MelvinBragg

Who's your midfield three then? If he sets up 352 with that personnel then it should be an automatic sacking offence..

At the minute, for me the jury is out. One young centre back away on loan, a striker sold and a centre midfielder moved on. A winger returning from a loan spell at Alloa, another winger in on loan and a striker returning from injury on loan (albeit a striker with an excellent pedigree). I like the idea of adding pace and width but how we plan to set up is a mystery to me. Robinson has talked of now having 433 as an option. Where does McCormack fit in there? As the central striker? Not the best use of his talents. 352 to allow him to play off a main striker makes the signing of Aribiyi and recalling of Hastie pointless. Before anyone points it out, I know it's good to have different options but the thinking doesn't seem very joined up to me...

I agree with pretty much all of what you've said and your last post brought back into my mind a thought that had occurred to me a couple of days ago when reading the McKinstry story. Semple was being touted as a real prospect two seasons ago and yet others seem to have moved ahead of him. Has his progress stalled or is it a case of openings in his position being limited?

On our budget? A striker with all those attributes? You're not asking for much....

I was only kidding. But bearing in mind we replaced his width and pace with Petravicius, Ainsworth was nowhere near as patchy as some made out. And yes, nowhere near as good as others made out As far as I'm concerned, for the playoffs and for the cross to Moult at Douglas Park that pretty much secured our safety, I'll always think of him fondly...

Cue some people asking if we should bring him back...

My money is on three at the back with Tait playing centre back and Grimshaw and Taylor-Sinclair as wing backs...

The Ryan Mason injury did nothing to change things down in England so I don't know if a serious career ending injury would even change things up here...

Sammon, I don't mind. Why bring (rush?) Hartley back from injury on that pitch? On this season's form, Maguire or Tait would do no worse anyway...

And so you don't have one shoe, I'll eat the other one...

The choice of club captain in the summer was, for me, a huge mistake. While realising it's really a symbolic role, the fact that the role was given to a player who is all mouth with an inability to back it up kind of sums up our season...

I made this point weeks ago. If you'd said to any of us the start of the season that we'd concede one goal in each of those home games then you'd expect that we'd have got points from most of those games if not all of them. Certainly suggests that the defence isn't the main problem. Or it's certainly being put under too much pressure by our lack of goals...

How did we initially set up?

Hartley should be nowhere near the team...

Same 352 as last Saturday then. Slight concern that it was so obvious that we'd go with the same team that St Mirren have had all week to plan for it...

Not surprised given he has had previous run ins with officials. Banned from the touchline for three very important games so hopefully he learns his lesson...

Notice Dunne came off with 3 minutes to go. Injury?

We've changed the back three in that McHugh has gone back to play in the back three with Mbulu dropping out. Not entirely surprised by this. Robinson likes McHugh so I didn't think he'd drop him. By playing him in the back three, it hopefully limits the amount of chasing the ball he'll have to do. As I stated before, the midfielders and strikers will have a lot of chasing to do tonight so playing the guys unlikely to start on Saturday makes sense...

Robinson frustrates the life out of me and there have been many occasions where I've thought 'this is only getting worse, time's up for him' but slowly but surely, he might be turning it around. If in December of last year you had said to me that we'd go to Perth without Carson, Cadden, Rose, Tanner, Hartley, Kipré and Moult (all key players then) and come back with three points, I'd have laughed at you. Maybe strengthening 12-18 wasn't so ridiculous now. Three of his summer signings were key on Saturday with goals and a penalty save. Turnbull has been introduced and is contributing. Grimshaw suddenly showing why he was worth a contract and Mbulu maybe looking like a useful signing. There's obviously room for vast improvement but the points picked up on Saturday and against Aberdeen and Celtic certainly suggest that I and others were maybe getting ahead of ourselves in saying that he had to go...

If we're looking at the games against St Mirren, Kilmarnock and Accies as games that we're more likely to get points from and want to rest some players then for me you're looking at the 'front seven'. Given Celtic will likely dominate possession, the midfield, wing backs and strikers will spend a lot of the game chasing and closing down. Do we want to be going into a massive game on Saturday with 90 minutes trying to cover a huge pitch in our midfielders' legs? Would a midfield three of Rose, Bigirimana and Gorrin be that much weaker than the three we put out on Saturday? At wing back, we have options on the left if not the right. Maybe a question of whether we rest Tait or Grimshaw? Up front, if Main is Robinson's first pick then do you save him for Saturday and play Sammon or Bowman? I would say go with both, but you'd probably want to keep Johnson in the team in case we do get a couple of chances as he's most likely to take one. Robinson himself has said that there's not a massive difference in quality between a lot of players in the squad so it wouldn't really be writing the game off so much as taking into account how huge Saturday's game is I'd go Gillespie Mbulu Aldred Dunne Grimshaw Gorrin Rose Bigirimana Livingstone Sammon Johnson I suspect McHugh will play though and possibly we'll see Hartley come back in. As others have said, avoiding a heavy defeat, injuries or suspensions would be the priority. Anything else would be a bonus...

Haven't seen the quotes about Dunne, when did Robinson say that? Losing Dunne would be a huge blow although given he signed a new contract last season, it would be interesting to see what kind of fee we would get...

Andy Rose goes with nothing but my best wishes. Initially thought he was just a tall blonde Craig Clay but he did a job. And his goal at Douglas Park was a belter...

What I would say about McHugh is this. He wins a fair amount of headers for a guy of his size. And while for a midfielder his distribution can be poor, it's miles better than both Aldred and Hartley's use of the ball...

Don't disagree with any of that but a few on here will simply refuse to acknowledge that McHugh has done anything right...

Continually? First game in two months tonight. Don't let the facts get in the way of your agenda though. Liam Donnelly is the least of our problems...