning ones?