Gnome on the Bing

I'm not particularly opposed to the idea of Conrad coming back to provide cover and compete for a place. A decent player and a good guy to have around the squad.

Really looking forward to this one. It looks as though we'll have a makeshift midfield in place, given that Fraser, Bannigan and Osman are out, but we should still have enough quality take a few off QotS.

I really like the way the squad is coming together. The only thing tempering my positive outlook is the injury to Dumbuya, which is a significant blow.

Really hope Dumbuya is fit to start tonight. He provides with an outlet much like SOD used to do. I also hope to see the ball on the deck for significantly longer periods than on Saturday. Cerny Dumbuya Frans Seaborne Booth Osman Welsh Amoo Lawless Nesbitt Doolan

An interesting and plausible theory regarding Archie's tactics. However, I'd be astonished if we got anywhere near winning 95% of second balls. Moreover, I'd be willing to guess that the majority of second balls that we did win were those clearances that made their way back into our half. For these reasons I felt the strategy of lumping it towards Pogba/Edwards/Amoo was evidently ineffective, and the statistics regarding shots on goal, or lack thereof, would seem to add weight to that view. Having said that, I don't think Pogba was much worse than the majority of the team today.

Really disappointed with the way we played this afternoon. I can't believe we allowed ourselves be be drawn into a game of head-tennis with a technically inferior team. What's worse, a lot of the time our punts seemed to be directed towards Ryan Edwards, who stood absolutely no chance. Sean Welsh seemed to be the only player interested in kick-starting our passing game. We deserved to lose.

I see Pogba is coming in for some criticism, both here and on Twitter. Some of the comments are very harsh. I thought he had a decent game against Aberdeen, despite the fact that he should have done better with the header. Some of his hold-up play was neat and he unsettled their back four on numerous occasions. What does concern me, however, is that our attacking midfielders rarely make runs beyond him, looking for flick-ons. Indeed, they are often far too slow to get close to him more generally. As a consequence we're really not playing to strengths of the player. In fact, in the first half against Aberdeen it looked like the rest of our team thought Doolan was playing up front, as they were regularly playing balls in behind the back-four. While Pogba isn't as slow as is often made out (and he seems much fitter than he did a few weeks ago) I wonder if we need to think more about tailoring our pattern of play to the particular skill-set of our lone striker.

An entertaining match. Both sides rode their luck at times. We battled well but need to be more clinical when on the break and in front of goal. Pogba should have got more power on his header and Doolan squandered a great chance. At this level we need to take these opportunities when they come. Having said that, I thought there were some decent performances throughout the team. Osman, Seabourne and Welsh stood out for me. As others have said, if we play like that against lesser teams we'll take all three points.

Christie has done a good job filling in at right-back previously, so we have cover if GM doesn't make it.

I wouldn't change anything apart from perhaps Doolan in for Pogba, although I thought the latter had one of his best games in a Thistle shirt on Tuesday, so I wouldn't be too fussed if he kept his place. I'd definitely stick with Nesbitt, as he adds creativity and directness. Like others, I'd take a point but think we may scrape all three.

Two cracking saves from the edge of the box. The one down low to his left in the first half was a particularly excellent stop.

Pogba up front with Nesbitt (left), Stevie (centre) and Christie (right) playing behind him. Nesbitt and Stevie interchanged a fair bit.

Just in. A great result! And I'll tell you what: that Nesbitt boy can play a bit. He took up intelligent positions between the lines and was always willing to receive the ball in tight spaces. In time Banzo and Osman will feel confident enough to fire the ball to his feet even when there are defenders in close proximity. At times they shied away from making such passes, instead opting to play it sideways, but with increased playing time they'll be able to find him quicker. Other notable performances: Seabourne was excellent when we were under pressure; there's no such thing as a lost cause to Christie; and Cherny made some superb saves. At times we rode our luck, as they got in behind us, particularly on their left side, but I always felt like we had an extra gear and that we had the measure of them.

I think we have to give the communications folk the benefit of the doubt sometimes. Official club communications have to be 100% accurate, but in this case there seems to have been a lot of uncertainty about if and when an inspection was going to take place. I don't think the club can tweet 'we're trying to get a pitch inspection but thus far we've been ignored'. Perhaps they have been a bit slow off the mark when the inspection was granted, but when there is a degree of uncertainty and the situation is changing rapidly, I can see how it may be difficult to get the go-ahead to release such a message. I'm enjoying #dancegate though and am looking forward to the next episode. Will Ian bring up the fact that LSR once knicked his pint of cider and blackcurrant? Will LSR reveal that he is in fact Ian's dad? The suspense.

I'm not a fan of artificial pitches. Even with the best ones I've always thought there to be an appreciable impact on player movement and the type of challenges that are made. Perhaps recent improvements have rendered my position outdated, but this has always been my feeling. That said, increased precipitation is likely to become the norm, so we have to ask whether the current pitch is still fit for purpose.

Heavy rain expected at around 5pm, continuing through the evening. Doesn't look particularly promising. Just hope an announcement's made before I step onto the train.

Happy that Chris is finally returning home. He has a great attitude and is always capable of doing something unexpected, which is not a quality any of the current squad really have. We've been lacking a bit of creativity since Higgy left.

That was grim. The defence was all over the place and we were really poor in possession. Hopefully this is just a bad day at the office, as we could have been on the end of an absolute hiding this afternoon. I have to say though, I don't think Wilson played any worse than the rest of the team.

I suspect Celtic would happily go 2 vs 2 at the back and rely on their ability to dominate the centre of the park and starve the forward line of supply.

Agree. 4-2-3-1 can be extremely attack-minded when the forward-thinking midfielders provide adequate support for the 'lone' striker. I don't think anyone would accuse Arsenal of being overly defensive.

Were we to move to 4-4-2 I'd be concerned that our two strikers would rarely see the ball, and only then when it has been launched at them by Seabourne. Stick with 4-2-3-1 and break with pace.

Just finished Solar by Ian McEwan, which was decent enough. Now reading Ringworld by Larry Niven. It's my aim to have read all of the SF Masterworks series by the end of 2016.

The crowd were excellent. More vocal than the Tar-tone-arm-y. I'll get me coat.

Another good result in what was an exciting game. Osman and Bannigan were excellent. The former delivered a captain's performance and provided a much needed defensive screen, while the latter was never afraid to put his foot on the ball and was our most composed player in possession. Dan, Liam and Callum all had decent games, although Seabourne's distribution was a bit off at times. Pass marks also for Doolan and Welsh. We do, however, need to be much more ruthless on the break. On numerous occasions in the second half we broke in numbers but either dwelt on the ball too long or played the wrong pass. We need to kill these games earlier. But hey, it's another three points and our rich vein of form continues.

He's a cracking pro, Doolan. He's also not short of talent. He has an excellent first touch, makes intelligent runs and is a more than decent finisher. I just wish the team played to his strengths more often. He's not a player you can hoof the ball towards from the half-way line, but play it in behind the defence or to his feet in the box and he'll score goals.