steelboy

peter lawell asked falkirk to have a minutes applause. i actually think the celtic fans will stay silent simply because they know that rangers fans willing be sitting waiting for them to break it and will be gutted if they don't.

apparently he trained with sunderland but they let him go when he 15 or 16 and he had a choice of coming here or signing with swansea. good news for us that he choose to come here.

clarky's late winner against killie is the best for me. it was the first game back at fir park after phil died and he popped up with a last minute winner. the full team came over to the corner of the east and it was bedlam with people sprinting down the stairs. i remember ending up about 25 seats away from where i started when brannan scored his screamer against hearts in the scottish cup. don goodman's late winner at tannadice when we were making a late surge for europe about ten years ago. i got covered in twaddle's sweat which was a bit disgusting. i got cracked off a polis for going through the gate at the very end of the east stand to celebrate with tommy coyne after he crossed the ball over to falconer to score a diving header against the h**s. big boab's freekick up at ict, sent every body mental as well. faddy's semi final goal against the h**s was another favourite.

it was tom hateley who went down after getting blasted in the ribs with the ball. easy mistake to make though, tom likes a sunbed.

good showing today. you wouldn't think the team who played the first half day were the same team as last week. we must have played more long balls in the first half than we've played for the last five games combined and we benefited from mixing it up. the back four were great today, hutchison and saunders have massive potential. great goal from forbes but he's a frustrating player, he doesn't always shine in general play but he's always worth his place in the team cause he can win matches.

a lot of good performances but i thought hutchison and coke stood out. i went for coke as i think his form will be vital to how we do this season.

i was sitting next to his mum and dad on my flight from amsterdam to bucharest, nice people.

if we win on saturday we'll fill it. if we get beat we won't. can anyone remember the last time we won with a big away support? airdrie away in the cup was one but it seems that we never win any time the 'well support breaks 4 figures. i think you'd have to go back to the cup run in 2003.

a bit harsh considering how often boyle has cut the prices over the years.

apart from maybe mcgarry playing in goals i don't think gannon can do anything that would suprise any more with his team selections. ruddy yas hutch reynolds hammell humphrey lasley hateley o'brien juke mchugh big yas hasn't been playing well but he is a good defender and his pace will be an asset against driver.

of course i was there! you can see me swaggering about the front of the stand when st mirren score their first goal on the bbc highlights. i'm sure some well fans emailed st mirren asking to be able to buy tickets for the match on the night which is what led to the problems. let's face it nobody anticipated our support would double from saturday to today. except dee obviously but that just highlights how unlikely it was

the first goal deflected in off hutchison i'm sure. i think it hit him on the chest.

you're right we've got no one in our team who's capable of mixing it with the more physical players in the spl. last season we won the fair play award but we still had guys like quinn, klimpl, lasley and even clarky in the team who could give it out when need be. i don't think it's necessarily due to our youth either, butcher had a young team in 2002/03 and they kicked fucked of anything that moved. PosTeam R Y FCon FWon 1Dundee United3-17-154-106 2Hibernian1-18-142-103 3Hamilton Academical0-14-123-123 4Rangers3-18-121-113 5Falkirk0-19-118-120 6St Mirren2-11-117-110 7Aberdeen0-14-117-103 8Celtic1-14-115-129 9Hearts1-16-114-117 10Kilmarnock1-15-109-111 11St Johnstone0-20-109-97 12Motherwell0-9-75-137 that makes staggering reading. the least amount of cards, we've committed 34 less fouls than the next nearest team and been fouled the most (8 more than celtic!). the team directly above us in the league (dundee united) have committed double the amount of fouls we have.

hopefully it will. i think everyone knows we're a work in progress and i do believe we're onto to a good thing. my very first words in the thread are that i'm not bothered about getting beat, what does bother me is the way we played. gannon's choices were mystifying last night and if it was mcghee last season who did that or butcher or malpas folk would be flipping their lid. there's no possible justification for some of his decisions last night which is worrying. it'll be interesting to see how we go on saturday. he seems loath to start with a 4-4-2 even although we played our best football with it and he switches to it every time we need a goal.

trust me, considering we had been knocked out the cups twice at love street and lost two massive games at fir park in the league in recent years no one was expecting an easy time last night. you've hit the nail on the head with your second point though. we appear to put more emphasis on sticking to gannon's philosophy than actually trying to win games which is annoying. i don't think anyone really feels the players let us down as individuals last night, it's more a sense of frustration that we were less than the sum of our parts.

i sympathise with people who didn't get in last but it should be remembered that st mirren wanted the match to be all ticket and the only reason it wasn't was because well fans asked for it not to be. i agree that they should have made an overspill for well fans but the fact they didn't is probably down to the polis.

but the fact we're a young side with developing players makes last night even more frustrating. i've never seen any team line up in that formation before and i doubt that any of the players have ever played that way before. the team were at a disadvantage from the get go against a far more experienced team. the manager should sending the team out in a system they're confident with, instead we get a situation where no one knows what they're doing and we pretty much beat ourselves. the most annoying thing was the fact that we actually had the game on saturday as a measure of what works and what doesn't. it was clear on saturday that we had zero penetration with one up front and that st mirren were capable of shutting down our passing game. surely it's just common sense to go with what worked on saturday? instead we try a system that addresses none of our flaws and actually weakens us in other areas. gannon seems to be more interested in forging a reputation as a master tactician than actually putting out a team to win games. naebody's going to think any less of you if you play a basic 4-4-2 jim. gannon mentioned in an interview the other week that our 4-1-4-1 formation was designed to protect young players. basically we sacrifice an attacker to have tom hateley sitting spare and giving support to any area of the park that is under pressure when we don't have the ball. it's been effective in we're not conceding many with it but our goals for total while playing it consists of three from corners and a penalty. 4 goals, zero from open play, in what i'd put at a rough estimate 600 minutes of football, that can't continue.

faddy has nothing to do with anything. when jamie has played through the centre this season we've made chances. when he's been playing wide we haven't. murphy is effective if you get him the ball in the final third or on a breakaway. when he plays wide right we give him the ball on the halfway line which is pointless.

i honestly believe that gannon has done an incredible job. players brought in, bringing on the young players, making us organised and generally turning the club around from a low ebb. for some reason though he seems to continually over think his tactics and we've paid a price for that a number of times. he seems unwilling to say "our players are better than your players we're going to beat you straight up". instead we get 3 at the back, ultra deep lying midifelders, insane man marking and lone strikers against sides who we have better players than.

i'm not actually that bothered about the result tonight. anyone with any sense would have seen that the way we started the match we were never going to win it. we were probably fortunate to only be one down at half time. we scored 3 goals in the second half on saturday, did we start that with the succesful formation? no. we started with a formation no one in our team had ever played played before and it showed right down to hutchy being clueless at taking shys, lukas being isolated, o'brien and murphy not knowing where to play and craigan being redundant in a sweeper position he's never had before. on saturday sutton was gannon's best option to equalise off the bench, tonight he wasn't good enough to be a sub. on saturday according to gannon forbes was the better option for the second 45 but tonight coke started. where is the consistency? we played a 3-4-2-1 formation which left reynolds on the left on his own but for some reason he spent the game manmarking ALAN JOHNSTON who was released by kilmarmock in the summer and who we wouldn't have manmarked ten years ago when he was in his prime. gannon's done a great job so far building a team that can compete in the spl but beyond his motivational and organisational skills he's let us down several times by over thinking his tactics and over emphasising gimmicks. today the natural thing to do was do what we did in the second half on saturday and be confident that our players are better than there players and we'll win. instead we end up with a system that unsettles the full team and put them on the backfoot from the start.

not my first game but i remember it clearly, probably becuase it's the only time i've had to watch a game from the south stand. i was raging i didn't get in the east. shivute ran riot in the second half. i can even rememeber watching micheal owen scoring a hat trick for liverpool against newcastle on sky before heading up to fir park. think it was ruud gullit's first game in charge. nae idea what my first ever game was, probably when i was 4 or 5.

fair enough. they'd both be great results. i predict us to win every game two nil no matter what. so 2-0 murphy and juke.

what caused the change of heart?

honestly? both matches were poorly attended and were major let downs last season. we were on a dire run for the first and even although we won the second match easy they got what they need to stay up . could be a belter this time though. if we get decent results in the next two games we'll probably sell out our end.

maybe it is just a rumour but i don't see fitzy featuring in gannon's plans, he's not comfortable enough on the ball. marc archdeacon seemed to be moving about ok at the race night on saturday, he might be back in contention soon. i'd quite like to see page, archdeacon and darren smith get a run out in the first team this season. it's a strange situation to be in where we have a dozen or so young players from youth system who look like they could be capable of contributing to the first team.