Alan Murray

The Harkins and twaddle money went to pay a tax bill. He did see ‘hee-haw’ of the money. Do you not think a fully fit Lovell and McKeown would have scored for us if they were fully fit last year? McCall did make a lot of poor signing last year, no question about that. He should take blame for some of this. However fans have to realize that reducing your player budget and selling your best players does affect your team’s performance, surly this is common sense. McCall has a very difficult time ahead of him, but I think he will have us middle table at the end of the season. Terrible to think that is the best thing you can hope for. Then next year it will get even worse with the player budget likely to be cut again.

Wrong! The Crucial games are against Stirling and cowdenbeath. I think Falkirk will win this league so this we are in for a hard time tonight.

One of the very few posts good posts on here. Last year I would add that injuries to steven mckeown and steve lovel were big parts in our loss of form.

Common sense tells you that the player budget and our financial constraints are affecting the team performance. If McCall was able to keep twaddle and Harkins and sign players like Scott dobbie and Willie Gibson we would be favourites for promotion not fighting relegation.

Good post, been thinking along these lines as well. There will be a turning point I think for us, but this may be a few seasons away. We need to try to hold on to our first division status. If we go down I really don’t know what will happen. Think we are heading for admin in the next few years, along with a good few other Scottish clubs. Not sure there is much we can do at this point to stop it.

You want us to play with 3 defenders?

It's the first of five though. I think they will bring around 400 to 500.

Could have been worse - at least a home draw and falkirk carry a good away support.

Dundee or Falkirk for the league, we I think will do okay but again I worry about after January. If we can get 6th or 7th and blood plenty of the younger boys that is about the best we can hope for. If we get key players injured then it could be a relegation battle.

We need these players but they will need to be good to make an impact here. As we have seen to our cost before these young spl loan signings can find it hard in this league. McCall would love to bring in other more experienced players but we will be getting these guy’s for pennies and our budget is already gone. It’s going to be a big test for paddy Boyle in the first few weeks of the season, clubs are going to see him as the weakness and target him.

We are doomed second division here we come, just look at the full strength team we had out. Team: Hinchcliffe, Trialist (Bannigan), Stevenson, MacBeth (Burbridge), McGeough, Maxwell, Campbell, Trialist, Grehan (Burns), Doolan, Erskine (Lochhead).

Based upon what?

McCall is one of the best mangers in this division. He did make a good few mistakes last year but the loss of two SPL quality players in Harkins and Twaddle and Injuries to Buchanan, Mckeown and Lowell shaped our below expectations season. McCall’s signings in the January window were poor no doubt about that. McCall finds himself in a very difficult job, fans expect a promotion push but really resources put us likely relegation candidates. Mid table will be a success for us but not many fans will see it that way. What McCall has done with the whole youth system at Firhil has been incredible. He has turned us from a club most talented young players would not dream of joining to a possibility. Donnelly and McNamara are both Scottish internationalists, them being there will encourage talent to come here. We are already seeing some real potential coming through.

We already have the replacement here, step forward uberteeb. I can already see him on the training pitch telling the players were the channels are…

Every team in the first division plays the long ball. I remember the same complaints about a certain Mr Lambie.

The injuries to both Lovell and Liam Buchanan are what really caused our poor season. I think Lovell will do well down there.

Craig Hinchcliffe has been released as a player, McCall said he would be here as a goalkeeping coach. Do we need a goalkeeping coach during the summer? Why would we pay him to do nothing when the club is skint?