Kmcalpin

I wasn't at the game, so could you elaborate?

Exactly. All keepers, and indeed players, make mistakes and I accept that. My point is though that dealing with high balls is a weak part of his game. I accept that you can get keepers who are relatively small but who are great in the air. The late Jocky Robertson springs to mind. But, they are very much the exception. My knowledge of the English Premier League is limited, at best, but I do know that the Chelsea keeper, at 6-0, is the smallest in that league. He's an outlier. Andy Goram famously said that he didn't do cross balls, because of his height. He was an exceptional shot stopper and that was his role. To compensate for that, Rangers had 2 full backs whose job was to prevent any crosses. In the unlikely event that the opposing team managed to get a cross or corner in, then they had 2 huge central defenders whose job was to protect Goram. Last season, JBA's approach was to retain possession to such an extent that it was unlikely that our opponents were unlikely to test Ward much in the air. This season I don't know if we've got this quite right.

Yes, I think he can contribute to the first team this season and I doubt if we'd let him go and certainly not without another midfielder arriving.

Good post Joe. Of course, things are still to settle down and we're still very much work in progress. AJ has still to mould the players into his system. I'm not privy to all the detailed metrics that our recruitment team uses to identify and source players but I'd be shocked if physicality and experience don't come into the equation somewhere. Surely a keeper's qualities should dovetail with those of the defenders in front of him? Like it or not, and I don't like it, many other teams will test us out at set pieces and crosses and we have to be prepared for such tactics. Years ago, I was castigated on here for wanting bigger, more physical, players in our squad. I had a hard, maybe impossible, task to convince some others that that didn't equal thuggish hammer throwers. Freiburg proved my point. You can be a faster, more skilled but bigger athlete than your opponents. Usain Bolt was hardly vertically challenged at 6-5 and 15 stones in weight but he was quite fast. It seems like an oversight in our summer recruitment, which to be fair, seems to have gone well in most other respects.

True up to a point Grizzly, but I feel we have missed Stephen Welsh at the back. He is a big lad and no-one pushed him around. Also Elliot Watt is somewhat bigger than Joe Hodge.

Persistent rumours on the P & B Ayr thread that they want Olly Whyte on loan. IF that is the the case then we'd need to bring in another central midfielder.

Good post and I agree with you. Paulsen is a great shot stopper but too small and poor in the air. Thats why he has no future at Bournemouth. We could cope with that if we had three 6-4 defenders but we don't. A weakness in our recruitment strategy? I agree about another defensive midfielder - someone with a bit of physicality please. As for SOD - a big season for him. Is he past it? Add to that, Sparrow is not a right back.

I'd happily settle for a draw in this one.

I would have taken a draw at 3pm after our Euro exertions and so I'm happy with the result. However, I'm not impressed by the manner of it after having been 2 goals up then losing 3 in a crazy 10 minute spell. That can't all be put down to tiredness. Plenty of positives though like TJ getting back on the scoresheet and our debutant scoring a cracker. Also a few returning from injury. However, we are short of a fit right back just now and I'm not sure our defence has the height and physicality to cope with rivals. Midfield also seems talented but lightweight. Its a young side we have and we seem to lack leadership and experience. Early days and our season won't really begin until after next weekend, but a few concerns starting to emerge.

The last few domestic games have taught us that we are short of physicality and leadership/experience on the pitch.

We can't even blame it on second half tiredness.

We're not a physical enough side.

Get in!!

Should have been a retake due to encroachment. Poor officiating.

No Wilson either.

Yes with an overhead kick.

A wee bit lightweight up front today?

St Mirren's new striker is, surprise surprise, 6-3.

In my student days I went into a pub in Duntocher and asked for a pint of lager and everything went deadly quiet. We soon realised that anyone who ordered beer was perceived, by the regulars, to be extremely wealthy. The barman refused our order and served us ELD, which we necked rapidly and then exited, never to return. Sorry for straying off topic.

Ha, how could I forget it!

No Buckfast in those days. It was Four Crowns or Eldorado. Otherwise known as paint stripper.

We're in that twilight transitional zone between old style paper tickets and electronic ones. A bit like supermarket checkouts and cash v electronic payment. It seems harsh on primeval dinosaurs like me but I suppose clubs need to unilaterally agree to simply stop paper tickets. If you can't handle electronic tickets then we don't want your custom. That time is coming shortly, rightly or wrongly.

Well, if they can do so in other European countries like France, Belgium, Austria and Denmark our governments should be able to do so here. We don't need to reinvent the wheel.

Nothing wrong with that as long as they're physical wee fellas in the Ibrahim Said mould. Also as long as we have height and muscle in the right places and spread throughout the side.

Its a societal problem in the UK as we saw yesterday in a few totally unrelated incidents. The UK and Scottish Governments need to get together for once and ban all face coverings. End of.