OrlandoDon

Following up on my own gueye comment, he’s been shit the last 15 and a liability, can’t keep the ball, complains, the odd foul etc. much like Morris, why him coming off the bench is prob better. clarkson and palaversa are our best central midfield combo, both a tidy first half. Need that 10 ahead of them who can get on the ball. No reason to sub yet, but Morris for McGrath and dabbagh for gueye allowing nisbet to drop is prob our best option. I’d still prefer polvara to take the 10 behind nisbet but JT doesn’t like that and hasn’t tried it. Topi for okkels as JT likes to freshen up the wingers.

Agree, much of his responsibility is cutting inside and letting Jensen push on. don’t agree with Gordon, while the first 30-35 were good we’ve allowed utd to come back into it. We also look poor from throws and crosses as usual, they haven’t scored but they are getting their heads on it and at this rate a goal will come if we don’t win those duels.

Not sure why McGrath is playing, has he touched the ball yet??

Enjoyable game so far. Gueye proving why he’s worth keeping in the squad. He can be pretty good or crap, hit or miss. But he has pace strength skill and can create his own, plus is solid in the air. He’s not been great today, but he makes them think.

Credit to Jensen on the goal, could have easily smashed it but simple cross to okkels.

Very good start from us but every corner, cross, and long throw I expect them to score

Okkels! Get the check book out

Should be one up. Scramble! Three great corners, hit the bar. Hope we keep this effort up!

Decent start, we seem lively and on the front foot. More of us than them, good effort from gueye well saved.

Or new strip new era new winning run? Positive!

All set for Saturday morning viewing!

First time I’ve looked at this thread, really nice pictures Elgin. I grew up in lanark, some of your pics remind me of the Clyde valley, while my parents used to bag Monroe’s and they’d send me other pics like those. Been here for close to 30 years, best I can do these days is post a pic of Mickey Mouse, sorry!

Morris and gueye are good to have off the bench, they offer something. I think polvara goes, he rarely plays and I dont think suits our league. with nisbet, for much of the season he looked unfit and slow. I’d take a new miovski over him as we all would. But for a miovski there’s an Ambrose, with a sokler in between. I’m not a huge nisbet fan but we know what we’re getting. I think he’s in our price range because he’s not that good.

Maybe they’ll be up for this, maybe we will too in order to get 4th and momentum for the final. They have been shit of late, lost all 4 of the split so far so are in worse form than us. We desperately need a result, so why not? i see an open decent game, 3-2 us nisbet Clarkson and gueye wonder how many of our boys are playing their last league game for us?

That’s the thing, I thought we played well against hibs, a good opponent. Then three total shit performances after that. Why??? Especially in games that matter. I truly think you add two strong center mids, let’s say a Rama and a Ferguson, and we’re a different team. McLean jack Hayes and mcginn, Christie, maybe hedges, maybe Mackay Stevens, we’d be pounding teams so it didn’t matter if we weren’t great at the back. Yet since those guys it’s not been great in midfield. All of a sudden we’re attacking versus defending. The 6 ahead of our back 4 today, only Clarkson, probably topi but that’s 50/50, possibly nisbet but he’s hit/miss, should be starting. Morris gueye and palaversa are all good to bring off the bench. If you don’t dominate in midfield you end up with pressure on the defense. Our central 3 don't dictate games, even sivert does, maybe Clarkson at times. Mcginn and Hayes also did a good job defensively, Morris can’t defend and topi is average. Still think topi develops. Nisbet up top needs good players around him. He’s not good enough to create on his own, not mobile enough to cause problems with pace etc. Miovski bailed us out many a time with his pace and ability.

We’ve been through this before with Lewis. He went from being a great keeper to crumbling behind a shit defense. I think he’s good enough but fair question I suppose, but we’ve been so bad defensively it certainly affects your keeper negatively.

Still miss post game in the pub! Guess I add here. Based on what we have right now I think it’s fair to say we are targeting a starting Left back Center mid-the attacking 10 Winger Center forward That’s 4 essentials, but I still think we’re missing a second center mid, so 5 for me. Only Clarkson has the ability to be a starter, just don’t think palaversa shinnie sivert or polvara have done enough to lock in a starting position. And that’s being nice to Clarkson! We have Milne shinnie devlin Boyd, how many Scots do we need for Europe? Any young boys, including those who went on loan, expected to be first team squad next season? Didn’t overly rate Duncan and we’ve barely heard of him this season which isn’t a good sign.

I honestly wonder if a miovski loan is possible. Get him some confidence and form so to advertise and help them get a return on a sale? Or he’s that good they give him another shot. center mid is a huge issue. I just don’t know how we complement Clarkson. He’s a deep lying mid and neither shinnie or sivert work well with him. I like those two but sivert isn’t mobile or athletic, and is careless. I don’t know where Shinnie plays, is he out of gas for the season or aging. He’s not the midfielder he was. Plus the 10 ahead of them is massive on how we attack and we don’t have that player in the squad. I think we thought that may be Clarkson but he’s clearly not.

Agree we were awful, and we’ve benefitted from mediocre players having purple patches. Both gueye and Morris had a good run of games for example, but they are squad players at best. We have minimal leadership on the field. And shinnie is aging, we can’t rely on him or old sivert. We need serious personalities in the squad. Think tobers is one but we need major mental and physical toughness from multiple players. We’re losing McGrath and I assume Mackenzie. And to your point, would anyone argue if we never saw a return next season of doohan ruby Richard Jensen gueye morris okkels palaversa mcgarry dabbagh Vinny Sokler Duncan Ambrose? We have a lot of average at best? It’s still a very poor squad.

Mitov jensen tobers kneuster clarkson topi id say that’s 6 starters for next season, and that’s assuming we’re all in on topi improving. Need to buy the rest.

Who hacked panda’s account? Agree with most of this! like you say, we need multiple windows and we had such a shit squad to being in with, the early run certainly papered over the cracks. Was thinking earlier how a sivert player is essential, but a younger more mobile and more athletic version for sure, and that costs money! And a leader, were spineless right now.

Just saw that. What a move it’s been, and as you say, winning captain playing the whole game. Wonder if this sets him up for a summer big money move. I know he’s been linked with Napoli, would be something to see him and McTom the top two midfielders in the league! Ball boy Gilmore gets to watch them daily!! Jokes aside, I rate Gilmore too. Maybe we can punt Ambrose to them for a few mill as the new lukaku?

I’m going with the assumption it was reverse psychology today, be total shite so they underestimate us in the final?

Smart man, couldn’t agree more!

It used to be that way too, and I thought we’d got away from that. Crazy to think how we played in the 3-3 cup semi and the 2-2 game pre Xmas. Totally different team now. We lay down twice and crumbled this week, and have done that three times to Celtic this season, correct?