partickthedog

We've got Luke McBeth! Excellent entry Only thing missing now is a mention of Lady Gaga.

I am not normally an in the know type social media person, but I see from James Cairney's X feed that apparently Morton have granted Thistle permission to speak to Dougie Imrie. That of course does not make his appointment certain.

I think that Robbie Crawford notched one at Hampden v Queen's Park, but I am totally in agreement with your overall point. The comparison with Falkirk is particularly telling. Timed arrival in the box at the end of a speedy move a la Frank Lampard or driving into the box a la Declan Rice are so much more potentially productive than our slow down and spread it wide approach.

That seems a fitting conclusion to Brian Graham's tenure as manager. Very good and clinical result considering that it was away from home and that Spartans needed a draw to survive. One can imagine that it must have become fairly tense towards the end, and that it would have been easy to crumble given that there was less at stake for Thistle than for Spartans. Montrose fans will have been humming the Great Escape theme tune!

Congratulations to Hibs on winning the title, and to former Thistle player Linzi Taylor for scoring the decisive goal against Rangers. Glasgow City finished second and so locked the OF out of the European qualification places. So refreshing!

Good to see Stevie Lawless back to something like his old form. Megwa and Stanway showing up well. Just could not fashion a convincing chance. Disappointingly soft goal conceded.

Can we all agree that this is a "must win" game?

I would be more positive (though still measured) in my assessment. Megwa has had some excellent performances, especially in the away wins at Livingston and Ayr. For someone who is not tall, he is remarkably strong in the air. He shows good skill and movement going forward, but I concede that his crossing could be better (apart from his beautifully measured cross for Macaulay Tait's toe at Livingston!). I think that he has been a little unfortunate in that his relatively small number of mistakes have been disproportionately punished, especially in the more publicly obvious home games. I am thinking of 2 occurrences at the John Lambie end when his failure to see the ball out led to conceding goals (and to his receiving a tonguelashing from Ashcroft), and of course he played a part in Robbie Fraser escaping to put in the cross for the first Livi goal on Tuesday. However, he has put in a lot of good shifts, particularly in the away games. Equally it would be going too far to say that he has been outstanding. Maybe we could agree with "whelming", neither overwhelming nor underwhelming?

Not quite on topic, but nowhere else to post this, and not worthy of a thread of its own. I thought that Hibernian were top of the SWPFL, but I must have been mistaken as they have only 1 player in the Scotland squad named today, whereas Rangers have 6.

Thank you. Could not see that from so far away.

Lee Ashcroft so unlucky with the shot that hit the bar. Shows what happens when a player drives into the box and shoots. I appreciate that I was a long way away in the John Lambie, but it looked like Jakubiak and Graham should have buried their late chances to make matters more interesting for Friday. Having said that, each Friday the challenge gets tougher, and each time so far we have come through!

The main difference between tonight and last Friday at Ayr may be with regard to the aerial battle. Thistle dominated this on Friday. Ashcroft and McBeth were winning everything in the air, and even smaller players like Megwa and Bannigan were coming out on top in more than their fair share of aerial duels. And of course up front Graham twice scored as a result of winning the header in the opposition box. To put it simplistically, our defensive headers were taking the ball further away from our own goal, meaning that Ayr had to resort to shots from distance, which they did spectacularly badly. At the other end, our heading prowess took us closer to, and in in one case into, the opposition goal. I do not see this happening so readily against the Livi giants. Hopefully we will be able to find another way to win!

That was of course after Kris had undeniably reached 100, but if it had been before that Kris might have been in the same boat as Brian as regards there arguably being 2 alternative milestone goals. The Archive strives to be as accurate as possible, and all TV and video footage shows the ball miles over the line.

I think that Livi are selling out one block at a time. When I bought only Block N was available, but others known to me have now bought in other blocks. Presumably we just carry on till the whole East Stand is full. Of course it makes little practical difference as we all stand or sit where we want regardless of seat number.

I would have to confess that I did not watch today's game, so I cannot really comment on either team's performance today. My comment was more as regard the run of excellent results Montrose have put together over the last number of weeks. However, I am sure that you are right!