RiG

I'm going to be missing the Rangers game

You'd be surprised how easy it is to start a rumour on Twitter or somewhere like CTO or Pie and Bovril and have a journalist pick up on it and then run with it.

Foran has strained his beard IMO.

Apparently Horner, Raven and Mackay could return according to the Inverness Courier. Might mean we could have something resembling a defence if that's the case. Maybe something like this... Fon Williams Raven / Horner Mackay Meekings Tremarco Tansey Draper Mulraney Doran King Doumbouya With our creaky defence I really feel it needs more protection. Sorry but Vigurs doesn't offer that so pop Draper back in there please for a wee bit more cover. Cole doesn't seem to have a cutting edge in the final third but Doran always has a creative eye for a pass. Maybe try him behind Doumbouya? I'd like to see Mulraney get a start as well. he's still very raw but he is so quick he could offer a real threat on the flank. Last week we seemed to insist on cutting inside all the time and jogging across the edge of the Saints box. Get Mulraney in and see if he can hit the byline and get some crosses in.

Courier says Mackay, Raven and Horner could be back for the Accies game.

That's clearly not what he's saying at all. Poor defensive cover from any of the midfield two that we tend to play with has often contributed to our defensive frailties. Vigurs on Saturday was culpable for one goal conceded in such a manner but the others came from poor play as well. No one is denying that. It's clearly not just one player at fault but one of the reasons we seem to be conceding lots of goals this season was again clearly evident on Saturday with this slack piece of play by Vigurs which has been highlighted above.

At the game it was evident that someone had let Craig run free without properly tracking him. After Craig had scored both Vigurs and Tansey had a heated conversation about something, I would guess who should have been following him, so it was something I kept a look out for when I watched the highlights on YouTube. These confirmed my suspicions that at least one of the aforementioned two had been slack in their defensive covering contributing to the defensive mess that saw Saints open the scoring.

Eh? I can only assume that you can't make out who our players are. In the first photo, outlined, Tansey is at the bottom and Craig is tussling with Vigurs for the ball. In the second photo Craig has laid the ball off to Maclean and is now heading for the box, running across Vigurs who starts to track back with him but with no real effort. Tansey is to the right of Vigurs in this photo and about 5 yards from Craig. In the third photo Maclean has played in Craig now in acres of space in the box with Vigurs still trying to catch him. He hasn't 'nearly' gotten back in the slightest.

For an excellent example of the "Midfielders not working hard enough to provide protection" check out how little effort Vigurs puts in to follow his man for the Saint Johnstone opener today.

Even if there were subsidised buses people would still find an excuse not to go to a game. If we save any money from this give it to Richie to improve the squad.

Absolutely depressing stuff today. Struggling to think of any real positives at all. We were shocking at the back, had no real control in midfield and struggled to create much of note up front. Our sole tactic of lobbing it towards Doumbouya was easily handled by Anderson and Shaughnessy. With no Plan B Saints rarely looked troubled and ended up with a deserved win. First goal was really poor tracking of Liam Craig who burst into the box and was found by Maclean and the ball was quickly poked beyond Fon Williams. Second came from a free kick which wasn't cleared and Davidson turned the ball in whist the third came late on with our makeshift defence all at sea and Swanson danced inside what was left of it before finding the net. Sending off seemed justified. I can't remember the first yellow but it was a warranted second yellow and Warren had struggled for most of the game to deal with Swanson running right at him. Whilst our players seemed to take a touch of the ball to get it down and kill the forward movement Saint Johnstone continuously looked to attack and get forward. We had a lot of the ball but any time we got into the final third we couldn't break down the Saints defence and just passed the ball or ran across the edge of the penalty area before either shooting wide or passing the ball out for a throw in. It was similar to some of the toothless displays under Hughes last season. Five red cards in the last eight games in Perth. State of that. Referee was laughably bad.

Yeah just a wee bit of a difference! Maybe that's what folk were referring to.

So I had been swaying on whether or not to get the new home shirt for Christmas but having gone on the JD website it is no longer available. This must be one of the shortest windows we've ever had to get hold of the club strip

I seem to recall a lot of chat about the North / South stands having a life of ten years. Was there ever any truth in this or just idle rumours?

Elgin will be right up for this. Probably the biggest game in the history of Elgin. Not every day a former Scottish Cup winning side comes to town

Can we afford anyone? Foran said recently that the budget has been spent. Unless we move players on I would imagine any players coming in would be minimal.

Elgin away?!

Just pay at the gate usually.

Really disappointing result and performance. Foran is kidding himself if he thinks that was our best performance of the season though I suspect he is deflecting attention from the players. Whilst we did knock the ball about pretty well, especially in the first half, all to often our final ball was lacking or Dundee snuffed out any threat. The likes of King and Doran far to often failed to send in a really good cross for Doumbouya to attack and most of our efforts on goal were long range strikes that were always sent flying well over the bar and seldom troubled Bain. Good goal from Wighton to open the scoring driving right at Warren and slotting the ball beyond Fon Williams in the style of Thierry Henry. Dundee also had a penalty claim when Draper tangled with McGowan but it was difficult to see what happened from the other end of the ground. Just before half time there was a bit of a scramble in the Dundee box after a Tansey corner wasn't cleared and despite a number of sclaffed efforts towards goal no ICT player was able to turn it into the net. Second half was much of the same. ICT tended to dominate possession but Dundee created better chances. The second goal largely killed the game off. Free kick on the ICT left was whipped in by Hately, Doumbouya missed the ball and Gadzhalov powered the ball into the net. Whilst we did get a goal back when Tremarco somehow found the net after Bain appeared to cock up his attempted save bagging an equaliser probably wouldn't have been deserved. Dundee were much better than when we cuffed them earlier in the season whereas we seem to have gone backwards somewhat. Despite playing with 'proper' wide men in Doran and King we didn't really get much joy down the left or right flanks and Doran seemed to spend most of his time cutting in from the right and sitting inside leaving Draper to play on the right for large parts of the first half which seemed a bit odd. Vigurs went off injured which might go some way to explain his complete lack of effort when trying to defend Dundee attacks in the second half. Another injury is not really what we need with Polworth and Mackay out but hopefully the former is back soon especially with Raven out and Horner now suspended. We're starting to look a wee bit thin, low on confidence and pretty toothless up front. Some massive games coming up now against Saint Johnstone, Hamilton and Killie. I think we really need at least two wins from that lot. Going to be a tight old season this one.

Maddison has had his yellow card rescinded.

I haven't mate but given that Charlie Allan is a complete melt I have no doubts that it was complete garbage. No one was seriously booing Shinnie until that OTT tackle which he seemed to show little remorse for. That's when it got a bit real.

I wonder if some of the (half hearted) boos he got maybe got to him a wee bit? Certainly after that challenge they became a lot more meaningful!

I see Mrs Clancy has voted.

Having seen the BBC highlights Maddison definitely dived for the MacLean free kick but was probably unlucky to be booked in the second half.

Just one. http://www.scottishfa.co.uk/resources/documents/Disciplinary/CurrentSuspensions/Season2016/17/PlayerSuspensions/LOS18 (10 NOV 2016) VM.pdf