Fearchar

Been there - done that. Yes, it's inevitable.

Perhaps that is why we now have a Director of Football - to guard against administrative errors like that.

Well, if you insist on playing head tennis against Ayr United, you're likely to lose. 🤨

Too young, dwells on the ball too long instead of passing it back and who would provide accommodation - especially for a youngster with only yellow instead of red-and-yellow hair? 😄 Perhaps he'd only be snapped up by Livingston, who, for a club with 4 fans and an industrial hinterland of roundabout-building have remarkably strong financing. 🤨

IMHO segregation is more of an insult than a help, and if Falkirk or other fans at our level want to mingle they'll be welcome. Segregation is a measure best reserved for the clubs that actually need it. At other games, it stops fans from getting to know each other - which is detrimental to a sport that already has far too many blinkered outlooks.

What a shame the football authorities in Scotland couldn't at least try to get a grip of the recurrent financial problems at all levels of the game. After all, it has affected all levels, from the Old Firm to the likes of Albion Rovers and probably lower, and encouraged financial adventurism (Dundee FC, anyone?) as well as sobering restructures and rescues. Instead of splurging inflated salaries on executives that don't even reside in Scotland, they could spend much less on sending out, say, two small teams of retired accountants to spend a week with each club, going through the books and then attending a game before delivering a report with recommendations to the club board - much better value for money, and helpful at all levels. Setting up a small fund to help with refurbishments and repairs (e.g. Morton's seats or roofing), perhaps exacted from all clubs' takings at 0.5%, would be another sound move. Likely to happen? Not in Scottish football! ☹️

My eyes hurt after that. Both teams worthy of having 3 points docked. 😄

Looking around the JHS many came prepared for a low, bright sun by wearing caps with brims. Why don't our goalkeepers at Firhill all do this? Surely a cap with a brim should be part of their kit. In fact, the same applies to officials and visiting goalkeeper, although they at least have the excuse of not facing these conditions predictably.

In my view, that's the matter closed: individuals' views, whether controversial or even ludicrous (flat earther, young creationist, a believer in transubstantiation - whatever) are not something the club or any voluntary society should be policing or even commenting on. As for public bodies like the SFA - surely they have more pertinent matters to attend to too, e.g. the precarious finances of football clubs or pyromania at games.

Not just through the keeper: this team must be the slowest in the division at switching from defence to offence. (As a side note, the modern tendency for a player on the ball not to turn with it, but instead to look for a back pass, must surely contribute to this tendency.)

As there was a challenge to go to what is now the bizarrely named X, here is the heartfelt declaration of a father from that same source: https://x.com/SophiaSLorey/status/1889380745870975479?t=YahU1JuWP6_6UW4hSDsDhw&s=19 For my part, my tolerance for castration cults is very limited (as is that of my gay friends), but more pertinently in this sporting context men have invaded and continue to invade women's sport to the detriment of all. The club really needs to get up to speed on these issues if it's going to wave flags at us.

The "trans rights" flags represent an ideology that says women's sport is for men too: in a word, misogyny. Given men's physical advantages, that is anti-women. (Let's not go down the path of mentioning men romping about in women's private spaces - oops, I just have. There is a reason for having a women's team that isn't just a repeat of the men's team.) Let's keep Partick Thistle - men and women - respectful of women's rights.

What a scandal to see the anti-women flags alongside the red and yellow! 😡

Proper yellow is better. 😉

A lucky win in the end. Unlike another fan on here, judging from the TV picture IMHO the Accies' top was bowfin'. Ours was ace, though.

Tbf he came on instead of the Invisible Man (C_______).

A successful manager has to be prepared to upset players. (Our amateur female players might be expected to resent a pro's aggression.)

Today showed the one-dimensional style that we've seen all season - securing possession by constantly passing back or across the pitch instead of driving forward. Then the opposition have plenty of time to set themselves up to defend or win back possession. The players are having any aggression coached out of them, and now they're crumbling. At 3 goals down, no professional competitor naturally passes back - he launches it forward, if not to a forward then into the opposition box. These players have had all their initiative and aggression sucked out of them, and it shows. Normally, on a day when a team gets a doing, the losers snarl, argue and commit fouls. What did ours do? They only committed as many fouls as their opponents. That's a sign that they've given up. I wouldn't blame the players: the whole team is being set up to nullify their instincts. Either Doolan has to change the approach or he'll lose his job.

If Doolan were brave enough, he'd make subs at halftime. He has nothing to lose, after all. IMHO Lawless and Ablade on for Fitzpatrick and Robinson, with a threat of Diack on for Graham if he doesn't manage more shots in the first 15 minutes.

The team looks as if it still has a hangover - misplaced passes throughout. The Pars are having it easy.

That game was sacrificed to a footballing philosophy that does not work at this level. If players repeatedly dwell on the ball until they can find that one team-mate without a marker, they lose any possibility of surprising the opposition with an attack, and make their inflexible setup open to a quick counter when possession is lost. More aggression and less of that ponderous cogitation are needed. Do these players, at the 2nd level in Scottish football, really believe they are world-beaters that can control games as they like? They need to graft - to drive forward into the opposition box as often and as quickly as possible. That way they might just earn a place in a Premiership squad: as it is, they're journeymen at a low level that are lucky enough to play alongside an aged goalscorer and an agile shot-stopper. Hoping to win back possession and then waiting for them to do their stuff is simply not enough.

As heard on TV, "outplayed...and outworked." Yes, Martindale signs giants, and it was played on plastic, but the team folded. No answer to that physicality: no grit, especially in a soft-centred midfield.

I still don't know what the penalty was for, but the rest of the time the ref was trying to keep the game going as a contest although by the end the Ayr United team could have been down to 9 players on the park. In my view that was indicated when they were told to take a free kick from even further back than a foul, after moving the ball forward past the centre line. As for whining about a decision against you that is clearly justified... What do footballers have in their heads - sawdust?

The only obvious example of anyone showing desire was Stevie Lawless, who was out on the touchline stretching and exercising in an attempt to persuade the management team that he should go on the park. He was ignored. Before his contract is up, he's likely to have moved on to where his presence is appreciated. By the end of the first hour the players on the park looked as if they were already pech'd out and were prepared to call it a day. These fushionless characters are paid by you and me to stop goals and to create goals for 90 minutes, but that's not what they or their coaches are delivering. Nice possession stats, though. They remind me of the Bible parable of the servants given talents by their master when he went away. "And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness..."

However well Ferrie played, our team were in a position to force a 2-goal lead by halftime, and should have done so. As for the second half, after conceding the lead, there was no spirit, energy or hunger. This team has no heart, and IMHO that comes from the top. It's not a new problem for this club. 🙁