alternative maryhill

At the moment we're talking about the Bobbin, assuming it's not too busy. Should be there around 1 I think, so you can always drop me a text to check. ETA: just noticed that I used my landmark 1500th post to make arrangements for the pub. Sounds about right.

Great to see Foran getting involved in this initiative. Mental health doesn't seem to have been an issue that has been addressed much among sportsmen in Scotland until recently, and there does seem to have been a certain amount of fear, ignorance and prejudice around the issue, if the case of Jimmy Calderwood's bullying of Ryan O'Leary is in any way representative.

For the third week in a row we stood off the opposition far too much and were second to everything, and by the time we started playing, the game was already lost. I don't know whether it's fear or apathy that's been at the root of the last four performances, but there were several senior professionals in yesterday's side who got us to consecutive top six finishes by imposing themselves on games, competing for everything, and showing a belief that they were the equal or better of almost anyone they faced in the Premiership, and they should be ashamed of the way they've started the season.

Great anaysis as usual. I picked out these points as ones that I particularly agree with. I was baffled by the apparent lack of heart and effort - tactical errors and/or naivety are understandable and forgivable in a rookie manager but I'd expected a team managed by Foran to give everything for the shirt, and that just didn't seem to be the case yesterday: too many players looked either scared or disinterested. I'd probably exempt Draper from this, in addition to Tremarco and Boden - he wasn't great, but did at least work hard. Overall, though, a surprisingly supine performance.

Cheers - it was good to see you too. To be fair to that steward, he did wish us a safe trip home on our way out, although he did look like he was suppressing a grin as he did so...

Very poor tonight. Going forward, Mulraney looked lightweight and on the rare occasion where he managed to get space to cross, his final ball was poor. King was slightly better, but the potential impact of both players seemed to be limited by the fact that they were played on the wrong wings - Mulraney, as a pacey left footer, should surely be allowed to use his pace to get to the bye-line and swing balls in with his left foot, while King contributed little from the left in the first half but looked a bit more effective when he was eventually switched to the right in the second. Where we really lost the game, though, was in the centre of the park: Polworth looked OK driving forward but both his and Tansey's distribution was poor, and neither seemed able to anticipate passes played into their opponents' feet or impose themselves physically; we at least had more of the play when Draper came on in the second half. We also allowed Alloa to push us back too deep in the first half in particular, and while they didn't create too many chances, there was too much scrappy, last ditch defending. McNaughton reads the game well, but his distribution was poor tonight, and he doesn't dominate opposing attackers the way Meekings can. As soon as Meekings is fit, he needs to come back into the team, and after tonight, Foran will hopefully also accept that we are a stronger team when Draper starts, whether it is Vigurs, Polworth or Mulraney who gives way. It was good to see Doran back as a second-half sub, although he didn't do a great deal, and Fisher had a few good touches and might be worth a start in place of Boden, who had a poor evening. Some changes definitely needed for Saturday, starting with Draper being restored to the starting line-up; also, the players should remember to acknowledge the fans who travel to support them in these games; not one of them bothered to acknowledge a fairly healthy away support at the end of the game.

'The waft of turds' would be quite a nice name for a house, imo. Or perhaps a yacht.

Yeah, I can understand it as a strategy to persuade people to make a bigger saving by buying a season ticket, but it might also put off potential new fans or those who live far from Inverness, or who work a lot of weekends, for whom buying a season ticket isn't worthwhile. A difficult position, I appreciate, as drastically lowering prices didn't work either for teams like Motherwell in the past.

And County. I realise that the club has to try to increase revenue somehow, but this really does seem too much for a football match anywhere.

Funny how we all see the game a bit differently. I actually thought Polworth was among our better players, at least in terms of showing a bit of fight getting forward. I agree that he's not a deep-lying midfielder - I'd have Draper in there ahead of him every time - but personally I'd like to see the less-industrious Vigurs dropping to the bench and Polworth playing in behind Boden, unless Foran thinks that Aaron Doran could do that job. Not sure that Boden and Fisher would work together up front - I think there would be serious lack of mobility and movement up there, but could be wrong.

Even leaving aside his prediction for us, that has to be one of the worst-written football 'articles' I've ever read. ''Lee Clark will steady the constant rocking ship that is Kilmarnock.' 'St Johnstone always find themselves in the top six and I don't see this season being any different... St Johnstone are always a surprise package...' Make up your mind, you dribbling moron.

It was a brilliant period. I will be very happy if Richie Foran's ICT begin racking up 7-3 victories.

Wasn't there some ridiculous statistic about us going something like 140 consecutive games without being involved in a 0-0 draw under Pele? Utterly cavalier football.

Hmm. Yes. 'Someone' did. I have been eating considerable amounts of humble pie about this on Twitter tonight...

Disappointing outcome in the end, but I was reasonably encouraged by the performance. In the first half in particular, King impressed far more than he did against Cowdenbeath, and looks like he will cause a lot of defences problems this season, while McNaughton was excellent throughout as a sweeper-style centre half. Polworth looked more comfortable and was more effective when moved into the centre of the park in the second half to accommodate Mulraney, and personally, I'd have him starting there and Mulraney in the starting line-up too, with Vigurs dropping to the bench: Vigurs simply doesn't match the work-rate of the rest of the team, which was excellent for most of the game yesterday. Mulraney looked dangerous again yesterday, as he did against Cowdenbeath, but it also looked like he went down a little too easily at times. Great to see Boden score, but for much of the game he looked a bit static to me, and with Fisher as currently the only alternative, we could do with getting in a more mobile striker who will be able to create more options for our wingers, if we can. In every other area of the park, though, it looks like we have a fair bit of quality.

Hard to judge that performance really. We had a lot of possession but were playing against a defence that was a lot more packed than we'll probably encounter most weeks in the Premiership. Neither King nor Boden seemed to get a great deal of space. The most encouraging aspect was the performance of Mulraney when he came on - he was fast, tricky and direct, all things we were missing last season. With him and King in the team I suspect we could be a good counter-attacking side this season, and I'm looking forward to the Utd game, where the opposition will presumably come out at us a bit more. Devasted to discover that The New Goth, one of the great institutions of lower league football, has had a refurb and changed its name to 'Diamonds Bar and Lounge'. Is nothing sacred?

Don't worry about TSNY - he's absolutely minted due to his successful spread betting career.

Is number three Martin Bavidge?

This is sort of my feeling too; not that we made the wrong choices in Butcher and Hughes, obviously, but I like the idea that with the new contracts for existing players and this appointment, we are obviously focusing on developing a really tight-knit, continuity-and-team-spirit sort of ethos at the club, of the sort we had under Pele. I felt really pessimistic when Hughes started speaking out about the need for lots of new players at the end of last season; imho, we already have a very strong nucleus of players that would be welcomed at most other clubs in our league, and if we can add another striker and re-sign Roberts, then we will at least have a pretty impressive starting line-up, provided Richie can set them up to create a little more and press a little more than we did last season. I also suspect that the appointment will have the strong backing of the players and of nearly all of the supporters, although there are one or two people on the club's FB page inexplicably saying that they 'won't be back'. Who on earth did they expect us to appoint?

Was just coming on here to say this. Motherwell supporters giving real pause for thought here: ETA - thought that would display the whole conversation, but it's only given the end of it. Anyway, Craig responded in a lot of detail, and Stuart McCall, nice guy though he is, seems to have little interest in developing youth and struggled to rebuild or work within budget.

Great to finally see a good league performance from us in Maryhill. The second half was the best football I've seen us play this season. Obviously John Hughes does now have more options in terms of playing staff than he has had for some time, but the big difference between today's performance and so many others this season was tactical. We pressed Partick high up the park, using the same tactic to stop them playing that they have used on us so often, and we were prepared to go direct in attack when necessary (something, to be fair, we have been trying to do more in recent weeks), as evidenced by the opening goal. Securing a two-goal cushion then allowed us to start playing the more intricate passing game which we seemed to want to play almost all the time earlier in the season, but which simply isn't always suited to particular games or doesn't always work against particular sides. Having the pace of both Roberts and Storey in attack also made a big difference, and Mutombo had the best game I've seen him play for us, and looks much more suited to a more central role than the wide berths he has often taken up after coming on as a sub. Tremarco continues to impress too - along with Polworth, he has been our most improved player this season. As good as we were, it does need to be acknowledged that Partick were absolutely dreadful in the second half - as soon as Storey's goal went in, the players collectively looked like they'd chucked it. But still, it was nice to see an ICT side playing like last season's team. More of this sort of thing, please.

That's the current plan. A few of the Glasgow-based boys are having a bit of breakfast up at mine at the classy end of Maryhill Rd and a couple of drinks locally, then heading down to Crosslands, hopefully for half twelve or so. It's best known as the pub from Trainspotting, and has a cracking beer garden if the weather is OK. It's no more than 10 mins walk from Firhill. Only drawback is that it's not all that close to a station, but you can either get a tube to Hillhead and walk up Byres Rd and then up QM Drive, or get a 60 or 61 up Maryhill Road and jump off at the top of QM Drive. Oh, and it seems to be calling itself 'So What Comes Next?' these days. Stupid name for a pub. But it's the only pub on Queen Margaret Drive, so you can't miss it.

I saw it like this as well, with Warren on the right, Devine in the middle and Tremarco on the left of the back three. However, Polworth was deployed as the farthest right of our 5 midfielders, which I don't think suits him as well as a more central role, and as the first half wore on he did find himself having to cover the right back position as Hibs dominated and kept us in our own half. If we were to try that formation again, I'd actually like to see Horner in that role with Polworth inside him, as Horner looks more like a natural winger, but I do think that this would make us very vulnerable at the back.

The official Twitter account described this, on 88 mins, as 'one of the most even games of the season'. Nice to be positive, but I really can't agree. In common with most posters on here, I thought we were clearly second best for all but the first 10 mins and the last 10-15, when Hibs were clearly tiring. Admittedly, Hibs closed us down well, but too often our players seemed reluctant or scared to make runs that would allow the ball to go forward on the deck, which meant that the tactic for much of the game seemed to be to pass the ball horizontally in our own half umpteen times before hoofing it forward to Storey, whose attempts to play the Hibs offside trap were pretty lamentable. The way this ended up inviting play back onto us didn't do players like Devine and even Tansey any favours, and I'm quite relieved that we ended the game with 11 players, as we committed a lot of niggly fouls and had a referee who was willing stop the game for almost anything. When Horner came on, I said to a few people that I thought he might present a threat going forward, although he wouldn't do anything for our stability at the back, and so it proved. I'd really like to see what he could do wide right in a traditional 4-4-2 with Raven behind him, but I don't imagine we'll see that this season. Funnily enough, for all that negativity, I do have a hunch that we'll make the semi-final now, but everyone who has said that we are likely to be fighting against relegation for the rest of the season is correct, imho - that's now three games in a row that I've watched us look second best for three-quarters of a match and create next to nothing in terms of real threat, and that's pretty unsustainable in terms of getting points on the board. Hopefully we now go and put three past St Johnstone on Wednesday and make me look like a total dick. Great support for us today, btw, and good crack in the Iona beforehand. Shame it's a school night.

Possibly, but if so, it's a risky strategy given our tendency to concede late goals. It would be nice to think there was some reason for how negative we were after scoring, particularly as we did so well for almost an hour pressing forward at Celtic Park, and played some pretty good stuff throughout the game against Aberdeen. Maybe just an off day, but there's no way we'll get so lucky again if we try to do the same against Hearts or Hibs. Good day out in Dundee as always, but not between 3.30 and 4.50.