Fearchar

If I had one criticism of Gallacher, it would be that he tends to kick the ball upfield too often, instead of retaining possession by throwing it out to a defender, and letting them get it up the park using our normal passing game. He played well against Kilmarnock, though, and I'd be inclined to let him retain his place.

It does seem that this season, unlike the last season, a number of players are running out of steam before the 90 minutes are up. Has there been a change in the fitness and diet regime?

The last few games have shown tactical naivety that is very alarming. Archie's position may not be so secure if we don't start winning at home.

This.

The midfield problems start in the centre, with Craigen. He gets in others' way (particularly Bannigan's), he doesn't tackle and he doesn't score. On a few occasions today, he was lucky to get the ball to a teammate after being muscled off it. The management response to the game was dreadful. Taylor was dead on his feet after being pushed, jostled and fouled as the sole striker, but Doolan was kept on the bench. By the middle of the second half, the team was playing like a lower-league side out for an adventure in a cup final - against a team largely inferior to them! Instead of bringing on Forbes to take control and keep the ball on the ground, they resorted to head tennis and punts up the park. What are these players doing in training? Their goalkeeper saves a penalty, and no-one rushes to put the ball out! As usual, we gain nothing from set pieces, despite winning more corners. The players are keen to complain after being fouled, instead of playing to the whistle - immediately giving an advantage to the opposition. This is real schoolboy stuff.

I agree entirely with her ladyship - to the extent that, after due consideration, I voted for Brian Gilmour's goal. Part of my thinking was that it would be unfair, since the club had encouraged support for Doolan's goal, to allow a pro-Thistle bias. So it can work both ways.

That's what I'd expect. Given the way last week's midfield was overrun, it would seem sensible to replace Craigen (who looked too tired to support Muirhead while defending last week, and who doesn't generally score either) in central midfield. Fraser as a (very different) replacement? Bannigan's more likely. In any case, if defending is shored up reasonably well, it must surely be time to consider playing Doolan with Taylor. If they gel (and I suspect they might well do so, because they are so different), and make a goal-scoring combination, then the lack of goals from midfield (thinking of Higginbotham and Craigen) could be less of a problem.

This is not unique to Archie, and his predecessor was guilty of exactly the same error - reacting too late to the team's needs during the game. IMHO this is a common fault because even if we don't have the amount of experience that these professionals have, their view of the game from the dugout is inferior to ours from the JHS. Brian Clough didn't watch players from the dugout, and these days it would be simple to coney signals to the dugout or, alternatively, send a bird's eye view from a video camera to the dugout. (TV and film directors don't watch the action directly: they always watch a monitor, because that shows what spectators could experience.)

The nervousness throughout the team comes from the back: Fox is just not directing his defence nor is he commanding his box. Opposition forwards are told to do two things - come from behind the goal line, a position that that Fox doesn't watch, and back into him to restrict his movement. Our defenders don't resist the forward's momentum, to give Fox room, nor are they ever directed to have someone on the back post. In fact, we were lucky not to lose a goal because of that naivety. We really miss Hinchcliffe's coaching, and it doesn't look as if Gallagher's alternative (as player or coach) will give us an alternative. Help! Craigen offered nothing today - once County had a man sent off, we looked more like we were equalling them in midfield - and that was with Forbes, the least mobile midfielder we had, on the park! Elliott, on the other hand, offers brawn, speed and agility: I really don't understand why so many seem to look down on him. Unlike Craigen, his passing is accurate and he tracks back to relieve the pressure on the defence. Doolan and Taylor should both be on from the start: with such a porous defence, we can't afford to ignore their goal-scoring.

We've got "dead" and "toxic" - but what happened to the "duck"?

An interesting suggestion for a management team. Are you sure they weren't combined at Thirds, though?

I hate drums at the football. Could we have "Arthur McBride" played over the loudspeaker for the benefit of fans bringing one to Firhill? "And the little wee drummer we flattened his pow "And we made a football of his rowdeydowdow "Threw it in the tide for to rock and to row "And bade it a tedious returning" <http://www.lyricstime.com/paul-brady-arthur-mcbride-and-the-sergeant-lyrics.html> The Basin may not have any tide but it could still be used as the final repository of the offending timpano.

Thanks for an informative post, potty trained. (I seem to have used up my "likes" for today, after using, er, none at all ) QueensXKid's comment about using youngsters is also very good, in my opinion. Why have them on the bench and not blood them, if there's nothing to lose anyway? They might go for a goal hammer-and-tongs, which couldn't be worse than the fushionless posturing of ATS, for example. If he can't be bothered challenging on the opposition byeline in the hope of getting a corner, he may get a move, but not to England, or even anywhere else in Glasgow: perhaps Greenock, or Dundee if he's lucky, so that he can go home during the week.

2 broadcasts, at 17:30 and 21:55 on Sunday 29th: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03mjjs1/broadcasts/upcoming It should also be available on the BBC iPlayer. If you're abroad and can't use it - well, I'm sure you can get advice from other expats.

This has been one of his failings for a long time: he looks as if he's playing for himself, and so has "Glorious Failure" written all over him. If we had a reserve team, that could be sorted out, but as it stands he wastes the ball every time he gets it from someone else, and then never delivers an end product. Even Craigen, who looked completely done by the end of the game, was preferable to seeing our attacks coming to nothing because of Higginbotham's search for glory. As for Balatoni - words fail me! If he had to play, it would have been safer to stick him up front as a target-man (in place of Higginbotham) and bring on Muirhead at the back. Doing without Osbourne, the midfield looked much faster, and Bannigan looked much more comfortable. Hard choices for Archie when Osbourne gets fit again. Elliot gets better with every game: he is strong enough and fast enough to fill his current role, and he seems to combine well with other players. Doolan is immense, giving the impression that he would show something extra special in midfield or in defence (as he did once) just as much as up front.

I'd love to know the stats on Higginbotham's targeting, too, but my impression is that he rarely gets shots on target. That's often a problem caused by lack of confidence: a nervous player tenses his muscles when shooting and the result is a shot wide of the target. Is this an attitude problem, and is it now spreading to Lawless? We seem to have players that can get into scoring positions but rarely put the ball in the net. Maybe the cool, unperturbed way Doolan goes about his business is something for others to learn from. Higginbotham seems to have more of a temper, and perhaps he should be helped to chill. That is down to coaching. The previous manager, for all his faults, was good at ironing out these problems and encouraging players to be confident and relaxed enough to score prolifically. Something to learn from?

If there is a good side to this bad experience, it has shown that Elliot is a good choice for this kind of game: he uses his strength and brings others into play. However, it's alarming to see the team trying to play hoofball and head tennis two weeks in a row.

Thanks. That was puzzling me. Yes, he must be an idiot, then.

Will beatification do, Blessed Blackpool Jag?

I've just watched the game v Hibs in full, and despite playing the incident (and stopping) a few times over, I can't see Doolan fouling at all, let alone anything worth a card. The centre back went to ground before Doolan reached him, and Doolan had to skip round to avoid him.. Of course, the officials have to make instant decisions, and I'm not disinterested, but it seems strange for Beaton to reach for a card almost immediately, for an incident in which there was clearly no injury inflicted on anyone.

Surely you mean "with a world first for a football stadium a built-in water feature" instead of "just over the canal".

This team loves to get the ball down the wings and keeps getting trapped there. The more direct approach, going from midfield into or near to the penalty box, takes less physical effort, is more likely to lead to a scoring opportunity and.....is ignored by our midfielders. Given an opportunity to pass out to the wing or to pass into the danger area in front of goal, our players always choose the former. There are whole teams that never go near the wings, in some of the world's top leagues, but we seem to be obsessed with the British habit of getting to the byline and crossing a ball into the general area of the goalmouth, in the hope of a defensive error. That's a weak apology for tactics. It has been mentioned before, but maybe this team really needs some coaching in attacking skills. After all, the Scottish game is full of gigantic centre backs: surely it can't be too difficult to figure out that crossing into the box isn't the best way to negate their strengths.

In general, Elliot did a good job covering for Osbourne's lack of pace and threatened in the box; he seems to be more capable of mixing it physically, too, although his first touch is woeful and he can be turned inside out when defending: some potential for improvement. Piccolo's main advantage is his ability to pass over distance; I still feel he'd be better showing that from midfield, or perhaps as a sweeper in a 5-man back line.

When Archie took over last season, the results picked up after him taking ovet the coaching. Since then, he mentioned at the Meet the Manager night that he doesn't play such an active role in coaching now. Maybe this needs to be put right. It could be that the team in general look up to him and respond better to his coaching better than to anyone else's.

Right on the money, IMHO. For some reason that has been an unresolved problem ever since Balatoni started turning out for us (and before then?). The only time anyone on the management side has ever seemed to take it amiss was after a certain match at Culter.