RiG

I'm not a big fan of White and, like you, I think Oakley is our best striker. However I think he (White) is getting a hard time on this thread from people who are slagging him off when his finishing was not the big problem yesterday. We again created precious little and struggled to prize apart a very strong Alloa defence. White isn't the kind of striker who is going to create his own chances. He needs to be set up with a good cross or a ball over the top to chase. Those kinds of chances were in very short supply yesterday so as much as folk can go on about White not scoring there are other parts of the side should be getting some of the blame as well.

Not much point having a goal scorer in the pitch if we, erm, don't create goal scoring chances. That was dire today. Narrow pitch or not players like Doran and Walsh failed to provide any meaningful chances for White who is unfairly getting pelters on here. He really doesn't have much to work with most of the time. He's the kind of striker that plays with his back to goal so coming up against a team like Alloa that sits very deep he isn't going to get a lot of opportunities to score. We never stretched the play, we never managed to attack with any kind of pace or incision that allowed us to get in behind the home defence. We were just meh all over the park. MacKay probably had the best chance for us when, in the second half, he gambled on a ball being played in and Parry rushed out smartly to smother the shot. Aside from that we were desperately poor. Forget about County next week, we've got Dunfermline on Tuesday night first. Let's focus on that.

Because despite those two goals White hasn't nearly been as effective as he was against Dunfermline. Also, for one of those goals he didn't really know much about at all. Indeed he passed up an easier chance a few minutes later. Oakley has a better strike rate this season than White and is a better player overall bringing a lot more to the table than White does. That's not to say White doesn't offer us something but I think Oakley is a more useful all round player and a better fit for the team. He's probably our best striker. Finally, I said if Oakley is fit to start. I'm well aware that he's unlikely to start but if he was then I'd have no issue with him being in the starting XI.

Why is that so ridiculous? If Oakley is fit to start next week I'd have no issue with him playing and White on the bench.

United look like a different team compared to last season and we were holding on a fair bit in the first half with Mckay blocking a couple of goal bound shots with some desperate lunges. Disappointing to concede goal from a set piece. Looks like Tremarco was beaten in the air although given the height disparity between him and the United player it didn't seem particularly clever having them lined up against each other (from our PoV anyway). Bit of a lucky equaliser from us but we'll take it. Think we should have had a penalty for the foul on Doran. The highlights don't show it as well as the view we had behind the goals but the United player comes through him to try and get the ball and even then I don't think he actually gets a touch on the ball anyway. Think Donaldson was a bit unlucky to get a second yellow. Good to see him still bamming up the home support though and getting them frothing. Happy with a draw but again concerned at how poor we are up front and how little we create. United will be disappointed they didn't quite force a second goal.

That will please the section of our support who like a microwaved curry before the football.

Don't really get the clamour for starting Mackay. He's not shown much in his recent (substitute) appearances to suggest he should be in the first XI. He's still young and most of his game time has been from the bench so it's unfair to expect him to be scoring dozens of goals but at the same time he's not shown all that much.

The (vast) majority of income for English Premiership clubs comes from Sky, BT etc. Revenue from fans makes up a surprisingly small percentage of the total. However in Scotland I think it's still something like 60% of clubs income (on average) comes from season tickets, match day tickets. I'd need to go looking for the numbers to back that up as I can't recall them exactly but those were figures I seem to mind from somewhere.

Provided the teams involved are relatively close geographically and any public transport before / after the game can support offer routes back home for fans then fine. Otherwise it's a big fat no. Asking the likes of ourselves and Ross County to play at the other end of the country on a Friday night is ludicrous. However ICT v Ross County would be a cracker although I take the point above that not all supporters live local to their teams.

Live on BT Sport.

Dodds voted to reject the CVA that was offered to creditors when Dundee had financial troubles a few years back and as such is typically considered to be a bad guy who was happy to see the club liquidated. As a result he isn't held in the highest regard by their support.

Ayr (A) scheduled for 08/12 has been moved to Friday 07/12 and a 1945 KO.

Brave move to bring Dodds in as well.

If we can pull off the Bolt signing that would give a welcome boost to our coffers what with all the extra shirts we would sell with his name on the back. A great move for the club if they can pull it off. Here's hoping!

Yes I was at the game thanks for asking. Worldie saves or not they were still missed chances no? The defensive mistake, 10 minutes into the match, cost us a goal. It didn't cost us the game.

So one defensive mistake versus multiple spurned chances at the opposite end? Thanks for confirming that it was our attack that cost us on Saturday.

You would like to think so and I had hoped to see a small increase in our crowds but sadly the continue to fall and we are now back to where our attendances were around 00/01. Hopefully a few more wins and a sustained challenge for the top spot(s) can attract some more bums on seats at TCS.

We created other half decent chances where our poor finishing let us down. We've wasted a lot of good chances to turn draws into wins and Saturday was another example of this. As mentioned in the thread sadly we don't have an out and out goalscorer so we will likely see a lot of chances go to waste but it is still frustrating nonetheless.

Erm, what? It's been a feature of our play this season that we have not capitalised on the chances we have created. We've been incredibly wasteful in front of goal this season.

I liked that we were watering the areas of the pitch that the ball seldom went.

Really strange performance as at times we kept the ball really well and played ourselves out of problems with real composure. We also created some good chances especially in the second half when Scully decided to become the best keeper in the world. That said we were also shockingly slack at other times and showed some real sloppiness passing the ball out of play under no pressure, falling over ourselves at the back and, as usual, some really wasteful finishing. Makes me wonder how we might have been doing had we actually put in a decent offer for Shankland in the summer. I was also disappointed by the lack of width on show again. We seem to have regressed to how we were playing a few weeks back when Doran and Walsh would constantly come inside and leave Tremarco and Rooney with no one ahead of them to link up with. It wasn't until Calder came on that we had a bit more width further forward to really stretch the Greenock back line.

This is almost certainly taking things too far but what about an ICT app? The programme has gone digital so that could be included in the app for people to read, buy match tickets, 50/50 tickets, team line ups, video highlights etc could all be wrapped up in there.

To be fair that did them no favours last weekend. Barely heard a peep from their fans during the game. Home supports are simply quieter in general compared to away fans.

The first misplaced pass yesterday was met with a chorus of groans, whistles and boos. There wasn't a single effort to get behind the team at all yesterday from the home support. Granted there wasn't much to get excited about but away from home the supporters are lifting the players from kick off and it helps them a lot.

I think OCG was suggesting that if we try to improve the supply to the strikers then perhaps they might score more goals. We didn't really create any chances of note yesterday compared to recent weeks and the introduction of Calder seemed to give us a bit more of a threat in the wide areas in the second half.