RicoS321

I'm hoping we don't see Sokler out wide, I'd rather we didn't get into the habit of it and start pretending he might be able to play there. Obviously not being Morris is a huge plus point that contradicts what I've just said. Sokler is okay there, but we need to be aiming for someone good in that role as it could be key this season. I just fear that Sokler will get shoehorned in there until January, regardless of the Miovski situation.

Yep, he's 347 times better than Shayden. Although it would also be nice to have a winger with some remaining pace.

Decent game, and Killie looked decent. Hopefully they qualify and have to play all the extra games and we pip them to sixth.

Exactly, typical of the lazy older generations. For what it's worth, I think that the Ghanian league is in the top five leagues along the gulf of Guinea coast.

I don't entirely disagree, Sokler was okay and had he scored his chance, nobody would have been questioning him. That said, there was a complete change when Miovski came on, that lifted the entire team. It's probably not as obvious on the telly, but he just dictates that whole part of the pitch with his movement and link up - the other players just come with him, when Miovski moves, everyone does. There's a huge part to Miovski's game, that isn't just scoring goals, that Sokler doesn't have at all. I don't think he'll get it either. He's an intelligent enough player, like Mackie or May, but lacks the quality and doesn't inspire in the way Miovski does. I feel sorry for him, he's the striker equivalent of Porterfield coming in after Ferguson. I think the fans will have to accept that we're going to take a hit in that area regardless of who we get, and we need to show patience. If Sokler is our best option this season, then we're going to need to be very shrewd in other areas to get the best out of him. That doesn't involve Shayden Morris, whose leaving the pitch also gave the team a big lift.

With Cochrane moving on, it wouldn't surprise me. He was a little suspect defensively at times yesterday, but a good player who'll definitely step up a level.

Yep, that was basically the situation. I think he'll have wanted guaranteed game time too, and we wanted Milne to come through, with Hancock just being in that grey area between not being quite good enough to throw in, but too good to not be playing somewhere. It's always difficult, especially when you're trying to challenge for Europe and managers are frightened to lose games (and their careers). We're always going to miss one or two, and I think Hancock will get a good move this season. Our problems are compounded by getting absolute dross like McGurry and Richardson in, who are supposed to be upgrades but end up not only being worse than going with youth, but also prevent that youth product from getting minutes because we feel obliged to play the new guys. The three minute cameo could have gone to Boyd, as opposed to Ambrose, last night as an example.

I'd like to see us try McGurry on a different continent.

He was notably quick off his line. Too quick on a couple of occasions, where he could have waited for the ball to come into his box, but good to see. Kicking was okay, nothing special, but didn't look afraid of the ball. Think he'll be a good goalie.

VAR missing was the absolute highlight tonight, getting home at some point before 23:00 always a bonus. Enjoyable enough game when we got going. Played some nice stuff at times, with Clarkson clearly being encouraged to try things, a lot of which don't come off, but hopefully fans will understand his role (I doubt it, I heard a lot of "stop deein that funcy shite" type shouts). The bench is a huge worry still, with nothing beyond Miovski. Morris was, and is, absolutely dogshit. He ruins the game because he doesn't know how to play it. He reacts to everything. Hopefully that's enough of his experiment. Sokler proving my point about Mackie, that was a classic Mackie performance tonight. Shinnie great, as was Clarkson. The fullbacks were fine and Rubi okay. Molloy very rash, and a worry. The idea behind Nilsen is a sound one, it's tactically great, but I don't think he's going to be good enough for the SPFL. Too slow and because of that, too many slack passes and being caught out of position. I like the way we're approaching it, but we're 4-5 players short, and that bench is honking.

Yep. Although I'm guessing that we'll be after a winger anyway, so we can just slot him in upon Morris getting found out again.

Maybe, but it doesn't seem that way. Leven didn't give the guys mentioned a look in when he was manager (obviously besuijen was away), so I think he'll have made it clear to Thelin. I'm not expecting him to have shifted all players on, but given the number of guys that aren't up to standard in that squad, I'd have expected to see things moving by now. We need at least a couple of those guys starting to be shifted out the door. It's just extra work having to deal with a large squad, and hassle a new manager doesn't need, he needs to be looking to build going forward rather than deal with yesterday's dross. A new manager can get maybe 5-10% extra out of a player by playing them in a different way, or other motivation, but he's not turning 5-6 guys who are nowhere near good enough into players. I really hope there is no expectation on him to be getting something out of these guys.

He was gash when he first arrived. Always a yard short of pace, meaning he couldn't get past any half decent defender. A decent touch and finisher, but a level below what we need (unless he's improved when he was away). Fans liked him because he was an exciting new player who joined in the January window as our only signing, and he got the benefit of the doubt for some time. He was always a technically decent, but average player. I can see why we signed him, but he'll likely never make it as there are too many parts to his game where he is just a level below.

I assume you'll be putting up the photo of your 8lb trout later?

Yep, I'd agree on that list. I'd maybe keep Duncan because he came through the youth and he's a top Don, but that would just be sentimentality. I'd probably add Gueye too. I agree that we should be giving him time to build a squad, but there also needs to be a bit of trust in the guys that are there already (Leven, specifically). Leven has seen enough of all of the guys that you mention to know that no manager is going to be turning all of them into world beaters overnight. I think Leven especially deserves a bit of trust and we should be speeding up the process to offload them. For me, that part is more important than the new signings. The longer it goes on without any of those guys shifted, the more it makes it seem that Thelin believes he can get something out of them, which is a little naive. We'll also have to add on top of that list, the 50% of duds that we pick up in this window. If we assume that Ambrose (just using him as an example) is pish then that's another guy we've got to waste time and minutes on to maintain some level of squad harmony.