Panda

Just to add, John Beaton was woeful today. Absolutely woeful.

I'd give him a B for the league season. Had we finished third it would have been a very good season. To have finished below a Hibs side with a rookie manager in place, and a newly promoted Dundee United, that's disappointing. But I do give Thelin leeway because it's his first season and no-one on here was saying he'd sort us out in one season. The proof will be who makes the most improvement out of those three teams next season (and Hearts). Pros: * You can see the game plan as opposed to wondering what Robson's long ball football was trying to achieve. * Has improved a few players. Clarkson mainly, Morris too. I would add Mackenzie to that although he did drop off. Moving Nisbet to 10 got him going when others would have given up on him. * Perhaps to his detriment, wants to attack, even against the Old Firm. The game at Parkhead (5-1) was one of those games where we took the game to them, created chances, but our marshmallow defence melted. Cons * None. Just a bit unlucky. * Okay, if you want to attack, sort your defence out. Even when we're ahead we always look vulnerable. * Indecision over a few positions. Keskinen looks better on the left but often been played on the right to accommodate other players. Same situation with Jensen. * There are clearly quite a few deficiencies with the team, but let's see how much he can fix in summer and see how we look next season. I don't buy the "if we start next season poorly he's under pressure" stuff. I think the club are backing him, even if we finish fifth next season again. Only a terrible season would make Cormack wobble.

The game I'm going to play devil's advocate here and say I didn't think we played that bad. I just don't think this team is capable of much better away from home. We can't kill teams off. Hibs would have got a second before half-time today, and that's why they're deservedly in third. We don't have a single player in our team able to win headers, either defensively or offensively. The goals, as they normally are, were soft. But we did create good chances. Thelin's subs questionable, but the changes he made to a three after going behind allowed Clarkson to always be in space, we doubled up on their full backs, had bodies in the box. It "worked" to an extent. But we just don't have enough goal scorers in the team. Nisbet has 11 league goals, which is as many as the next two (Gueye & Keskinen) combined. And the three of them combined have scored just four fewer than the rest of the team put together. Hibs 'success' this season is they have an athletic team. Not particularly physical, just athletic. Pacey, can beat opponents down the wing, can get from box to box quickly, win headers, and they've not all ran their race by 70 mins. Gueye started okay, was good at putting himself about and was winning challenges in their half. But he went on a run with the ball, lost it, we nearly conceded, and afterwards Shinnie in particular (but also Mitov) unloaded a volley of abuse his way. His head dropped and after that he was a man down. Ambrose offered nothing in his place. But who else does Thelin throw on? A pish finish to the league season, but it's coming at a good time for us. Get the cup final done and then bring on the summer overhaul.

I was at the game. Seat throwing I was in the fair play lower and wasn't far from where Mackenzie got hit. He was in a bad way, was down for a long time. Keskinen also got hit by the same seat but Mackenzie took the full brunt of it. He was wheeled past us. Was a lot of blood and I wouldn't be surprised if one of our fans has just put one of our own players out of the cup final. As soon as fans saw how bad it there were a lot of anger towards those in the upper deck above us. You could hear the seats getting broken above us, and had the first one not hit Mackenzie, I reckon a lot more were about to be thrown, and only his injury stopped folk. In the first half where was a lot of drinks getting thrown down on fans in the lower deck too. What that was about I don't know, but we have an element of bloody idiots in our support. We can expect the tickets for this fixture to rise significantly next season (was £28 today) because they'll probably have to make it a category A fixture now, and put on more police and stewards, and it'll be us paying for it.

Edit: I went on a big chin stroker about supporters clubs etc, when I should have just gone on Twitter first.

Is this everyone handing back their cup final tickets after last night? There are currently 1,139 tickets available.

Your second quote is you after the Hibs game just two and a half weeks ago. I could probably go find another one after the Motherwell game. It's been three really poor defensive performances, but I don't think there's a single board member who is considering their position on Thelin.

That's fair. There's still a place for Shinnie and Nilsen, but we need more pace at left-back and midfield as starters. Milanovic hopefully is the real deal. Nisbet hopefully stays. What I would give for Miovski's return.

I think people forget how poor we were at times last season. Miovski's 26 goals saved the season from being even worse. I also think this squad is a lot worse than people thought in October. Thelin has made his fair share of mistakes recently, but he's the first manager we've had in a long time that I have any faith in. Some shite results recently, but fourth and a cup final is improvement, yes. No. Fourth (providing we don't win the cup) gives us two cracks at Europe, as we begin in the Europa league, and if we get knocked out in the qualifiers we have another crack at the Conference. But, we'll be unseeded for the play-off rounds and it'll take a huge effort to reach the groups.

Celtic have scored five goals or more against 10 different teams this season. They're too good for Scottish football at the moment. Yes we can play much better than tonight, but they're spanking everyone. We would probably have had more chance tonight had they played their strongest team. Instead they played a side desperate to impress, and for a "reserve" side I think nine of them would be starters for us. If we beat United then win the cup, the job he has on his hands is still the same. We started the season with arguably a worse squad than last season following the loss of Miovski and Barron. Whether you rated Barron or not, his departure still weakened our midfield, we haven't replaced him, and we certainly haven't found another Miovski yet. People say Thelin has thrown money at the squad, but he's had to because cheap signings were not going to improve us, but it doesn't necessarily mean all the problems would be fixed in one season. He's spent most of that money on the defence. It was poor tonight and at Ibrox, but I think most can see that Tobers-Knoester are an improvement on Rubezic-Molloy. Nilsen's loss is hitting us harder than expected. The other two big money signings - Jensen and Keskinen - I think will eventually do well for us. But we need a left back, a Barron replacement, a McGrath replacement (hopefully Milanovic is it) probably two strikers if Nisbet doesn't stay and an attacking midfielder. Basically half a team. Change the manager if you like. Jump in at the 11th hour and get McInnes, go get Stephen Robinson, fuck it offer Kjell Knutsen the universe. But they'll all need at least another two transfer windows.

Dorrington and Jensen back. Also noticed Vinnie in the training pics, maybe a wee place on the bench. Thelin hinting at changes to give players a rest.

You're the only one who made a big deal out of it. We wouldn't have had days of discussion over it without you mentioning it in every post.

For those that believe third is still doable, then only a win will do. Even a draw likely won't be enough unless St Mirren beat Hibs, and I'm not even sure we want that because if we do lose to Celtic all off a sudden fourth place is shaky. I would just like a morale boosting performance ahead of the big one next Saturday. And no injuries to key players. Hopefully it doesn't sell out so that it annoys all the right people.

This was 35 years ago today. In fact, with extra-time played, the penalties would have been starting just around now 35 years ago.

No, I'm not. I've been consistent with what I've said actually. You can't keep moving the goalposts. You were championing McInnes for having a UK and Irish core. Going by that, we started five players of that ilk at Ibrox (and it's usually six if Nisbet plays, and seven had Dorrington been fit), But because that didn't suit, now it's only Scottish players you say. In 16-17 under McInnes (his best season probably) we often played just four Scots. (Considine, Reynolds, Jack, Shinnie). McLean or Christie sometimes made it five. Even then, that's a team of mostly non-Scots, no? In his final season, our most used eleven players were Lewis, Logan, Taylor, Hoban, Considine, McCrorie, Ferguson, Hedges, McGinn, Hayes, Cosgrove (then Kamberi). That's just three Scots. We already tried for Lyall Cameron. But the reason why we haven't signed another Scott McKenna or Lewis Ferguson is probably because they're not standing out anywhere. Jack Milne, Fletcher Boyd and maybe even Finlay Marshall are maybe the next McKenna or Ferguson. Well that's my whole frigging point. Thelin had tried to have a balance. We have Scottish guys and foreigners, physical and creative, the experienced guys and the young players. As for Simon Murray, not a single poster on this forum (and I have just checked) suggested we sign him last summer. Now he's on a three-year contract so we'd need to pay a transfer fee to sign a 33-year-old.

Can you read the previous messages before replying to them, so I don't have to begin every reply by repeating myself. The comment I replied to was We had a team full of proper men under McInnes, now we have a team full of spineless foreign shite. It wasn't me who brought up physical players or foreign players. And yes, it is backdoor xenophobia. I don't know why you're so upset about it since the comment wasn't even in reply to you. No, it's an opinion of yours, it's not a fact. With respect, that's just a jumble of words making little sense. You keep saying Scottish players, then UK and Irish players, to "players that know the league. I don't even know where you stand or what your point even is. It's very clear it's part of our trading model. We're trying to find the next Miovski. Simon Murray isn't going to be sold for £6m to anyone. There was more chance - on paper at least - of Sokler or Duk or Gueye being sold for big money in future.

Because I was replying to a comment that said we've signed "spineless foreign shite", and you entered the discussion listing Scottish players. So that's the relevance, unless you're changing the subject. But we're not though, are we? We had seven UK & Irish based players involved today. We lost to a team who played only six. The champions will likely start the cup final with just two Scots in their team. Hibs, who will likely finish third, started only four Scots yesterday (one of which is an Australian international), they're hardly a team full of home-born players either. Six of our starting line-up today have played in Scotland before this season and should meet your 'knowledge of Scottish football' criteria. Three of the subs meet that too. We're also not in July, we're in May. Thelin and his back room team know all about Rangers having played them four times. So what's your point here, that Scottish or UK signings would be better? You've just cherry picked some names that may not be good enough, in order to make what point? I could list UK and Irish players who aren't good enough either. This is the guy you've been championing isn't it? That we absolutely had to sign? Dundee United signed him, and he's been extremely poor. Here's the views of Dundee United fans... Sigh. No-one is offended.

Their nationality was irrelevant. You've been pushing this "need more physical players" stuff for over a week now (bizarrely, after the St Mirren game which you said you hadn't watched.) Are you trying to claim Niall McGinn and Peter Pawlett were physical players? We've gone forwards from last season, have we not? We're season one into what is meant to be a three-season rebuild. That would be relevant had we ignored three Scottish players of the standard of Cooper, Simpson and Hewitt and signed foreigners instead. But that's not what has happened has it?

This bit is spot on.

The bit I quoted. Firstly, we took regular humpings off Rangers and Celtic under McInnes. Secondly, "spineless foreign shite". Even ignoring your backwards xenophobia, I'm not sure that's usually how Scandinavians are perceived, and I wouldn't say Mitov, Tobers or Knoester fall into that category either.

Our issue was we were too slow to close down and cut out passes. We needed someone energetic in there. Nilsen wouldn't have sold that problem and we've had plenty of games with him in midfield and teams have played around him (a notable example being the last time we were at Ibrox).

And to put it into another context, we got beaten by a team that won at Parkhead, were in the Europa League quarters, and who drew with Celtic last week. Not defending the goals we lost (just like our defence ) but let's not pretend we've just lost to a lower league side here.

Heads gone. Sober up and try again tomorrow.

We've missed five massive chances in this game (two from Keskinen, two from Gueye, one from Polvara). Any of them go in and this is a different game. Yet here we are 3-0 down. Just haven't pressed them enough in the right areas. All three goals conceded been too easy.

I hate to say it, but Barron is doing everything that no-one in our midfield is doing. Tracking every run. We've been too stationary in midfield and easy passes have got them in behind us.