Hopeless Unbeliever

This is the key point here. September 1st is our crucial date, not August 9th (when we're not even playing). Yes in an ideal world we would sign the players we want early, but you also want to get the best players your budget allows. It's a difficult balancing act, and last year's experience has probably taught Archie that more players do tend to fall within your budget as the season gets closer. Having these guys in for pre season would be ideal, but as I said probably earlier in this same thread, you would rather have a Higginbotham or an Osbourne who was up and running 5 games into the season than a Baird or Kerr who was ready to go from day 1. My view of Archie is that he sets his standards pretty high (I would disagree with him on Elliott but not to worry). If players fall even slightly below a standard where he thinks they can drive the club forward (Craig, Dowie, Mair) he's not slow to move them on. If he's not seen the standard he wants to fill the gaps in the squad so far, he's more than earned our trust to give him the time to do that before 1st September.

Last year we signed Osbourne on 31st July and Higgy in early August. We'd lost Erskine and Paton and their replacements were Baird, Kerr and Mukendi. Yes I'd like it if we'd signed up more players of the calibre of Stevenson, but Archie is obviously being careful with his budget having learned lessons from last summer. I'm happier in our position than in almost any of our rivals positions, we've made one signing and it's arguably the best of last season's bottom 6 plus newly promoted clubs. Good players become available, players who thought they might get a deal elsewhere fall in to our price range (Osbourne) or clubs are more flexible regarding players under contract (Higgy). It's a 38 game season and I'd much rather have a Higginbotham who was up to speed for 34-35 games than a Baird who was 'up to speed' for all 38.

One Team in Tallinn

Delighted to have Erskine back, but there's a fair bit of rewriting of history going on here regarding Paton. I agree Osbourne is a better defender than Paton by a stretch, but he doesn't have close to Paton's range of passing, and probably doesn't cover as much ground as Paton did in 90 minutes. He missed a decent chunk of the run in but we kept winning despite his absence, not because of it (and thanks to James Craigen seriously stepping it up when needed). A few poorly chosen words on social media at the end of the season shouldn't detract from the fact Paton was a very good player for us, a title winning captain who gave absolutely everything every time he pulled on a Thistle shirt. One of our biggest weaknesses has been the absence of a leader and vocal presence on the pitch . Would welcome him back at Firhill any time.

Ross County appear to be doing the same with two more international additions. Seems their wish list looks pretty similar to ours.

Very pleased that Archie is getting his business done early, January is going to be a huge month for us so we need as many of the new additions that are coming in to be in for as many of those games as possible.

I am, would be grateful if you could provide a link to these vouchers for January.

Any sign of these vouchers?

Fox O'Donnell Muirhead Piccolo ATS Welsh Osbourne Forbes Lawless Doolan Higginbotham

Based on what?

Even in a thread of over reactionary pish, this is by far the stupidest thing I have ever read on any incarnation of the Thistle forums. As for the Craigen criticism, he had a poor game today yes, but we were remarking during the game how even when Craigen's having a bad game, he never hides and he always keeps running. He struggled today when there was a hell of a lot of expectation on him to run proceedings for us in the absence of Bannigan and Welsh, but he always wanted the ball and he never shirked a tackle, total nonsense. Top marks to Gabi, presume he'll be starting again next week.

Correct me if I'm wrong but did someone not say it is the date of signing that is relevant? So if he signs a pre contract prior to the end of the season we would be due compensation, but if there was an 'informal understanding' with Celtic such that he signs after the end of the season we would be due nothing?

If, and it's a big if, Erskine was available in January I'm sure we would be first choice all round. If he's going to develop an ability to play at this level anywhere it would be at Firhill, and we're hardly direct competitors of United's at the moment. McNamara may be many things but I highly doubt he would let any personal feelings he has get in the way of making the right decision.

We should have scored from a corner yesterday (ATS then Piccolo fluffing it), we should have scored from a corner against Celtic (Balatoni) we had one cleared off the line from a corner against Hibs (Balatoni again) and scored from one against Ross County. Our inability to defend set pieces into the box is far more of an issue than our ability to cause problems from our own set plays. I'm not sure you can argue that's a tactical issue, just inexperienced/poor play being taken advantage of by opposition more clinical than we have faced before.

Higginbotham, Craigen and Piccolo the positives from this one.

I wasn't at the game but a little bit of context from John Potter, the Dunfermline U20 coach:

The £14K figure due over 5 years is part of the £174K figure due over 1 year therefore the reduction is only £40K overall.

In 20 years of watching Thistle the number of opposition players I've hated can be counted on one thumb, Novo is a horrible, horrible *******. Cue people reminding me of other similarly horrible ********, but I can't think of anyone quite as bad as Novo.

I don't know how to put this any more simply: Kris Doolan is the best striker we have by some distance. That is even more true when considering specifically the lone striker role. His dry spell is terrible though, no goals in one game is shameful stuff.

Bloody hell. I truly believe some people don't deserve this team. We were terrific for 70 minutes tonight. We know our shortcomings, Archie knows our shortcomings. We lost our best player in a generation in the summer and we're still probably only one player away from being a top 6 SPL side. It's frustrating to watch at times because we know how good this side are/can be, but if you think these times are bad ones to be a Thistle fan there is no hope for you.

I really wish we could see a parallel universe where the forumites managed the Jags for the rest of the season. The solution to playing a team off the park at Firhill but missing some great chances is definitely to ditch our best striker and start playing a different system.

Some of the rewriting of history here with regards to Erskine is preposterous.

Looks like the U20s. Not sure 2 goals in the last 7 minutes qualifies as a pummelling either. Also interesting to note from the Carlisle website that Adam Campbell has returned to Newcastle due to Lee Miller making a return from injury (strange story). Campbell was linked with St Mirren before his move to Carlisle.

Are we still peddling this myth that Murray didn't deserve both his reds against Morton? (Forbes fully deserved his too, as did Muirhead in the two I saw). Regardless, he was very unlikely to get a look in this season so this looks like a good move for us and him.

Factual inaccuracies aside, I'm pretty sure my point still stands.