MelvinBragg

I don't disagree with any of that. I thought Donnelly and Maguire played well in the circumstances. Think a midfield three of those two and Slattery could work in a 352, your front two being Van Veen/Watt and Woolery...

People moaning about 433 need to have a look at what 343 does for your midfield. Effectively a 523 today. To play 343, your two wide men up top need to be players that will drop into midfield or you end up outnumbered in there. Whatever qualities Woolery and Amaluzor possess, dropping into to solidify the midfield isn't one of them. If the centre forward is being asked to do it, make it Watt as his passing is better than Van Veen's... I don't think we have the players for 343. I felt sorry for Donnelly and Maguire today. Hung out to dry by the manager....

Van Veen? Underwhelming would be my thoughts. Dives, shoots when others are better placed. Maybe he just needs a goal to settle him. To be fair, he holds the ball up well...

And your point is? We all know the midfield needs strengthening...

Club refunded the on Friday the £6 I was overcharged for the QOTS game. And have only taken £6 for the concession ticket this week. Issue resolved for me, can't speak for.others...

Aye, but did he smile...?

Four guys, one keen on the words 'paedo' and 'beast' to insult the opposition? I only ask because they were sitting not too far from us in the first half (suspect also not their seats given they were in the row in front of me about 3 seats along), but never reappeared at half time. Interestingly, I stopped to have a quick (masked) conversation on the concourse with a guy I know, wishing to congratulate him on his recent grandson. Literally two seconds, there was a steward asking me to move along. Again, I don't mind but all you'd hope for is consistency of approach...

You do realise that 352 often turns into a 3 man midfield?

You do know that's not the Dutch guy?

Cheers, mine just arrived...

Once again I ask, has anyone received their tickets yet?

Not the strongest lineup I've ever seen...

Anyone received their ticket email yet? Email did say within 24 hours. Assuming this means by Thursday morning, just wondered if anyone had received theirs yet..?

Kilmarnock...

Likewise. Wondered if it was a mistake. Guess maybe a few haven't applied as they have holiday plans (unlikely, I know) or maybe a few are wary with number of cases rising...

Obviously I looked at the same link you did initially. He doesn't seem to have played too much first team football. If the internet is to be believed (always a big if), David Devine has even played more than him with his meagre six first team games. Doesn't suggest someone that is going to be able to hit the ground running...

Unlikely given he's a forward...

Why, where's he headed?

Anyone miss the pre internet days when the first you heard of a signing was when they were in the paper with the scarf above their head? Might be noticing it more this year because a few of our signings have been trialists but very rarely do we get a surprise signing that's not been talked about for days or even weeks beforehand...

Again, while O'Donnell had a decent Euros and is a good full back at SPFL level, I'm not sure his form with us will mean a stampede of clubs looking to sign him. Celtic is a possibility, would Aberdeen , Hibs or Hearts be willing to pay a fee, even if it was set relatively low. I could be proved wrong, of course. Cadden attracted interest from down south and O'Donnell is a better player than him but there is a marked age difference there. Time will tell, I guess..

This is only tangential to the subject here but with all the talk of centre halfs on trial, I found myself wondering if these guys will be any better than the guy we had on loan from Blackburn. And it took me a good half hour to remember Tyler Magloire's name, despite his time with us being very recent. Is it me getting old or is this a side effect of the fact that we never got to see him play in person? Will we all struggle to remember the likes of Calum Lang ever playing for us?

This is true. However home advantage or not, Scotland were up against last World Cup's finalists, semi finalists and a team that beat said semi finalists in qualifying. There have been tournaments in the past when you could say "Scotland should be beating them". On this occasion, it was more a case of "Scotland could beat them if they play to their best". There were other groups in this tournament which Scotland could have got out of. The Dutch group for one...

You realise you have increased the number of Google searches into the Maltese national squad from the ML1 area exponentially? I haven't looked but I'm sure some will. The signing of Amaluzor has caused a bit of consternation on here. That's the market we're shopping in. The talk of a smaller squad with higher average salaries is naive, given the injuries we had last season. Am I enthused by the signing of a winger from National League South? Not particularly but I'm not sure he'll be a nailed on starter, possibly a plan B? Perhaps the reason I'm not as vexed as some on here is that he's already been training with us. We've not simply judged him on his performances at that level but had a look at him in the context of our squad. Which kind of brings me to you pointing out we have a few trialists in at the moment. Trialists can often be seen as a negative but going forward, it may be something we rely upon more heavily. If you accept that pretty much every signing we make is going to be a gamble to some degree, a way to improve your odds is to see them in training up against the players you already have and also how they interact with the rest of the squad. We might need to get used to a large proportion of our future signings being trialists...

Celtic have neither a right back nor much money...

With that post, I assumed grizzly had hacked your account. Turns out that's his name...