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I have chosen my team for tomorrow night. I am sure that others can do better: ARCTIC THISTLE John Chillcoat or Conor Blizzard Ricky Froster Derek White Abdul Snowman James Penguin-ice Ice-axe English Cold McKinnon Aidan Fitzbaltic Chris Eskimo Ade A-freeze Kris Coolan

It's hard not to be reactionary after a result and performance like that and I haven't read any of the above so apologies if this has been stated before, here are some of my thoughts on leaving Firhill tonight. 1. We were outfought, outthought and outplayed from the first whistle. 2. Doolan has no ability to change a game in our favour. We may have changed a player at half time but the players were sent back out in the exact same formation as the one that was battered in the first half. We then wait until the magic 70 minutes before making a sub when we are clearly going nowhere that leaves us so devoid of shape we may as well have just ended the game there. 3. The application and fight shown by some Thistle players today was embarrassing. I can handle getting beat, I can't handle the clear downing of tools when that 3rd goal went in. Our so called leaders in Ashcroft and Graham should have been rallying the troops, instead we had Ashcroft blaming anyone but himself for the goals we lost and Graham didn't utter a word. Ashcroft has been great recently but he was shocking today. 4. Charlie Sayers is looking very much like another to join the long list of English academy players that can't handle Scottish football. He's young and has played very little football but he is so passive and lacks zero aggression which is what you need as standard at our level. To be fair to him, he had zero help from the guy in front of him. To hand him a 3 year deal seems pretty naïve at the moment. 5. I've said all I need to say about Fitzpatrick before, an absolute waste of talent. Perhaps it is the way we are playing but he was a man down from the off. The ref better check behind him when he gets home, that is where Fitzy spent his whole game hiding. 6. I'll give some credit to Dan O'Reilly. Stuck out on the left by himself for the whole of the second half, he never stopped plugging away. I'm not one for shouting for a manager's head but Doolan must be coming under serious scrutiny now. We have an expensive squad, we have decent players who are seriously underperforming and we are losing games now due to managers knowing exactly how Doolan sets his team up. I'd feel more confident if Doolan was learning from his mistakes but he isn't. We play the same team by and large every week regardless of result. The guys on the bench must be wondering how they get a chance. Pretty scunnering end and start to 24/25.

My wife does.

No apologies necessary. Have ye seen the Tranche 2 thread?!? 😄

It's already 2025 in some parts of the world, but as we are now in the final hours of 2024 in Scotland, i just wanted to wish everybody with a connection to the Jags, wherever you are in the world, a very happy, peaceful and healthy 2025.

Likely the English Channel, if the wind keeps blowing like this.

eating sandwiches with beer the Hill of Jordan commenced a thread and they all quaked with fear.

Have a look at the starting 11 for Morton and Raith then compare to our regular starting 11 and who was on the bench. Who do you think could have been on the bench for that game from our current squad that would have made a difference? Who do you think was injured at that point? Raith had 5 on their bench when they beat us, why did they win if options from the bench are so important? As far as I can see the only real injuries were Lawless and MacKay but we still had Chalmers and Fitzpatrick fit. I'm willing to give a small exception for the Falkirk game as Graham was injured but it doesn't say much for Doolan that we are ok with losing when our 37 year old striker is unavailable For Morton and Raith only notable changes are MacBeth for Ashcroft and Williams for one of Nillson/Megwa. Ashcroft has been very good but MacBeth is a capable centre-half so hard to believe that makes much of a difference. However Williams was not a right back so to my mind the big difference is a right back. It therefore stands to reason that the manager could have signed a rightback earlier and we may well have got more points. Plus its what we could all see with our own eyes. Funnily enough our performances have started to slip a little since Megwa got injured. The league cup game against Clyde also tells a tale. The only real injury we had was Milne. He had MacKenzie and Bannigan on the bench who could have played fullback but instead went with 5 centre backs (O'Reilly, Muirhead, Ashcroft, Williams and MacBeth). That game cost us progression in the league cup and every single player in that squad should have been more capable than anyone in a Clyde top. We had a bench of 9 players but still couldn't get past a struggling league 2 side. We similarly toiled against Montrose and in the first half of the Edinburgh City game but choose to ignore the obvious problem. Also have a look at Doolan's subs in all games played, which ones have changed the game in our direction? If Doolan had all the players fit at all times would it really make a difference?

Stanway. Exactly who you want when a goal down.

That game was sacrificed to a footballing philosophy that does not work at this level. If players repeatedly dwell on the ball until they can find that one team-mate without a marker, they lose any possibility of surprising the opposition with an attack, and make their inflexible setup open to a quick counter when possession is lost. More aggression and less of that ponderous cogitation are needed. Do these players, at the 2nd level in Scottish football, really believe they are world-beaters that can control games as they like? They need to graft - to drive forward into the opposition box as often and as quickly as possible. That way they might just earn a place in a Premiership squad: as it is, they're journeymen at a low level that are lucky enough to play alongside an aged goalscorer and an agile shot-stopper. Hoping to win back possession and then waiting for them to do their stuff is simply not enough.

Would normally go to this game, but not mad enough to stand out in conditions like this. Something for TJF/club to call out Morton on re decent facilities for fans on days like today? Long shot I know but shouldn't be.

While shepherds Watched there Flocks by night...

It is worth replaying on JagZone the whole build up to our first goal. It is actually an amazing team goal emanating from an Airdrie corner, and does include some backwards and sideways passes. Ashcroft wins the header from the corner and the ball falls at the edge of our box to Crawford. He releases Fitzpatrick who takes the ball deep down the right. He then turns looking for support and the move seems to lose momentum as Turner, Graham, Bannigan and Fitzpatrick exchange passes and eventually the ball is recycled back to Ashcroft who plays the big switch to the left. This was the only moment when there seemed to be any danger of possession being surrendered, but Sayers does well to bring the ball down and feed it to Robinson who slides in Chalmers. His perfect cross is met by Graham and the perfection of the move is only slightly spoiled by the Airdrie keeper getting a touch before the ball crosses the line. I count 9 of our players being in the move, with Ashcroft, Fitzpatrick, Turner and Graham all having at least 2 involvements. No doubt O'Reilly was making a good off the ball run.

That was my first home game this year. My only other match was Falkirk away at start of season - so I sure can pick them & apologies for bringing my jinx to the game. What I can say about both matches is they totally align to that statement above. Players look short of belief in the method they are playing or trying to play, no plan B, turned over by teams who player for player may (or may not) have less skill, but certainly had effective way of closing down, getting ball up pitch faster, attacking with more variety or intent. There's a nucleus of good players (McBeth, O'Reilly, Graham included) but relying solely on trying go up the wings or defence unable to play forward cause of lack of movement and a midfield that moves like an oil tanker looks like poor coaching to me. How people can watch that every week with any faith, belief or enjoyment I don't know & I applaud you all for your resilience. Even if we scrape into the playoffs, we would never go up and to me we are drifting in the wrong direction So maybe unfair to judge on what I was told was our worst Firhill performance for seasons along with reading this forum daily. What I can say though is I left thinking I wont be rushing back next time I'm back over & I just want to tune out until next season and see where we are at then. I think I'd have to go back to losing 6-0 at home to Gretna to having left feeling that scunnered.

Neil Lennon is not even remotely within our reach Our supporters need a reality check We got beat for the first time at home this season and the reaction has been totally knee jerk Rewind to when McCall was here in his last season, hammered by Arbroath and Queens Park 4 nil both times at home followed by games against Cove and Hamilton which got him the sack It’s not been great this season but Doolan turned things around at the Club after McCall was sacked , if you lose players like Docherty, Holt , Tiff and McMillan there is always going to be a transition period as we couldn’t afford to replace these players like for like Probably the biggest mistake we’ve made this season is the quantity of players rather than a lesser squad with a bit more quality.

Why? If we get a playoff spot and get knocked out he’s gone. If we don’t get a playoff spot he’s gone. The only circumstance where Doolan would still be in his job next season would be because we had won promotion but no one sees that as a possibility. Keeping him in post is the equivalent of a dead man walking and the players know it. I think there’s more risk in keeping him and the risk is we will see more damaging performances like Saturday going forward. That will further drain income ahead of next season. He’s had two years, we’ve gone backwards this season in terms of quality of performance, despite a large budget, we never vary our play, he’s never signed a decent defensive midfielder despite having loads of midfielders and our cup exits to Alloa and (effectively) Clyde were shockers. Aside from the 5.1 win over Hamilton I haven’t seen a good performance from us this season. We’ve been entirely unconvincing, so I might be in a minority of one but I can see no reason to say “carry on”…

Kevin Nesbit. Always amazed me the transformation in him after he left us as he looked a waste of a wage while at Firhill. When he re-appeared at Raith Rovers he looked like he had lost about 2 stone and had an attitude transplant Perhaps @Jordanhill Jag had him running up and down Cleveden Hill?

I'll be honest and say this is a bit of a rant as I'm still annoyed about what I watched today and what I've watched this season. I'm really struggling to understand why some are debating if Doolan should go. He's had 2 years and its getting worse not better. We have not performed well in any game this season and the games we won had more to do with the defensive ability of Ashcroft, O'Reilly, Milne and Roberts. We have no idea on how to use any possession we have nor any joined up plan on how to attack teams, we also have no idea how to press teams to win back possession. We have had 20 league games this season and everyone of them has at best been poor to watch, we were capable of some stinking performances under McCall but not every single game. (and no I don't want McCall back) Today's performance was awful and the managers team selection and interventions didn't really make any sense. Its been obvious for weeks that Sayers isn't of the required standard and Fitzpatrick's work ethic leaves a lot to desire but both still started. Only 1 sub at halftime was a joke. The minimum requirement for playing football is putting in physical effort and by my reckoning Fitzpatrick, Robinson, Megwa, Sayers and Turner were so far off that requirement by 45 minutes that none of them should have re-appeared for the second half. Putting O'Reilly at left back is something that was tried and failed against Clyde and as much as the guy burst a gut it was just a strange choice when he could have moved Bannigan to leftback or played 3 at the back and had Chalmers or Lawless at wingback. Doolan just looked like a guy who had no idea where to go and it was the same against Livingston and pretty much the same against Morton. We were very fortunate to win against Queens Park and against Airdrie we really only played for a bit of the first half. The notion that we should hold onto Doolan as we don't have Mourinho waiting in the wings to take over is perverse. Football is a fairly simple business. If a player don't perform you drop them and if they still don't perform you move them out of the club, if the manager don't get results you get rid and get someone else in so that it sets a standard of what is and isn't acceptable. As to the affordability, Doolan has already blown a relatively large budget why give him more to blow. Surely best to cut our loses in the hope of finding someone more able than stick with someone who has proven to be incapable. If we have any desire to save this season he has to go now so whoever takes over can use the January transfer window to try and make a fist of the playoffs. I'm fine with the idea that whoever replaces is the best available and affordable candidate. If that means Graham fine but on the basis that he has to the end of the season to show us that he deserves the next season. If its Lennon, Murray or someone else then its needs to be a contract with performance targets and break points rather than the current arrangements.

He doesn’t lead on the pitch. Why do you think he could lead from the dugout?

Each position in the league is worth a lot of money alone and a new manager would get longer to plan for next season

It really is a cracking top that. Hope everybody that is going to hospitality has a great day!

Its an interesting stat and backed up by what we see on the pitch i.e. we don't create much and rely heavily on a very few players to create and score. I think part of the problem is our midfield is just too old. Crawford, Bannigan and Robinson are now all over 30. Crawford is very fit and does most of the work but he's expected to the do the running of 2 others. Bannigan has been better this season but to my mind he's been asked just to sit centrally and therefore he's not having to do the same amount of chasing. Robinson is a clever player but I think he's lost a little of last seasons pace. However Robinson is needed to help create particularly when Fitzpatrick is out of form so for different reasons Doolan doesn't want to drop any of the 3. I also think Doolan tries to compensate the lack of energy by using someone like Stanway even though the drop off in quality is significant. Getting Turner back in the middle will help but we really need to style and recruit a midfield to work around him not try and fit him into the role of one of the other three. That to my mind means a change in style of midfield and perhaps a change in formation. Also might mean losing some defensive strength to gain attacking threat, Turner is to my mind best centrally playing as a number 8 in a 4-4-2. We need someone alongside him who can go box to box but with slightly better defensive instincts. Bannigan can't go box to box any more and Robinson is not defensive. McBeth and Crawford are both able to go box to box and able to be defensive but neither seems to exert enough authority in the way that say Docherty could. So if we go with one of them its likely to mean more goals conceded but hopefully balanced by more goals scored. I suspect we will see the same formation and tactics tomorrow as Doolan is now in a position were he can't afford any more bad results so thinks he can't afford to experiment. However I think Doolan may well be in a downwards spiral if he continues with that approach as we know that current team and formation isn't good enough for promotion so he really needs to experiment to find something that can compete and equally show us that he's not out of ideas or hasn't wasted a large budget on a load of players that can only play formations with 3 midfielders.

Respect to all the Jags who went today given conditions, facilities and result. Safe home.

Hope not. I'd prefer Megwa for Crawford, with Turner moving to midfield.

How many times can you say that and still believe it while we keep winning games?

What a performance from the post, two assists and a goal line clearance. Clearly looking for a new deal in January

I'm sure Scott Robinson and Wee Stevie are indeed charming.🙂 My guess is above team apart from Fitzpatrick starting instead of Lawless. Doesn't look like Stevie is ready to start. Plus thought Aiden was rather good v Airdrie. Playing a freer role and swapping wings on occasion with Chalmers.

Boxing Day here now in the Land of the long white cloud, hope everyone has had a great day & best wishes for 2025

A win on plastic!! Well done, Jags, and to all the R&Y army guys who deservedly saw the victory in what were terrible conditions in and around Airdrie. And the weather wasn't very appealing either.

Aye entry into Petersburn Rd closed. You can exit ok. Also Stadium Bar now appears home fans only. I'm in it jacket zipped up.!

I'm always kind of bemused by the "Sack the manager" calls that go up after a couple of bad results.... often (or even) after a string of excellent results.... these days. It's as if 100% success 100% of the time or something very near it is the only thing that should allow football managers to continue to try to get the best performances for their club and its supporters. No tolerance of dips in form, either by individual players or even groups of players; no, it's the manager's fault, or he should have anticipated the howling performances, or hooked players earlier.....; no tolerance of bad refereeing decisions, or injuries, or bad breaks on the field, or unexpectedly good performances by the opposition. Nope, "You win the big one next time, or you're out!" is the mantra of some regarding the manager. And that will lead to what?: Somebody else getting another "cushy number" probably having been sacked because of failing to deliver the top prize or achieving "satisfactory progress" at his previous clubs! Thinking back to earlier years (let's say the 60s): Thistle usually never qualified for Europe (with the one exception... then even so, they didn't go far; in the 70s too), they never really challenged for the league title, or a Scottish or League Cup. They perennially hung around mid-table safety/mediocrity. But I don't recall any outraged clamour for sacking the manager (back then fans' opinions were largely limited to comments shouted towards the dugouts as supporters gathered to leave at the terracing exits; no online, immediate diffusion of one's discontent back then). Sadly, for most of the last four decades we've been a second-tier (occasionally better, occasionally worse) football team. Achieving the play-offs in the past couple of seasons has been brilliant, albeit heartbreaking. In my opinion we got blatantly robbed (cheated?) in Dingwall because of a refereeing decision. I think we might qualify again for the play-offs this season, but again will probably fall short (and perhaps even against Livi too, Aaaargh!). So, should the manager be sacked? And if that happens, and the next one fails to get us up (or even into the play-offs), how long does he get? If he fails, what was the point of sacking the previous one, who was presumably learning and developing new strategies? How many new managers o people want, and how often? Brought to you by some cheap, imported but very drinkable white wine (Chile, I think.).

I might be missing something but essentially the Trusts- TJF, Ptfc trust , jags trust - own the club they nominate some board members ( through internal elections ) and the board appoints others based on their skills eg commercial, finance etc the club board run the club day to day but are answerable to their owners the Trusts/fans im struggling to work out what your unhappy about

Don't know who Dylan is or why you think he is snow in Spanish. We do have a good squad. Doubt it. Took over when we were 5th, finished season in 4th and last season in 3rd (opposite of backwards). We do deserve better (thought out posts I mean).

Well done to the management, players and all fans who turned up in very dangerous conditions. -8.3C by the end of the game. I have said in previous posts that Stanway must be disappointed not to have carried on from last season, when he had more than 30 appearances for Thistle, although the sending off at Falkirk did not help him. A great winning goal and a great reaction from the team after a very poor performance last week.

This kind of reinforces my non understanding of why we always shoot away from our fans in the 2nd half at Firhill. It's surely a no brainer to shoot towards the atmosphere end in the 2nd half. Also our subs warm up on what is pretty much a building site on their own at the city end while the opposing subs get a cheer from their fans in the Colin Weir. And during the pre match warm up our team are as far away from the fans as possible Not overly important but just never understand it.

He's like Blair Alston without the goals.

I think it will be a game of two half's with frostbite making the early in roads. However I expect Hypothermia to come on strong in the second half.

I sometime wonder about the training on offer to managers. Doolan and many others have all now had to get some degree of coaching qualification but to my mind that has 2 problems. First of all if they are trained the same way does that mean they are likely to coach and think the same way? Secondly it is fundamentally coaching training. Where's the training for managers? Coaching training is all about fitness, tactics, player development. Management is really about recruitment, budget management, ensuring you have the correct staff and facilities. McCall was very much hands off in training but good at recruitment with arguably his best spells being when he had a good coach (Gardner Spiers with us, Gordon Chisolm, Brian Rice and Sandy Stewart elsewhere). Lambie was more towards that style. We have for the last 20 years went through cycles where we appoint a manager with a good eye for a player (McCall), struggle to fully utilise them then appoint a good coach (McNamara, Archibald, first 6 months of Doolan) who make better use of the playing staff but then struggle to recruit to replace the players they inherited and we go downhill. I think its very difficult for a Club in Scotland outside of the 2 arse cheeks to afford a DoF and coach. However also difficult to recruit an experienced manager on wages on offer so most appoint coaches and ex-players hoping they can quickly find their feet and I reckon that's why there isn't any new managerial talent emerging at lower levels. So I think shortly we are going to need consider a move to something like a part time DoF post or a Head of player recruitment to give a younger cheaper coach a chance

Yes, always thought of him more as a pest but a great pest to have on your own team. He was a better player than most gave him credit for. R.I.P Plenty of other Bstd's that you hated to come up against but loved on your own team. Tommy Turner (Kyle's dad) springs to mind. Hated him for Morton loved him for us. Roddy Grant was another from that period that had that quality. Also Charnley when he was with Clydebank. Colin McGlashan. The list could go on for a while. Part of our problem nowadays is we don't have that many players that would happily kick their Granny for a throw in and saturday showed you the difference between a Dunfermline team that would kicked a crips packet drifting on to the pitch and our team who would have waited for the same crisp packet to come to rest, taken 3 touches to control it and played it backwards.

If this "some guy" was in the same state as I was when I eventually got home from hospitality and a subsequent couple of hostelries...... well, the words pinch of salt come to mind. Someone could've told me a scout from Paris Saint-Germain was at the game monitoring Charlie Sayers progress and I wouldn't have dismissed it out of hand.

I thought at half time he should have made three or four subs to make a clear statement that it wasn’t good enough. Any of them could have been hooked but all we got was McBeth for Sayers and the same old. The same 11 will probably start at Hamilton next Friday

I think the performance at Morton was typical of us this season. Generally solid enough at the back, no real control or creativity in the middle of the park (although I thought Banzo was comfortably best performer on the park) and completely reliant on individuals making something happen. Ultimately I have no idea what sort of team we are meant to be and think we been more lucky than not in recent weeks with a number of results. However if the results don't go in our favour that there is very little to get excited about. To me there was very little difference in our performances versus Livi, Ayr, Queens and Morton. While I don’t like saying it, I’m personally not convinced that Doolan is the right man for us anymore. I’d support bringing in someone new now, giving them the opportunity to help this talented squad reach a better level in time for the playofs.

If by some miracle we got promoted, next season we would get regularly slaughtered if we tried to play at the pace and with the same predictable tactics we currently do.

Big shout out to all Jags fans living or travelling in Nomad-land during this holiday time. Merry Christmas Kiwi Jags

This is not just any Christmas. Marks & Spencer

But would we get training compensation ?

I still don’t see the issue…..a majority of the board are not from the ‘trusts’ there is separation of power just not in the form you prefer as you never liked/wanted fan ownership i think fundamentally you can’t get your head around the fact that a fan owned business has differences in governance from a commercial business just like a co-operative or partnership.

Stranger things have happened 😉 Anyway il not disrupt this thread any more in regards to Mr B. You are of course entitled to your opinion and I wish you a Merry Christmas when it comes. A Bannigan hat trick next week would be a nice present 👍😉

Absolute nonsense re Stuart Bannigan, over the last 4 or 5 weeks our revival has been partly down to Bannigan’s outstanding form Agree re Kyle Turner as a full back which he never is

League is done, not sure after our start we ever stood much chance. The slim chance we had was given away tonight and I wouldn’t fancy our chances against Livi or Falkirk in the playoffs. We’ve got a large budget for this league but our recruitment has been really poor. Milne getting injured last week was a disaster, he is pretty much a one man attack. Far too many similar midfielders signed, no serious back up to Graham and a winger who knows he’s guaranteed a game regardless of how poor he is. I don’t think Falkirk or Livi are that great but they work extremely hard, know their roles and tactics. We do the same thing every week, if it doesn’t work we’ll just keep doing it and hope we get a bit of luck. We got it last week with the penalty or else that could have easily been a 0-0 as well.