ALSY

To clarify, do you mean the supporters as opposed to the team? The best thing about last weekend was that the team seemed to want to win more than St Mirren. I'm just hoping they can show the same spirit tomorrow, because I'm sure Hamilton are no better than us, possibly a little worse, despite the results this season. Hopefully the desire to get a win over them at last and the incentive of almost being safe should we win will mean we fight like we did last week. Unfortunately, despite the fact we are at home (or perhaps because of it), I can't see the team getting the same vocal support that they did last week.

Don't want to tempt fate, but if we do win tomorrow, we will go 8th. If we were to hold on to that until the end of the season it would be our highest finish for three years. That seems remarkable given how we were all feeling after the Hamilton game in January.

Fantastic day yesterday. Some of the football was a wee bit patchy, but the fighting spirit of the players was unbelievable. This is exactly what we hoped Butcher would be able to provide, and he's done it brilliantly. When I was sitting at Fir Park in December, almost reluctant to applaud our last minute penalty because the performance had been so bad, it felt like the club would never have days like yesterday again. Yesterday was ICT Pele-style, in attitude if not in footballing ethos. From a footballing point of view, what's interesting is the selection dilemma Butcher had created for himself. Tokely was excellent at centre half, as apparently he was against Hamilton, so does Pav come back in next week? If Morais is fit again next week, does he come in and if so who does he replace, given that he can play either up front or wide? I was interested to see some praise for the Barrowman/Foran combination from other who had been at the game. I'm glad to see Foran up front and Imrie wide at last, but again Barrowman looked like he doesn't quite have the pace to play as a striker in a team that is playing on the counter-attack. That's not to criticise his effort: I thought he really put a shift in yesterday, passed intelligently and linked play well when he dropped deep, but unfortunately, dropping deep meant he couldn't get back into the box in time to make himself available for the ball again. Lastly, although it's been said plenty of times already, our support was out of this world. All the boys that led the singing should be proud of themselves - kept it up for the whole 90 minutes and didn't let anyone sink into apathy after the St Mirren equaliser. I'm sure the support played a big part in keeping the players going, and it would be brilliant if it was a good in all the remaining fixtures. Probably the greatest moment was not at the game itself, but getting off the train at Glasgow Central: the boys sang all the way down the platfrom and through the station, and as myself, Caley Stan and our mates went down toward the Argyle St exit, all we could hear was the whole place echoing to chants of "ROSSCO, ROSSCO". Legendary stuff.

I don't know exactly how it would work out for the remaining SPL in the long term if this did happen (personally I think it's unlikely as the majority of English clubs are apparently opposed, and there is an issue about whether or not the OF clubs would remain elegible for European competition), but in the short term at least I suspect it would be bad for all the Scottish clubs financially - they would lose out on the gate money from OF games and the money TV companies would be prepared to pay for the rights to games would probably be drastically reduced. Increased investment would likely be difficult for those reasons I agree though, that we'd have a much better chance of a major trophy, and I wouldn't miss the trips to Ibrox and Celtic Park much, despite having seen wins at both.

How many OGs, Alex? Seriously, the man's a legend. He must be holder of a couple of records in Scotland now - surely the only player to have played and scored for the same club in all 4 Scottish divisions? The only other clubs I can think of who might have had a player who achieved this feat are Gretna and Livi. Also, is there any other player currently in the SPL who has played as many games for their club? Strangely enough, the first two goals he ever scored for the club were in the very first two ICT matches I attended - away against Albion Rovers and Queen's Park in Feb-March 1997. At that stage I just assumed Roscoe scoring would be an every week occurrence... He's been a divisive figure among the support for the last two or three seasons, mind you: there are fair few on here that would prefer him not to reach 500 appearances for us, I think.

OK, not entirely serious and not a "rumour" as yet... However, Ipswich have just dismissed Jim Magilton, and an Ipswich supporter interviewed on Sky Sports News mentioned Butcher as one of his preferred candidates. I wonder if there will be any sentimental groundswell in favour of him among the Ipswich support, or whether his lack of success as manager in England would rule that out (as well as the fact that he is under contract to us)?

All three away games, and possibly the final game at home - it depends on work.

My initial post certainly wasn't intended to sound like an attack on Butcher's ability to do the job in the long term: it's just that having witnessed too many games recently when the ball was repeatedly punted long from the back, I had begun to assume that Butcher and MM felt that route one was probably the most effective way to get the points we need on the board. The quote suggested otherwise, so I started this thread to see what everyone else thought. Whether it is a managerial policy or whether it is down to players like Munro or Djebi-Zadi playing hastily and without trying to read the game still isn't clear, but I do hope it changes over the next few weeks. After Brewster went I said on several posts that I believed Butcher was the strongest candidate for the job, and I'm certainly not going to start blaming him for all our ills after three months in charge, regardless of how the season ends. With regard to the other part of your post, I agree that there are several members of the squad who aren't of the quality we'd ideally like, but history suggests that mass clear-outs of players under new management are a bad idea - both Aberdeen and Dundee Utd, who have better resources and more attraction for "quality" players than ICT, struggled for years and flirted with relegation as a result of high turnovers of players and managers. Our success, on the other hand, has been built on stability and squad unity. Unless Butcher has replacements that are of proven better quality lined up, I'd be very wary of releasing most of the players you refer to above. I'd rather see him work on motivation and game awareness with players like Morais and Imrie who (IMO) have the raw ability to be SPL players, and retain the likes of Tokely, Duncan and Munro, who have been excellent servants to the club both in and out of the SPL, on the proviso that their places are not guranteed if better players in their positions are signed or come up through the youth system.

You forgot the two from Craig Macmillan (Fort William 0, Buckie Thistle 5)

The "Sunday Herald" quotes Butcher today as saying "We'll have to be a lot more patient if we are to do better." I haven't heard the rest of the interview, but I wonder if he's suggesting that the poor start to the game yesterday, the second half against Aberdeen and the poor starts against St mirren and Falkirk were down to the players ignoring his instructions? I've been laying the blame for this long ball, midfield-by-passing stuff at Butcher's door, but maybe I've been unfair. If so, hopefully now the players will realise they are far more effective trying to play the ball on the ground through the midfield and we'll see a bit more of this in the final five games. Still not sure about some of the positional selections, though.

I can't wait. That game is huge. Not sure about pints in Feegie Park though. I've heard the new ground is just a brisk 10 minute walk from the Wee Barrel. Yeah, but that relies on us a ) being able to prise ourselves out of the Wee Barrel 10 minutes before kick off without being tempted by a wee short and b ) still being capable of a "brisk walk"

Guess it depends where you're coming from, but all three away games are very easy to get to from Glasgow by train. Trains to Motherwell run every half hour or so from Glasgow Central low level - the neasrt stop for Fir Park is Airbles, about 10-15 minutes walk from the ground. Trains to Kilmarnock are at least every hour from Glasgow Central high level and Rugby Park again is 10-15 minutes walk from Kilmarnock station. Trains to Paisley Gilmour St are about every 10-20 minutes from Glasgow Central high level. Not been to the new ground yet, but apparently it's about 20 minutes walk. Paisley St James or Paisley Canal stations may be closer to the new ground, but I don;t know how frequent trains are from Glasgow. You probably won't pay more than a fiver for returns to either Motherwell or Paisley. kilmarnock might be a little more, but not much - can't remember offhand.

I hope you've booked your train tickets for all 5 remaining games...

Quite like the look of these fixtures. I'd been looking forward to going back to Hamilton (for the day out if not for the quality of football) but although it's been moved, the fact that it's being shown on Setanta means I should see at least 4 of the games in real time. First trip to the new St Mirren ground (and first pint in Feegie Park) in 2 weeks...

FT 1-1. Relieved in the end, and the second half sounded a bit better, but why did we start so poorly at home again? Still not very confident for the next 5 games.

Get in

Rooney on for Duncan. That's about as positive a sub as you could get, I suppose. Glad to see Rooney get the shout ahead of Barrowman.

Didn't he say he thought Butcher should switch it so that Tokely goes back to right back and Proctor moves into the centre? Might give us a bit more threat down the right hand side - the only problem is, Proctor had a couple of nightmare games at centre half against Motherwell and Aberdeen earlier in the season.

I'm inclined to agree with you. I also can't understand why he hasn't given Vigurs any opportunities at all. From the sounds of the first half commentary, we completely lacked any composed passing in the midfield and we lacked any width. Vigurs can provide both: he's one of the few players we have who is genuinely comfiortable both wide left and in the middle. Why not have him wide left, Imrie wide right and Foran through the middle? I don't want to be too pessmistic this early, but if we can't turn today's game around then I really fear for us: after the split, Hamilton will be going for the clean sweep against us, Killie will be trying to avoid us inflicting a clean sweep on them and we will be the one team Falkirk will feel confident about beating as they have won their last 2 games against us. We won't even have Hibs there to give us our customary 3 points. Charlie Christie said he expects Butcher to make changes in personnel at half time, but with no Vigurs and with Odihambo injured, there are not many players there that can make a difference, IMO. No doubt Barrowman will be sent on after an hour, but we still don't seem to be playing the sort of football that he can profit from.

Proctor? With Kerr wide right? So much for extensive changes... Ahh - according to Scott Davie, Tokely is in the middle. Could see Hamilton breaking their duck. Davie also has Imrie playing wide left with Foran up front, though. Here's hoping...

He's far from our worst ever signing, but from what I've seen, he's not the sort of player our team needs at the moment. I'm guessing he functions best as a "lurking" centre forward who will score the majority of his goals from cut-backs from the bye-line or loose balls around the box created as a result of consistent pressure: he got his only league goal in open play for us as a result of a ball put across the box from a wide position, after all. For most of the season we've either played on the counter attack or played long ball pish. Neither seems to suit Barrowman: he doesn't have enough pace to lead the line as a counter-attacking player and doesn't appear particularly comfortable winning the ball from long punts. I've been furious about his work rate at various times this season (especially Tynecastle around September/October) but when I saw him most recently, at home against St Mirren, I thought he tried really hard, and it still didn't come off for him: he was never up with the play when we got into their box. Maybe with a good ball winning forward (Foran?) alongside him and two quick players (Imrie and Morais?) getting properly wide, he could start scoring, but I have my doubts. I suspect we'd be better off shot of him, but given his wages it's unlikely to happen, and hopefully he'll prove us wrong next season.

Got to confess I'm not really a comic book reader. I'm more aware of Mark Millar than most names in comic writing because he went to school with a friend of mine - apparently he's completely down to earth, unchanged etc despite rubbing shoulders with Angelina Jolie. Was slightly appalled when I went for a job at a Coatbridge school a couple of years back and in my interview no-one in the English department had heard of Mark Millar: perhaps they felt that comic books were beneath them or then again, as my mate suggested, perhaps it's because he attended "the other place". These things tend to assume an exaggerated importance in the central belt, as you might have noticed... Sorry, back on topic - despite not getting the job in the end, I wouldn't say Coatbridge is the biggest dump in Scotland. There are some pretty grim bits of Possil, although it's got a lot better than it was (see "My Name is Joe"for Possil about 12 years ago). And Sighthill was known as "Stinkhill" among the kids at my old work - even the ones who lived there - because it was built on the old St Rollox chemical works and there are 200-odd years of sulphur and other chemicals leaking up through the soil, making it literally as well as metaphorically a dump. It's starting to be pulled down as well now though.

Hey Stirling is a nice city, Glasgow City centre and west end is nice. My 3 fav cities/towns in Scotland are: Inverness, Glasgow and Stirling in that order. I have the plesure NOT of working in Coatbridge ....it really makes apreciate my home town of Stirling The latest issue of the Fantastic Four comic (the US not the UK version) has them visiting Scotland and ends with one of the characters saying she's moved to Coatbridge. Lucky girl! I'm guessing that'll be the work of Mark Millar - one of Marvel Comics' most successful writers, but still tries to get his hometown of Coatbridge into his stories whenever possible!

Falkirk had 3 games in 1 week , 2 of which being old firm ! We've had 0 points from them this season , i cant see them staying bottom for long If we go down , i expect Mr Butcher & Mr Malpas will walk & we'll no doubt lose our best players It'll be a struggle if you think we'll get straight back up Sorry - pedantic b@stard here - we did win our first game against them this season, away at Falkirk. One of our best performances this season too, with Vigurs really standing out if I remember correctly. Lost there in the league cup a couple of weeks after that. I wouldn't be surprised if we lose that game post-split though - after the last game between the sides Falkirk will believe that we are one of the teams they have the measure of, and they're bound to be right up for it if they still have any chance of survival. When are the post-split fixtures announced, btw?

Back down to 11th on goal diff now, after St Mirren's draw. Squeak.