laukat

Wasn't at the game and only caught the last 20 minutes of the steam. Appreciate the performance wasn't great but on the whole its not the worst to be out of this tournament. Last night demonstrated we just don't have a big enough squad to play in multiple competitions and whilst the prize money has increased in last nights competition its nowhere near what could be on offer if we win on Saturday or continue to challenge in the league. Hopefully last night allowed enough rest for O'Reilly, Ashcroft, McPherson, Stanway to freshen up enough to beat Montrose. However what was most telling about our squad was who we couldn't rest. Again we had to ask Chalmers and Fitzpatrick to play almost full games because we have almost zero cover in those positions. Reading was also again asked to play a full game but at least with Loughrey on board there are now options there assuming O'Reilly stays fit. Only other comments and its not an excuse for our standard of play but the pitch does very bobbly almost rutted.

Smyth was too good for the championship however suspect he still struggle for game time at St Mirren. Wonder if St Mirren are looking to sell him? Wonder if that means Halliday is coming?

I wonder if our transfer plans will change depending on our Scottish Cup tie? If we got through against Montrose and got an away tie at one of the 2 cheeks would Wilson be able to get in a couple of better players?

I think our away results have dropped as our general effectiveness has dropped. Its always harder to win away from home and our current form means that just about enough to get points at home but just not enough to get results away from home. I don't think any of the players are massively off form either (maybe Fitzpatrick) I think the opposing teams now know how we play and because we have such a small pool of first team starting players its pretty easy to predict our starting 11. I think Chalmers is emblematic of the issue. He's not off form but not hitting the heights he was at the start of the season. I suspect that's because he's getting over played. We really need another winger and fullback that can start games. Reading, McPherson, Chalmers and Fitzpatrick have no real competition for the place or anyone able to give them a break. I think our lack of depth shows even more when we have to play 2 games in one week. By the second game we just look tired. We might also need to consider rotating our midfield just to increase the energy levels until we get re-enforcements in.

Not sure we would pay a lot for a 3rd striker. Difficult to see how they would get many starts ahead of Watt and Samuel. So I would have thought we were looking at a younger player who can make an impact as a sub and fill in when required. We were rumoured to be after John Robertson at East Kilbride who loosely fits that bill and potentially on a pre-contract for next season. Is it possible we loan Diack or Horn to East Kilbride until the end of the season to allow Robertson to join us now?

I don't know where the idea came from that we played long ball football in the second half of the Morton game comes from? We spent the entire second 45 minutes give or take in Morton's half so we weren't shelling it into Samuel or Watt from our 18 yard line. To my mind we did do was play through the middle faster (usually into Samuel's feet) and when we lost possession won it back faster. Having a midfield 3 of Turner, Stanway and Mr T leave Watt a free role and Morton struggled to deal with him. It also allowed Reading in particular to play a lot higher and create an overload in Morton's rightback area.

Game of 2 half's. First half we were way to weak in midfield with only Stanway and Let'sosa. Whilst we had lots of possession we didn't have any real idea of what to do with it. Fitzpatrick never really got involved in the game so no great surprise to see him subbed at halftime Second half we just worked a lot harder than Morton. Never let them have any time on the ball. Turner wasn't amazing but his workrate matched his team mates and we had 11 players giving 100% for 45 minutes. Once we upped our workrate then the disparity in quality between our team and Morton became very obvious. Samuel personified the effort in the second half so can completely understand him being MOTM as he never lost a duel all game. Watt added a bit of quality and his goal was superb particularly as he ran to celebrate about 2 yards from where I was watching. Think Morton will do well to avoid the relegation playoff

Its an interesting transfer window. Normally at this point we are trying to recruit to make a run for the playoffs however given the league position we are in then we probably are recruiting to get a team to win the playoffs or better. So far this season we have been a bit a surprise package with the style and tactics Wilson has used as well as the emergence of some younger players such as Stanway and Let'sosa. However in recent weeks we have stalled a little and perhaps lacked a bit of experience to convert a few points into wins and in part because other teams have gotten used to how we play. Possibly also a couple of players not being quite as on form as early in the season and having to play almost the same starting 11 every week. In reality with Crawford injured I think Wilson only sees about 13/14 players as able to compete for a starting place. So adding some quality and experience as well as depth is going to be key. Best way of doing that to minimise financial outlay is to bring in experience on loan or on a short term contract. So Halliday on loan and Arfield to end of the season could make a lot of sense. Halliday can cover left back and Arfield could allow us to play a different shape on midfield that more accommodates 2 sitting midfielders with him playing closer to the striker. We're rumoured to be after Lewis Reid, Luca Barrington and John Robertson. They more fit with signings like Let'sosa and Reading in that they are relatively young, showed some promise elsewhere and perhaps could kick on although I'm not sure if any immediately get in contention for a starting slot. On paper Barrington and Robertson do provide cover on the wings and Roberston can play centre forward. Reid provides cover in central defence. So if all happened we would have covered most of the gaps and strengthened the team. I do think its end of the road for Mackay, Lawless and Turner. McCardle going back to Celtic would also seem inevitable. Perhaps MacKenzie may also go.

We started off really well. Smyth's pass to Fitzpatrick for the opener is quality and the move for the second goal is beautiful. We did look rusty in with the ball in our own third. Let'sosa got caught in possession ad couple of times, Chalmers played a blind pass to a Queens player rather than just conceding a throw in. Penalty for Queens largely came from switching off at a corner kick. Second half was a decent defensive performance however its disappointing to loose a headed goal from a fairly ordinary cross particularly when we had 3 big centre-halfs on the park. Ref wasn't great. Failed to really take control and allowed guys like Connolly to run their mouth of at him. The head injury rule must be the stupidest rule in existence. First half we have Queens under a bit of pressure, ball goes in the box and goes out to O'Reilly who takes the ball out to the right wing. Ref blows because a Queens player has a 'head nock' in the box. Rather than us getting the ball Queens get it an we get nothing. Stadium is a joke. I don't mind Queens Park but I hope they get relegated as that Stadium is only really good enough for league 2. Less than 1000 able to get access to a game is poor. Couldn't see the fight inside the ground but it does strike me that the ground is so small that there is realistic way of segregating the fans No idea why so many police turned up for the folk on the grass but who on earth authorised a helicopter to hover across the ground for most of the second half? Totally unnecessary and distracted from the game

Leaving aside the score that was just an awful watch. Wind turned it into a farce. 70 minutes of the game was played in one half the pitch. Until Arbroath got the player sent off there was big case for getting a ticket refund as the home support got to see all the action and the away support were watching the ball pinging around the other end from afar. In fairness to Arbroath they took full advantage of the condition from the coin toss onwards. Choosing to give us the wind first half ruined Wilson's tactics of playing 3-5-2 into the wind and then hoping to use the wingers when we had the wind at our back. Hard to be critical of the players or management as it was just a farce of a game. Learned nothing about either team other than the home team know how to play in conditions that they are more familiar with. On a more worrying note we do have an increasing number of idiots watching us. A fight broke out in the middle of the crowd and the amount of drunk guys stumbling around the terracing wasn't great. All in all not a great day.

Looks a bit like Ray Farningham?

I think that's Ayr v Thistle from 1985 and the game Tiny Wharton came on as a replacement ref? Not sure about the Thistle player could be Paul McKenzie? Ayr player to the left is Steve Evans who's had a colourful managerial career in England

I would hope we are resting a few tomorrow and giving a few some game time even if it risks a cup shock Also not expecting to see our loanee's not because it indicates they will be recalled but because their parent clubs will want to protect any sale value. Also think that in the case of McPherson and Smyth they could do with a day off to be ready for the league So wouldn't surprise me if have something like Bud Light Logan-McBeth-O'Reilly-Reading Martin Lawless-Turner-Crawford-Fitzpatrick Samuel

Simon Storey?

I think playing Turner as rightback for almost a full year has ruined him. He used to be a really good ball carrier but he rarely gets on the ball and all too often he wants to get rid as soon as he gets it. I think letting him go out on loan and getting playing regularly might help him get his confidence back. I wouldn't let Diack go, I think his best chance of being ready for us is to get a full season at Kelty. The real crunch point for Diack becomes next summer and pre-season. He need to able to at least be the 2nd choice striker at that point if we don't get promoted. If we do get promoted arguably he could go out on loan for another season hopefully at a championship team

We do have quite a small squad. 21 in total but minus loans only 17 permanent signings. We have to assume we are going to feature in the playoffs so will need a larger squad to get through that. Possibly 21 becomes 23. Defence is the area that needs the most attention in January. Ideally another centre-back, another fullback would be good as we only really have 5 first team ready championship standard defenders. I like Scott Martin and whilst he's defensively stronger than Smyth he's not got the same playmaking ability so getting Smyth to the end of the season is a must if we are to sustain a challenge. With Martin fit it probably does mean McCardle is surplus. I also suspect if Crawford was fit that Turner would be well down the pecking order for midfield slots. Wilson clearly likes pace in his wingers so someone quicker to push Chalmers and Fitzpatrick would be good. Up front we do need a 3rd striker and I don't think recalling Diack or Horn helps us or them at this stage. We have been lucky with injuries so getting another one in would help. In terms of departures, I think MacKay needs a new setting to hopefully release a wage for a new winger and McCardle probably returns to Celtic. Apart from that its not impossible that Lawless and Turner head out on loan to teams willing to give them starting positions. I don't see either being at Firhill next season

Smyth was really good for about the first 40 minutes until Dunfermline marked him out the game. All the back 4 were solid and wouldn't have argued with Reading, McBeth or O'Reilly being MOTM. However the one that I think was worth a mention for MOTM was Chalmers. That's two 90 minutes in a row were he has worked really hard defensively and did a lot of running. He didn't get as much ball in attacking positions but from the little he did get caused Dunfermline all sorts of problems particularly in the second half. Also worth noting Stanway's pass for Fitzptarick's goal was really good, Watt put in a decent shift as did Mr T and Clarke looked really good in possession on a tricky surface.

Thought the decision to go with 2 strikers and with Chalmers on the left was tactically very astute. It meant it stretched their back 4 and put pressure on the weakest part of the St Johnstone team. Bit nervy towards the end but that's to be expected when playing the best team in the league. Thought Watt was really good, perhaps Samuel's best performance in a Thistle jersey with a number of players really putting in a shift. An 8 point gap to 3rd and 9 to 5th suggests we are looking good for the playoffs as a minimum. Still not sure if we are or aren't in a title race but I'm enjoying the ride so far. I think if we are to challenge St Johnstone we will need some more depth to the squad.

The thing about the Scotland goals that made them ever so good is they were scored in such a significant game So I think that narrows the Thistle candidates down to those goals that were scored in games that were crucial to achieving something. With that in mind Scott Patersons freekick away to ICT to get us to Hampden for the first time in many years must be up there? Peter Lindau's in the league clinching game also in the category of great goal in an important game

Enjoyed reading the article I would add to list of we got robbed of an appearance at Hampden . In 2002 we played Celtic in a league cup quarter final and the game went to extra time with Celtic eventually prevailing on penalties. To this day I would swear Scott McLean had the ball across the line in extra time and at that point in the game we would have won. If only we had VAR then. Also think refereeing has improved massively in the last 30 years. Most of the refs used to be quite pompous and dictatorial to players. Guys like Les Mottram, David Syme etc always came across as having big ego's and wanting to show the players who was boss. Nowadays whilst we moan about the standards there are less and less ego's involved. I would also suggest that the ability to get decisions right has improved with offside calls in particular being dramatically better than 30 years ago. Whilst there are loads of players that I think are better than their modern colleagues I can't think of a single Scottish ref from times gone by that would be better than their modern colleague. However were there is more of a case of the SFA clearly being biased was demonstrated in the example of Rod Wallace's sending off. I was at the game and It was clearly for crossing himself. Rod like many other players used to make the sign of the cross when he scored and in any other game against any other opponent it was never noticed never mind an issue. I am aware of no other country that had referee's booking players for making the sign of the cross never mind issuing cautions for for an action that would only be deemed a yellow card if they were playing a particular opponent. However clearly the SFA had either created that rule or turned a blind eye to how their officials were applying the rules and as far as I'm aware has never acknowledged or apologised for it.

Noticed Mackay hoping around on crutches in the tunnel a wee bit after he got subbed off. Agree with @Yellow & Redneck that its probably time to move Mackay on. If you're getting injured taking fresh air swings in a testimonial game then it probably suggests he struggle to ever put a run of games together. Good to see Martin get 90 minutes and Ashcroft looks close to being ready which is also good. Couple of decent performances from the youngsters. The boy Nosa looks massive and pretty quick it'll be interesting to see how he develops. Always thought testimonials was meant to be a bit more fun, with cameo's from former players and some exhibition football. Tonight felt more like a reserve game. Hopefully Lawless got a decent amount. Given the weather, the short notice and lack of advertising the turn out was ok.

The curse of the manager of the month award strikes again! We were dreadful for most of that. Thought only O'Reilly played near normal levels. Clarke, Watt, McBeth, Chalmers and Reading were ok the rest were well off it. Turner can't play the role we need him to play in midfield. Smyth seems to struggle with his passing on Astro pitches. Fitzpatrick has been off form for a good few weeks and god knows what Lawless has to do to get a start. First time I've seen Wilson get his subs wrong but taking off Let'sosa rather than Turner was wrong and taking off Chalmers rather than Fitzpatrick was really odd, you could see even Fitzpatrick expected to come off. Don't understand why we took off Watt particularly if we were going with 2 strikers. Samuel made a bit of difference as did Lawless. McCardle had a complete nightmare. However its not a bad sign to pick up a point when you play so badly plus the celebrations after the equalizer were lovely. Feel a bit sorry for their young keeper but then I remember its Airdrie so get it right up'em!

I think it stopped with the closure of the terracing. I got my last lift over through the city end terracing turnstiles around 1988/9 but I was by then getting too old and big for my Dad to do that without injuring himself When the new stands came in the new turnstiles came with them and they don't allow lift overs. I've not been in the main stand in a while so maybe we still have the old turnstiles there? Cappielow still has the old turnstiles but with cashless payments and external stewarding companies finding someone friendly to turn a blind eye to a lift over has also gone. The gates being opened were again to my mind a feature of the old terracing. The gates were much bigger than the doors at the Jackie Husband stand and it appeared to me that we didn't have really any stewards assigned to monitoring the terracing gates just someone to open and close it. Not sure if we left the gates open to avoid any issues with people rushing out the gates in unison for safety reasons or because it was a way of encouraging youngsters to take a peek for free or because when we were playing poorly (all too common in the mid-80's) it was the clubs way of saying "you've had enough punishment for one week, take the last 20 minutes off"

Sevco at Ibrox please. Make some decent money and also have a decent chance of getting a result as by then they will probably be on to their 3rd manager of the season Failing that someone we haven't played before like Tranent or Turiff

Took us about 20 minutes to get going partly because of what looked like a slow dry astro pitch but the last 20-25 minutes of the first half we played some really nice stuff and really needed to score at that point. Second half was poor. Stanway and Let'sosa looked leggy after the efforts on Tuesday. Fitzptarick never really got going and Lawless must be under consideration for a start in the next game. Turner looked miles off it. McCardle was marginally better but neither could get beyond the striker and drive into the gap between fullback and centrehalf in that same way that Crawford, Stanway and Let'sosa can. Struggle to see how Turner fits with WIlson's style. Whilst McBeth didn't do anything wrong I suspect if we had Ashcroft played we don't concede either goal. McBeth just doesn't have the same authority as Ashcroft. Bench also looked a bit limited today. Watt had to play 90 minutes because there just wasn't another option. Lawless was the only player on the bench today ready to contribute although Logan did at least add some extra energy. Happy to report Dan Mackay exists and was on the bench but suspect he was never coming on unless we were coasting it. Raith weren't any great shakes. Decent defensively but not really a threat and the first goal was always going to be a big influence on the result. Can't complain too much. Difficult to place to get a result and not the place you want to go with a stand in centrehalf and 1 fit striker off the back off a midweek game. Really need to rest some legs and get Crawford, Ashcroft and Samuels fit Some one really needs to get the young team in order. One of our wee whallopers had a half hearted attempt to get at Easton after his goal and that will just end up costing the club. After the game both sets of idiots were out do a square off that required a sizeable amount of police and at some point someone is going to get seriously hurt