exiledjag

Just read Alan Archibald's match preview and find it a bit worrying. He is expecting Morton to be "in our faces" to stop us playing. I agreecwith this assessment. However the general tone of his preview is that Morton will play as they did at Firhill - be on the defensive. I hope he is correct because as the home team I think Morton will attack us at every opportunity and try to dominate possession. If they are defensive it will not be because they choose to play that way it will be due to the Jags dominating the game. I think his tone is a little on the arrogant side.

We now need to win at Cappilow tomorrow to maintain the 'advantage' of our games in hand to stay in contention for the league. Walking the tightrope goes on!!

Booking seats, online system and travel all seem very shambolic. Hope the Morton team is the same.

I suppose this game is one of 9 mustering games!! Only joking. I have been to Cappilow a few times but not for many years given I live in NE Scotland. Its a ground that never impressed me and from vomments on this thread nothing seems to have changed. From memory though I recall it as a ground where we tend not to do well in terms if results. If this is incorrect please feel free to correct me. With Kilmarnock and Arbroath facing potentially difficult games I would settle for a point though would prefer 3. I think we arecgoing to have to score more that 1 goal to win this game andvperhaps as many as 3.

Going back to the ICT game. If ever there was a case for believing in Karma it was that game. Billy Dodds in his after match interview said losing the goal so late in the game was a sore one and hard to take. The rest of his comments implied it was unfair on his players etc. I was waiting on the balancing comment that ICT scored an even later goal, subject to a big deflection as well, 3 weeks earlier getting ICT a 3-3 draw. Isn't Karma sweet when it's good (and especially with reference to Dundee's current plight. Seems I haven't moved on!! I am really interested in statistics and trends etc and find the previous comments interesting. But to simplify matters would we accept a 1-0 victory in all of our remaining games? I would. I'll just phone IMC and order 9 x 1-0s!! That will keep things simple.

Please add: We now score late goals (because we never give up)

The League table is looking much better now and Saturday's games now look even more interesting. Killie away to Ayr who after their demolition of Raith will be full of confidence and know they are able to give Killie a game. Should be close. Arbroath are away to ICT who following Dodd's comments after last Friday's game about "now needing to win every game" will be going for it. Should be another close game. Now if we can just get a win at Morton on Saturday and Killie and Arbroath drop points the League Table will look even better. Time an old codger like me was away to bed. Think tonight I will dream about Saturday's games, results and a magic 90 mins away to Morton finishing in a 5-0 for the Jags! I know, I know its sad dreaming about a football match!!

We have been saying this for months now. Hope IMC has been reading our posts.

Brilliant post - being a Jags fan for 50 years I get this completely.! Well done..

Hey I have also been "banging on about Turner" and doing so since he joined us. I also support IMC as our manager but agree he seems to have a problem with where to play Turner. IMO, stated on many occasions, IMC should play Turner as an advanced or attacking central midfielder. Justification all the points previously stated - his vision, passing, football brain & dead ball skills. So yes I am a Turner fan and therefore biased. I have no idea what formation Queens play but I would go for the Jags playing 4312 Sneddon McKenna- Holt- Mayo - Foster Crawford- Docherty-Bannigan Turner Graham-Jakubiack Subs Firth-Hendrie-Akinola-Bell- Murray-Smith-Alegria-McAllister-Stanway I think McKenna has done well since covering for Akinola and he deserves to keep his place. Friday was the best all round performance I have seen from Murray so putting him on the bench is perhaps harsh. I see tonight being more of a battle than the ICT game and the pitch were factors in moving him to the bench. I think this is going to be a hard game tonight and in many ways harder than ICT but won't the league table look greatvif we can win.

I agree with the above. Although ICT and Raith are still in contention for a play-off place I think that, barring a complete implosion by Arbroath and Killie, they are now both out of the title race. The Jags though are walking a tight rope. Win our games in hand and we will be at worst 2 points adrift of Killie and 3 behind Arbroath. We also have to play them Killie (away) Arbroath (home) and match or better their other results for the scheduled weekend games. However if we lose either of our games in hand then that will end our title hopes. There is no doubt we are entering the crunch part of the season but I hope we can draw on last season when we went on a great run in the second half of the season and do this again in the remaining games albeit in a higher league etc.

Agree Jakubiak was very clever with his positioning and decision but I also thought Docherty's dummy was also critical!!

Great result and overall a more determined performance. Now if only other results continue to go our way with either of Dunfermline, Hamilton and Ayr or all three doing us a favour! Of the 3 I think Hamilton might hold Killie at Rugby Park!

To the actual game. This is definitely a must win game. Arbroath, Killie and Raith are all at home on Saturday playing against teams they should be considered favourites to beat. If ICT win we will lose a lot of ground to the teams around us and we will suffer a huge blow to our confidence. Together with the boost a defeat will give to Raith and ICT. If we win it will give the table a completely different look and after Saturdays games we will still have 2 games in hand. Whether we are good enough or not we will look like title contenders.. How do we win the game - play the way we did in the second have on Tuesday from the kick off and take our chances!

Agree with your final paragraph re Akinola. He has been exceptional since he came to Firhill and perhaps recent poor form is nothing more than the fact that no one can play great all the time. I admit to not having seen a lot of football this season but hope to make up for this soon. From what little I have managed to see I can't say I have been overly impressed by Smith or Murray. As far as Turner is concerned I was very impressed with him when in an Airdrie Jersey. Surely with Tiffoney being out and IMC apparently going for two up front this is the time to play Turner in an advanced central midfield role just behind the two strikers. We signed a very good player from Airdrie and in my opinion have wasted him by not giving him a run of games to prove himself and when we do play him, play him out of position! Is he now so poor that Murray and Smith are ahead of him - surely not!! BTW what's wrong with Tiffoney?

Thanks

I think we have to keep things in perspective. Granted our form has been poor resulting in games we have lost where we should at least have got a point and other games where we got a point where we should have had 3. But the same can be said of just about every team in the league. Only Arbroath are consistently picking up points but even they are not the prolific winners they were prior to the turn of the year. I haven't checked the stats but would guess Morton, Hamilton and perhaps Ayr have improved recently and in the top half of the table Kilmarnock are a bit better than Raith, ICT and ourselves. However after last night and the dust has settled we are in 4th place, still with 2 games in hand and still able to match anyone in the league ....... for 45 minutes!

I am happy with the point but agree it would have been a better point had we beaten Morton, which we should have done! It will be a better point if we can beat ICT on Friday. For me though the two big positives are that in the second half 1. we showed we were good enough to go toe to toe with the best team in the league on their patch and perhaps might have won the game (although that would probably have been unfair on Arbroath given how much they were on top in the first half), and 2. We are now in 4th place and in a play off position - getting out of 5th place was I think becoming a mental block gor the players and the fams. We need to kick on now and that means playing the way we did in the second half for the whole game. So it's over to our management team to get the team selection and formation right from the first minute, not the 46th minute.

Oh well didn't take Arbroath long to score!

Not according to BBC illustration of team selection. Shows Docherty playing in front of our back 4 but behind our midfield 4.

Is Foster not fully fit? Surprised he is not playing. Another question have we played the 4141 formation before? What do those familiar with the tactical side of the game know about this formation and what are we trying to do by playing to this format - beyond the obvious of winning the game?

Hopung for a win but would settle for a draw tonight. Arbroath do seem to be a bogy team for us or are they just better. I would like to think we could beat ICT at Firhill but I think even that is doubtful as we seem to be struggling at home. If we could just somehow scrap wins in these two games it will make the table look very different t and as AuldJags suggests perhaps we could kick on. Needs some good form from us, decent refereeing and some luck. Perhaps asking too much. Keep hoping though!

Read on P&B that Raith fans think their teams performance was the best they have played since about November. So perhaps a draw at Kirkcaldy is not such a bad result. They do, though, regret the lack of a recognised striker, are bemused by the manager' team selection, baffled by the selection and timing of substitutions and the way the team is set up in terms of the formation . I think as Jags we can sympathise with some of the above.

Second all the positive comments about our lady Jags. Great result and 4 goals away from home. Excellent.

Dundee's new manager has substituted hair whole midfield - never heard of that happening. With Rudden off as well that means of the 5 forward players, midfield and strikers, only Mullan saw out the game. Sounds like a shambles of a club. Rudden will be relieved he signed a pre-season contract.lùuuo6766⁶i55ii5ubtŕwf To today's result. The positive way to look at it is that the 0-0 draw is the start of an unbeaten run that we will keep going until the end of the season! Not sure 13 draws will be enough to get us into a play-off position!