Kmcalpin

Absolutely, plus bringing on subs at the right moment i.e just before individuals start to tire.

Slattery shouldn't start. Maybe give him 15/20 minutes when we start to flag late on. Swap Gordon for McGinn as Livi will be very physical. Will Longelo & Koutroumbis be fit? If we are in a position to do so, we shouldn't risk anyone unnecessarily.

I don't like Hampden for several reasons, the main one one of which is parking. For me public transport is not an option. Although I don't live out in the sticks, I would need to take 2 buses and 3 trains to get there at god knows what cost. Being somewhat naive, I thought the best place for parking advice is the Hampden Park website. As much use as a chocolate fireguard. It tells you roughly where you can't park but no more than that, unless you're familiar in detail with the area. "Glasgow City Council has an Event Day plan which will be initiated on the day which restricts parking in the surrounding areas to residents only." It then redirects you to a City of Glasgow Council parking website..........which is broken.

The same as foul throws and tackling from behind. All very random.

I think he said that McGinn's jersey was pulled in the lead up. Having said that, jersey pulling seems to be an acceptable part of the game now. Players are rarely penalised for it. Remember Scott Vernon's ahem... penalty box "tug" on Shaun Hutchinson in the 2014 Pittodrie classic (he almost ripped the shirt off his back)? By concidence, Steven MacLean was the referee, the same as last Saturday!

Aye, I'm not sure how this myth has originated. Admittedly I don't know thousands of Rangers fans personally but of the dozen or so I know reasonably well, all are Scotland fans and almost half are in the Travel Club. Our granddaughter's partner has Scotland memorabilia plastered all over their house.

Generally a good post. I'll offer some defence of Koutroumbis though. He did suffer an injury earlier and that clearly affected him. Also, he's never a left back and its questionable as to why he was asked to play there. McGinn and O'Donnell can both play there in an emergency, which it was. Longello is the only proper left back we have. Why?

Not sure about that Gaz. Yes, of course there's some; there always are. Our support like all others contains a mix of types. Some purists like pure entertainment end of. The result is almost a crude outcome. At the other extreme you have those to whom the results the end all and be all. That doesn't mean that it's about "Look at me". You're probably too young to recall the great Dundee side of the early 60s. The exact same discussion was had about them.

I sincerely hope they do, but don't think they will. If we see more performances and results like yesterday crowds will inevitably fall. I spoke to a few punters post match and commented, tongue in cheek, that both sets of fans would leave the ground happy. Our lot for having been thoroughly entertained even if only for 45 minutes, and the other lot for have taken the 3 points. That was met by a few choice remarks, which I won't repeat. Not happy campers! To attract larger crowds and retain them we need a balance of entertaining football and good results on the park. We're not doing that presently but can we achieve it? I don't honestly know - time will tell.

A disappointing outcome yesterday but in fairness Falkirk deserved all 3 points. I didn't like their tactics however and at risk of annoying the MSM, thought they were overly physical and relied on the long ball. They played a weak ref like a fiddle. In the first 45, we looked world beaters with some excellent expansive and fast football. The best I've seen for some time. However we were totally powder puff in and around the box and hardly troubled Bain for all our possession. One solitary goal was never going to be enough. If we'd gone in 4-0 up and break few would have argued and I include John McGlynn in that. We were never going to keep that level up but I was surprised that the game turned as early as it did. McGlynn made some tactical and personnel changes and JBA was outthought. On the park our midfield crumbled and we had to endure mishit passes, unenforced errors and a drop in work rate. When Falkirk pressed our defence, we looked totally uncomfortable with panicky passing. Falkirk's first goal was late in coming but come it did and the second was inevitable. Thankfully we managed to avoid losing a third. For our part I echo much of what has already been said. We're conceding too many cheap goals and I just wonder if McGinn's best days are behind him. It was noticeable that Falkirk targeted our left wing before, but especially after, Longelo retired. We sat too deep and just didn't have the midfielders to cope. We are very vulnerable under pressure. Up front our troubles continue and have now emerged as a very serious issue that threaten our season. I'm not an Ap Stam fan but presume he wasn't fit enough to start. Callum Hendry, even when match fit is not the kind of striker we need. He's not a natural chance converter. We're making too many wrong decisons in the final third. I only hope lessons were learned yesterday.

Can't fault your assessment. Martindale will have us well sussed out and will draw sustenance from the manner of our loss yesterday. Give us the ball to knock about with aplomb for 60 minutes or so, occasionally testing our defence, then make changes and go for it in the last half hour and capitalise on our errors. We simply can't go with the same approach and expect to win. Now by that I don't mean ripping our entire gameplan up; but rather introducing tweaks here and there some some personnel changes i.e. swap McGinn for Gordon. Hopefully Longelo is fit but, given our injury record, I'm not holding my breath. JBA also needs to learn tactical lessons.

I agree about McGinn. He has his strengths but does tend to come off second best against big physical strikers. You're being a tad harsh about Hendry but overall I agree about your assessment. I thought at the time he was an odd signing. He's never been a prolific scorer which is what our system needs, to be effective. He's more of a secondary striker to support the main man. I wouldn't be too hard on him today due to lack of match fitness, but didn't really see him contribute much. A decent scorer needs to be top of our shopping list come January. That could make or break our season. Finally why don't we have a back up left back???

A well constructed and thought out post Joe. I agree. We're playing very entertaining football but our tendency to lose leads is not a one off but is is now a serious weakness, which must be addressed. I'm not sure we can do that though until January. I hope we do. If this unfortunate trend continues, our crowds will drop off significantly. That's a fact. As a respected poster wrote elsewhere we don't seem to know how to defend when on the backfoot. Maybe, that indicates a weakness in our system.

Just watched the highlights of today's game. I really cannot see what was wrong with Said's disallowed goal. IF it was a foul it was soft in the extreme and certainly not clear or obvious. Why did VAR get involved?

I don't always agree with El Grew, but do so more often than not. On balance, I'm in agreement with his post. There is logic behind it. At the game and on leaving, I heard quite a few fans voicing the same opinion. Now, you may not agree with what he's written and what a significant number of others were saying and that's perfectly fine. I get where you're coming from. However, that doesn't make them funny people or their arguments ridiculous.

Not quite in this category, but Ewan Wilson was an unused sub in Raith Rovers' game with Dunfermline last night.

Some merit in what you say Joe, but the SFA received many brickbats, deservedly, for not doing enough and leaving it to others. Many positive suggestions were given to them, but as always they knew best.

It all boils down to the fact that the original refurbishment of Hampden in the 1990s was a cheap and nasty sticking plaster job. That said, finances were tight at the time (aren't they always?) but not nearly enough effort was put into fund raising. Ye reap what ye sow.

I just wonder what kind of state our squad will be in come Saturday morning. Certainly, Stephen Welsh should be a welcome returnee. Will Sparrow, Hendry, Just and Slattery be fit enough to feature even from the bench? How fit will TJ and RCC be after their international travels. Hopefully too, no more training injuries.

Maybe down to the SPFL? Club will have been told which sections to release and when.

At the semi final last year, one of our party had cause to ask a steward for advice, outside the stadium. His colleague had to intervene however as the original steward didn't speak any English.

I see there's some instructions on the Official Site. They're all good and well if you buy the tickets personally, but the process is not entirely clear if someone else has bought them for you. There is a cursory reference to buying a ticket for other people but not to receiving it from them. Also, the instructions say that the tickets are for sale to season ticket holders only, in the first instance, and that they can buy as many as they wish. They don't make clear however that they can be bought for non season ticket holders. Maybe just semantics. A right dog's dinner. Presumably there will be a physical help facility outside the stadium on matchday?

I think this is an issue for the Society and will be contacting it about this shambles. They will have more clout in making representations than a few individual fans.

The problem with using one smartphone is that everyone has to arrive together. Seems as though this system was designed by a typical tech expert (if there is such a person), to whom the term "user friendly" means nothing. I can hear them saying "what do you mean that everyone doesn't have a smartphone. I don't understand." As there will be.

I assume we will be allocated about 10,000 tickets, based on the St Mirren website info, which will be more than enough.