Robert

Killie deserve the half time lead. They have looked menacing going forward and testing our defence.

Having Deas and Broadfoot both booked has added to the pressure on us.

We've struggled to get the second balls and are playing it long too often. However, we have created a few chances, albeit without really testing the goalie.

Pearson has looked quite lively on the right. Chalmers is playing the no 10 role and I recall one long effort off target.

We are not out of this but need to raise our game in the second half. The next goal is crucial. 

1 down. Mackay assist for Lafferty.

Came from a slack pass by Sutherland in midfield that Mackay picked up on the right before spinning past Harper and crossing it for Lafferty. 

Deas booked after 70 seconds.

Looks like Pearson wide right, Walsh wide left and Chalmers supporting Sutherland up front.

Windy conditions could be an issue. 

It will be interesting to see how our front four line up.

Carson only on bench: is carrying a knock or is it a reflection of his recent form?

A big afternoon. Hopefully the line up is good enough to get us a positive result.

Dan Mackay starting for Killie. I hope he has a quiet game!

Our away game at Partick on 5 March is now a Friday evening game on 4 March and on TV.

That gives us two TV games in a row as our game at Hamilton the previous week is also on TV.

Hopefully we continue our good Friday night form in those games.

Looking at our fixtures, 5 of our last 6 games are against the bottom 5. They’ve been our Achilles heel this season. 

2 hours ago, tm4tj said:

Lack of quality is my estimation.

 

Quality wise I think we have the potential. However we lack consistency and, at times, ambition. That’s what’s holding us back. 

Did you watch it? From the BBC text, it looks like Raith were lucky to hold on for a point.

We have Morton next Saturday and can’t afford to underestimate them as they seem transformed from a few weeks ago. 

3 hours ago, hislopsoffsideagain said:

I feel like we will be massively short in midfield when Welsh inevitably gets injured though...

 

 

I agree we need to bring someone in for either defence or midfield. With question marks over how long Devine will be out for, either Duffy or Deas will have a run at centre half.

Carson could cover midfield but looks like being needed at right back.

Hopefully MacGregor is back soon, and it could be his chance to become a permanent feature.

Suspensions may become an issue too, as Carson, Deas, Broadfoot and Welsh all have a few bookings.

And we are definitely vulnerable to further injuries.

Up front we have had three out and four in, so hopefully have found a gem amongst the signings. Hopefully Samuels does well given we have him permanently. We are likely to lose Sutherland at some point if he is found guilty of the betting charge.

Looking further ahead, with four loan players and a small squad, there is a rebuilding job to be done again in the summer regardless of which league we are in. Anyone got a list of those still signed for next season?

Off the top of my head we have Ridgers, Carson, Deas (although he may be snapped up by St Johnstone in the summer), Harper, Allardice, MacGregor, Walsh, Samuels and Mckay.

Are there others (and I’m pretty sure the club never advised how long MacKay and Doran resigned for)?

Morton @ 3.00 thanks.

HT 0-0

FT 1-1

ICT Sutherland

Killie Shaw

Crowd 4411

I hope Kevin bounces back from this.

Great to see the football family rally round:

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/former-scotland-star-kevin-mcnaughton-26064060.amp

1 hour ago, Kingsmills said:

Not sure whether to be overwhelmed by the fact that he has been, not so very long ago, been on the books of both Manchester City and Liverpool or completely underwhelmed by the fact that, according to Wikipedia, he is a forward to has never scored a senior goal.

In fairness to him, he’s hardly played any senior games. Reading the Wikipedia piece, his goals record in Academy and Under 23 matches is pretty good.

Hopefully he is one signing who turns out to be a master stroke by us. 

16 hours ago, SteveA said:

Dissapointed too see Jamieson go. Thought given a run of games he could of done well for us. Notice he has joined Clyde on loan.

He was at Clyde on loan last season too, so clearly his recall by St Mirren was due to the lack of game time so it was not working out for him and / or St Mirren.

Equally it could be that the club did not think he could have the desired impact, which is why he did not have game time. However, we will never know!

Joe Chalmers has moved from Ayr to Dunfermline.

Kai Kennedy has yet another loan spell, this time at Hamilton having returned from his loan to Dunfermline.

Jordan Roberts has move permanently from Hearts to Motherwell having been on loan since last season. 

We can’t blame Jamieson or St Mirren as he didn’t get much game time, so there was no real point him being here (from their perspective). I suspect he will go to another club on loan for the rest of the season: hopefully he does not come back to haunt us if he joins a Championship club.

In today’s Courier, it sounds like Devine may be out for a time as his knock on Saturday was bad.

More encouragingly, it sounded more positive about Mckay.

No mention of the prognosis for MacGregor or Doran though.

It also had a good interview with Sam Pearson and his reasons for coming here on loan. He describes himself as a winger who can also play as a wing back or striker.

Rearranged for 9 February at 1945:

https://ictfc.com/partick-thistle-match-rearranged

Picking up on comments above, a couple of questions.

What is the speculation about the injuries MacGregor and Mckay have?

Has Jamieson’s loan been ended?

The club’s report is here:

https://ictfc.com/dunfermline-ath-1-1-ictfc-22-01-2022

Yes, second half yesterday our defence was Carson, Duffy, Broadfoot and Deas. Harper was left midfield until replace by Pearson.

Jamieson must be frustrated as the three other players on loan all got game time yesterday but he remained stuck on the bench. 

6 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

Looking we will be playing Rangers in the league next season and Cove doesn't even have a decent chipper.

Their new ground is technically not even in Cove, but it is behind Burger King. Lol!!

Back to serious stuff, in 15 league games since the start of October, we’ve only won 4. We’ve beaten Morton home and away and our other two have been on Friday night TV games against Queen of the South and Kilmarnock.

If we can raise our game for TV, why can’t we raise it for Saturday games?

I see the next couple of weeks as critical to our promotion ambitions. We have Killie away and revitalised Morton at home, the two teams we have 100% records against in the league so far. If we get a grip and get at least 4 points we could be back on track. Anything less and the play offs may well be beyond us. 

Sam Winnall for Oxford, Miles Storey for Hereford and Jack Brown for Rothes today.

Last Saturday Andy MacRae and Garry Wood scored hat tricks for Brora and Brechin with Andrew MacAskill scoring for Buckie. 

Of the new loan signings, Chalmers looked lively but we didn’t see much from Pearson.

In fairness, they came on when we were second best and not really getting forward much, so it is too early to judge them.

Chalmers initially looked to be in the “no 10” role but switched with Walsh and was playing wide right. Pearson was a straight replacement for Harper.

When we lost Devine, I don’t know why we didn’t change things round. Duffy did fine at centre half but is a right back. We therefore had Carson, Duffy, Deas and Harper all playing out of their normal roles. It may not have made any difference, but I’d have played Duffy, Broadfoot, Deas and Harper as the defence and put Carson back into midfield, albeit on the right side, and switched Walsh to the left. That may also have helped to combat the relentless possession Dunfermline managed to have. 

1 minute ago, Satan said:

Without our strong start where would we be?

In a relegation fight. 

I’m starting to feel the club is not wanting to be promoted and is happy being at this level. Time for them to prove me wrong.

We do seem to have the ability, but perhaps not the ambition and desire.

Either that or the game plan when we go ahead is so flawed that we keep messing up.

Kilmarnock away next weekend and if we lose that, we will soon be out of the play off places depending on other results and the games in hand over us other clubs have. 

The point is all we deserved from that.

A very poor second half, and we only really showed anything going forward after we conceded.

We seem unable to play when we take the lead now and we always seem to let teams back into games we should be winning.

So frustrating. 

1-1. Penalty after hand ball by Carson.

Can’t argue with the penalty or that the goal had been coming.