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The club seem to be on a continuing descent. A similar cup tie 20 years ago would have been a competitive affair with ICT giving as good as they got. Our first 20 years were a more or less continuous upward progression where everyone from top to bottom of the club were in it together....................we now seem to be in reverse and if nothing changes, we'll be back in the bottom division in another 5 to 10 years..... Truly awful.

I don’t believe he was forced out as a move to the central belt worked for him. I don’t want to say more about the circumstances in a public forum but I believe a lot of us are aware and understand them.

Doubt those in charge would agree but I'm now totally unbothered we lost yesterday lol

That was a fairly depressing watch. As many have eluded to, having possession is all very well but there has to be an end product. When we break forward there is little or no pace involved, giving the opposition plenty of time to get back and reorganised, and I just can’t see anyone in our current squad who is going to create anything. Strange decision changing two central defenders when we need to chase a cup game (know this has been used to good effect previously), and as for Pepple, he gave the impression he wasn’t remotely interested once he came on. Hopefully he is just getting up to speed, but personally I have my doubts. We need to improve dramatically in the final third, but hard to see what with.

Does anyone really believe if we never took loans or short deals this season (including Wotherspoon) we would actually get points persevering with start of season the Dodds squad?

There are problems and concerns, but come on, you seem to have forgotten that only last season we beat 2 Premiership sides on our way to the final where we put in a very competitive performance against Celtic.

Let's face it this is a survival season. The worry is that our season is being based on finance management. But that's due to at least a couple of years of financial mismanagement!! The display of our finances will also be well managed and will pose more Questions than answers but at least that gives us another non-football thread to enjoy. And maybe Dunc is another planned distraction and has been cleverly brought in for the short term only. My view is that he is trying to play lower English league type football and that does not suit many of our players - e.g Carson - but will be bread and butter to the majority of the loan signings.

I’m nervous about the number of loans. However, Scott Young said at the Fans Meeting that there were clauses in some of the deals relating to what would happen depending on the number of appearances, with the implication that some of them may become permanent. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating but, from what I’ve seen so far, Kerr and Samuel are assets and I see potential in the young central defenders and McAllister. We’ve had an incredible player turnover. Only four starters on Saturday played at Hampden in June.

So, basically, we've missed out on a money spinning tie and allowing our stadium to be overrun by their supporters and pyrotechnics.

The problem with Duncball is shooting! Yes our possession is OK but it's just not fast enough going forward. Quite convinced we could employ Harry Kane and we wouldn't get the ball to him. Hibs adjusted their formation at half time as it was clear we had no punch up front. Worrying..... Our home form is rank rotten.

I think Doran would do well for us in a number 10 role. He has shown time and again his ability to score from distance, and he and Billy have enough time together to inject a bit of much needed creativity in the final third.

Start Aaron to give us a few goals as he knows where the net is then rest him .He needs time to do what he’s good at . Well done Aaron !! Cracking goal !!

In most cases, improvements are made from the vantage point of strength and success, but we actually got weaker after our most successful period in our history. That, to me, was the start of our decline to where we are now. Our success in winning the Scottish Cup, finishing third and playing in Europe should have attracted a higher calibre of player that came to the club to replace Shinnie, Watkins, Ross and Oferee, but we got Webberburn, Lopez and Co. The dip in quality was woeful, and that was down to a disastrous scouting policy that Hughes had. If we could have kept that cup winning team together for another season, who knows what would've happened, but that, and Hughes throwing his toys out of the pram, kick started our sorry path to decline. Having him on gardening leave for several months, and having to recruit from within the club (Foran), was where it all started to unravel, giving him such a long contract and not relieving him of his duties early enough compounded the ever growing problems at the club. It was a series of blunders that are still having the ripple effect to this day.

I suspect they would have offered to swap the venue to forfeit any chance of sporting success on return for increased revenue and a day out in corporate areas of 'the big house'

Joke thread . . . . surely?