Fearchar

A poor game, but at this level preparing for the predictable should surely be a must. It seems to be the Thistle way to leave set pieces to chance. I've lost count of the number of times throw-ins go straight to an opposing player. Williams played competently at right-back, but he was one of a long series of our players to do this. 🤡 Then there are the corners: luckily, this evening the ball broke repeatedly to our players, but aside from Sneddon's header, have we scored from the first touch of the ball after a corner? Do we have any players allocated the task of attacking the ball at corners? This is a team set up to use wingers crossing into the box, yet corners seem to be left in the lap of the gods, or to Graham's poaching skills.

It was evident at 89 minutes that Doolan had settled for a draw and used up all the subs possible to give lads the opportunity to play at Hampden. After the referee overruled his assistant, the latter might just as well have gone for an early bath. Putting players' pleas before your own assistant's view was bound to undermine the latter, and visibly affected him for the rest of the game.

Perhaps we should go all-out for a continental arrangement and appoint a Director of Football to hire and fire, leaving Doolan to coach the first team. It's clear that we have one or two gaps: an outright hard man that won't accept defeat and a defensive midfielder. (They could be the same person.)

Perhaps there is a lesson in this for the future: that the club (CEO?) should have mediators lined up to be used when (not if) such disagreements erupt. The local football club to my mother in Germany had a similar problem, when the Aufsichtsrat (a non-executive board) disagreed fundamentally with the executive and resigned en masse. Luckily, former board members stepped in to mediate, and the board resumed its position, with an agreement between the two factions. In a club owned jointly by many people, differences - even stark ones - are bound to arise, and it would seem worthwhile to prepare for such disputes so that they don't take on a life of their own to the detriment of everyone's aspirations for the club. Retaining professional mediators must surely be better than conflict in social media.

It's useful to know where to look for the ticket numbers: loudspeakers at the game may go unheard or announcements missed.

No football team attains consistent success without a sound defence - whatever the witterings of journos make out. Ours needs a lot of work. The central defence is adequate, but we have a right-back, albeit a stand-in, who will not make it there; a left back who has lost interest in the game since last season; and two goalkeepers who aren't prepared to put a firecracker under their defenders' backside when they make an error. (They need to take a lesson from Manuel Neuer, who shouted and screamed at his defence, cursing them all ends up when they let Brazil score against Germany; at the time, Germany was winning 7-0.) As for midfield: they have to be impressive to carry the passenger Bannigan (slow, still one-footed at the end of his career) AND cover their defence. No wonder Graham feels he has to come deep to help out. Lyon might at least offer support to attack, but Robinson and Alston also offer better options, at least coming forward. A mean, aggressive defensive midfielder or centre back should be the priority in the next window.

Zander is playing at right back.

0-2. Playing Banzo in midfield is like playing a man down. Meanwhile, we are in serious need of a goalkeeper who commands his area and tears into defenders that don't do their job.

Contrary to popular misconception, the German diet is not mostly composed of beer and Wurst: it's largely bread and cream - lashings of it, on everything, including salad.

Where is our b******d? We don't have a dominant player in midfield or among the centre backs, and one or other is essential for a winning team. The great Brian Clough put two in as centre backs. Where is the grit in our team?

Robinson was all but invisible.

The last game I attended - in Germany. (Face obscured to spare the blushes of my younger son, who has not bought a season ticket. 😶) Pilsner and Currywurst, for the bon vivants anxious to know.

Wouldn't we do just as well with an AI coach? 🤨

Surely football clubs are just blindly following the example of big corporations, which have seen that collecting and analysing some data can boost their turnover even if they exclude the outliers, e.g. the disabled, the elderly and the security conscious. IMHO this only leads to putting off potential customers for the future, especially the young, who often prefer spur-of-the-moment decisions to attend events, and they don't have the steady income stream to buy, say, season tickets. Disregarding the needs of disadvantaged groups only leads to rancour, and a flight to the two rancid clubs in Scotland that can afford to provide decent faciclities for the disadvantaged. FWIW, I've long believed that all football entry should include a minimal proportion of ticket sales (1%?) that goes into a trust that supports clubs to fund improvements, e.g. the toilets at Cappielow - with funds provided on the basis of need and lack of ability to pay. Standards for all, including visiting fans, could gradually be raised throughout the game, while the wealthier clubs would hardly even notice the sums involved.

Watch out! The polis will be around to knock on your door soon. 🙄

They still seem to manage to defend five corners in a row without conceding a goal, though.

Bannigan is a luxury the team cannot afford: slow and too one-footed.

Playing like inexperienced pensioners. Dominated from the front to midfield, with some desperate defending keeping the scoreline down. McInroy the only effective midfielder.

Immediately hung up on - several times. It looked as if these two season ticket holders wouldn't get to go. ☹️ Then in position 8, then 6, then 5 in a queue. Maximum queue capacity 8? The connection was breaking up constantly. That's going through broadband, but with newly installed FTTP, which should provide clear VOIP. Changing to 5G didn't improve the connection, suggesting that the problem is at the other end, with the club. The waiting music is bad at the best of times, but dire when breaking up.

Probably squeezed in on the end of a row, restricted to half a seat. 🙁

All credit to Aaron Muirhead for his attitude towards that game. Out of likes, but can only agree. All credit to Aaron Muirhead for his comments after the game. Maybe his is the voice we need, but at the back rather than in midfield.

A warm tribute on the club site.

And the equaliser comes from the Lowland League side playing through the centre - where most goals come from.

Same old, same old - faffing about on the wings without getting enough players into scoring positions. The best opportunity by far came to Spartans in a rare breakaway, and our best was a ball over the top to a sole attacking player in the box, which might have been better lofted over all the players there, including the goalkeeper, who was well off his line. Let's hope for a more tactically aware 2nd half.

Play the game according to the dinosaurs of Scottish football (Battle cry: "Ger the ball to the byeline an' whup u' in!"), and you'll lose to a John McGlynn team, or at best get a draw against 10 men. Obviously, both fullbacks had a poor game. Without the players on the bench to shore up this weakness, more goals had to be scored. Meanwhile, at the other end, the two players looking most likely to score, Lawless and Fitzpatrick, were exiled to the wings to feed off scraps or to launch hopeful crosses into the box. (Lawless, of course, also tracked back to cover McKenzie, who seemed to want to become a winger or a centre half instead.) Effective crosses require huge amounts of practice and more players in the box: "Without good balls into the box, there can be no tactical adjustments," and "Particular value has to be placed on the timing between wingers and both strikers," [my emphasis] and "The wingers need to have enough time to put in a precise cross," [my emphasis] and "At the same time [as the cross is coming in] the strikers need to be completely determined to force their way to the ball." (This is standard, conventional modern training for the over-20s according to the DFB, the German equivalent of the SFA.) By contrast, we generally play with a single striker and hope that the two wingers being played might get a cross in, despite being under pressure. This is the football of yesteryear, dependent on a lucky cross or a lucky striker. In the past, this may have been effective, but those days should be long gone. We needn't be surprised if the John McGlynns of this game are successful, as their antediluvian football is effective against similarly outdated tactics. By definition, it must be if he can get a draw with 10 men on the park.