simoncordiner

I'm sorry, I don't even see what his talents are, other than giving "a shift". He's not good enough for the SPL. And Archie's insistence on playing him when not giving other guys a run in the team long enough to establish themselves (e.g. Fraser) is inexplicable. Craigen is not the guy we need when we're battling for survival.

Yip, rubbish. Don't see what he offers the team apart from generally being quite fit and able to last 90 minutes. Goty skinned about 5 times today. Shat out of about 4 challenges. Passed the ball directly to opposition player when under no pressure and we were in a good attacking positions at least ten times. No goal threat. No creative spark. I just don't get it...

Terrible yet again. How does he possibly think, when we're well on top going into the last 20 minutes that replacing Erskine - who up to that point was our most creative player - with Elliott, was going to improve the team? And to add insult to injury, he put Elliott on in left midfield, exactly the area that ATS had been getting most joy from. Which meant ATS instead of having clear space to run into now had to play through Elliott. Very poor substitutions. I like Archie, but he's proving inept at making positive substitutions, either offensively or defensively. Hope he learns...

What does this guy have to do to get dropped?

Replace O'Donnell with McMillan Replace Craigen with Bannigan Replace Balatoni with Piccolo Drop Elliott entirely never to surface again. Start at a good tempo and play for 90 minutes.

Best team for me is: Gallacher SOD Mair Balatoni MacMillan Muirhead Fraser Lawless Erskine Higginbotham Taylor I'd prefer not to have Muirhead in midfield but I'd prefer him to Craigen at defensive midfield; St Johnstone have a few dangerous players in that area. Mon the Jags, 3 points finally. Hopefully we'll see Erskine picking up the ball in space and linking the play. I don't have any issue playing Doolan as he links up so well with Erskine but first choice is still Taylor.

Who's the bloke Ryan Ferguson mentioned at the end of this article? Is this another BBC mistake...

I thought Mair was excellent today, between him and Banzo for Mom. If we'd have held out it would have been in large part down to him. Balatoni was to blame for the goal. Muirhead went up to challenge for the header in midfield and Balatoni went clattering through the back of him resulting in both missing the ball and leaving a huge hole in the back line for the guy to run through. Total schoolboy stuff. Don't tackle your own players. Craigen giving the ball away meekly seconds before didn't help either. Let's still put this in perspective. Another game we should have won. When we find the winning combination we'll start picking up points. Archie's subs were wrong and late. He'll learn. Just hope it's soon. Elliott is...

We will beat Kilmarknock. The season of missed opportunities is about to change.

Fox SOD - Balatoni - Piccolo - ATS Bannigan - Fraser Forbes Lawless - Higginbotham Taylor LIke we played last season. I know it exposes the wing backs, but I feel they're exposed at the moment and Elliott just acts as a blocker in front of SOD. Give the wing backs the freedom to run the length of the pitch to run. Midfielders need to be schooled at covering the midfield runs in behind the wing backs. Forbes can get his foot on the ball to find Lawless and Higgy in the hole. This team will have goals...

I'd like to see us gamble a bit more against Kille and play Bannigan and Fraser in defensive midfield. In fact, maybe that's not even a gamble. Drop Elliott. Drop Muirhead (who's done ok in that position but he's not the best at playing a nicely weighted ball). Put Craigen out on the right in order to allow Lawless to stay central.

You've got to be joking, surely? He's the most threatening midfielder we've got. Scoring goals isn't a luxuxy, it's a necessity to win games. Got to remember that it's Lawless' job to find space to receive the ball. When playing central, sometimes he'll be closed down two or three players, so he's more likely to lose the ball especially when his job is to make things happen instead of chose the safe pass. I think he's quite good at wriggling free and picking out a player in space. Totally different to playing out wide, where, for example, all Elliott has to do is square up to one opposition player.

Elliott is nowhere near good enough for this league. I doubt he'd even get a game for a Championship Team. His touch is horrendous and he offers zero goal threat. It's no coincidence we won last week without him on the pitch.

No. First rule of management, support your staff. He manages with fear. I'd rather have a manager who understands a players failings but still wants to work with them to get the best out of them. Adams is a horrible person, I'd hate to be a County players hearing that stuff in the interview. He hired them, he should support them instead of hanging them out to dry.

Fox Sod - Balatoni - Gabby - Ats Kerr - Craigen Elliott - Lawless - Higgy Taylor I'd like to see Lawless play in the hole, he's most dangerous there. If we can get our noses in front we can go on to win. 2-1 to the mighty Thistle. Mon the Jags.

My Morton supporting mate says he's going to there, which would make sense to follow Kenny Shields. He'll be going somewhere, Rangers are rooked.

The only four Baird goals on Youtube (the forum won't allow me to post four links to Youtube, so I've had to wangle it below), presumably these are the best he's scored: and and and This confirms what I thought, he's not a good finisher. One of these is a header in the six yard box. Three are decent strikes, but in two of them he gets a break of the ball and I would say none of them are solid finishes (i.e. true strikes along the ground (think Boyd finishes)). The goal against Hibs was weak, to the wrong post, and the keeper should have stopped. The other two he gets a break of the ball after a poor touch, and are curling efforts rather than true strikes. His battling qualities and his ability to find space on the shoulder of the defenders are his best atributes. He'll never score more than ten goals a season in the top flight. I don't think he's what we need, he doesn't get enough goals to play lone striker, and he's not as good a finisher/playmaker as Lawless so shouldn't play in the hole. The problem we have is that Baird, Elliott, Higginbotham, and Craigen are not goal scorers. That's why I would choose Lawless every week over these guys, we need to score goals to stay up.

The problem with Baird is not where he plays, it's his finishing. He did well early in the season playing on the shoulder of the defender and spinning out into the channels. The problem is that his shooting is awful and he's clearly not an instinctive finisher. I've not cheked, but I bet most of his goals are scrappy numbers rather then composed well-taken finishes. He's simply not going to score enough goals.

That second half display was atrocious. Nobody in midfield wanted to put their foot on the ball. Craigan gave the ball away easily 10 times. And I hated watching us take any opportunuty slow the game down; that was never going to work against a young, eager Hearts team. A better team would have punished us. We need to be braver on the ball. And play for 90 minutes. Too often this season we've played well, only to lose a silly goal or not score when on top, if we're going to have any chance of staying up we need to perform at our best for 90 minutes. 45 minutes is not good enough, and that mentality could easily have cost us again today.

Does anybody have anything factual to say?

Bannigan's started playing well again since he moved into defensive midfield. He's just not a attacking midfielder, he's programmed to choose the safe option, instead of take a risk, which you need to want to do in an attacking role. Craigen ain't a defensive midfielder, he's too weak in the tackle. Both back in their best positions and playing well will serve us well in the coming weeks.

I thought Lawless picked up the ball a couple of times in dangerous positions. The truth is we need someone who can pick up the ball in the hole and drive at players. No one else in the team does this, Higgy likes to stay out wide, Craigen looks for a pass, and Forbes doesn't have the legs to get beyond the striker. Remember how many times last year if we could get the ball into the hole to Lawless and Erskine we'rd rip teams apart. That's not happening this year and is a major contributing factor to why we're not scoring goals. I'd start Lawless in that position everytime before Forbes and Craigen. If we want to pose more of a threat we need to get the dangerous guys playing in the right positions.

We don't need a big lumbering striker, we need a striker with pace that can make the run in behind. Or a midfielder that can get beyond the striker. It's all so easy for the opposition defenders when the entire game is played in front of them, no matter how much fancy passing we do.

I believe attacking midfield is not his best position, and it's getting to him. He's better in defensive midfield or left back. I'm a massive fan of SB but he's taking much of the pace out of our attacks by turning back and playing the simple pass instead of driving forward. He's playing an attacking role, he needs to occassionally gamble on beating a player or getting an early ball into the box. He could do with a spell on the bench, and we need Lawless back into the attacking fold if we're going to carry a greater goal threat. But congratulations for getting in the Scotland squad, with whom he'll be playing a defensive midfield role!

I remember there was controversy around a free kick goal Hearts scored a few years back. At the time, the goal was deemed illegal because the ball had to do one full revolution. It that still a rule? And if so does it apply to corners, or just free kicks?