Tree

I got the impression from his radio interview he has players in mind. This could work out well. Or could go disastrously wrong. Can't help but think this player movement stems from the 'clear the air' talks the squad had a while ago.

TB's body language (showing nervousness) on STV suggests that he knows that this move is likely to be controversial.

Personally I believe that while both Roy and Golly are no longer SPL quality, Both Russell and Munro could do a job for at least another couple of seasons. I would be surprised if we find two better replacements in the same wage bracket, which is the only bracket we can afford.

I believe that this is probably the worst mistake in Butcher's tenure at the club but only time will tell whether the manager is right or the majority of fans posting on this thred are.

The reality of this season, with the current players, is that we started with a flyer but have only picked up something like 15 out of the last 57 points. Taken over the season this is potentially relegation form.

Out of 10 players being released, probably only Russell and Grant really raise significant surprise (other than the shock of finding out that Bluminwho is still actually with us - I think we have seen more of Lord Lucan at the TCS this year!).

Is it really so radical?

I see lots of loan deals in our future, and less of the signature "Butcher Gems" to buy.

There is a maximum of 4 players allowed on loan at any one time (and only one of these is allowed to be over 21)

Hogg offski? I'm staggered - unless he didn't want to stay.

I think Hogg made it quite clear in his recent interview that he only saw us as a stop gap.

The judgement of whether this is right or wrong will (and should) be based upon the quality and performance of players who are coming in and not those who are leaving.

At the end of the day, we are a bottom six team with the majority of our team bottom six players. If Butcher thinks to move the team on we need to increse the quality of the player then fine. Time will tell whether he gets this right.

Notwithstanding the above, I would personally be keeping RD and probably Grant also. I have to say that my friends and I have discussed on a number of occasions at games that players brought in by Butcher do seem to get away with more than those inherited (in terms of poor performance). I have to say that I thought Grant's time was up when Bitcher failed to support him when he was sent off a couple of months back.

Re Duff, he is undoubtably technically superior to Russell, however in terms of effectiveness as central midfielders Russell wins hands down in my eyes.

After the effect injuries have had on our season I would not touch McCann with a barge pole. Ability counts for nothing when you are on the physios table for most of the season.

You could try an FOI request to the SFA?

The SFA are not a Public Body

Throw in taken.....ref blows whistle to tell the player to move back to where it should have been taken from.

Game must stop......oops no. I'm sorry, what am I thinking of

Refs wonder why the don't get any respect. Tokely's first yellow card wasn't even a foul!

Not being a season ticket i will now have to queue with thousands of these losers who couldn't be bothered to show face against Elgin or Morton and i'm not even guaranteed a ticket at the end of the day

This is an absolutely crazy situation surely the club should have announced that fans that could show that they attended the earlier rounds would be guaranteed a ticket before the public sale commenced

Hang on, what exactly gives you the right to classify people who did not attend these games as losers (and to be clear I was at both these games and therfore miss out on having the ignomy of having to be classed as a loser).

You have no right to sit in judgement and be personally abusive to match. If someone is working for both these games, ill or simply unable to afford the tickets this is clearly undesirable but how exactly does this lead to them being a loser!

Your point regarding attendees being given a priority for these tickets is however sensible.

I find it a bit strange that the low crowd yesterday seems to come as a surprise.

As earlier posters have mentioned, season tickets are purchased already.

The situation is we are playing against a lower level team whilst in the past three months have offered almost nothing in the form of entertainment in home games. It is noticable that teams both north and south of the border have struggled to get fans through the door for cup games in the past few years and combing this with the above it leads to a low attendance.

In particular he bounced the ball repeatedly on a quite extensive area around the edge of the North Stand penalty box and again and again the ball gave one weak bounce as it threw up fountains of water and then stopped dead. The rest of the pitch wasn't too bad but there was a significant area in the North half of it which was very wet indeed.

This spot must be where the aquifer crosses the pitch I presume?

We played a straight 4-4-2 against Hamilton and started with broadly the same against Aberdeen until we went down to ten men (was 4-4-2 when we had the ball going to 4-5-1 when we lost the ball).

It would seem that it perhaps matters what the players do within the system as much as what system we play

Duncan definately would not have stood and watched Jack take a shot - unlike the highlights confirm that a certain Club Captain did!

Strangely we had enough chances to probably win the game, although Aberdeen also passed up a few on the break.

Tokely proved (again) that he is our best centre half. You can see that Innes knows the job inside out, however he is too slow, lacks agility and when encountered with the ball seems to have a nose bleed and kick the ball away in a panic.

Whilst I appreciate that replacements are not readily obvious, exactly how bad does Foran have to play until he is subbed or dropped? It seems to have been a good few months since he even looked like the player we know he is.

Don't know whether Grant deserved a red card or not. Two straight red tackles, blatent diving and a deliverable hand ball all not dealt with properly by the ref.

On current form we are in danger of being in a relegation battle in two months time!

Not convinced by Duff playing where he is. Can't put my finger on any one reasons why he seems so ineffective when played in the middle, but he is.

We were discussin how odd it is with Duff. He is in general technically superior to most of our central midfielders, is cool under pressure and then........ he seems to pass it badly, take one touch too many or otherwise make the wrong decision.

I agree that the performance was not too bad, other than giving away a very soft goal. I have to say from where I sat I thought it was a penalty. However the penalty taker is not allowed to break his run any more and the fact that Esson was thrown by this showed the shocking standard of the refereeing today.

Pass marks for Ross (centre midfield is definately his best position - although shooting practice required), Shanchez, Shinnie (apart from a 10 min spell where he lost his way a bit). Rooney's impact was noticeable once he left when suddenly the central pair from Hamilton started looking much more comfortable.

What is going on with Foran. For the last while he looks a fraction of the player we know he is. We also need a new right back (no disrespect to Tokely but his best position is now centre-half)

Duncan showed why he should be playing when he came on. Not confident for Wednesday if we do not get 11 players all on form.

Unless there is an improvement at home I suspect crowds will continue to dwindle.

The figure which I heard last night that was turned down was actually ?150k

Are any of our squad out of contract this month. I've a feeling Golly and Roy were on 6 mth deals. We are never going to be in a position to maintain a larger squad than the 24 we have so some will go I think. I'd prefer not to see our youngsters go out on loan. I think we also need to make sure we keep our best players. That leaves the ones who haven't broke through to first team. Innes, Gillet, Sanchez, haven't featured much. Blumenstien and Odhiambo aren't showing any true form on a regular basis. From what I've seen of McCann I think we could do better. All the aforementioned have also been hampered by injury and may well improve further. Who knows. Whatever happens we need to bring a balance to the squad. One where we're not dependant on one persons skill and mood to keep us picking up points.

Whilst I'm the first to admit that I am not convinced by Sanchez (even more so in the SPL than the 1st Division), the fact that he is not getting much of a chance (even off the bench) when the team is playing poorly and some of the first choices are looking a bit jaded suggests that his time may be numbered and it will be interesting to see if he moves on in the Transfer window.

I was told a few weeks back that DFS was looking to sell on some of his land bank.

Not sure if this is related in terms of attempting to free up some capital?

Tactics

There is definately an issue in terms of the team looking to play on the counter attack at home. Is this Butcher's tactis or simply the team being very comfortable in playing this way? I would actually suggest to some extent the latter (which is understandable given the success away from home).

After the goal was scored on Sunday the team very much dropped deep in an attempt to close out the space in the final third, however this clearly is not as effective at home for some reason. In fact even this was not even done effectively with Foran in particular often sitting too deep to provide cover for Shinnie and then moving forward too late to see the ball simply popped past him. He has to either sit in at this point or the whol eteam has to compress the game up the park.

The amount of time which the St Mirren back four had to find a pass was almost embarrasing. Under very little pressure (i.e. only Rooney) it was not surprising that eventually they were able to pick out the front two - one a big lug and the other a highly mobile and pacy player. How often did our back four have time on the ball?

Certainly against the weaker teams, we need to engage the opposition further up the park and put pressure on the passer. Most teams at this level do not have players who are technically capable of playing a fast one touch type game (I accept that we may need to be a bit more cautious against Rangers and Celtic otherwise we may run out of gas too quickly by overpressing - see the first game of the season!)

Support

I'm not sure we will ever find an answer to this issue, however having attend many English Premier League games the difference in atmosphere is incredible (even allowing for the difference in crowd size) and I am not simply talking about singing.

The most noticible thing is when there is a goal scoring opportunity or dubious refereeing decision almost the whole ground is on their feet being involved. It actually seems that a lot of the crowd just don't seem to care enough about the rsult. Is this a symptom of a relatively young team or a less 'working class' support?

I do think we have gone backwards since Don "gave up" the role of Announcer. We now just have a few songs and the team quickly read out a few minutes before the game. The match starting is now almost an anti-climax.

Get a goal, switch off, drop deep and wait till the equaliser comes!

In the second half we switch to a more traditional 4-4-2 which makes us look tactically much more stable and results in very few chances for St Mirren. We then run out of steam and do not make substitutions and lose an unfortunate goal.

Whilst individuals had poor games, I would think that Butcher should look himself in the mirror and ask whether he should have changed the formation and made the subsitutions earlier!

We seem to be incapable of taking home games by the scruff of the neck and being positive in an attacking sense.

It is hard to see on the face of it how this is a good move for either party.

Is the long term answer to Aberdeen's problems really to employ a 70 year old?

Clearly from the statements made by Brown he fears that Motherwell may have peaked and mentions players whose contracts are up for renewal and the desire to take in new players whilst implying that this does not seem to be supported by the Board.

Mmmm.

We terrorise the Dons defense all afternoon but the BBC on-line highlights suggest that it was all chances for them??

The commentator seems to be carrying a grudge that Rosscoe stayed on the park for a mistimed attempt to get to the ball when Paton was red carded for attempting to stamp on Hayes??

Good to see the usual well balanced, impartial content from the BBC

Tried out the bar after the game.The club have done a great job, the first thing that you notice as you enter is a huge picture of the team winning the 1st div cup,so you can get a photo of yourself with the champions,plenty of room, friendly staff and the drinks aren't pricey, in fact I would say cheaper than a lot of the bars in the town, good layout and good size TVs on the wall to see the match highlights.

I didn't know what to expect before going in but I think you will be pleasantly surprised.

I think I could quite happily make this my local on match days.Well done ICT.

It was good to be able to see the highlights and analysis on the TVs at half time as well.

Sounds as though anyone taking the club up on a slot on the Electronic Advertising being used at the Celtic game will get a good audience.

At ?50 plus VAT for worldwide exposure, some national companies would find it difficult to get better value for money I would have thought.

Want to get a season ticket but am wondering what the details are for it, would rather not be keeping the club shop on the phone for ages asking questions like a muppet!

So if i buy one do i get to choose my seat and get my name on it?

do i have to pay for it upfront or can i pay installments?

if so how much is it per month etc.

You can choose your seat from those available.

You can get your name on your seat, but this costs extra

You can pay by installments, but at the APR it is cheaper paying by Credit Card!!! :_chaching:

I got a season ticket 4-years ago. I had my name (Gringo Jnr) put on the seat.

I bought another ticket the following season, and didnt request name on seat, but it was still there.

I havn't had a ticket the last two seasons, but my name is still on the seat :_doh:

The cost of putting the name on the seat is a one-off cost to cover the cost of arranging for a label to be made and installed on the seat and is not an annual chanrge. The club do not go round once someone has left the seat adding a new name unless a new name is requested.