Leaderboard

Is it at all possible that people can come on here, have a vent and a moan quite rightly in some cases and then go to the games and support the team wholeheartedly? I sometimes have a wee gurn on here but it makes not one iota of difference to support of the team on the day. Players and staff get credit and praise when things are going well, it's hardly surprising that when things ain't going well people will have grievances. What I can't abide are the 'fans' who boo and give grief to the players at the games, it's counter productive and helps nobody.

I despair of this I really do. Get this - I do not believe for one minute that Grant Munro would have made one iota of difference to the outcome of games this season unless he had played in all four back line positions (simultaneously) and somehow managed to bolster our midfield at the same time AND provided a commanding presence in goals. Contributing Adam Rooney's predatory instinct would have helped too, but to a lesser degree because we are scoring goals. I'll give you that we need an experienced centre back now that Hogg is injured, but whatever this management team are, I doubt if they are telepathic. The captaincy is the same -what is the most constructive thing that we come up with? dropping Foran and handing the captaincy to Rosscoe. Why? He's lost pace, had the turning circle of the Bismark on saturday and is prone to bookings to the extent that he will probably serve a ban at some point this year. There are better candidates and they don't have to have spent years at the club to qualify. I agree that Butcher has made tactical mistakes this year, and Saturday was the most glaring of them. I think that a bit of humility would have gone a long way there, but what do you expect as a fan? A grovelling apology from the Boss? A guy who has captained club & country in god knows how many finals. Unlikely. Likewise, engaging in angry argument with the paying customer is ill advised, but who tells the boss that when it's obviously born of a passion to see his team do well? Getting behind this team instead of bitching (and some of it is just that) might be better than the current stuff coming out of the stand. Think about it.

For me, when United scored their second goal on Saturday, we should have taken Foran off and brought Tade on up front with Mackay - bringing Nick Ross on was a complete waste of time - he hardly touched the ball.

Prior to the Motherwell match I thought we were 1st div certs next season, something clicked at the Motherwell game which gave me the belief to place a couple of bets on our team, 6 games on and we are actually joint top scorers in the league with Celtic over the last 6, if we could get the defense shored up, then going by our goal scoring capabilities I can see a few beach balls being bounced around the stand in the spring, (if only) If some players keep doing what their doing, some try a little bit harder,some have a little bit of luck, and one stops blaming everyone else then who knows where we will finish.

The way I see it is we have a young squad who are gaining in experience. We are off bottom and I can't see us finishing 12th. The team on the park are getting better. We are climbing the table. I don't think "it's disgraceful" but I do think threads like this contribute nothing, on the contrary they make us look like fans who expect success and bitch or moan about everything if it's not forthcoming. Get a reality check FFS!

There's always an added risk with signing a player with a history of injuries. For ICT the risk worked out brilliantly with Dargo, and even Niculae came good after a slow and unfit start. I agree it's all about risk and reward, but the assessment has to be made at the time, without hindsight, and your comparisons seem a bit unfair to me. It's easy to see why OTJ was signed on a good wage - experience of playing at a decent level over many years, and an international to boot. A risk worth taking? I don't recall anyone saying anything to the contrary at the time. GMS on the other hand had never played a competitive game of football in his entire life. ICT took him for a test drive and he broke down. He was clearly talented but very high risk. I'm pretty sure he would have been touted round every pro club in Scotland that summer, but nobody signed him, not just ICT, nobody thought he was worth the risk on the terms he was looking for at the time. Dundee Utd only signed GMS the following season, after he had eventually proven his ability and fitness with Airdrie. Should we have looked at him again at that point? He was certainly worth the risk by then but we are pretty strong in that position and had other signing priorities. There's always a degree of luck with these things, but it's perfectly understandable why all parties did what they did and didn't what they didn't. It's also perhaps a bit early to be concluding or implying who was the better signing - there's a long way to go, and Saturday was GMS's first 90 minutes this season - OTJ has at least managed two full games!

Have to agree with many others - Foran was a good player for us last year, but I have not seen him play a decent game this season - yes he is good in the air, but on the ground his distribution is dreadful and I don't know how many times he has had the ball around the edge of the 18 yard box and passed out wide when it would have been worth having a shot at goal. We are sadly missing someone like Munro in central defence and I didn't think Nick Ross even managed as many as 5 touches of the ball when he came on last Saturday. I am seriously worried about the chance of us staying up this season - at the moment we must be the clear favourites to go down :-( On the positive side, Gillet is a good player but the whole team just don't seem to have the right never say die attitude that we used to have - when we lost the first goal against Dundee United, the heads went down and you could just see that we were gouing to throw away another 3 points. I also think we should give Tuffey a game - Esson was immense last year, but has let in a couple of pretty soft goals recently so I think him and Foran would both benefit from a wee break.

Meekings is a CB. He has played at right back last month but was bought as a CB.

:unhappy: in response to post #17 :unhappy: :unhappy: in response to post #18

If anyone has Johndo's number can they give him a call and tell him that Laurence has gained access to his account!!!

And perhaps if some people stopped playing the blame game (and I don't just mean fans) and concentrated more on what can be done to change/improve things instead of looking to the past then we might start getting somewhere.

The post was from a Partick Thistle fan

Agree with Chris. Though how worrying is it that such an incompetent man thinks we are certain to be safe?

Everyone has off days and this season Richie Foran seems to have had more than his fair share. However, nobody should knock his commitment. He works hard in defence, midfield and attack to bolster the team. And this is why he is not as effective as he should be in his own position - he is having to cover for others. He might only have scored once this season but how many clean sheets has Ryan Esson had? Richie is an easy target but I would rather have him in our team than not. If he does still have a residual injury from last season perhaps he should be rested for a couple of games. Then all these boo boys might appreciate what he actually does achieve on the pitch.