Well 4 Europe

That’s cause they struggle to get a 1000 of their own fans through the gate most weeks. Yet they’ve beaten Rangers today, beaten Hibs, taken a point off Killie and are the only ones to take a point off Hearts so far as well. They also had to play at Celtic Park on the opening day but despite playing 5 of last seasons top 6 in their opening 7 games, they’re 10 points ahead of us already. Yet some folk want to use our ‘tough’ run of fixtures as an excuse for our piss poor start to the season.

He scored 13 league goals last season actually, 20 in all competitions and has over 50 in 3 seasons at Gateshead. For a frame of reference, his goals to games record at that level is better than both Bowman’s and Moult’s before they joined. Not that stats really mean anything of course, as you say I guess it all comes down to Robinson’s judgement and whether you trust it or not.

We get fined/deducted points for fielding two full backs who are already out on loan at other clubs. In all seriousness, I know you’re probably just trying to make a point about resting players but that is an appalling looking team. Also, Petravicius and Griffiths are both absolute murder and we shouldn’t be wasting any more minutes on either of them before they’re inevitably released in the summer.

My Link Be warned it is the sun, it was at the bottom of a story about Moult That was in December, so something might have changed since then.

You do realise that was our first defeat there since Ian Baraclough’s last League game in charge? We’d won on 3 of our last 4 visits before today, with the draw being a game in which we played over 70 mins with 10 men.

I like Tanner as well but I thought he was piss poor today, undone most of his own good work by holding onto the ball for too long and picking the wrong option when he got himself into good positions. He wasn't the only one though- Frear started well but seemed to be actively hiding 2nd half, although towards the end it looked like most of his teammates had started ignoring him anyway. I like big Ciftci but he doesn't really seem to suit the way we play, actually looked more effective 2nd half when Bowman came on. I can't really fault Robinson, he put out an attacking team and we played some decent stuff at times but lacked that bit of composure and quality in the final third when it was required. Wasn't much between the teams just like at Rugby Park, their boy capitalized on a slack pass from Main and scudded one in off the post from 25 yards and that was the difference. It always looked like it would be decided by a mistake or a moment of magic, it was the latter today and was the former at Rugby Park a few months back. Best performers yet again were the back three, become expected of Dunne and Aldred recently but fair play to Tait for putting in a decent showing in an unfamiliar position. McHugh done a tremendous job defensively again today but his entire performance seems to have been written off again because of the odd miss hit pass. How anyone could say he was our weakest player today is beyond me. Should have taken at least a point but didn't, so often during the 1st half of the season these tight games could be swung in our favour by a goal out of nothing by Moult but today we had no one to step up and produce that moment of magic. Even our set pieces, which have been a fairly effective route to goal for us this season, were pretty rotten today and I lost count of the number of wasted opportunities that failed to beat the first man or floated straight into the keepers arms.

Gregg Wylde.

Wild. Guy tweaked a hamstring 5 minutes after coming on and hobbled about for over 20 mins on one leg because we had no more subs left, what exactly were you expecting from him?

Glad its just not me thats noticed that. I was far from Bowmans biggest fan last year but hes done a very good job for us so far this season. Even going by stats alone hes got 1 less league goal from open play than Moult and has the same number of assists, which is not bad going really for a guy who apparently doesnt produce enough and is just there to do some running about for Moult.

Griffiths sold the first, free kick was straight down the middle and appeared to go right through him. Second one was Dunne giving the ball away cheaply and the third was utterly appalling defending by McHugh. Dunne missed a sitter just before half time with a free header but apart from that weve created little. Frear and Grimshaw the only two with anything close to pass mark so far.

Started out as 4-3-1-2 formation with a narrow 3 of Rose, McHugh and Grimshaw in the middle and Cadden in the hole behind the front 2. Seem to catch Aberdeen by surprise as we pressed them high, dominated the early stages and forced Lewis into 3 decent saves from Grimshaw and Rose twice. Aberdeen came back into it but we got the goal at right the time just before the break. Once we got the 2nd Frear came on for Bowman(he took a hefty dunt in the 1st half) and we went to a more standard 4-1-4-1 with Frear and Cadden outwide and McHugh sitting in front of the back 4. That was the 2 formation changes I noticed, the 3rd must have been more subtle as I never picked up on it. Anyway it snuffed Aberdeen out completely and they never really looked like getting back into it. On the game it was the most comfortable win weve had at Pittodrie for years. Like the cup game we won the midfield battle with Rose, McHugh and Grimshaw all excellent. As was the back 4 with Kipre and Tait in particular looking far more comfortable in their natural positions. Hartley bossed things at the back as per and just like the cup a couple of bits of magic from Moult won it- although the build up play from Cadden for the 2nd was sensational. After a couple of poor performances/defeats it was back to business today with another clean sheet and a comfortable 3 points.

It was actually League 1 level he was playing at last season, 10 goals in 30 starts in all comps for a struggling Oldham side. Take out Louis Moult and I genuinely don't think the other half a dozen or so strikers we've signed since Erwin left have actually managed that between them.

Training pictures are up on the SNS website. The big unit of a centre half on trial alluded to earlier is Bira Dembele, also one of the trialists is apparently a striker named Shaun Tuton.

Carl McHugh didn't sign until the 5th of July last year and he was one of the clubs major signings last summer. Just because they haven't signed yet doesn't mean they won't, if anything it might just take a wee bit longer to convince certain targets to sign. In the meantime it doesn't do anyone any harm to have a look at a few other players just in case, plus you never know who or what might turn up on your door step. At the very least it gives you other options if certain deals fall through, so you're not panic signing boys on loan just before the window shuts without having ever seen them play.

Yup, you'll probably see him sign for St.Johnstone.

Pretty much as expected then. Nice idea but one that was never really going to get off the ground, we simply couldn't afford him. To be fair I'd class Stewart as a forward, albeit more of a wide one, rather than an attacking midfielder but we certainly could do with something to try and replace the quality/creativity of McDonald in the final third.

If you were genuinely expecting us to sign the likes of Stewart and Scougall then you've obviously not been paying much attention to our current financial situation. I mean for fuck sake Greg Stewart will be on at least 5k a week at Birmingham, while we're having to convince the likes of Trevor Carson to turn down more money to stay with Hartlepool in the Conference in order to come here. I've no idea if most of these guys are any good but agree largely with what Melvin said above, you can make a case for all of them and they at least seem to be a bit more convincing than our bargain basement shopping last summer. Conference reject Clay, Lee sicknote Lucas, Luka Belic(mind him?), fucking Blyth and Bowman with their one goal from open play between them. I think with a few of these signings the club have shown a bit of ambition, it sounds like they've even managed to convince Bigirimana and Fisher to turn down more lucrative offers elsewhere to sign on here. They've also went out and paid a fee for an experienced keeper which is encouraging because it's a problem position we've failed to address for years. Not knocking anyone like, cause it's nice to dream and I'd love to see players of proven quality like Scougall and Stewart signing up at Fir Park but I'm afraid we ain't got the money to compete for those types of signings and our best hope of getting players of that quality is by unearthing them ourselves like we did with Moult and Johnson or producing them through our own youth system.

Whoop whoop. Defenders apparently Charles Dunne, was signed by Robinson at Oldham but is currently out injured which I imagine is part of the problem with him officially signing.

It's Andy Rose, formerly of Coventry and Seattle Sounders.

James Keatings? A name I've head mentioned, apparently not getting a new deal at Hibs.

Maclean signed a new deal recently, he's tied up to 2019 along with Campbell, McMillan, Turnbull and Hastie. For once the club has actually been proactive and signed up its most promising youngsters on long term deals.

Why do you keep mentioning him taking Hibs to the Europa League group stages? That literally never happened. He managed one European tie as Hibs manager and they got pumped 6-2 on aggregate by Maribor.

Well we haven't, it's been upheld and he'll miss the next two games.

Fucking get in, fantastic three points.

Anyone seen McGhee's post match interview? Looks a broken man. Said we didn't play as well as he'd hoped but the game plan went fairly well and the game was there for us. Then basically falls just short of saying the players were utter shitebags who bottled it in the last 10 mins. Pretty fair summary tbh.