smokiejag

Right. No more San Miguel. It was Amoo and not Erskine who played in the first half. Apologies all round.

You spotted my deliberate mistake, Barney. From memory Erskine started rather than came on from the start. Can somebody else confirm? I must repeat we played very well in the first half with a settled team. With all the changes it is no surprise we looked disjointed in the second.

Team V Lokeren. Cerny Dumbaya, Keown, Devine, Gordon. Welsh, Barton, Edwards, Lawless. Azeez. Subs. From memory, Elliot, Ridgers, Osman, Erskine, Doolan and later, McDade and the young lad, MC Mullin?

Attendance was about 70, 40/30 Jags and of course it was Bannigan walking about, spell checker canny spell.

Just back from the friendly. Positives. Dumbaya had a steady 43 minutes. Keown looked comfortable and solid in the first half. Lawless played really well and we looked a good team in the first half. Negatives. Second half we were poor. New keeper and Keown had no understanding, midfield didn't function and no threat upfront. Given so many HT subs the deterioration is perhaps understandable and Archie had a good post mortem with them at the end. Really good to see Brannigan and Fraser walking about, although neither was ready to play. All in all it seems they've had a busy week.

A decent game in awful conditions. From my position I didn't think Dools as offside for the second "goal". I agree we tired a bit but no wonder. Well done again to players and coaching staff, enjoy your break and let's start the New Year the way we finished the old one. Optimistic.

Superb team effort last night, solid at the back, more than matched them in midfield and creative up front. Edwards, Barton, Welsh, Doolan were the stars and really pleased for Devine and Gordon, neither of whom put a foot wrong tonight. Great atmosphere with a decent away crowd and the Northy in great voice. Well done to Archie, Shaggy and all the boys on the park for batttling this one out. The only spoiler was having to listen to my brother in law complaining all the way back to Dundee about getting 3 out of his 4 always up, with guess who letting him down. Do you share my heartache? Now one more great performance on Saturday and we can all enjoy the break.

Sorry about the predictive text above. Abdul is big rather than a bug!

Couldn't post yesterday. So angry, so disappointed. Also disappointed in some of the posts yesterday but the tone today is much more sensible. The big negative is obviously losing a late goal yet again at home, going for a long throw was fine by me at 1-1, had we been ahead obviously that would be daft. The problems was that bug Abdul slipped and, Barton gave the scorer to much room and then it goes through rather than hits our defenders. There were many more positives. It was a huge improvement on last Saturday, Archie made big changes in personnel and in shape, the result was we no failures in my opinion and we had the classiest player on the park in Barton. What a find! We matched that lot who have much more money than we could dream of and were seconds away from a well deserved draw. If ever I see our players not trying or the management not caring I will lead the call for Archie to go, although I would think he would walk without a call. What now? Let's get right behind the team on Saturday and let's hope we play as well as we did yesterday when we play the other well resourced teams in the next few weeks. Once a Jag.........

Totally agree with Lindau above. In the first half our build up was far too slow, at least in the second we showed some urgency. Stuckman at 6 ft 5 should not be punching crosses. Several times before the goal he did this with both hands, once straight to a Well forward. If you're over 6ft and can get two hands on the ball you must catch it and give your defenders confidence. For the second goal I thought it was Barton who failed to pick up our wee obnoxious friend but I may be wrong. Yes Dools made a difference and Azeez had two decent chances but they could have stepped up a gear if we had scored and they looked a much better team than us throughout. Yesterday was a collective failure especially in the first half and as stated above,in this league you can't turn up at half time and expect to win. McDonald took the piss out of Dallas the whole game and the latter was a joke as a referee but he wasn't the reason we lost. The solution is to play at good pace throughout. We've got good creative players and let's hope this poor showing doesn't knock our confidence as we face some of the top teams in in coming weeks.

Watching on TV. The guy who knocked it down was fractionally offside, but even though it was still a free header....again.

Agree totally with westertonjag. We totally dominated the game, Scully didn't have anything to do in the first half and with the possible exception of Dools, everybody knew their role and contributed to our best performance of the season. Barton was immense and great to see Devine wining every 50/50. Archie was totally correct in going for 3-5_2. Overall a great performance from a team lacking a wee bit of confidence. We are better than other teams in the bottom half and we'll go be OK this season. PS I may be in a minority of one but I thought Booth being muscled off the ball was key point in us losing the goal. And finally best wishes to big Liam, hope we see you back soon.

Most of us know about these constraints, so all the more reason for ensuring we have cover in the key position of centre half. One injury or suspension and it's a nightmare. There must be an explanation for this . Does anybody know?

24 hours after the game and like everybody else still very frustrated. For what it's worth I feel our problem is mainly confidence. It was the same story as the Motherwell game in that we fell out the game in the last 20 minutes hoping to hold on rather than seeing the game out. I know everyone is blaming Devine but I think it's a collective failure. We couldn't keep the ball and when they had it we didn't get in about them in midfield. Given we are fragile at the back, as with M'well we all knew an equaliser was coming. In both games we played fine for an hour and then the same players don't pas s,tackle or mark and instead let our opponents come on to us. Solutions? Try Abdul or Barton alongside Lindsay and Elliot at right back but maily remind the whole squad about how to close a game. Like everybody else I can't understand how we can go a season with only 2 centre halves. Does anyone know what's going on there given Archie's and Shaggy's background? In the meantime we all need to get behind the team during the next 3 games. We've got the players to turn this around as we've done in recent seasons. So go for it Jags starting next Saturday.

Really frustrated. But now I've calmed down a bit I feel there were more positives than negatives. Very few poor performances and Elliot, Erskine, Edwards were excellent. Their goal was a collective failure in defence and Azeez first one on one was poor. But agree with everyone else, this was a game we should have put away early in the second half. So keep the faith and hopefully we'll soon turn the corner. Next week will do fine. Monthejags.

I agree with most of the above comments. It was a smashing game and we did well against a very good team. I thought Devine, Edwards, Erskine, and Azeez were our best players but everybody gave full effort and we deserved a draw. I did feel we would have taken off Lawless who was struggling with their physical approach. Of course their free header was down to Big Liam but I would also hope a keeper would come for a cross in the area. But overall an improvement over our efforts at Pittodrie and hopefully we'll be ruthless against weaker teams over the next few weeks. Well done,lads,we look a better team than last season.

I agree Cullen did very well as did all the team.Christie looked really fit but maybe a bit rusty. The Trialist played as a defensive midfielder, looked strong. He was an overage player and lasted an hour. He wasn't quite up to the pace of the game but did OK.

Just back from watching the Development Team winning 2-1 after being down at half time. Lots of positives. McMullin a star at centre back ably supported by McInally. Dochetry very comfortable on the ball and McCarthy not far behind him. However Declan McDade stole the show. He was a lone striker first half and wide left secaond. Didn't waste a ball, loads of pace and scored twice. Wel done to all the young lads and to their coaches. Soon some of them may be pushing for a first team place. Good luck to all of them for the rest of the season.

My observations from today. Played well first half and at the end. Two great chances ie the two on one and Amoo squaring to Edwards. In both cases the striker needs to step back and make a better angle. Two daft free kicks given away on the edge of our box, one of which cost us dearly. Welsh fouled, mouthed, got booked then kept mouthing, giving the ref no option. Devine had a great game and Lindsay was solid but has to cut out crazy errors.Generally agree with Archie's post match comments.Lets get behind the team for the Hearts game.