King Kenny

Not the worst tie, pity it isn’t at home. Smyth and Taylor will be missing as well

I think the ref is an ex player? Probably why he knows how to let things flow. Great game, lot of niggle and the Jags stood up well to a difficult second half. Seriously good penalty from Oisin. Hopefully Reading injury not too serious, don’t think Loughrey is a full back. My only complaint was I thought we left Crawford and Stanway on too long. Both were clearly struggling and it helped draw St Johnstone on to us. Can’t fault the fight from the team again though, we live to fight another day!

League 1 player of the year last season for Arbroath. Another interesting signing and looks like a good bit of business. I wonder if this means Turner will be moved on?

A lot more nervy than it needed to be but we deserved the win. If Chalmers had scored that penalty I think we’d have hammered them, the place was jumping at that point and the miss made things a bit flat. Second half was always going to be tricky as Ayr chucked everything at us and it was a poor goal to lose. MacPherson should have cleared his lines and we were ponderous when the initial shot was blocked. Clarke had a poor mistake last week but that was a brilliant save at the end from Oakley, got us the 3 points. Samuel had a brilliant game, topped off by a fantastic header. He’s got a turn of pace now and is clearly much fitter and full of confidence, makes a real difference up top. No real poor performances today but Chalmers was well off it after the penalty miss. I thought Crawford and Martin did well when the came on, helped tighten up the midfield although Crawford should have buried his chance. I actually thought it was a clear penalty for handball from the second shot but perhaps the ref was doing us a favour not giving it! Macbeth was good, so much better at the back than midfield. Big 3 points. Wilson and Rae doing a great job, just a pity we won’t have much in the tank to help them this month. Delighted we have Wilson over Brown, that guy doesn’t have a clue how to manage a team. Im assuming the fact Lawless was missing again means he’s for the off?

There appears to be very little accountability at the club. Person X joins the board, makes a mess of things and leaves due to a change in "their business outside the club". Person Y joins, 6 months later the same thing happens. It seemed clear to many outside of the club and board that the way things were being run were worrying. A large increase in off field staff being employed, valuable cash reserves being taken from the playing budget to zero benefit of the club. A commercial manager who made such a mess of one of the main matchday income streams it took fan intervention to get it to change. It seems to have finally started to sell out now that he has left. A general manager who seemed to delegate all his jobs to other staff and brought nothing to the role. From his first interview on the website it was clear he was a chancer, why couldn't the folk interviewing see this? A full time social media manager who turned the previously decent media output in to a shambles. Three roles which would have demanded decent salaries and the output of all three was an overwhelming failure. How hard can it be to run the finances of a business with a £3-£4m turnover? I know every season will bring budgeting difficulties due to the teams performance but we seem incapable of making a budget that we can meet. Why do we need so many people looking over the finances? Companies with double our turnover seem to manage it with one or two looking after the finance. Why do we always need to be different? It just becomes tiresome when nothing appears to change. The fans will be approached with the usual "it's your club, dig deep to help out" but why should we? Times are hard enough without folk throwing money in to what seems to be a never ending black hole. Teams in this division would kill for a home crowd of 3,500 people or a wealthy fan who has put in £1m plus. How on earth do we continue to make such a mess of this? We are a professional football team, one of the oldest in the country and it is time we got back to treating it like one. It seems far too many fancy a dabble on the board and then casually walk away when they make a mess of it. I've no idea how much TJF knew about the finances or board decisions and the ones who post on here come across as decent folk who work very hard to raise great sums for the club. I imagine they are probably hacked off as well at the current predicament. It would be nice, if for once, we could start living within our means and not go in to every summer with the begging bowl out.

We weren’t great in the first half but had a few decent moments. Looked really comfortable in the second half until the red card. I thought Chalmers got the ball but it was a risky challenge to make on a booking with that ref. Clarke has to do better with the goal, fouled or not he should be catching that. That’s a few errors from him now. Macpherson was clutching his chest as he walked down the touchline. He looked as if he was struggling, I wonder if a few players still feeling the impact of the flu bug that was round the team. Samuel and Watt were good, Alex has really come on to a game. I still think we’re a better team with just one of them starting and two players wide it them. I’d like to see us go back to that, give one an hour and let the other make an impact. Fitzy put in a shift but I don’t think I’ve seen him complete 90 mins at Firhill, he’s always down knackered at one point! Our midfield is a bit of a concern, a bit lightweight. Stanway and Lets’osa are good players but we need someone more solid in there with them. Diack took his goal well. Still looks a bit raw but seemed leaner and can’t argue with his impact. Ashcroft was a lot better today, looked sharper. Considering what happened to our friends from Greenock it’s good to be in the next round. Hopefully a big tie at home or a money spinner, this squad needs some fresh faces to help them out.

Going by Smyth’s performance against Hearts, I wonder if we’ll see him back before the window shuts!

Top of my head, Dario Zanatta and Russell Huggan (on loan from Hibs) were Canadian

A new centre half this month would be good or failing that, give McBeth a run in place of Ashcroft. He was never the quickest but he’s miles off it lately. Not sure if he’s carrying an injury

Shocking from Ashcroft and O’Reilly.

This photo helps confirm the first, it is Danny Lennon (going by the boots!)

Nothing new to add. The standard of passing from both teams was abysmal yesterday. Passes constantly played behind the target, missing the target or just out the pitch. If we’d have played our usual game instead of being dragged in to the dogfight we’d have had a much better chance of winning. Our midfield was anonymous for the most part. Our wingers were so deep they were rendered ineffective, not sure why Fitzy looked surprised to be taken off. Need to win next week to get back on track.

Mark Wilson hasn't got much wrong in his time in charge but I thought his post match comments were a bit disappointing. Blaming the wind and the lack of multiball system just sounded like sour grapes. The conditions were terrible, no doubting that and Arbroath will be more experienced but that isn't the first time we've gone there and faced similar conditions. They adapted to it, we didn't. In hindsight I think we'd have been better starting Chalmers and Fitzpatrick, it might have let us play more of our usual game and not worry about the conditions so much. Arbroath are a decent team, we'd have found it tough regardless of weather. I think next time we should concern ourselves with who we're playing and not so much on the conditions.

Just came on to say the same thing. News bulletin as early as 7am outlined the storm was to move North West and reach its peak by kick off. Not sure if Cove thought it wouldn’t come to much or whether they fancied the wind to be some sort of leveller. Safe trip down the road to all those who made the journey up.

A bit of detective work using the Thistle Archive…. Strip means it had to be the either 2000-2001 or 2001-2002. Defender behind the player had what can faintly be made out to a Caley Thistle strip. 1-0 win at Firhill in August. The only player in the team I didn’t recognise was Mark Nicholls who signed on a month deal and was then let go. That’s my guess!