jagfaelivi

Don't know if I see it Sandbank Boy's way that we would struggle against fourth tier sides down south. Remember we drew with Wigan pre season and they won the third tier and we also drew with Rotherham at the same time and we didn't look out of place there and they are in the second tier. Sooo I think we would put up a decent show in the third tier, particularly with the extra finance we would have. I thought the Wimbledon match was a poor standard. They seem to go for big guys then punt it up front for runners to chase. We've had a few teams play like that up here in the recent past; Killie and County spring to mind and Dundee United at times as well. All conjecture but an interesting slant.

Glad to see that Lyle has not lost his art of missing when he only has the keeper to beat. He was soooo good at it with us. Remember Aberdeen at Firhill when he was clean through several times and still didn't manage one of them. Note he scored 23 for Wimbledon and more or less the same for Falkirk in our second tier. Watching the standard of today's match I suppose it was comparable to our Championship. Maybe even inferior. He might struggle in the third tier next season.

For my age I am ludicrously impatient. Why is nothing happening and I suppose I feel this way because County have signed four already ? And. I should know that we are operating in a market where even a whiff of a name and our competitors are in and taking advantage of our lack of paying power and stealing the prospect from under our noses. And most players are on holiday yet! But I still can't wait for something to happen!

Laughed out loud when I saw that "little Leicester" the minnows "what done good" were offering some 32 million for a foreign forward and that the bigger teams were chasing after a 17 year old and the money for him was to be £10 million. Remember being at Inverness once when we were playing them - great game with all six subs used and Wayne Rooney ( much in the news at that time)could have picked up the wage bill for the 28 players out of his own little remuneration that week and still have had £125k in his pocket. Our problem as a footballing country is that we are geographically too close to the whole obscenity that is the English league. I hope SKY stop calling their top division the "" greatest league in the world". Just have a look at a REALLY good league and it's situated in the bigger part of the Iberian Peninsula. Will English football end in tears? And whatever happens we just have to keep going and not be sickened by developments south of our border.

Higginbotham? Packet of pan drops and an orange?

Found myself "supporting" Killie last night just because a) Falkirk have turned into media darlings of late eg plucky little, never-say-die etc and, I have NEVER seen a team be as consistently lucky as Falkirk have been in the last few weeks eg how did that goal go in last night when 99 times out of 100 it would have hit a defender? And how did Hibs not get a penalty in the first game? Defies belief !!! I hope they get their come uppance!

I honestly think that Falkirk were so lucky over the two legs and it's now inevitable that the farmers will see to them in the final. What with the big centre half getting off with his Les Mottram moment in game one and then not getting sent off last night. If it had been US we would have been reduced to ten and maybe fewer in the two games. Remember what the St Mirren clogger did to us with the penalty we never got at Firhill for his hand ball? And the penalty that was given to them at the other end in the last minute for the ball hammered at Osman (?) from point blank range in another game against them? Come uppance was their eventual relegation. Falkirk have run out of luck! Sends a shiver down my spine thinking how difficult it is to get out of the Championship.

Joe Hogan was a good golfer as well as footballer as was George Smith and, later on, Alan Hansen.

Re the "scoring for own team and the opposition in the same match". Away back in the mists of time I recall Sandy Brown doing this but I can't remember if it was us or if he had moved to Everton by then? Anybody know?

Yup! I was there. Mr Bunny asked about the young lads. Young Penrice had his moments after he settled but he got skinned three times before he did and we could have lost goals off these. His corner for Freddie's header was a beauty. Davy Wilson was his usual , still a bit unsure of himself and keen to pass the ball a couple of yards to a more experienced colleague. Nesbitt was good when he came on and I think he suffers a bit because of few opportunities and I get the impression he is trying a bit too hard but would be great in a team when he settles down. Nisbet wasn't really on long enough to comment on him. Overall the game was won and we chucked it away. Disappointing. Thought Stevie Lawless was immense and covered every blade of the pitch with some really sterling defending at times. Dools had a good game, lots of great movement. I also liked Ryan Edwards contribution and he took his goal well after Amoo's persistence on the byline to get the ball over. Hope we win on Saturday.

There was a thin guy warming up with our other subs at half time. He had long hair. Who was he? Nobody around me seemed to know either and I think I know what all on the bench look like. Anybody know?

After that great day at Rugby Park there is even a pianist on Young Musician of the Year called Jackie Campbell. The REAL Jackie Campbell would have been proud of that performance today. I certainly was!!!

Somebody said we hoofed it forward today! Well!!! Maybe we did at times but I prefer to say that we cleared our lines and none of the tippy tappy stuff we indulged in the last couple of weeks in our own half. And the other thing that stuck out a mile in comparison to the last couple of games was that we didn't give the ball away nearly as often. Yes, Welshy was good but so was wee Mussy and Gary Miller on the other side as well as our central defenders. Big Dan reminded me of Duffy at his best (but with hair) - his head was under EVERYTHING. Was there a failure? I don't think so and they just hated us running at them. Well done Archie , Shaggy and the whole team. Proud to be a Jagsfan and will need this grin surgically removed tonight!!!!

Yup! We were awful but surely we MUST be the easiest team in the league to play against. Do we EVER do anything different? Get the ball in the midfield pass it out to Booth ; he messes around a bit and, at best delivers a feeble ball in which, if he catches it properly, the goalie fields, or if he doesn't it's mopped up by their defence. The other option is we go down the right wing and it's similar with Amoo but more often than not he over hits the cross. Anyway, the other thing we do is f--t around and lose the ball without looking like getting it into their box. Do we ever go right at them? We have some clever players so what's wrong with trying to beat a man and have somebody close in attendance if he does lose the ball? How often do we see a queue to head the ball from a cross? All the time! How often do we ever get a header on target or even get a head to the ball? Never. We are still doing the same things we did in the season we won the Championship but, arguably, less well. Our last third invention is pathetic to non existent. And don't get me started on how poor we are at coping physically..... Am already dreading next week when the VERY physical farmers will lap up our lack of brawn in the challenge. I can still see Magennis going past Booth in the last match as if he wasn't there. If I were Archie I wouldn't even know where to start. We have been well and truly rumbled and as somebody has already said if we stay up it will be by the failings of others rather than what we currently have to offer.

Angry Gaz's comment about Chris scoring 15 or 20 "if we give him the ball in the box" made me think. Have we EVER this season had bodies in the box? Very seldom I would guess. We have a huge tendency when somebody gets the ball on the wing to meander forwards and never get into a threatening position as a team, leaving the lightweight Chris surrounded by towering defenders. Other teams certainly get bodies in the box and there lies the answer why we don't score more That and our miserable performances from dead ball situations. I saw the stat from the Spurs v WBA match last night, more than one in four of Spurs goals come from dead balls while the Baggies score more than one in three of their goals from free kicks and corners. Anybody know our stat on this front?

Re the "Hogan" definition. In Hogan's defence he only played three of the Majors in 1953, winning all of them, because he missed the PGA Championship as he was sailing back to the States after winning the Open at Carnoustie. Strange to relate I am currently in the middle of reading Jimmy Demaret's book on Hogan.

Watching the match at Inverness and with Killie leading our ex centre half made a mistake and their goalie was sent off. Now 3-1 to ICT. This means almost certainly Kilie have to win their last four matches and us not to add to our points total for us to be in the play off place. We are nine in front with another point worth because of goal difference. Getting happier by the day.

Sad me watched a chunk of this Championship match last night and, late on, the challengers for a place in the Premier League brought on a wee guy who set up a scarcely deserved away win . He got the ball and danced through the penalty area before poking it to a team mate who scored. Now the question I'm asking is - what would Amoo or Lawless have done? We all know that there would have been a weak cross into the box unless, of course, we hit the first man. These two Thistle players have the ability to frighten the life out of defenders but do we get in the box? Silly question. In the same way that we have talked of corners and free kicks elsewhere we should be loôking at this "running at" defenders, being far more direct tactic with the quality of both Lawless and Amoo and even Edwards. And you don't get penalties if you don't get in the box and that answers why we've had one in the last three hundred years!!!

If you check various threads I've been harping on about this for months and months. Is there NOBODY who can whip in a quick inswinger right on top of the goalie? We really do have to do something about this.

And Edwards might just be coming with a rush after a while to get going. What an effort he puts in. Lost in admiration for how he's pulled himself up to the standard. Keep it going Ryan!

You know there are games I'll always remember as a lifelong Jags fan. And tonight is one of them. Yahoo!! Though the memories are not all as good as this. Thanks Jags! That was brill !!!

Yeah but I still think Pogba will start. There was an occasion on Saturday over by the dugouts where his physical presence forced the Killie player to put the ball out. I nudged my pal and said " that's what he does for us!". I know he is getting hammered for not jumping on Saturday and that others think he is crap because he doesn't score. BUT he gives us that second by shoving and pushing for the midfield to get up the park. When he does that well he is worth his weight in gold and it's something that Dools will never be able to do. Unless or until we have a midfield that just runs at the opposition AND from a more central position, we are a lot better with Pogba there to "soften up" the opposition and then for Dools to come on in the last half hour to finish them off. I see Ryan as an asset if he plays that quick movement forward role amply backed up by wee Stevie. Let's get into the b------s box!!! And David Amoo can come in from the right and destroy them. To hell with getting down the wing and hitting floated crosses to nobody! Can't wait for tonight!

Radio Scotland is reporting on its sports news bulletins a little snippet of Archie standing up for us on tomorrow night. I think he says something like it is a massive game for us too so he is keen that all the media attention does not fall on United and their romantic fight for survival. I'm hoping there will be more of this on Sportsound at 6.30. GOOD ON YE BIG MAN!!! GREAT TO HEAR YOU FIGHTING OUR CORNER. I hope Jaggies turn up in their thousands tomorrow night! Monrajags !!! I just love you!!!

Rid Sqwerr thank you re the penalties quip! And I see elsewhere they are going on big time about our set pieces, corners in particular and crossing in general. We have three players I would love to see running into the box - Amoo, Lawless and now Ryan Edwards. If we do hee haw trying to cross or when we get corners why not be more direct? Watched the snatch of our Tuesday opponents on the Beeb last night and it confirmed what I said about them when they humped Killie 5-1 earlier in the year. All they do is hit long balls and run after them. I think Archie took fright with that result and that was why they managed to beat us in the cup the following week - remember we set up so defensively? I don't think it is the way we are going to beat them. Why not trust our defence and go for the jugular with the aforementioned three running at them and big Pogba taking the hits? Would love to see it

I watched the highlights of Dundee beating County last night and the most noticeable thing about their play was the number of players they got forward and how quickly they did it. I've been harping on here for ages about how few players we get into the box but it was evident from the footage I've just mentioned that midfielders and forwards were breaking necks to get into the box. Dundee have had great press this season for the exploits of Hemmings, Stewart et al but their record is not really any better than us ( we score fewer goals by far but are better at defending) Is it just that we have worse attackers but better defenders? I talked about our penalty paucity on another thread being because you have to get players in the box to get penalties. We just don't!!!