There's no doubt that the seeds of our demise were sewn under Craig Brewster's hopelessly inadaquate management and if Terry Butcher had been appointed a few weeks earlier we would have almost certainly survived.
However, the fact is that in recent weeks the team lacked resilience just when it needed it most. Immediately after the victory against St Mirren we looked the least likely of the bottom five to go down. Since then the side have not ben able to hold on to winning positions against a Motherwell side who had very little to play for or against Hamilton. Finally, when the chips were down, we were unable to take a single point from our final two fixtures when any single one of the above would have sufficed.
When push came to shove the current bloated squad were unable to show the mettle to take any one of the four opportunities they had when a single extra goal would have secured our SPL status for another season.
Frankly, although there has been a considerable improvement under the Terry Butcher, that's not nearly good enough and certainly will not do for next season if we are to have any reasonable prospect of winning a very competitive First Division.
I'm not advocating a wholesale clear out but if we a serious about defying recent trends and bouncing straight back up we will, subjest to the obviously constrained budget, have to bring in a number of players with sufficient steel to stand the heat at the business end of the season. The current lot have proved that collectively they don't have the bottle for it when each game is crucial.
There's no doubt that the seeds of our demise were sewn under Craig Brewster's hopelessly inadaquate management and if Terry Butcher had been appointed a few weeks earlier we would have almost certainly survived.
However, the fact is that in recent weeks the team lacked resilience just when it needed it most. Immediately after the victory against St Mirren we looked the least likely of the bottom five to go down. Since then the side have not ben able to hold on to winning positions against a Motherwell side who had very little to play for or against Hamilton. Finally, when the chips were down, we were unable to take a single point from our final two fixtures when any single one of the above would have sufficed.
When push came to shove the current bloated squad were unable to show the mettle to take any one of the four opportunities they had when a single extra goal would have secured our SPL status for another season.
Frankly, although there has been a considerable improvement under the Terry Butcher, that's not nearly good enough and certainly will not do for next season if we are to have any reasonable prospect of winning a very competitive First Division.
I'm not advocating a wholesale clear out but if we a serious about defying recent trends and bouncing straight back up we will, subjest to the obviously constrained budget, have to bring in a number of players with sufficient steel to stand the heat at the business end of the season. The current lot have proved that collectively they don't have the bottle for it when each game is crucial.
Edited by Kingsmills