ictchris

Charles is right, that statement is just waffle. It doesn't explain why our losses have increased so markedly.

I think success on the field covered up a multitude of issues. This goes back more than 20 years. In 2002 Tullochs proposed a share issue which meant the club recieved an investment of £500,000. We had a good team at that point anyway and the further investment meant we could build a team that eventually got promoted. We also had two consecutive runs to the Scottish cup semi-final and the package we got from our manager leaving to go to Aberdeen. We then had five seasons in the top flight where revenues are much higher, our crowds were higher, we got TV money, we had big away supports. We also managed to sell a few players and managers and stay on an even keel. We then got relegated in 2009 and the board took a gamble at the time. They trusted Butcher with coming back up and took a big loss on that season - I thinkwe lost well over £500k that year but it worked and we were promoted again. The Butcher model then established us in the top flight and built a new team that was our most successful ever - top six finishes, cup finals, cup wins etc. That was dismantled remarkably quickly by appointing a manager who wasn't up to it and then firing him too late. We've essentially now been set adrift, making massive losses, not being able to build a team good enough to challange for promotion (last season was the closest we've got to going back up). That statement kind of sums it all up - we are relying on increasing off the field revenues, mention made of vague plans - doesn't fill me with hope. All clubs are looking to do this stuff and is there any evidence that our board are going to be able to produce revenue streams that wipe out the regular six figure losses we make? Nope. Freeports are a political thing as well - it's likely we will have a change of government in the next couple of years, what if the new administration shelve them? Where does that leave us?

An absolutely brilliant performance from the team and great tactics from Dodds. We pressed Livi in the right areas, played deepwhen we needed to and let them play in front of us. Didn't create much in the first half but showed some fantastic direct counter attacking for the first and second goals and then pressed the ball, won possession and scored the third at the death. Defensively we were solid - Devine probably the best of the back four but Carson was good as well. Welsh and Allardice worked really hard in the middle and didn't let Livi get a grip of the game at all. Henderson's pass for the first was a great ball, very clever early hit to outdo the Livi defence. I thought Danny MacKay was off it a bit but never hid and worked hard. Shaw was our best non-Billy Mckay player, he played more centrally and used the ball well, caused problems with movement and workrate and bagged two assists - the cross for Welsh's header was pinpoint. Billy was probably our man of the match though, two outstandign finishes for the goals and hard work, classy touches and great movement throughout.

I wasn't at the game but looking at the goals both are utterly appalling to concede. The first goal, Delaney hits an inexplicable pass to nobody that is intercepted, run back by Miller who then finishes well. Delaney is under no pressure, he has both centre backs available for a simple offload, but he looks like he's got caught in two minds between switching it to Carson and playing it square to Devine. He does neither and we end up conceding a really poor goal. The second goal is just awful - standard long ball down the line for the striker to chase, Duffy gets there first but just falls over, Muirhead runs the ball in and finishes well. Duffy outpaced Muirhead and got back, it looks to me like he's trying to get his feet set to recycle possession either by knocking it back to Ridgers or turning towards the line. He should have probably just launched it into the stand or even if he was feeling strong, the Moray Firth. Delaney is young and doesn't have a great deal of experience, Duffy has a bit more. Hopefully the coaches are reinforcing the need to keep things tight against Livingston, who will annihiliate us if we make mistakes like this against them

I rewatched the goals and you have to look at the central midfield for both of Raith's goals. The first, a fairly simple long ball through the middle is headed clear by Devine. Maybe you could argue that he should have sent it clear but given the nature of the ball and his body position I think knocking it back into that area is a fair enough clearence, it's reasonable to expect our midfield '2' in a 4-2-3-1 to cover there. However, both Hyde and Welsh are out of position, leaving a gap for Vaughan to pick the ball up. It's exactly the sort of position that a player like Vaughan loves, the half space between the midfield and defence and he punished us with a clever hit, early before anyone could pressure him. You can see the back four looking to cover the forward runs of Raith's other attackers, a very hard position for them to defend. Hyde is a few yards back, Welsh is miles behind out of the screen when you watch on YouTube. Poor from them. For the second goal, Hyde has possession in the centre circle and tries a very ambitious pass, looking to hit Henderson to feet. It's trying to slide it past two Raith players but the fullback intercepts it and immediate transitions into attack, feeding his midfielder. Hyde then has to put pressure on the ball but completely fails to block or slow down play, he slips. This then causes Welsh to have to come across and defend, which pulls him out of position giving space to Vaughan. Again, our back four are faced with Raith's most dangerous player on the ball in space, in front of them with multiple players making runs at the defence. This time Vaughan turns provider to Connolly, who takes advantage of the space for a good finish. Mistakes in the middle from us were very costly - we were outplayed in that area the whole game really. Allardice coming back is a huge boost.

I see that Ross Tokely has made a comeback as a player, signing for Nairn County. I remember him playing for us at Telford Street in 1996, it made me think - are there any other active players in senior football who played at Telford Street?

Saw this on Twitter.

Someone told me at the game last night that Sutherland could be out for nine months.

Third placed Championship teams have qualifed for the finals on two previous occasions. 2014/15 - Rangers lost to Motherwell after beating Queen of the South and Hibs 2016/17 - Dundee Utd lost to Hamilton Accies after beating Morton and Falkirk When we finished third in 2018/19 we lost to Dundee Utd in the semi-finals, after beating Ayr.

We've had playoffs in every division since 2013/14. 2013/14 Accies promoted to Premiership Hibs go down, Cowdenbeath stay in Championship, Stirling Albion promoted to League 1 2014/15 Motherwell stay in Premiership Rangers stay down (lol), Alloa stay in Championship, Stenhousemuir stay in League One 2015/16 Killie stay in Premiership Falkirk stay down, Ayr promoted to Championship, Queens Park promoted to League 1. 2016/17 Hamilton stay in Premiership Dundee Utd stay down, Brechin promoted to Championship, Forfar promoted to league 1 2017/18 Livingston promoted to Premiership Partick down, Alloa promoted to Championship, Stenny promoted to League 1 2018/19 St Mirren stay in the Premiership Dundee UTd stay down, Queens stay in Championship, Clyde promoted to League 1 2019/20 No play-offs due to Covid 2020/21 Dundee promoted to Premiership Kille down, Morton stay in Championship, Dumbarton stay in League 1. So it happened in 2018. I don't think many people fancied Livi during that play off, although they had finished second so had one less play off tie to get through.

If we want to get into the promotion play offs then we need to really push on in these last six games. All the teams currently above us have played fewer games so we need to overhaul them. I'd suggest we need to win all of our home games, especially the game against Dundee. Of the three away games we have left we probably need to 'break even' so to speak, four points are a minimum from those. Queens and Morton are normally the games we'd target while viewing Hearts away as a 'bonus' but Hearts will very likely have wrapped up the title by the time we play them and we shoudl definitely look at them as a potential three points. I think it's too much to ask for a relatively small squad with injury worries and a brand new coaching team to be honest. This league is very hard to predict as the teams are all so evenly matched and I think it's just a bridge too far for us to be looking up the way at this point. We do have momentum, which is really important and we also seem to have stumbled, almost by accident, onto a defensive formation that's working for us but fundamentally I don't think we've got the firepower up front to go on the sort of run that's needed. If you look at season 2017/18 where we went on a run to almost hit the play off spots, we won seven and drew one of our last eight games and in those Nathan Austin and George Oakley scored six and four goals between in those games. Do we think a couple of our forwards are going to score three or four goals in the last six games? Maybe the momentum will get them there but I think it's unlikely. ETA - we also had the fortune of having two very poor sides in the league that year, Dumbarton and Brechin, both of whom we played in the run-in. There's no such easy meat in the division at the moment.

Oakley has returned from Bulgaria and signed for Killie. I assume we don't plan to make any signings today?

STOP THE COUNT(y)

Good point made on P&B, we pressed Hearts well from the front and might not have had that if we'd had Doran and Keatings playing. Certainly MacGregor's energy and pressure is one of his main assets and I thought he had a good game. Another point made on teh P&B thread is that we've played three best teams in the league in our first four games, hopefully we can pick up some more points in games to come.

I thought we did OK but never looked like we were going to win the game or seriously threaten Hearts. It's frustrsting to concede a goal so quickly after the break, we did the same in the cup semi-final a season or so ago against Hearts. Defensively we were fairly solid but were still stretched, we didn't clear our lines as well as you'd want and that put a bit of pressure back onto us. Goign forward I thought the '3' looked good considering they are all teenagers, esepcially Kennedy who looks like he could be a really useful player in this division. I felt Todorov didn't manage to keep the ball well enough, but it's a difficult shift on your own up front away to probably the best centre halves in the league. While it's great to have three young players like Kennedy, MacGregor and Mackay I think that for all their endevour and good play they didn't create many clear chances. Doran and Keatings both carry more goal threat I think and obviously both were involved in the goal that we did score. Doran obviously isn't match fit though but maybe Keatings coudl be an option to come back in. I thought Harper looked a lot better than in the league cup game, Allardice was good and is having a great start to the season and Welsh was OK as well, although you are just counting the minutes until he gets injured.

Therte's a P&J article about it tocay. It would likely be people with an IV postcode and only the North and South stands would be allowed to open.

The stream was so bad that it makes passing judgement a bit difficult but. I thought we looked a bit disjointed, which is to be expected given the circumstances. There were positives to take from the game, we did create some chances and played some alright stuff at points. I thougth Allardice played well in the middle, he seems quite a composed player who can use the ball well and is positionally good in the middle of the pitch, which is important for us. Daniel Mackay was dangerous and seems like he could fit in at this level. Roddy MacGregor wasn't quite as good as he was against Hearts but he is still a positive contributor., Cameron Harper had a decent game I thought, espeically going forward and played some good crosses. I thought Deas and Devine individually played well enough, as did Duffy. Ridgers had some excelelnt saves as well, really good performance from him. What wasn't so good - I thought some of the defensive organisation was poor, we got caught out a few times and looked a bit slapdash. Given the circumstances (long lay off and then injury disruption causing an unfamiliar formation) that probably isn't surprising but it needs to improve. Also, Brad Mckay was very poor for their goal, the Ayr player ran past him, his attempt at a tackle was exceptionally poor. I don't want to be unkind to our players but I just dont' think he has it at this level. I also thought James Keatings contributions were lacking - he had a couple of good shots but in a team like this with so many young players he should be making himself a focal point and he was fairly anonymous. I'm also not sold on Todorov as our main striker, \I know it's unfair given he's scored two goals in two games but I would have Storey and Sutherland ahead of him.

I thought Ridgers, Deas, Allardice, Welsh, McGregor, Sutherland and Storey played well. Daniel MacKay was OK, as noted by RiG he had a tough assignment on the left where Hearts were strongest. Harper had a really tough game against Ginelly, it'll be a learning experience for him and I thought Duffy was OK, considering he's newly signed. Brad Mackay was poor though and Todorov should have hit the target with the chance he had. I thought we looked more threatening when Keatings came on as well.

Stokes must be the least disciplined footballer currently going. Since he left Celtic four years ago he has - Been released early from his contract by Blackburn - Dropped and released by Hibs for breaching team rules. - Released for missing training and going missing by Greek side Appollon Symri. - Was released by Azeri club Tractor FC (really) for having 103 days of unauthorised absence. - Had his contract terminated early by Turkish team Adana Demirspor - Was released by Persepolis (Iranian superleague) for more unauthorised absence. - Left LIvingston because he didn't want to train on astro. During this time he was also convicted of stalking his ex-girlfriend.

Any word on unattached players training with us?

Stokes last played for Hibs over three years ago. Since then he's bounced around the Greek, Turkish and Iranian leagues with several clubs binning him for disciplinary issues.

When are the strips being sent out?

After we on the title in 2003/04 we were initially denied promotion because we didn't have a 10,000 all seater stadium. We proposed to ground share with Aberdeen but this was rejected. However, following that we lobbied within the SPL (as it then was) and managed to persuade the clubs to rethink and we were eventually promoted and the rules on stadiums were relaxed, allowing us to properly redevelop our stadium for the top flight. Between 2002 and 2013 we had four managers leave our club to take over at other larger clubs (|Paterson to Aberdeen, Robbo to Hearts, Brewster to Dundee Utd, Butcher to Hibs). Each deal netted us a six figure sum, we very likely took in more than half a million pounds during that time just from these deals and every time we improved as a team afterwards. If we were in either of those situations again, does anyone think that we'd have the same level of influence or be able to strike deals as positive for the club? No chance. People won't negotiate with us in good faith, why would they? If we don't like their offer we'll just leak the WhatsApp messages. Regarding an inquiry, I think the whole affair has been a shambles and in theory an inquiry would be a good idea but in reality, what's the point? Say the inquiry came back and said that nothing improper was done, would our board, or the Rangers board or the Hearts board accept that? No they won't. If it comes back and says the whole thing was a big stitch up, then what happens then? We kick out the chairman of 30 clubs? The fact is that the accusations from our board and others are wooly and ill defined and any further inquiry would very likely be inconclusive. The whole affair has dragged the name of the club through the mud, allied us with the nutcase fringe of Scottish football and served to reduce our standing and influence. And for what purpose? Absolutely none. A complete failure on all levels by the club.

Every single Championshp club other than us voted against an inquiry. I've got to be honest, I think this whole thing has been really poorly handled by our board. They are completely out of their depth but there's no-one who is going to step in and take over so we are stuck with them. Releasing embarrassing statements and publicising private conversations with other chairman isn't the way to enhance your clubs reputation. When it comes down to it, what has the point of all this been? Why have we pushed so hard on this, when it was obvious early in the whole process that we were very unlikely to come out of this with what we wanted, which was either a season completion or an expanded league? You have to pick your battles in life and we have picked the wrong battle. Who knows what impact this will have on us next season, it's certainly not made our club a more attractive location for other players or managers, which we might need to think about if Robbo is given an opporutnity at a higher level.

The whole "Central Belt media" line is something that's come out of the club a bit in the last few years, it's pathetic.