Caley Stan

We've based the shape around getting the best out of Polly for the last 2 years so I wouldn't be surprised to see the 4-2-3-1 dropped. Robbo has often been inclined towards a narrow 4-4-2 - could see Keatings playing off White with Vincent and Welsh in the middle and Doran and Walsh starting from deeper, narrower positions. The squad looks to have good balance overall, though it would obviously be nice to add a right-back and a creative midfielder/wide player.

The bookies suspended betting on Sergio Markarian this afternoon. I'm hearing it's a done deal.

That's just not fair Mantis, Caley100 is ageing much better than that.

A fair point, but this league was very tight with just 33 points separating top from bottom so it's difficult to read too much into the following: We took 22 points from the rest of the top 5 and 25 from the bottom 4. We took 18 points from the top 4 budgets and 31 from the bottom 4 budgets. We took 4 points from the top 2 in the final standings and 18 from the 2 promoted teams (that one's quite funny because the narrative at the start of the season was all about us being up for County but not for Alloa). You can spin it in different ways, but the only reason we're talking about this is because we took 23 points at home and 33 away.

Honestly, I'm talking more about my trip to the main stand for the first half of the Ayr game. I would never refer to the mature gentlemen of the north stand in that way - it's on you that you assumed that's who I was talking about.

Powerful stuff, but it basically ignores the quality of our opponents. You'd have a point if we were competing against Fort William in these games, obviously not if we were playing Man City. Why should we have done better against County, Dundee United and Hearts specifically? All three have significantly higher budgets to work with - Robbo has said that County have more than double our budget, Alan Preston said the other night that United had at least treble. Hearts' will be a lot more. Why do you ignore that not only did we put two of those clubs out of cup, but also finished above at least three other clubs in our league with higher budgets than us? For me, the most impressive aspect of our overall performance this season is that it took place at a time when everyone is on such a massive downer. The whole club's being cut to the bone, players leave at the first sniff of interest and we're delighted just to get them off the wage bill, the home crowds have been reduced to a small group of moany old men and some 15 year-old wannabe casuals. I'm just delighted we stayed up under these circumstances - overachievement is putting it mildly.

Just watched the first half of the BT highlights - I only sat through that painful second half to applaud the players for their season so certainly wasn't going to watch it again. Funny how differently you see things at the time - as I experienced the Doran chance, about 10 seconds seemed to pass between the sublime first touch and the failed attempt to lift it over the keeper. Turns out it all happened in a split second and there was someone on the line to deal with it anyway. Siegriest's save from Walsh's deflected volley was probably the closest we came in retrospect. Overall, and bearing in mind injuries, fatigue, the financial chasm, the size of the crowd and club we were up against etc., that was a great effort in the first half. If we'd got the first goal then something magical might've happened. We didn't, but i'm left with nothing but massive respect for everyone involved in the effort.

A fitting 25th anniversary shirt would ignore Thistle colours completely and be sponsored by Macrae & Dick.

The poor home fans might want to try getting behind the team.

We've overperformed this season. Robbo has squeezed every sinew out of a small and limited squad. Think Joe Chalmers playing on the right when Walsh got injured, Charlie Trafford changing his game and stepping up in the absence of Sean Welsh, and Jordan White's development into an effective battering ram once Oakley's departure made it clear that he was our only option up front. Most of us had written these players off, but they were all Robbo had to work with and he turned them into promotion contenders and cup semi-finalists. Some effort. On the flipside, it looks like we'll continue to suffer from unrealistic expectations. If United go up then then next season's league might look weak at first glance, but at least 3 clubs will have a significantly higher budget than us. We'll lose players now - Polworth gone and rumours around Donaldson, Chalmers, White and Doran. Robbo's building for another push, but most likely it will be another scrappy play-off push at best. A bit of patience from our support might help with that.

Because we started the game 3-1 up! I made a rare trip north yesterday to see us getting through to the next round of the play-offs. Couldn't care less about the performance, we did what we needed to do and if we got through it without any injuries or suspensions then we've managed it well.

https://spfl.co.uk/news/spfl-play-off-schedule "Kick-offs are Saturday 3.00pm and midweek 7.45pm unless stated". No TV for the QF's.

Austin's been decent in the two games I've seen him start in recent months (at Falkirk and Ayr). He did a lot of running in those games. No signs of laziness.

There's a good reason for that though - we're just much more suited to playing against proactive teams. Today was a case in point. Ayr started out stuffy, White had 3 men surrounding him every time we hit a long ball, Polly and Chalmers couldn't find any space to play a forward pass from beyond the halfway line. Once we scored (against the run of play), Ayr had to open up and suddenly White was winning every ball and laying it off to midfield runners in space. We're a really well drilled side with great spirit, but the quality is not quite high enough to break (even bad) teams down. It's only once the space opens up that we start to create good chances. This was a huge game and when I saw the line-up I feared the worst. In the end, McHattie was comfortable at centre-half and Rooney didn't have any disasters - still very worrying to think we might start next week with the back 4 that finished today. Polly and Chalmers in the centre of a midfield 4 - lots of fans have been calling for it for a while, and Robbo didn't have much choice today. It worries me, there's a real lack physical presence there, and it's surely no coincidence that Ayr had an awful lot of territorial domination, but once the game opened up it looked good - it's great to have Polly back there to receive the ball deep and it was even better once MacDonald came on for Walsh (who had had a quiet game) and looked really dangerous cutting inside from the right. Hopefully he can be a big player for us in the play-offs. Doran played well again, Austin was decent, and White, after a poor first half had a spell in the second half where everything he touched came off. He deserved it, he puts in a helluva shift. Somerset is great, can't wait to go back next month.

****. So was that.