Noel Edmonds

Tends to be the only exception I make to my 'no food at football' rule. Pastry on the bottom seemed a bit raw, but the steak was tender and the gravy didn't scold my tongue. By normal standards, 6/10; by football catering standards, it's a solid 9.

I think this clouds too many people's judgements and shouldn't be considered a factor in assessing his performance. I also don't by the 'good performances' thing, we were dire against Hearts and that game wasn't really an isolated performance - see similar heavy defeats and circus act defensive shows against Motherwell, Aberdeen, St Mirren, Dundee United, so on. Even if it was the case I don't think performances should be a factor either, given it has absolutely no reflection on points returned.

Only change I would make from the Hearts massacre is Buaben for Taylor. I think it's a fairly simple decision to make deciding between Doolan and Taylor just now: one's in form, the other isn't. I'd also agree that Taylor would have a better impact from the bench than Doolan would, for me he has more about his play that could potentially change the game in our favour if we're too powderpuff for the first 50 minutes or so. Seeing as we go into the post split games occupying 11th I think the onus should be on us to play to our attacking strengths, while at the same time giving some substance to our midfield as we didn't do last week. On the basis that we need to score goals I'd keep Elliott out of the team entirely, he has an awful first touch and the majority of games he's started we've lacked any kind of exciting attacking movement at all because he's just an awful player, regardless of his ability to keep running backwards and forwards. Erskine Higginbotham and Doolan would be a more cohesive and intelligent forward line with the quality (on their day) to cut open defences.

Negative pish. Similar sized clubs like St Johnstone have managed it to the extent they were playing European qualifiers at the start of this season, and have followed it up with a second top 6 finish this season - an utterly superb achievement. Even smaller clubs like ICT and Ross County (albeit the latter could still go down this season) overtook us to establish themselves as top flight clubs. There's no reason why, with sensible management both on and off the park, we couldn't do the same thing. It's almost like people are scavenging for excuses just now...

Too far.

Yeah I think you're a bit too dim to grasp the supporting points I made in the post. No surprises there.

Nothing less than a training regime of wood-chopping and running up hills will do, IMO. Wheel out John Lambie if we have to.

Every other team could say the same thing though. In terms of refereeing decisions, Ross County for example would be around 4-6 points better off had refereeing decisions not gone against them, and that's just going by their last 4 games alone. Whilst our players haven't exactly covered themselves in glory, I think most of our points dropped this season have been largely as a result of decisions from the dugout - we lined up today pretty much exactly as we did against Inverness, and going by what happened there I'm not sure what the logic was in that. I also still think there's a glaring deficiency in our midfield in terms of a personality who can sit deeper and win the ball/protect the defence, and this has been the case since Osbourne's injury in December. Going by Buaben's performances as a more attacking midfielder and Moncur having a grand total of ~15 minutes gametime since signing, it seems that this hasn't been addressed when it really ought to have been our biggest priority in January before any other signing. We're very inflexible in that we can't really field a side who can sit back and see out a result. I don't think I've seen a Thistle team with more direction and ruthlessness than the one Archibald managed from January-May last season. The ideal scenario for me is that he keeps us up by any means this season and resigns shortly afterwards - that would cap an absolutely outstanding contribution to the club, both since rejoining as a player and since taking over from McNamara. From this season however, I don't see any evidence that he is learning as a manager, and I think we'd only be keeping him until we were in serious danger of returning to the second tier again. I think we have a group of very talented players who with the right manager and further additions could do very well in this league. We have a great chance of establishing ourselves as a top flight club for the first time in a generation, and, as much as I love Archibald, I'd hate to see us pass it up by being too loyal to him.

Maybe you should check the league table, sport. (Handy hint: Hearts are bottom of the league with less points than anyone else) I know I've already humiliated you with this once before, but, what the hell: Mmm. So how's that been working out for you so far?

News for the usual roasters on here, but there are actually very valid grounds to at the very least debate this topic - so why are such valid criticisms of the manager being shouted down with spittle-stained seethe rather than actually being discussed? Today we were thrashed by the worst team in the league and the only team who we could have a real claim to being better/more experienced than. At home. I think there's a lot of evidence to suggest that there were tactical reasons for this - Doolan's position left us with four up front, which in turn left us with next to zero presence in midfield besides two lightweight (and today underperforming) midfielders, and which also left us with zero attacking alternatives to introduce when we were chasing the game, thus once Hearts made it 2-1 it was pretty much theirs. Today happened as a result of a blasé, couldn't-give-a-shit attitude from the players after our strong start to the game, but I would suggest even moreso it was due to big mistakes on the manager's part (and certainly not for the first time this season).

And there's the post the OP was looking for.

Hey, remember this? Oops.

What a travesty of a poster you are. Anyway the only ones I'd be particularly disappointed about losing would be ATS, Bannigan and O'Donnell. ATS I think will likely end up at a bigger club in the same league, my guess being Aberdeen considering they seem quite weak at full back and have been linked with him before. I'm not sure anyone would pay past six figures for the other two which is what I'd be hoping for personally given they're still very young and have underlined their potential by impressing both last season and in spells this season. The others like Fox, Welsh, Doolan, etc, I wouldn't be too fussed about losing one or two of them if it meant being able to bring better players in, but at the same time it could be damaging to the stability of the squad if we lose too many. Having most of them signed up for next season is quite a good thing then.

Despite being on excellent form this season I don't see where he would fit into our starting line-up. There are a number of much better attacking midfield options ahead of him, I definitely wouldn't have him ahead of the likes of Maloney or Morrison or Naismith. The only place I could see for him is wide right, and even then I'd rather have someone like Matt Phillips, average though he is.

It's funny how the most precious of fans can whine about feeling 'patronised' by his comments about the club but at the same time be wound up by his social media WUMmery. I think he's an decent catch for Little Ireland, he should be able to perform well enough against most 4th seed nations and below, and if nothing else gives a bit of depth to an otherwise pretty shallow pool of players for them.

Today was an ok result, but puts pressure on us against Hibs. Looking at the fixture lists of rival teams I'd be happy just to take the 6 points from the two home games against Hibs and Hearts. I don't think anything is guaranteed for us seeing as we put in a poor points return in our last run of winnable fixtures after the New Year.

For all the arrogance that we're a better team than Hibs, neither the league table nor results between the teams so far support this. Being able to shitfest the odd game is in itself the mark of a decent if unspectacular side, and it's the reason why they're currently quite a sizeable 7 points ahead of us. I think Butcher's far too professional a manager for Hibs to end up finishing below any of the 4 prospective play-off sides, even given some of the dross he has to work with.

'Whatever happens' is a very silly thing of the chairman to say.

Toss up between him and Taylor, without either I don't think we would've won the match. Honourable mention too to our midfield, all three of whom were excellent, and tireless throughout.

Well we have played two dreadful-standard lower league teams just this season and didn't fare particularly well in either game. Whilst our squad is significantly superior to anything in the Championship, any evidence of us playing against ultra defensive teams (as would undoubtedly be the case in the play-offs) shows that we are likely to struggle. The way things are going I think we just need to sit tight and hope some dross side like Queen of the South makes the play-off final.

Come to terms with the fact that excessive happy clapping does not make you a better/more seasoned fan than anyone else.

You don't appear to be taking this at all well. I suppose we all could do with a class dunce to take our mind off a sore defeat for a wee while.

Yep, today's also pretty much underlined the significant losing mentality that's been rife for several months - this certainly isn't the first comfortable winning position we've bottled. Archibald has done nothing to address our woeful form, and is certainly not picking from the best players available which is worrying. There's been a glaring problem at managerial level for months, but I think we've left it far too late now for a change to have any real effect. We have to cross our fingers, hope for a miracle that we stay up, then punt him in the summer.

Almost as bad as the St Johnstone game.