Firhillista

We need an experienced manager. Someone who has managed full time teams at least to Championship level and preferably in the Premier League. Someone like that can stabilise things and get this squad playing to their potential which, I believe, is, at the very least, top four of this league. For me, that rules out Ian Murray, Jim Duffy, Shelley Kerr and some of the wilder suggestions on here. This isn't the time to give a 'hungry young coach' a try: we need someone who knows what they're doing and can get the players behind them. I get that there's been a lot of emotion created in recent times with the departure of some players and the recent Kris Doolan testimonial, but I really don't think that should be factored in to the choice of the next manager. Alan Archibald shouldn't even be in the running and talk of bringing Doolan back as assistant manager seems premature at best - it might give us all a warm fuzzy feeling initially, but how will we be feeling if it doesn't work out and the team continue to lose games? So, McCall or Lennon would be great, but can we afford them? After those two, God knows....

Am I missing something? I assume all this talk about MacNamara coming back is a joke, right? We all know what happened at York City, right?

It had become inevitable. Wonder if it didn't happen on Monday because someone was being lined up? We need an experienced manager. Don't mind if they're' Thistle minded' or not.

When does the laughing start?

John Lambie's testimonial was against Rangers with the great man wearing his Rangers scarf and waving it to their support at the end of the game. Thistle legend, Rangers fan, SNP candidate... Life's complicated, isn't it?

This isn't a hard one... Just stop ******* singing it.

When Caldwell looks at the blank team sheet before a game, who does he know he's going to put in? As far as I can tell, only McGinty, Penrice and Millar can be fairly sure of a start. The rest? God (Caldwell) knows. We prevaricate between two goalies, we drop in a new right back, we don't know who's going to be alongside McGinty - perm any one from three - our holding midfielders are likely to be Bannigan and Palmer, though not always and depending on whether Caldwell has fallen out with Bannigan or not (and when the other three midfielders return from injury there'll be even more chopping and changing), our attacking midfielder is.. oh, wait a minute, we haven't got one... maybe Cole now, although we seem to want him to play the ball from the back, but we can always drop Millar in there or Cardle or Da Vita because, well, why not? our central striker definitely ISN'T Jones, although Mansell does contribute, just not with goals... I'm too depressed to go on. I think we've got some decent players, certainly decent enough to put the club into the top four. There's no evidence that Gary Caldwell is the manager to get them there.

Caldwell's reaction to last night's game can be sumarised as, "That isn't how I want them to play; that isn't how they play when I'm training them; they need to start playing the way I want." This is, almost exactly, what every failing Thistle manager says just before he's shown the door. I know for some folk that Gary Caldwell has no redeeming qualities - he's incompetent, arrogant and malicious - but he's been around the game a long time at very respectable levels and he's perfectly capable of seeing how a team should set up and play. What's absolutely clear, though, is that he can't get a squad of players to put his ideas into practice. My guess is that most of the posters on here could combine their football supporting years into a collective experience of several hundred (thousand?!) years. We've been around long enough to know how a winning team should play. But I doubt that any of us could take a group of 20 or so professional footballers and turn out a consistently successful team. That's what a professional manager is for. It's a bloody hard job and there are very few people up for it. All of the evidence suggests that Gary Caldwell isn't one of them. I think we're now at the stage where everyone, including the players, know that the manager isn't going to last. How long this drags out may very well depend on the takeover negotiations (assuming they still exist). Meantime, we'll have to listen to everyone at the club trying to find something positive to say about a totally crap situation. Fun, isn't it?

I accept my memory might not be the best, but I'm sure I remember watching Thistle winning against Inverness and Cowdenbeath away, both live on TV, both in recent years. And while the record is lamentable, it's probably worth pointing out that half of the 25 games were against the Old Firm. Maybe just as much of an indictment of our appalling record against them as it is of us not performing in front of the cameras. Tonight will be different, of course. Although I can't decide whether I'm going with "third time lucky!" or "well, what do you expect, it's Friday the 13th!"...

Is this prospective buyout going ahead, though? Despite all that's been said, there's no sign that it's going to happen. And even if it does, it's unlikely to be completed much before Christmas. If the team's lack of success continues, how attractive a prospect are we going to be by then. I don't know the guy and I certainly don't have any insider knowledge, but Beattie has never struck me as the patient type.

As I've said before, I think Caldwell is a dead man walking. As much as it's impossible to predict how things are going to go at Firhill these days, it seems to me that he needs a significant run of victories to keep his post. We need to win tomorrow AND against Dunfermline just to start that off. And then he needs to keep on winning. It's not impossible - and it would be brilliant if it happens - but it doesn't seem that likely. Despite all the mayhem that seems to be happening behind the scenes, I don't think David Beattie is the kind of guy to mess about in a situation like this. He's got no axe to grind here - Caldwell's not his man and replacing him would probably put him in the good books with the fans, in the short term at least. So, to look on the bright side, either we start winning games and go shooting up the league, or we get a new manager and a fresh start. So all good. Right?

'Partick Thistle are a special club.' Alan Archibald said it, David Beattie said it, we all believe it to be true, but what does it mean? For a lot of folk, Thistle's 'specialness' began at Cappielow when we scored and the players ran to the new interim manager to celebrate. Then it was 'we've got this' and Doolan and Erskine and Lawless and winning promotion and getting into the top six and kids in free and Kingsley and us just being, well, special. But there's a lot of chapters in the Thistle story and that was just one of them. There was the phoenix-like rise from the Second Division to beat Rangers on the opening day and then put four past Celtic in one half to win the League Cup: what a chapter that was. Then there was Bertie Auld and losing training games to traffic cones and then Chic Charnley and samurai swords and John Lambie and then John Lambie and John Lambie again. Lots of chapters, every one of them special, even the one with Dick Campbell in charge and an equaliser scored with 10 seconds to play, in off a defender's arse. All of them special. And all of them ran their course and we moved on. Archibald isn't coming back, Doolan isn't coming back, Erskine isn't coming back, neither are Lambie or Charnley or McParland. I understand why people talk about 'the soul being ripped out of the club', I really do, but I don't agree. Thistle isn't about Kris Doolan or Alan Archibald or anyone who was involved in that chapter of the club's story - it's bigger than that. So what's the next chapter going to be? Gary Caldwell's Red'n'Yella army and promotion and a cup win? New manager [insert name here] rescues Jag's season? International consortium make Thistle Scotland's third force? Fans buy-out ensures future of a special club? Whatever. What's past is past. Time to look to the future.

Agree with this. Niang (Senna) isn't ready for first team duties yet. Palmer, currently, would be my first choice for midfield. Absolutely spot on about the keeper situation - we need to stop chopping and changing. For me, Sneddon wears number 1 for a reason and should start most games.

For those not there, the formation was: Fox Williamson. O'Ware. McGinty. Penrice Cole Niang. Da Vita Cardle. Millar. Robson Hall came on for Cole (who looked impressive) and O'Ware stepped forward. Mansell came on for Robson and played on the right before Watson replaced Niang and moved there - Kenny Miller dropped into midfield. Reasonable performance given the hand knitted nature of the team.

Cole looks a player - playing in front of the defence in a 'quarterback' role, spraying passes around, very comfortable on the ball Niang looking good. Making some good runs. His strength and speed look his main assets. Comfortable here, but need a second to put this one to bed.

So, no good news then. Why am I not surprised?

Okay, as an alternative to naming myself, here's my selection for today: Sneddon Saunders Hall McGinty Williamson Robson Da Vita Penrice Cole Millar Mansell Subs: Fox, O'Ware, Kakay, Cardle and three youngsters. Is Bannigan definitely suspended for this game? If not, he should be playing. If he is - great! He's available for Arbroath. Win win. (Kind of.)

Should I bring my boots?...

I don't have the knowledge of company law that some of the posters on here clearly have, but I do know that SOMEONE'S got to own the club. At the moment (and similarly for our entire history, I believe), the club is owned by locally based shareholders who have invested their money and have taken up their right to form a board of directors to make strategic decisions for the club. The current board wish to sell their shares and pass on the running of the club to someone else. Consequently, the status quo is not an option for Thistle. Someone else has to take over the ownership of the club. The options, apparently, facing us at the moment are a takeover by an international consortium or a buy-out of the current shareholders by a fan-based group. Other options, presumably, may appear in the future, but they definitely fall into the category of 'unknown unknowns'. As far as I can see, there's insufficient information available at this time to make any kind of sensible decision on what is the best option for Partick Thistle going forward. The ThistleforEver group have, to their credit, tried to be as open as possible about their intentions and are open to engaging with fans. The international consortium have said nothing. That's worth repeating. Nothing. The only way we know that their interest even exists is because David Beattie says it does. At the moment, probably in common with most Thistle fans, I'm open to anything that will bring 'transformational' change to the club because that's what it needs. I think there's a balance to be struck between securing stability and investing for growth and I'd very much like to hear how those who want to take over the club will try to achieve that. Actually, at this point I'd like to hear something, anything, from New City Finance... Despite all the valid concerns, and I recognise that they have been very well expressed on this forum, the only proposal that reassures me about Thistle's future is currently coming from ThistleforEver. I think they deserve our provisional support while we wait for New City Finance to show their hand. At the very least, it will indicate that Thistle fans are prepared to engage with this whole debate.

Eh, naw they're no'!.....

I don't think it is, at all. Ideally you want two players for every position, so there's at least a backup in the event of injury or suspension, so four centre halves is what you'd expect. It's impossible to know from the outside what the hell all of this was about. On Sunday teatime, Bannigan was going to Ayr, O'Ware to Morton and Penrice to Kilmarnock; by Sunday morning, they weren't, they were continuing as Thistle players. I don't believe for a minute that these three players had approached, or been approached, by these three clubs prior to Sunday, for all three 'moves' to have disappeared by Monday morning. The only conclusion I can draw is the someone is at it. While I suspect that not all is happy within the Thistle dressing room (and, given recent performances, neither it should be), stirring up trouble presumably to try to get the manager fired is pretty unpleasant.

I think concerns about 'the old board' being involved kind of misses the point. The intention is to purchase 51% of the club's shares to be held by the fans, thus ensuring that any significant decisions made about the club have to be made with the approval of the fans. I don't think this is about who the chairman is, or who's the manager, it's about ensuring that the strategic planning of the club is conducted with the approval of the fans, or, at least, those fans who pay to be 'fans' if you know what I mean. Given that we've just gone through, and are continuing to go through, weeks of not knowing what the future holds for Partick Thistle, it's hard to see how things wouldn't be better if fans owned 51% of the club. There would be clarity and accountability that simply don't exist at the moment. Having said that, I've still got concerns about how fan ownership works in practice. We're all too emotionally involved with the team to make rational decisions sometimes - I can envisage us going through three or four managers in a season! However, it seems to work okay elsewhere and the Thistle for Ever group make the point that it's successful in Germany. So, on the whole, I'm happy to have pledged my support. Interesting times, indeed.

From the comments on Twitter from Brentford fans, he's, in the modern parlance, 'a number 10' - attacking midfielder with good technical ability, good with free kicks and can shoot from distance. They also seem to rate him (and really not rate Scottish football). Definitely not the enforcer some folk were hoping for.

Kirk Broadfoot has been released by Killie...

Jeezo, you take the dug out for a walk, head swimming with thoughts of how we're going to replace Bannigan in midfield and thinking three centre backs aren't enough to see us through a season, and when you get back it's not happening! I'm fairly sure that there's issues within the squad - Bannigan's celebration on Saturday seems to indicate that and the rumours (as far as we can trust them) support the idea. Doolan's comments in the media this morning also back this up. But. This rumour about players leaving was very specific - Ayr, Morton and Kilmarnock identified and all of these clubs believable as teams where these specific players would go. And now it looks like none of this is true. The day's not over yet and there could be further twists to come (I'll be taking the dug out again after tea, so probably then), but this is beginning to look like mischief making of the highest order. There are people - and I suspect not limited to the fans - who want Caldwell out at any cost. There's folk on Twitter already saying the rumour was probably true but Caldwell backed down because of the fans' reaction. (Had to laugh at this - this is the Caldwell who released Erskine and Doolan and clearly didn't give a toss about the fans' reaction then, but now he's worried about what we think? Aye, right.) The issue now is that we have fans, folk inside the club and possibly players, who are prepared to wind things up to get Caldwell out. This, to say the least, isn't good. Anyway, still hoping for two season-changing loan deals before the end of the day.