laukat

I can only see this making sense if he's either a defensive midfielder able to cover for MacKinnon or he's an attacking midfielder able to make runs beyond the forwards. The raith rovers fans weren't that impressed by him. I think McCall wants to play 4-3-3 or 4-4-2. At the moment he's not got a lot of wide midfielders or wingers so getting another central midfielder in suggests others are away. Harkins and Slater would be the obvious candidates to depart.

Adding MacKinnon assuming he's fit enough to play most of the games should bring strength in the middle of the defence and organisation in general. It perhaps means that our fullbacks could get further forward which in turn might cover for Williamson's frailties and allow McCall to take a chance on a younger fullback as cover. In general McCall's transfer dealings have a definite strategy. We're very much going for younger Scottish players that allow for a team to be developed and perhaps for future transfer value to be obtained. Assuming Miller and Harkins leave only Fox and MacKinnon will be over 30 with pretty much all the remaining players still to hit their peak. MacKinnon looks like the midfield leader we need to get the best out of the younger ones. Such a difference to have a manager that knows what he's doing.

I'd prefer to try O'Conner than Christie but if we're looking at Mayo in central defence that would mean 2 defenders that have no first team experience (assuming a back 4 and Saunders is backup) Wardrop at Dundee United has a decent amount of championship experience with Dumbarton, is surplus to requirements at Dundee United and originally from this area.

Hopefully not. He's a good utility player but his positional sense at right back wasn't great and his delivery was woeful. A quick look at his playing record for Carlisle suggests he's hardly played since October. Its not clear if thats due to an ankle injury or falling out of favour after Pressley got binned.

I like Slater but I don't see him getting a midfield slot ahead of Bannigan, Cole or MacKinnon. If the rumours about Barjonas coming on loan are true I think Slater will be surplus to requirements. If we are in for Alan Forest I could see him moving to Ayr as part of that. Personally I though McCall was giving Slater, Robson and Harkins a run out tonight to help them find new clubs. Perhaps that was also Miller's swansong?

Celtic playing without wingers gave us a chance but the error by Robson for the first goal and Miller's miss are mistakes that you cant afford against any team. If Celtic had put forrest or Johnston up against Robson they would have run riot. Thought MacKinnon did welll and does offer protection to the defence. Rudden looked very sharp. We need a right back and a left sided central defender assuming Brian Graham appears. After that we should have a decent team.

robson is the weakest link. Either Cardle or Slater for him at half time please

I take it we're playing penrice in midfield? something like this Fox Saunders-O'Ware-McGinty-Robson Cole-Mackinnon-Penrice- Bannigan Rudden I've not shown Miller as formations and positions don't seem to apply to him Celtic look like they are going without wingers so will be relying on their fullbacks for width.

The comparision with Dunfermline, Falkirk, Morton and Airdrie are interesting. Dunfermline has larger attendances on average than we do but is still recovering from chasing rainbows under Masterton. Which is similar to were we were after the "save the jags" season. I suspect Dunfermline will be back challenging for a spot in the SPL in about 2 or 3 seasons. Dunfermline have made 3 cup finals and played in Europe in the last 20 years so arguably the did better than us. Falkirk have comparible crowds to us and have similar ups and downs with owners. Right now they are underperforming and desperate for a new owner and chairman to take over. They would still probably be in the Championship if they hadn't experimented with importing non-league english players last season under Hartley. However Falkirk have made the Scottish Cup Final and qualified for Europe in the last 10 years. So their highs are aguably better than ours. Morton and Airdrie (current incarnation) are clubs that have less support and less financial backing than us. They are on a par with Hamilton and Livingston. However Morton have never dealt with Cappielow properly to develop the income streams that Hamilton rely on and the Hugh Scott era almost ended them so getting a benefactor like Douglas Rae wasn't enough to repair the damage caused so far. Airdrie overspent in the 90's to get to top league then went bust with a stadium thats now a white elephant and have never recovered. They could adopt a model similar to Hamilton and Livingston but it will take a long time for that to bear fruit and with crowds down its hard to see how they will be much more than a team that yoyo's between League 1 and the championship. Arguably Airdrie are more comparable to Clyde than they are to us. Personally I think there is a group of clubs outside of Rangers, Celtic, Aberdeen, Hibs, Hearts and Dundee United that we are in. That group contains Motherwell, Kilmarnock, St Johnstone, Dundee, St Mirren, Falkirk and Dunfermline. So if we are well run for a 15/20 year period we should be consitently in the top league and have the ocaissonal cup final appearance. However we have not appeared in a cup final or major European competition in nearly 50 years. All the others in the group I described have achieved that in the last 20 years or less. ICT and Ross County may in time be clubs that sit within our group but I suspect they are being financially supported beyond their true means and over the next 20 years may settle into being solid Championship clubs rather than yoyo clubs. However both of them have again appeared in a major cup final in the last 20 years and ICT have appeared in europe.

Pretty much agree with that. I would be tempted to see what Gordon is like post injury and with decent players around him. His scoring record from midfield merits a chance.

Could be a very good signing. We've not had a defensive midfielder since Osman started selling hats. I think Darian will match Steven Anderson's will to win and hopefully his organisational ability As long as he's fit enough we should have a player that will make others in the midfield and defence better. Nice to have a player in the squad that other players will fear

Money and a benefactor should help but Dundee, Motherwell, Dundee United, Kilmarnock,Livingston (first spell in the top flight) and Hearts have had spells in recent years where money was lavished onto them but they didn't really improve their fortunes for anything more than a couple of seasons. St Johnstone have had a benefactor and some financial luck but have had success over a number of years. So there's something more than money at play in Perth. Hamilton and Livingston appear to have massively over archieved without a benefactor. Arguably both clubs should be yo-yo teams between the championship and league 1 not clubs that are premier league mainstays. So why do Hamilton, Livingston and St Johnstone survive in the top flight and St Mirren and Thistle yo-yo? I suspect part of the answer is that Hamilton and livingston with the plastic pitch have an income that reduces the earning gap between us but that doesn't explain St Johnstone. I suspect a big part of the reason Hamilton and St Johnstone have stayed much longer than us in the SPL is to do with expectations. After 4/5 season in the SPL Thistle start to think about top 6, Europe or a cup and forget that survival should be the only thing on their mind. Hamilton and Livingston have one mission every season and thats to finish 10th. 9th is probably acceptable to both those clubs but for Thistle or St Mirren 9th is a failure, 8th after 2 seasons in the SPL isn't good enough. St Johnstone have finished top 6 and won a cup but I don't think they set out to do that or expect it, they make sure they avoid 9th and the rest happens if you stay there long enough. Hamilton and Livinston don't rely on their crowds so if the play isn't nice to watch they'll cope better than at Thistle were we want to win and be entertained. Also if you look at our last 3 longest spells in the top flight under Auld, Lambie and Archie there is another lesson . Lambie left after a few seasons for Falkirk to my mind because he got bored doing the same thing at Thistle season after season. Equally Archie got stale and made a lot of mistakes towards the end of our last spell in the SPL. Auld left for a better offer. We seem to be too loyal to managers and woefully unprepared if we lose a good one. St Johnstone and Hamilton have a much better track record of mangerial appointments and a more ruthless approach if required because they have confidence that can identify a replacement. We've had almost as many owners as managers over the last 30 years and unable to keep continuity of focus in the same way that St Johnstone have under the Brown family or Hamiton have had with Ronnie MacDonald. We've been most successful when we had our best chairmen (Jim Oliver, David Beattie) but as soon as they go or lose interest we falter. Our recent Chief exec appointments have arguably valued sentimentality and loyalty over proven experience. So I think we are a yoyo club because the clubs ethos is to prioritise entertainment and loyaltly over a ruthless focus on league position and winning football games.

We defintely have defensive problems mainly because of the personell available. Our rightback is more a wingback so relies on having a defensive midfielder in front of him. That worked ok until we lost Kakay. We currently rely on Bannigan and Cole playing deeper to protect the defence as we have no proper defensive midfield. We also don't have a left sided central defender so distribution on the left side is heavily dependent on Cole. On the plus side the rumoured signings are in areas that would address most of our problems by the end of the window and the potential system McCall wants to play looks like its been continued into the players we're looking at on PCA's. Hopefully by the end of the window we'll have a team that looks like the following Fox Houston(rangers loanee)-O'Ware-Mayo (rangers loanee)-Penrice Cole-MacKinnon-Bannigan Cardle Rudden-Graham Next Season might look like the follwoing if we stay in the championship: Fox New Signing-Brownlie-McCart (ICT)-Penrice Cole-Docherty-Bannigan Zanatta - Rudden- New signing

The keeper is Graeme Smith so Thistle_1876 guess looks about right. If correct and we can get both Cammy Smith and Brian Graham we would have a very decent attack.

In fairness to Cardle he did his defensive duties fairly well which I think was part of the reason he moved to the right wing when Zanatta came on. McCall thought Cardle gave Williamson greater protection. Cardle was also the man who got us 2 penalties and should have got a third.

I think Miller wants a free role as he sees himself as the father of the team and too good for this league. Looked to me like McCall wasn't happy with Miller on Saturday dropping so deep that he got in McGinty's way that he subbed him. Miller didn't bother to shake hands either with his replacement or McCall. If Miller wants to get back to playing a striker and hanging of the shoulder of the least defender great if not he should be shown the door. We're not good enough to give any player a free role.

I thought we should have had 3 penalties today and arguably the one not given was the clearest penalty. We played pretty well and I thought Bannigan was the best player on the park. When the home goalkeeper gets man of the match you know we've had plenty of chances. We missed O'Ware's threat at corners. McGinty didn't do much wrong but he doesn't throw himself at corners the same as Saunders and O'Ware. Miller didn't look too happy being subbed. Someone needs to have a word with Zanatta as he's completely off form at the moment. He certainly isn't doing enought to merit a start. We still have the same gaps in the squad but for McCall to get us in touch with the top 4 given the mess he inherited bodes well for the second half of the season. BTW - how chronic was is that they played the A-Team theme after alloa scored?

Its a bit of a risk playing Williamson with either Cardle or Zanatta in front of him. I would have thought Slater might be a better bet to come back in assuming we don't sign another option before Saturday.

Prior to McCalls first tenure we didn't run any sort of youth structure. From what I remember he was instrumental in bringing back youth teams from about 2009. The Thistle Weir Youth Academy was only setup in 2013. The elite youth academy has teams from under 11s onwards.Its rare to see a youngster get to the first team of any club who isn't at least 17/18 which means the first batch of players to have gone through that entire pathway will only start to appear (if at all) in the next 2 years and the value of the Thistle weir academy and the elite youth academy pathway can only truely be judged in the next 3 years. What McCall reinstated in 2009 had already brought some rewards. Liam Lindsay, Aidan Fitzpatrick, Stuart Bannigan, James Penrice and Jack Hendry have probably been the most obvious but Scully, McCarthy and Nisbet played a decent amount of games and therefore saved the club wages. As a club Thistle have negected youth development for nudging 30 years. The last player I can remember us developing through the ranks prior to the names above was Mo Johnston. Post relegation from the SPL in 81/82 we haven't done a thing with youth development until the last 10 years so perhaps we need to accept that it will take a while and not rip up the current approach too quickly.

Some good ones already mentioned. How about the following? Gary Fraser v Hearts, don't think I've seen a cleaner strike SOD v Dunfermline, the impudent chip finish was just a joy to watch

We were really good today. I thought Bannigan and Cole dominated the game whilst Saunders and O'Ware nulified Mortons only threat. Kakay was good and Williamson's delivery from forward positions is really good even if his defensive positioning is still suspect. I'm beginning to really like Jones and not just for his goal today. His willingness to run channels is something that we've missed as it gives our back 4 and midfield an option when under pressure. Cardle was better than normal and his dummy for Jones goal was really clever. Miller continues to frustrate, we have better midfielders than him sitting in the bench so if he doesn't want to play as a striker his place in the team must be under threat. Its a rare occassion to watch a thistle performance and be able to make a case for anyone of 10 players getting man of the match. It was almost a tie in my mind between Kakay, O'Ware, Saunders, Bannigan, Cole and Jones. Williamson and Penrice weren't that far behind. Morton have gone backwards since the game at firhill. Genuinely the worst opposing team performance I've seen this season and it wouldn't have been unfair if we had won by 4 or 5.

Watching thistle under Rooney was horrible. Whilst the previous 2 season under Peter Cormack hadn't provided the return to the premier league we had hoped for we were still winning more than we were losing and going to frihill meant watching some decent players such as Mo Johnston, Kenny McDowall, Buckley, Jardine and Watson. Rooney came in and all of a sudden we were a club struggling to stay in the league and the playing squad just got worse and worse. My first thistle game was in 1981 so this was the first time in my thistle supporting experience that going to firhill became a chore. In 1985 I was a mascot for a thistle v Hamilton game. The thistle players (Alan Mackin in particular) went out their way to make the day special, the manager of Hamilton (J Lambie esquire) went out of his way to say hello, the referee (Brian McGinlay) chatted away and gave me the 10p he flipped at the start of the game. Rooney shouted over to one of his backroom staff to get me the f*** off the pitch as my Dad and I were too close to his dugout. I don't remember a single positive thing from Rooney's time in charge. By the time he left the squad was sporting a standard of player that surpassed the worst of Dick Campbell and Tommy Bryce's signings . Thankfully Bertie Auld came back, pulled of a miracle and kept us in the league. Relegation at that point could have been terminal for the club and at best lead to us becoming like Clyde. At the end of season 85/86 with Auld in charge it looked like a dark cloud had been lifted from firhill and 86/87 might the season we started to turn things around. Unfortunately the temporary spurt of optomism was washed away as Ken Bates bought the club and installed Derek Johnstone as manager.

Bit in bold - absolutely, If Brownlie is left sided I would hope we could get him to firhill in the January window. Robson was pretty dreadful when he came on and must be on the list of those that should be leaving. It'll be a big list as it should contain McGinty, Hall, Williamson, Robson, Harkins and Mansell. Wouldn't be adverse to letting Miller and Cardle go if other options are available. Slater probably needs to move on not because he's been awful but he's unlikely to dislodge Bannigan or Cole and with Docherty incoming he's probably 4th choice midfielder.

Agree about the end result being the same. To my mind in the second half Cole had Williamson and Kakay available but chose to hang onto the ball giving more time for the Dundee defence to organise. He also seemed to drop deeper and want to play passes from just inside the Dundee half rather than get closer to the Dundee box so wasn't around the box to shoot as well as he did in the first half. First half he was moving the ball quicker and we created a lot more because of it, he was also about 5/10 yards further forward so was able to get a good couple of shots on target. I agree that the way to get round packed defences is quick hopefully one touch passes. Both Bannigan and Cole wanted to look for the defence splitting pass second half rather than just playing the quick pass to first available player. Bannigan got caught in possession at least once trying to look for the perfect option rather than taking the pass that was immediately available. As much as Jones was getting well marked he was doing a reasonable job of running the channels but when he ran out of steam we needed to move Miller up front with Harkins. Instead Miller was everywhere but in the box. To my mind Cardle has't been great for while now, I thought he should have been subbed instead of Kakay. Also yesterday perhaps suggests tha McGinty is on the way out. Playing O'Ware in his position tells a story but if he's the only central defender on the bench and the manager wants to go with a left back rather than McGinty when Saunders gets injured its not looking good for him.

First half we were okay. If Cardle hits the rebound from Millers shot first time its probably a goal and the game is then ours to lose. Second half we had too many players not quite hitting top form. Cole wanted too much time on the ball, Kakay's touch wasn't as sharp as it has been, Cardle tried but never really did anything and Jones never looked like scoring. Best players were Fox and Saunders. Fox made 4 or 5 very decent saves and Saunders first half made a couple of great tackles. Saunders and O'Ware look a reasonably solid pairing. Williamson still gives me the fear when defending but he has a really good cross on him when gets the chance. Has Kenny Miller given up playing as a striker? He was everywhere but in the box today