Tree

Brill needs some competition but I'm not sure whether Ryan is in a position to improve things overall. Whilst it would probably be harsh to blame Dean for the second goal on Saturday he did wander off and got caught out of position. Not sure if I would like to get back passes on the farce of a pitch we have at the moment. The investment last summer has not improved things.

Someone help me out here. There must be at least one reason which justifies Vincent's selection (compounded by playing him out wide)? Is anonomous for most of every game he has played in.

He should be sacked just to stop this thread! Getting worse than Bannerman and Oddquine's ramblings about the referendum

I think we are suffering at the moment from trying to fit Draper, Vincent, Foran and Tansey into the side and this is skewing the system being played. This is not being helped by losing goals leading us to be more defensive than previously, however the Partick game showed the need to be pressing high up the park and also being able to have outlets once we have regained possession. In the first half we were too deep and when we got the ball Billy was so isolated that we immediately conceded possession. This allowed Partick to commit even more players forward and hence why it looked like the had more players on the pitch than us at moments. If we assume that our two deeper midfielders are Richie and Draper (though Richie has been poor the past couple of games!) then we need natural wide players and not Vincent who looks out of sorts when wide but a different player when he comes off the wing. A fit Doran picks himself (I would look to have him on the right side where he is more consistent) and on the left I would go for Ross (though his best position is in the hole behind Billy) or Williams (who needs to have more confidence in the attacking side). Christie is obviously one for the future (though again he can play in the hole. This then leaves a decision on the advance midfielder in the hole behind Billy, with a call between Nick, Tansey, Vincent or Christie, At the moment I would look to Tansey or if Williams played wide left it is a call between Nick or Tansey. Ross is our best player at linking the game together but Tansey offers potentially more in terms of goals / shooting. Polworth is sitting in the wings for future seasons and his best position is in the deeper midfield positions. He is probably our best passer of the ball and offers more for set pieces (crossing more than shooting) and is good under pressure. He does not have the physical pressence of Draper and Foran though. In my view if Watkins is to push into the starting line up he has to start offering an end product to his game.

More imbalanced tactics! At moment matter of time for Partick to score and we are only able to muster long shots.

How to ruin a team in four months!

Billy McKay was never a million pound player. I am referring to the price tag placed on him by club in the January window. The point is that he is not the same player and is not getting scoring chances

We have gone from a 'top six' team which scored regularly with a system which allowed us to have one of the most regularly scoring strikers in the league to one which creates few chances, scores very few goals, has bottom six form (or worse!) form and a striker who looks less than average in a system not designed for a player such as him! We had in season blips under Butcher however we normally still created chances even during these periods. If we are to continue to move away from the old system we will need to find a different striker from Billy. The support is so far away on occasions that we need a player who can hold a ball up and bring others into play. For all of Billy's strength this is definately his weakness. Four months ago he was a Million Pound player. In this system.................?

Did you even watch the game yesterday. Williams was superb. ??? Care to elaborate your point? I assume it is your statement that Williams was superb. He wasn't! He was better than most but he was far from superb. Had he been superb I think we would have had rather more that just 4 attempts on goal. Collectively our attacking midfied was very poor last night. Williams was simply the best of a bad bunch. On an individual performance I thought Danny Williams was ICT man of the match. He was bursting with so much energy and put in a decent shift. Fair enough, superb was probably over exaggerating it but certainly no way I would have him miss out the final. Sure Ryan Christie done well when he came on but I'd rather see Danny Williams on the bench or even starting - remember our last game vs Aberdeen. I don't disagree regarding Williams being more deserving (if this is the correct description) than Ryan of a place. Bursting with energy perhaps but in the middle of the park he tends to run around a lot and achieve very little. Definately not superb last night - adequate perhaps (just?). For what its worth I would start with him wide left.

Did you even watch the game yesterday. Williams was superb. ???

Very much a 4-1-4-1 system set up not too lose goals. Pitch is a disaster area and the number of sliced clearances from both defenses showed how tricky it was. Clearly there was an emphasis on keeping a shape (though Doran twice in the first half failed to track his man!) and there was too much a gap between Billy and anyone else for most of the game. Billy is not suited to this system as it needs a front man capable of holding the ball up until support arrives. Positives - Nick Ross who showed composure and a bit of quality and Polworth also played well in the second half. Richie added a bit of bite in the middle again. Both Evans and Christie showed up well when they came on also. Have to say that crowds are unlikely to improve if the home form under Yogi and equally the lack of goals continues. Don't fully understand the desire to move away from 4-2-3-1 which fits the players we have and more importantly is the system which allows Billy to actually score, That said, a lack of composure on a few occasions and the pitch put paid to several potential opportunities.

Good suggestion Alex but this company is owned entirely by the Scottish Government, so there is no chance of them giving over taxpayers money as sponsors. The company is owned by the Scottish Parliament but is run as a Private Ltd Company and I believe the taxpayers money that went into saving the company and the airports has been recovered long since. This company operates in the black and is making decent profits. Bearing in mind that advertising generates income I dont think the parliament would object to some of the profits being used for such purposes. Besides advertising budgets are tax deductable so it would mean a little less going to the UK treasury. The Scottish Parliament is a legislature. It doesn't "own" anything. IIRC, HIAL is a quango. HIAL is a publically owned corporation accountable to the Scottish Ministers (and by definition therefore to the Scottish Parliament) and sit in the same way that Scottish Water do. Whilst lumped in with Quangos they are actually slightly different, but lets not split hairs. There is no direct reason why a public corporation cannot sponsor any event or entitiy, however the articles of association or company procedures are likely to place restrictions on what can be sponsored or DLAs may be highly restricted requiring Board or Miniterial approval for certain types of sponsorship. I am aware of at least one public corporation having DLA to CEO and Executive Teams for Sponsorship Activities. In any case I would have thought that there would have to be demonstrated gain to the wider public for this to be acceptable.

Will chip in £20

Don't rate him in the central areas however he was better than Draper today

I think that unless he can appoint a clued up Assistant then the next Taxi should have his name on it! Embarassing that we have to think like this after only a few games, however I think that the Board also need to look at themselves. The first time we have ever been in the position of being a "catch" for good Managers and we end up with this

It is a bit more than just missing Richie's presence though I suspect that this would paper over some of the obvious problems (as may Billy have had he taken his chances in the past two games!). Hughes is unfortunately (and as predicted by many) leading us back to the bottom six. His tactical flaws as know are massive and unless he appoints an assistant who can sort this out and more importantly stand up to him I think the Board will see the costly error in their judgement (to the tune of £70k per league place). Again he seems to not be able to see the basics and we were crying out for a right footed player at right back. When we switch to a 4-4-2 (and setting aside the fact that Tobi is not good enough), you cannot have both your central midfielders unable to pass. With Ross removed from the advanced midfield we were left huffing and puffing and it was easy for County to defend as they could keep players back and hit on the break whilst knowing we did not have the means to move the ball quickly into spaces or pass through them. An odd situation comes about with the red card in the we take Polworth on whi can pass and suddenly we are stretching County width wise and dropping a pin point pass for the goal. I'm sure Yogi will tell us that the second was not his fault in encouraging players to pass sideways (and he does love his sideways passing) when our central defense were forward expecting a ball to be played into the box! Oh well, at least at this rate I'll save money on a Season Ticket next year. But 10 days ago I was saying to a half dozen who have already decided that they will give ICT under Hughes a miss next year that they need to give him a chance, My bad!

Yogi's first real test is likely to be finding a replacement for McKay as it is only a matter of time till he leaves (will be surprised if he is still here after Jan). We need to work on the basis that we have to find a replacement now and hope that we have till the summer to bed the player in. At the moment if Billy goes we are likely to have to play Foran (if fit) up front or rely on untried players. Toby has shown nothing to suggest he is good enough for the top flight I'm afraid and Curtis never worked out.

I'm sure the ref would have chalked the goal off if Celtic had scored as a result of him preventing Draper closing the player down. No......thought not. Rather than whining away at Draper perhaps he should think about apologising to him the next time!

I'm a bit baffled by the view that we played ok. Celtic ambled through the game as they knew that they did not have to do much more after scoring the early goal as we lacked any penetration and edge in the last third. In fact, I don't remember us ever being as toothless against Celtic since the first couple of seasons in the SPL (even when we ended up getting well beaten). As much as we slag Lennon off, Celtic knew how we would play and what our strengths are and ensured that we were (in general) not allowed to play to these. I thought we were crying out for Raven to give an ability to assist Watkins (who would not have been allowed to amble timidly through the game in the way he did under the old regime!) and switch Shinnie to the left back position to utilise the only real space on the pitch (nothing against Tremarco but he does not offer the same threat going forward). In many ways I don't want to pick out individual players for criticism, however Williams only seems to be able to run around and offer little else (though he seems to be able to cross a ball on occasion). Criticism of Ross and Doran was also wide of the mark and they at least put effort into trying to find space and make things happen. We seem to have lost that bit of sparkle in the last few games and I think Hughes has over reacted to the Aberdeen game by concentrating too much on stopping the opposition at the expense of attack. I appreciate that judging things against Celtic is not reflective of the majority of games, however the tepid performance against Partick shows that we have stopped getting at teams sufficiently. 1 point out of 9 over the space of a single week has probably changed our season for the worse.

Think I would actually prefer Adams Absolutely baffled unless this is part of some wider plan.............................god knows what that will be mind you!

Clear difference in quality between the teams though we showed a bit of frustration at inability to break Morton down and got very sloppy for a while Nick was quality with a number of dangerous runs, touches and passes. When we moved the ball quickly and with conviction we were dangerous however too many touches and taking the wrong option kept the score down. Imrie still looks like a junior player with little quality. Managed to get fouls for falling over though?? Did Nacho Novo actually do anything right the whole game? Baffled how he managed to stay on the pitch

Where have we heard this before

So from recollection we dropped something like 60 points last year, however it was all down to Pepper in one game in which he came on that we missed out on Europe. Not losing so many points in the last few minutes of games or OTD failing to track his man on at least four occasions leading to goals, etc

"The primary criteria is that it is a neutral venue, geographically between the home grounds of the finalists" Doncaster seems to change his tune in a matter of weeks!

We can look forward to an open attacking style of play then