???

Or the Fritzl's live near...

Needless. I'm hurt.

Whilst they weren't being booed as such, the moans and groans of the crowd were apparent. Support and encourage, pretty simple really. I'm not suggesting we're out of the cup because of the crowd, it just doesn't help. As for who's to blame, everyone played their part. It's not one particular persons fault.

Do you not agree it really must grind the players down when the fans don't support them and only get on their backs. I don't care how hardened you are, if you're constantly put-down by your own support it will have an effect. F*ck, in any line of work if you've got people on your back you won't perform. I mean when Duff came on there was total silence from the crowd. As a player, how must that make him feel? Is it too much to ask that we could applaud our players onto the pitch? There just seems to be no patience to be honest. I'm not saying the players are blameless but the support has to take responsibility sometimes as well. We're happy to take the plaudits when we sell-out games and get great results against so-called better teams by backing the team from the word go. Recent games against Copenhagen, Lokomotiv Moscow, Bayern Munich, Dnipro, Rangers and Celtic spring to mind. When the opposite happens we should realise we do play a part. This I agree with.

A bit of both to be honest, sections of fans seem to go to games thinking we've a divine right to win everything and offer absolutely no support to the team whatsoever. Getting on their backs will no doubt have an effect. The fans are as guilty of Jekyll & Hyde performances when we're the favourites as much as the players are. As a club on the whole, we really struggle to perform when we're favourites. Give us the underdog tag however, and we're flying... If you were to look at our great home performances over the last 2-3 years, they've came when we didn't really expect anything, when the crowd has been right behind the team from before kick-off right through to the end of the game. It's a sad fact that the loudest chant on Wed night came at the start of extra-time and lasted all of 30 seconds.

Partly, booing them off at half-time was pretty pointless and the berating of anything that went wrong was just ludicrous.

Only towards the end of my time at school as he became headmaster about a year or two before I left, I do remember him banging on about it though. When I played for King Street in primary school, the triangular passing was one of the things we were taught about and it's one of my earliest memories of being coached in football.

Hence why I said in another thread that the fans are partly to blame. There was one point on Wed night when this muppet sitting in front of me decided to stand and berate Lee Mair for "notgerrinitupthafookinparkquickenoughyeuselessarticlefucksake..." At the point he shouted this, Mair had only just slid in to make a very good tackle on the Dunfermline number 7 on the edge of our box and was only just getting to his feet with the ball, which he eventually played to Mulgrew on the left.

Better than Diamond though he is.

About 35 minutes into the match on Wednesday night, this wee voice pipes up, "Dad, can we go home now? All these players are rubbish. They can't even pass the ball to each other." I swear, this kid was about 7-8 years old. His dad's response was, "Sit down and shut up, there's a long way to go yet..." After the pens the kid said, "Told you so dad..."

I don't think it's that he doesn't trust players, but more to do with another of Jimmy's faults, over-analysing opponents. He seems to often pick players for certain games as he feels that player would do better in a particular role (think Touzani in Europe last year, Aluko playing more home games than away), or to cancel what he perceives a threat from our opponents (matching up an opponents formation, usually 4-5-1). Now I know every manager does this, pick certain players to suit specific games, but I think Jimmy does this way too much.

Don't fight what comes naturally...

Cannot agree with you there. As for my original point, if you can't see it I'm not going to try and explain it to you...

Try making sense in your postings and don't contradict yourself then.

As long as the likes of George Burley are picking players of the standard of Jamie McAllister and Kirk Broadfoot, I really don't think the Scotland squads are a marker for where our various teams are at.

I totally agree as I pointed out in another post (another thread I think), it was apparent after 10 mins or so how the game was panning out. However, most managers usually get them in at half-time, try and sort things out and wait 10-20 mins to see if he's made a difference before making changes. This is what Calderwood did around the 60-70 mark (I think Mair was forced through injury apparently ), however he took the wrong option putting Considine on when he could've moved Severin back instead, leaving himself with the option of changing things higher up the pitch which is where the problem was. Going 4-5-1 killed us as it made the long-ball problem worse (only having Mackie to aim at).

Meant to add: The fault of Calderwood last night was that he didn't address the obvious problems within our performance, and the substitutions that were made (although 1 or 2 were possibly forced) weren't enough to make a difference. With the way the game was going, Wright should have came on earlier in the game (around 60-70 mins) and Severin should have dropped back into defence when Mair came off (allowing Duff or Young to play in midfield, probably on the right, with Aluko behind the front two of Mackie and Wright, Kerr sitting in the middle of the park and Smith on the left). It's all hypothetical now, and hindsight's a great thing, but I really think this is what he should have done. I didn't say that. However since you've brought it up, we can play some bloody good football at times. As for Lee Miller, he gives us the option of playing the ball on the deck and in the air. I totally agree he's better on the deck, but you need the other option sometimes. Berbatov at Man United's the same. He's about a hundred times better with the ball at his feet but you shouldn't discount what he can offer with his height.

Lee Miller usually plays up-front, so you play to your strengths. Like it or not, when you've got a big player like that up-front, you're going to play the long ball. Every football team does this from the bottom up... Do you honestly believe that Calderwood sent that team out to play the long ball to Maguire and Mackie? If anything, it would appear to me that he hoped the pace of Aluko/Smith/Maguire/Mackie would be enough to get round the back of Dunfermline's defence.

I was sitting not far from Calderwood (in the Main Stand) and at no point did he instruct his players to start lumping it up the park. You could see in the early stages of the game they were trying to play the ball around, which Dunfermline weren't getting close to, but there was no sense of urgency or speed applied to their game and the movement from the forward players - bar Aluko - was non-existent. This was the point when the players started searching for the strikers with long balls. I honestly believe that Calderwood kept Wright on the bench to stop us from automatically playing the long ball as he, like most, would've expected us to beat Dunfermline by playing football. For whatever reason, the players just didn't turn up.

I've already covered this, the players as well as Jimmy are at fault... The negative attitude of some in the crowd doesn't help either might I add.

Is this a serious question?

Holy sh*t, are you 10 years old? Just because you're a striker doesn't mean you're automatically going to be good at set-pieces. Some can't deal with pressure. Some thrive on it. Some can't take set-pieces. Some are experts when it comes to deadball situations. Some aren't confident when it comes to outsmarting a goalkeeper. Some relish the opportunity. Some can't build the confidence on certain occasions. Some gain confidence from these opportunities. Some do things on instinct and hate having time to think. Some make a decision and stick with it knowing what the end result will be. I really fail to see what it is you can't grasp from that. Unless of course you're just ranting because you're still wound up.

It was the players choice.

Can anyone honestly say they seen the team on paper before the game and thought, "we're going to lose this?" Does anyone honestly think that Jimmy sent the team out to play the long-ball? From where I was sitting it seemed that the team took this upon themselves when they started panicking about the score. Does anyone really think that Jimmy can't motivate his players? I really don't think Jimmy needed to motivate the players yesterday. Wat more motivation do you need other than a potential semi-final with Falkirk should they have won last night? I'm not suggesting Jimmy's blameless as anyone could see that he should have taken on Wright long before he did, but I think he's taking a lot of stick when the players need to take a lot of the blame as well.