Andynptfc

Against a distinctively average hearts team yes, I think we're good enough to play with the personnel and formation we did yesterday. So long as the players play as well as they can, work hard and show a bit of fight when it starts getting tough. That didn't happen yesterday, that's why we got beat. Are you seriously suggesting that Elliot, craigen or lawless are better than higginbotham?? Ask 100 fans who they'd rather have in the starting 11, higgy or any of the other 3 and at least 95% will say higgy. I don't even think it's up for debate that he's been one of our best players all season. If you can't see that I don't know what else to say, there is really no point in talking to you.

Buaben in for higgy? That's what to do, drop one of the only 2 guys in the team who will run at people, take people on set up goals and score goals and replace him with prince buaben. One of the slowest players we have. If we were to play dools up front on his own as you suggested, who is going to go and support him if you drop higgy? And did you express your doubts at the starting 11 at 2:45 when we seen the teams? I doubt it. I think we all know that with that starting 11 yesterday, if the players play like they can, and the first 20 minutes proved this, we would quite comfortably beat hearts. The players didn't perform it's as simple as that. Tactics, formation and personnel aside, if 8/9 of the starting 11 have a shocker, we will lose the game.

For some reason a Simon Donnelly free kick, arrowed into the top corner of the city end a few years back sticks in my mind. I think it was against airdrie. Probably because we never seem to score from direct free kicks.

I'll ask you again, who would you have started in place of erskine higgy and Taylor? As for higgy being greedy and playing for himself? As someone else picked up on, most assists in the entire league. Anyone who has seen us this year would be able to see that without higgy in the side we would be in a far worse predicament than we are currently. He's also probably (and I'm just guessing here) most peoples pick for POTY. As for him being a journeyman? That's probably the most ridiculous comment I've seen on here.(and that takes some doing) he's 24 years of age.

The 3 players you've mentioned there are probably 3 of the best players at the club. Who would you have started instead if those 3? Craigen Elliot and lawless? Today was terrible all round, both from the management and the players but your point about him having "favouritism" towards those players is crazy. They start every game because they're the best we have, not because they're Archie's mates.

Well where do you start with that? The most gutless performance of the season by far. Gave the ball away so often, nobody willing to go and try and win it back when we did give it away. I know it's hard to take anything from today but could this be a massive kick up the backside to the players and hopefully make them realise they really need to up their game if we want to stay in the league? I hope so. 5 cup finals coming up and I'm confident we should be able to win 3 or 4 of them, if we play like we did today however, we can book our play-off tickets right now.

Yaaaaassssssssss! Big big goal!!

When we start with the front four that we did on Saturday, I don't think we have specific, rigid positions for them. For instance, I'm sure in the first half on Saturday at one point higgy was going for a run down the right wing and the player overlapping him was erskine, who you'd expect to be on the opposite wing. Some of the movement from them on Saturday was a joy to watch, not to mention it must be a nightmare for the opposition. Do they go with their man or do they pass him on? It will however leave us undoubtably exposed at the back when we lose the ball high up the park, more noticeably in the full back areas when the players who would usually track back might be in the opposite corner of the pitch. It's something I think we can cope with though, especially at firhill when we will dominate most teams possession wise. It will probably just mean our full backs will have to be slightly more conservative, which is a shame as that was a huge influence on the way we played last season. I still think SOD should do better at the goal, he was exposed at first but when the boy takes him on down the line I think he has to do more to stop him getting past or getting a cross in.

Yip, just one game. Will be interesting to see what Archie does next week with banzo back but higgy out, would there be any way he could make that the only change, and shuffle the positions about? Or more likely drop the prince and bring in a wide player. It's clear that with dools in that hole we are much more dangerous going forward. Having someone who is willing to get beyond the ball and go and support taylor, pushing right up front when Taylor drifts out wide is something we haven't had all season. I'd like to see Doolan stay in the team for the rest of the season. I think if you swap banzo for prince, yesterday is definitely our strongest starting 11.

The Lee Mair one aswell....absolutely no reaction from SOD. Has his confidence took a battering since he got dropped? There was times today I noticed from his body language, he looked totally uninterested, Gallagher was taking a goal kick at one point in the 1st half and SOD was just strolling forward into space with his head down, not watching what was going on. I'm certain the SOD of last year would have turned and asked for it short off the keeper to go and build an attack. At fault for the goal too. I hope he can get back to the form he showed last season.

"FOOKIN DIG IT, DIG IT!! YASSSSS" Brilliant stuff. What a day.

I agree with you. The level of "protection" that goalkeepers get compared to any other players these days is crazy. If a centre half and a striker jump up for a header and the centre half slightly bumps into the striker while winning the header there is never a mention of a foul. I don't understand how you're supposed to challenge a goalkeeper, who already has an advantage of a full arms length, without touching him. In theory they should be catching the ball before it gets anywhere near your head. Having said all that the fact is that these days 99% of the time any sort of contact with the goalkeeper results in a foul being awarded. You can absolutely guarantee that had that incident occurred in the other goalmouth, a free kick would have been awarded.

Like I said, it was all a bit childish, and it was hardly the most offensive remark the guy could have made. After all, the guy wasn't wrong was he? Do you think Paul showed respect to us in the way he's acted since he left? I certainly don't so therefore why should he get any back? Thousands of players have come and gone over the years, most with the best wishes of the fans, some even returning to firhill later in their careers. It's no coincidence Paul is one of the minority who's left on bad terms. On his international call up, personally I don't think he's good enough, but good luck to him.

That was "puss-y" btw.

Nope, must be a different time I'm not aware of. After the last UTD game at firhill someone wrote something along the lines of "Paul, stop acting like a ***** and remember where you came from" "don't quote me on that though. And Paul's response was "I'll be in the city centre later, come meet me and we'll see how much of a ***** I am" All a little bit childish if you ask me, but the point still stands, he has showed no respect towards our club or fans since leaving.

To think some people were suggesting he should get dropped earlier in the season. Crazy stuff, he's probably been our most dangerous player all season and is IMO the stand out candidate for POTY. Think we would have struggled (more than we are) without him. Hope we can keep a hold of him for a few more years.

Do you think Paul displayed the traits of a previous thistle captain when he returned to firhill earlier this season? Or as soon as he left thistle? Are we to be eternally grateful because he went in for a 50/50 in the Cowdenbeath match that could have jeapordised his big move to UTD? His comments after he left thistle were patronising to say the least, and his actions since he has left have been nothing short of embarrassing, culminating in actually challenging one of our fans to a "square go" in the city centre via social media. Why have the fans not acted in the same way towards erskine in an almost identical set of circumstances?

Give them the whole stadium and let none of us in for we will make millions and we'll be able to buy messi and ronaldo for our push for Europe next season.

Wow. Your patronising responses are even more stupid than your original suggestion. Like allyo has pointed out above, I think you, and everyone else for that matter, know that your idea is a lot of nonsense which begs the question, why would you even write something so blatantly stupid? Maybe Monday morning happens to be a little bit boring for you and you get some form of excitement by trying to wind people up. Either that or you genuinely believe the nonsense that you're writing. Either way, I really do feel sorry for you.

A sensible suggestion like "banning" our own fans from the stadium on match day? Aye, very good.

So if some people don't go because they don't like the other teams fans, we've all not to go to a game that we've already paid for? Seems crazy. Why would we not just sell the tickets up until a week before and give them the rest? They would still fill the stadium, that way we get to SUPPORT our club, the stadium is full and like you say we get important revenue. I don't see any advantage of giving them all the tickets. Or why don't we just charge their fans 50 pound a head, tell our team not to turn up either and they can use our pitch as a sort of function suite for their title party. After all it's all about the money.

That's probably a decent point. After a few Stella's on Saturday I was acting like he'd been called up to Brazil's World Cup squad. Still though, if he's one of their best midfielders they're worse than I thought.

I genuinely thought your first post was a joke. You would seriously stop thistle fans going to a home game? And people say the TAG fiasco is making us a laughing stock.

How much did he improve though? He was a pretty average right back and we turned him into a decent CM. I'd say he owes us quite a bit.

Paton isn't a good enough footballer to play at international level. He has limited ability and has done exceptionally well to get to where he has. My estimations of him have gone massively downhill after the last game at firhill when he generally just acted like a "wee *****" and showed a real lack of class to the club that plucked him out of the relative wilderness he was in at the time and trusted him enough to push him forward to the most important position on the park. Good luck to him if he makes a name for himself on an international level but due to his highly limited ability, I doubt that will happen.