partickthedog

In general agreement with most of the above. Slight improvement on last 2 weeks, but overall still very disappointing and we seemed to decline the longer the game progressed. What occurred to me was the lack of the sort of combinational play which so often produces goals. Milne and Fitzpatrick managed some of that in the first half, but no other players seemed capable of linking up with each other, and there was a complete disconnect between Graham and Diack, and also between the two of them and the rest of the team. Megwa did reasonably well, but he had no one to combine with. You would have thought that the necessary telepathic understanding would be built up in the good training we have every week, but that does not seem to be the case. When someone makes a break, the final pass or cross rarely finds a colleague, but perhaps they are not making the right runs? Nothing against Bannigan and Stanway, but the final double midfield substitution was very negative. Surely that was the time to bring on Chalmers or Smith to set Livingston some new challenges and change the flow of the game. For next week I am clinging to the hope that Falkirk may play a more open game than our last 3 opponents (Dunfermline, Hamilton and Livingston) and that will in turn encourage us to play some good open football as well. Maybe there is more danger of conceding, but we do look so much better when a game opens up rather than the attritional trench warfare to which we are sadly becoming accustomed.

I would have to confess that the club (as in Lewis Dickson at PTFC) arranged the framing for me. As for putting it on the wall, an ex-member of the TJF Board did this with the assistance of a couple of large picture hooks placed close together (the necessary string at the back of the picture was already there). I also received some helpful advice from the Football Committee (sorry, I made that last bit up).

They have had a good week in training. Have they ever had a bad week in training?

I can now see that I sort of put my face on the back of the Stevie Lawless shirt. Maybe an idea for the next TJF fundraiser (other faces are available).

Here is mine with a different solution to the Duffy header challenge. Lots more space to fill! I hope this works. I am also trying to attach a photo of the signed Stevie Lawless shirt from the WeAreThistle sponsorship last year. Thank you again to all who contributed to this. I must say that I like having this on the wall. The name “Lawless” gives the impression that I am a sort of nihilistic threat to the established order.

Finally got the board up on the wall with all the pin badges on it. Looks brilliant, with plenty of extra space still to fill. I have quite a few work meetings on Zoom and having the pin badges on the wall behind me invites questions and gives me an excuse to talk about Thistle (if any excuse were needed)!

I quite like that team. I might have preferred Stanway, but I do appreciate what Bannigan can bring. Just 2 questions: If Scott Robinson is fully fit (a big question I know), would he not be our best Number 10? Smith is unproven there and I wonder if he could bring the same physical edge as Robinson, which might be particularly necessary against Livi, who tend to have big strong units in central defence. I am really hoping that Chalmers begins to fire, but I think that he may have to work his way back in by electric performances from the bench rather than as a starter. Could Ablade come in from the right, at times keeping the width, at other times being more of a partner to Graham, but running in behind rather than back to goal?

Just remembering a player called Danny Lennon. He could square pass and tidy up in the midfield with the best of them. Yet so often he was the one running past the striker and scoring some brilliant goals (and a few tap ins and rebounds as well).

To be fair on Ben Stanway, he was one of our better performers on Saturday (I appreciate that is not saying too much!).

Like to Firhill?

One other thought that occurred to me from yesterday's game. Hamilton scored a fairly cheap goal when a tall central defender (at least I think he was a central defender, you can correct he if I am wrong, though it would not detract totally from my point) got his head on a free kick. None of our central defenders seem to be able to do this. Our only regular goal-scorer in this situation is Harry Milne. If you are going to field three central defenders (and I personally would prefer to revert to two) and make the game more stodgy, surely one potential upside which has not been realised is scoring more headed goals from set pieces.

Returning this thread to topic. I thought that Myles Roberts' distribution yesterday was reasonable. David Mitchell is exceptionally quick. Jamie Sneddon was exceptionally slow. Myles sits somewhere in the middle of the two in terms of speed, but has sufficient additional qualities in his game to make me far more confident with him in goals than I do with Mitchell or did with Sneddon. I am guessing that our defence may think the same. The only downside with Myles is his distribution and I think that he has been working on this. Yesterday he did play quite a substantial number of balls to his defenders rather than booting upfield. I still believe he could do it more and quicker, but he is getting there. Given the other excellent qualities he brings, I would not regard Myles as part of the problem.

4 of these guys may be called Coldplay, but the other 3 are the coolest dudes in the room!

Going for all the Bo'ness points again. Can I play my joker on Stirling Albion v Bo'ness Athletic? HHHAA AAHHA HAHAH AAHHH Thanks BB

Managed to pick up all the Bo’ness points!

I actually thought Fitzy was one of our better players today and never stopped trying to create opportunities. Stanway also did well after he came on. Much more urgency, if not effectiveness, from us after their goal. Pity it had to wait so long. Milne not up to his usual excellent standard, nor was Megwa as good as he was last week. Overall we lacked fluency. Some promising individual passages of play, but we could not seem to stitch it together.

Not fantastic so far, but we are playing better than last week and have created some decent chances. Harry is getting a lot of space. Has not made good use of it so far, but hopefully that time will come. Defence sound apart from one mistake by Aero which allowed Hamilton attacker through one on one. Myles made excellent save. Further forward, a lot more crosses than last week. For some reason there is a reluctance to shoot, waiting for the perfect opportunity. Just hit it!

Looks like a reasonably sensible position on the board as well, so it would appear that both knew what they were doing. Hungary would generally be a far stronger chess playing nation than Scotland (the world's best ever female player Judit Polgar is Hungarian), so well done to Roughie!

I would really hope that we do not persist with 3 centre backs. To me that only works when the centre of the 3 is a creative ball player who can step forward into midfield or at times even carry the ball through the midfield. Alan Hansen, Scott Paterson and the first year version of Adam Barton are good examples. Even Lewis Neilson showed some signs of that ability last season. To have 3 similar defenders whose default options are pass it sideways or boot it long just does not do it for me. Surely we do not need to show Hamilton that much respect. We were fortunate last week, but I think that in general we have better prospects in a flowing game than in a scrappy one.

Hi WJ. I do not think I was peddling any conspiracy theories. I was simply suggesting that there must be a sensible explanation, and that TJF might be able to help to provide it. You have done just that! Thank you. As stated by Jag1970, it would have been helpful if Levi had given this additional explanation. However, I do appreciate that his programme article may have been subject to a word limit, and perhaps he simply ran out of space (not sure if that counts as a conspiracy theory, although it does continue the astronomical theme).

If it is a single 12 team league, then the one finishing last will avoid relegation.

I am sure that there must be a sensible answer to the opaque riddle posed by Levi Gill's article. You feel that there should be some extra paragraph that explains it all, but somehow was omitted. The whole thesis of the article is that we make the best use of our assets, including extracting the maximum commercial gain. Where is the punchline that reveals the ultimate advantage towards which removing the revenue producing scaffolding was the first step? I wonder if this is one where our TJF reps could assist our understanding?

BB, parkrun encourages people to participate by reassuring them that they will never finish last. There is always a designated "tail walker" who will finish behind everyone else. Maybe I can encourage people to participate in the Scottish Cup Pop-up competition by reassuring them that they will never finish last. I am the designated tail walker and will definitely score less points than you. So, please do take part.

It would just have meant that the late losing goals would have been a little earlier.

Good idea! Would we start booing/mocking the timekeeper as well as/instead of the referee and linespersons?