Panda

Your determination to derail every thread by saying the same thing over and over again, and then insulting anyone who disagrees with your opinion, got boring a long time ago.

Typical weegie media tripe.

I don't think Lennon is any better than McInnes (and, we should have been upgrading on McInnes, Thelin the only man we've appointed since who at least had a background and CV to suggest he may have been). What really goes against him is all the baggage that comes with him. I'd find it difficult to accept him as manager and I like to think I'm one of the less reactionary fans. He's going a good job at Dunfermline and fair play to him, but he's not what we need. He's a chequebook manager, a Celtic Jimmy Calderwood if you like. Give him a good squad and he might get them playing, but at Celtic he frustrated all the coaches because he had zero interest in the youth team and no desire to ever promote anyone. At Hibs he inherited a good team and as they broke up he couldn't fix it or rebuild, he left them in eighth. And he absolutely blew Celtic's chances of 10 in a row. I won't lose any sleep over us not appointing Lennon.

I can, I was upset.

But there's no evidence he's capable, so why make such a drastic change and hang our hopes on a guy that has just had a disastrous spell at Ross County? We'd actually be better bringing Neil fucking Warnock back. I'm beginning to worry about you. Aberdeen have broken you.

But again, why does it need to happen in the summer? Why go to the lengths or rearranging the interim team, again, rather than appointing a new manager? We were holding interviews in January. We've all but made public our interest in two men. And yet we're discussing if we should change the interim team because we don't think we can appoint a manager for another three months. Because he won just twice in 13 games at Ross County, including a 6-0 defeat in his final game. Now, County have their issues (as do we) but there's no evidence there he is capable of doing any better than Leven with the current group of players. "He's experienced". Aye, so is Mark McGhee.

No, I've said more than once - including in the post that you're replying to - that we need to get on with appointing a permanent manager. Yes, it is entirely possible that he could be worse. And replacing a caretaker with another caretaker would be laughable. Are you suggesting we sack Leven, in which case we now need another coach. Or do we swap him & Doc, which likely wouldn't be accepted by either party.

Whilst I don't think Leven should be considered long term, the decline isn't all down to him. Our recruitment across the season has been abysmal, and we are arguably weaker than we were at the start of the January window. We've brought in a goalkeeper who doesn't look any better than Mitov. Morrison is poor, McIntyre average. Geiger so far has been more liability than an improvement on anyone. Aremu and Olusanya - we needed players to improve the first team, and instead we've two players to sit on the bench. Cameron the only signing I'd give plus marks to at the moment, and he's a loan signing from a rival club. Going back to summer:- Gueye been replaced by Yengi/lazetic. Morris by Milanovic. Despite the criticism he used to get, Jack Mackenzie would start for us just now. No-one of the level of Jamie McGrath has been brought in. Even Ester Sokler would be ahead of everyone bar Nisbet just now. Promoting Tony Docherty would solve nothing. He's already at the club so his "experience" is already there. Him picking the team makes little difference because he still has the same group of players, and he's not good enough to get more out of them. Get a new manager appointed now - whether he official starts in summer or not. Someone needs to be evaluating the squad and working with Lutz & Mowbray to identify what we need in summer, and we need it done early so we're not signing half our squad on transfer deadline day again.

But when did this become a thing, that you can only appoint the right manager in summer? Dundee United could sack Jim Goodwin on Monday and have a new man in place by the end of the week. We need to get our fucking act together. We are playing like a team that doesn't have a manager, and have been doing so for over two months now. I was happy for the club to take their time to get the right man, but this is taking the piss. And no, the "unforeseen circumstances" around Horneland situation doesn't excuse it.

I only got there are half-time because I was working at the rugby. Met my mates, stayed for half an hour, and we decided to leave with 15 minutes to go. Value for money, would do it again. Even in that little time, I saw too much. Every throw in, we threw it back the way towards the centre halves so they could improve their passing stats. Every pass in the final third had to go wide to Keskinen, who Dunfermline just closed down. Too easy. Have no idea why people (more than one) on this board think Tony Docherty should be interim manager. Go look at his appalling spell at Ross County. What we need is a permanent manager. Preferably a good one.

Shame, really fancied United at Hampden. Lot of United fans desperate for Goodwin to go. His cup record is shocking, and being as bad as us in the league should be a sackable offence in itself.

There'll be no VAR for this game, which is a surprise because usually it's a requirement for televised games at this stage of the competition. But, will add to the traditional cup tie feel.

For those at the game, did Sandro Schwarz get any sort of reception when he appeared on the big screen? I guess it's hard to get too up or down about his potential appointment. Did well at Mainz and Dynamo Moscow, without any real success though. Has struggled in his next two jobs, but even the fans there haven't given him much grief for it as he never really had the tools to work with. Was having a look at what he played at New York Red Bulls. A 4-4-2/4-2-2-2 was what he came with from his previous clubs, but he played a 4-2-3-1 and a 3-1-4-2 often last season. Would love to have heard his thought on us after the Celtic game.

We had the right idea in playing Nilsen in the centre of defence, and playing two up front. We had some good width too with Frame. But, not enough quality throughout the starting XI to press home when we were on top (for about 15 minutes in the first half and the last 10 minutes). Although had Nisbet scored with that header at the start of the second half, would have made for a very interesting game. Leven - from memory - started with a 3/5 at the back at Ibrox when he began his interim spell (was that his first game or am I imagining it?). And then since then hasn't bothered with it until the second half on Saturday at Tynecastle. I think he should probably stick with it. It's not spectacular, but makes us a little harder to beat and a touch more dangerous on the counter. I don't think we have the squad to play an expensive 4-3-3 at the moment.

This requires context.