Kingsmills

Last night's performance and result raises a long list of questions but surely the most pertinent is why on earth did Liam Hughes play for 97 minutes ?

I don't think that the criticism is so much directed at the results and league position as at the generally inflexible and ineffective tactics and style of play. I doubt if there would be nearly as much flack if we were more positive and tending to loser out by the odd goal in five in entertaining matches.

I suspect there will be the best part of a thousand away fans.

Agreed although I would not be altogether astonished to see him kicking water bottles again at the TCS next season.....

If he doesn't extend and Aberdeen come back in in the Summer renewing their bid of £200,000 then it probably makes commercial sense to sell.

Some of us were much younger and even less sensible than now and thus possibly celebrated with even more fervour !

Of course they were Johndo, How on earth could the mere winning of the Scottish Cup in front of almost 40,000 fans at the National Stadium and a worldwide TV audience of millions possibly compare with a Caley v Clach Qualifying Cup final at Kingsmills in front of 2,500 ? Actually, the Highland League days were great and will live in the memory forever but we are on an entirely different plane now.

That a lot of players are injured and that it often doesn't seem to happen in matches ?

When you speak about 'the majority of people shouting for Hughes head' I only see two. One of whom is the OP the other is definitely not a younger fan...are you Laurence ?

I am not advocating a change of manager but throwing Foran in at the deep end in the position we are in would not be fair on anyone least of all him. IF we were to replace Yogi in the next couple of weeks, which, quite properly, will never happen we would need to go for someone experienced and willing to take a very short term contract such as Jimmy Calderwood. However, Yogi can steer us out of this mess he just has to accept that his current method of playing simply isn't working.

....and a new goal scorer is exactly what we could do with now....

Not sure what you mean by SPLIT but if you mean the SPFL Premiership then we don't have either the lowest turnover or playing budget. Yogi's player budget is very similar to the previous manager's who managed to recruit far more successfully. I have considerable reservations about JH, his management style and his style of play but, unless he takes us down this season, I am still inclined to stick with him to give him at least until Christmas to turn things around. We are not a club in the habit of sacking managers and I don't believe that now is yet the time to start.

Those fans who think that results like Saturday are mainly due to bad luck or missing key players are extremely complacent and in danger of sleep walking into the Championship. It's true that we are not always lucky and, for whatever reason, we have had more than our fair share of injuries but these are minor factors in our poor form. Far and away the biggest factor is the manager's blind adherence to his preferred form of football which is not only generally ineffective but not exactly entertaining to watch. Just how many times this season have we footered about for seventy minutes achieving very little before, usually out of necessity when we are behind, playing more directly and with more urgently and immediately looking far more dangerous as well as being more entertaining. Sometimes we get away with it like Easter Road last week but far more often like the League Cup Quarter final and Hamilton on Saturday it is a case of too little too late. There is no doubt that we are now in a play off battle at the very least. I believe we have the players with the ability and attitude to get us out of it but only if we set out to play each minute of our remaining league matches in the style we are clearly best at. Yogi needs to be less one dimensional and appreciate that teams have long since worked out that by pressing us quickly they can almost completely negate his 'passing game'. Time now to do from the first whistle what we tend to do only in the last quarter or so.

The Dundee United v ICT/Hibs semi final will kick off at 12.15 on the Saturday and will be live on BBC1

It is a very different level of football but I agree a punt worth taking. Back in the day the likes of Billy Urquhart and Hamish French went straight from the Highland League to the top division and did well enough.

Well deserved. Had a bit of a dip in form and confidence lately but who in the team hasn't. Come on Yogi get him signed up.....

Not sure I agree. Hughes took the plaudits last year, and rightly so, including a Manager Of The Year award by doing well with a team very largely put together by his predecessor. This season we are faring much much less well in the league with a team much more of his own creation. Yes we have lost important players but it's not as if he hasn't been allowed to bring in more than half a dozen of his own players in replacement. Who's fault is it that so many of those have proved such a disappointment ? He rightly got credit for success. It's right that he bears a substantial part of the blame for this season's relative failure but we are not Celtic fans and are not calling for his head we just want him to get it right and to do so before we end up in the Championship.

I certainly don't think Russell leaving and Brian Rice coming in has improved the situation. The circumstances of Russell's leaving have always struck me as a bit odd...

I agree with IHE. Fans are never going to be enthused about a brand of play that seems designed to retain the football (quite often unsuccessfully) rather than doing something positive with it.

I believe we pretty much did go all out for Anthony Stokes but he opted to go to Hibs.

Failing that, a scrappy 1-0 will do just fine.

There is a lot of anger and frustration which is not in the least surprising or unreasonable but apart from 'Shaun' who's views can generally be discounted, I don't hear anyone 'calling for yogi's head'. However, given our current form and the manager's apparent inability to do much about it, to say that the league should be no problem is complacent in the extreme. Lose again on Saturday and we are right in the mix for the battle to avoid the play off place with Dundee United still not out of the equation. Yes, with the players at our disposal we should probably just about scrape to safety but the league is very far from being 'no problem'.

Other shoppers with similar budgets manage to acquire a couple of tins of beans but then again they don't fill their trolleys with a dozen cans of spaghetti hoops in the way we do....

We got out of jail on Sunday after a thoroughly inept and tactically naïve performance for most of the match. Probably asking too much to be as lucky again. The frustrating thing is that we have the players to do so much better if only they were deployed properly.

More a case of lions led by a donkey.....