Woodstock Jag

Yeah, because McNamara was really going to be quoted on the official site saying "I gave that wee scrote Paton the hairdryer treatment before subjecting him to a Palestinian hanging, told Doolan to get his ****ing act together and took a dump in Stewart's water bottle. They're total ******s and they're all getting punted in January" wasn't he? If you really think that, judging by that comment, McNamara just went into the dressing room and mumbled like a P2 supply teacher "I'm very disappointed in you. Go and sit in the corner and think about what you've done" then you're the naive one here, not him. I strongly suspect the reality is that, having had nearly 24 hours to reflect on the game, McNamara gave a significantly censored version of the immediate post-match team talk, so as to be sufficient to articulate his disappointment but not so verbatim as to give the players a second and very public kicking when he needs them fired up for Saturday.

Nope. Wouldn't win any prizes in an art competition for the Wee Jags right enough.

What that man said. Nothing that they've done brings Thistle's reputation as a family club into disrepute. People throwing smoke bombs onto the pitch on the other hand...

Aye okay sunshine. That you were the one to raise my politics suggests you're rather more absorbed in it than I am. Right... so mucking about (not causing any harm or doing anything especially unhealthy) when not training or playing or involved in a public engagement on behalf of the club constitutes a "lack of professionalism"? What part of the club's "so carefully cultivated" reputation does a handful of pranks do? They're a group of young men. They muck about. What a surprise. If it was the management team or the board of directors involved in such pranks you might just have a point, but it's not so you don't. Let's not cloud the issues here. They were left open to difficult questions in relation to yesterday's performance because they didn't try hard enough or acquit themselves adequately on the pitch. That's substantially unrelated to what they do when they're not training, as long as they're not knocking back the beers at a rate of knots.

If anything I'd be impressed if they managed to tweet while playing... AaronSinclair26 "Got ball aff that useless @conradbalatoni. Passed to @cairneypaul who took 8 touches and lost it. FML"

This has nothing to do with my politics. I really don't care if they post a photo of a foam phallus on a Smart car. They're young men. If they find it funny, fine. They're not causing gratuitous offence to anyone.

No, this is just a complete overreaction. These days Thistle fans are more than happy to tolerate these slightly off the wall dressing room japes when they're disclosed around about a purple patch. Yet as soon as there's a rank rotten result it's suddenly because, shock, a few players are on Twitter and have the audacity to play an XBox after training the evening before a match. There is no cause and effect whatsoever. They probably feel like absolute this morning and it's substantially deserved after their performance, so let's not kick them again while they're down. A few weeks of hard graft, keeping their heads down a bit and no one will care what dress Conrad Balatoni tried on for size down town or whether Aaron Sinclair is a PES or a FIFA man.

Question: Why do people assume that Jackie is all "pally" with the players? Just because he doesn't shout abuse at them in public doesn't mean he's somehow not being anything other than forthright behind closed doors. The impression I got from the reports around pre-season training was that actually, he was a quiet disciplinarian.

There's little denying that Balatoni had a pretty awful game but let's be honest more than half the team who played the full 90 were scarcely any better today.

For some reason they're playing their game on Wednesday.

Lol

Calm down. Yes it was an awful result but beyond giving them a total bollocking there really wasn't much he could have done. That said I'd have lined up 4-3-3 to put more pressure on with a narrow pitch. The players were collectively poor today, with the exception of Cairney and possibly Erskine. With any luck this will give them the shock they need to get their act together. We're still in the Cup and if we lose on Saturday, maybe, just maybe, this thread will have some substance to it. But let's not allow ourselves to draw rash conclusions based on our feelings after one rotten cup game.

Want to see us go at them. Fox Paton Robertson/Balatoni Archibald Sinclair O'Donnell Rowson Cairney Erskine Doolan Elliot Subs: Scully, Robertson/Balatoni, Bannigan, Stewart, Dargo I think with the pitch being quite narrow it doesn't make an awful lot of sense to play 4 in the middle, especially if Paton and Sinclair are going to be on their heels. Best to have a third man up front and stretch them out a bit. Snappy stuff through the middle and lots of shots on goal please.

How very dare you call him racist! C'mon.

Called up the Club and Maxi confirmed I'd managed to reseve tickets. Must have been an issue with my email account if I never got confirmation. Off to Firhill to get them now. It's a swally on Friday for my dad's birthday and then the hangover shock at Crombie Park!

Despite having emailed on Thursday, I suspect I won't be able to get tickets for this because for some reason or another the email was never responded to. Tried following it up by emailing Ami again but to no avail and it looks like they're sold out now anyway. Shame really as I was going to be up in Aberdeen for the weekend separately.

I think you need to go to the opticians then, because Paton goes out of his way to trap the ball on his right foot. Also, notice that even when Sinclair uses mainly his left foot, he's still more than capable of cutting inside with it without having to turn like a bloody u-boat. When Paton is on the Jackie Husband stand side he almost without fail executes a pass while facing the dugouts. He doesn't do passes forward on the deck or cutting inside while still moving forward. What's more, he doesn't even try to take on a man on the outside.

If he has been told not to, then McNamara must go total skits on Sinclair who does it all the time.

Even Paddy Boyle could and frequently did actually use his right foot. Most players use their weaker foot when on the ball. They perhaps don't use it much more often to offload/shoot than Paton but they do at least use it when keeping the ball under their own control. Paton contorts his body specifically to avoid even using his left foot to set up his right foot! Edit: The Lady has beaten me to it.

Don't rate him. If O'Donnell wasn't so good just about everywhere else I think Paton would be benched rather more often. The problem isn't just that he's one footed. The problem is that he has to contort his body at right angles when he cuts inside, meaning instead of getting past a man he's backing up on himself, usually leaving no choice but to punt it back to Balatoni or across to Sinclair. Twaddle, Boyle and Sinclair all have one thing in common and that's that on the left flank they almost always look for the overlap and they're willing to hit the by-line and put a cross in. Paton's crosses are almost exclusively from deep or after backing up on himself. It's massively infuriating. When he first signed, I thought he was best going forward but suspect at the back. Now the reverse is true. Now certainly being good defensively is the priority but with the systems we deploy the role of the wide backs/wing backs really has to be more than high balls from deep. If Paton is to be so one-footed, his decision making and passing with his right foot need to get considerably better than they are.

Hello Ami, I sent the email to that address and I resent it earlier on today. Perhaps it has found its way into a spambox?

Emailed on Thursday to reserve tickets but never got a reply. Don't know if I've successfully reserved but will try to collect at Firhill later this week...

Read in the Metro that Pressley had been sticking up for McNamara's comments. I thought those two hated each other

The Club won't want to name something that ends up getting torn down a few years later...