Slipmat

The starting eleven had better be up to the job because that bench is absolutely minging. Cochrane and Gibson must be this weeks training ground victims. I've asked it before, but what the hell are they doing in training - close combat and kick-boxing? BTW any updates would be welcome as I'm stuck at home with a mixture of lurgy and apathy today. ETA just noticed Church and logan are missing too.

This is a near to an away banker as you can get. It's being played at "The Fortress", after all. Our glorious leader doesn't even seem to know who his preferred keeper is, in fact I'd guess that the only guaranteed starters (barring myserious training ground injuries) are The Card Collector (McClelland), The Undroppable (McKechnie) and the player he wanted shot of last season (Reilly). As for the rest, it's down to Marvellous Marvin's Tremendous Tombola.

Aye, another couple of Hewitson media howlers being quoted above. If he ever lowers himself to speak to the media again he should just say "Football is a results-based business, except when the result is the thought of me having to pay off a failing manager who has more than a year left on his contract". Interesting to note that the board had ambitions and targets back in 2016. I don't think they have mentioned having either since then.

Has one of our players just won the Deluxe Draw or someone else with the same name?

Although I fully expect Bartley to be in post until the end of the season I think the only name that has been mentioned as a potential replacement who is currently available and of whom I would have any faith in is Fowler. His record managing us was better than those of Naysmith, Johnston* or Gibson, and given he has had subsequent experience specializing in recruitment - something that Johnston, Gibson and Bartley have been proven to be abysmal at - I wouldn't be averse to him being given another chance. The downside is that sometimes the football his sides played was pretty excruciating to watch. * second spell That said, whether he would consider working with the current board again is questionable given his previous harsh dismissal at the hands of the same regime.

It was interesting listening to Darren Young's post-match interview after the Stirling debacle in which he said he studied video footage of our previous game against Kelty and immediately decided to change his usual team formation to a more attack-minded one that would play in a way that, given how many mistakes our defence was likely to make, and our style of play, they would likely give the ball away if put under constant pressure. Marvin seems keen on video footage too, but no matter what he sees he generally sticks with the same formation, same personnel, and the same style of play, played at the same pedestrian tempo regardless of who we are playing. I too would hope that, rather watching repeated clips of ourselves to expose our own players' shortcomings (if a player makes an error, he will know about it without needing to see it again) he and the team would be looking at clips of the next opposition to work out what formation and tempo WE should adopt to hurt teams. If for example, he identifies that our opponents have a dodgy fullback, use that to our advantage by pitting a tricky player like Gibson up against him instead of a defensive wingback like Houston, Logan, Church or MacIntyre. It just seems to be all about us and what we do wrong rather than what mistakes we can force the opposition into making with Bartley.

This. Definitely this. Football is played on a pitch, not a tactics board. Bartley seems to be so hung up on the players following his instructions to the letter that he is actually stifling any creativity during the game. Maybe this explains why he has gone down the route of assembling what is basically an under-23s squad containing players who haven't been exposed to a variety of coaching methods. In my opinion it is almost definitely the reason why creative players like Gibson and Walker who have the ability and vision to spot a pass, create space or take a man on rather than playing the ball sideways to the nearest team-mate are getting so little game time. Bartley's interviews do reveal that he has no time for individuality or unpredictability, and that there is a bit of control freakery in his management style.

Sensible post. The problem preventing new faces coming forward however is that some of the potential directors will not set foot near the boardroom while the current chairman is in place. In the same way that some fans who have invested their time, skills and knowledge into the club in the past refuse even to attend matches while he is running the show.

I wonder what interview style Bartley has adopted this week? The depressed post-Hamilton gloomfest where he stares at the ground and mumbles away about individual errors being to blame and players not being where they should have been, playing the wrong pass etc (ie the "not-my-fault" response) or the upbeat "can't fault the players and we deserved to take something from the game" (when we by all accounts didn't) waffle? Hopefully Sandra takes a new approach to interviewing where rather than making a statement and seeing if Bartley agrees with her she actually asks some direct pertinent, questions, such as: - After a good performance last week why did you change the personnel and formation? - Why was Botterill dropped? - Why did you wait until Alloa scored before deciding to throw four subs on in the space of three minutes? That's not going to happen though, is it? We'll probably just get the usual "Well Marvin, another bad result today?" line of "questioning".

Two stats for you. In the recent Falkirk match thread someone posted highlights of the Stephen Dobbie hat-trick game in 2018. We had 54% of possession in that game. Today, we had 58%. In the Falkirk game we had 27 shots, 11 of which were on target. Today we had 7 shots, 2 on target. Marvin says he wants us to be a good team to watch. Maybe he should be tied to a chair and made to watch that Falkirk game to see what "good to watch" means. Hint to Bartley - it doesn't involve pedestrian endless sideways passing. Stat 2: In the 10+1/2 games that Mimnaugh played in (cup games included) we scored 22 goals, so an average of over 2 per game. In the 8+1/2 games Mimnaugh has missed we've scored 5 goals, so just over 0.5 per game. Either Mimnaugh is our only midfielder who can help us create chances, or Bartley has got us playing more and more (and more... and more...) negatively by the week. At least his preferred style of play means we're still good to watch though.

...aaaaaand there's the McClelland booking just for good measure.

So we're now currently one point above Annan in the live table, and Edinburgh City are holding Falkirk to a draw. To think some fans of other clubs say we're too good to go down.

Heard a rumour a while back that Stone may have lost his place due to his temperament. No idea if there's any truth in that.

Hearts fans have been giving Zander Clark absolute pelters this weekend with some even calling for Harry Stone to be recalled and pitched into the first team until Gordon is fit. I wonder if Hearts would consider a swap?

All the same, it wasn't an injury to be sniffed at.

All perfectly innocent! Despite being a goalkeeper, he dropped a bottle of salad cream, tried to do a keepie-uppie as the bottle fell and severed a tendon in his toe

Footballers and food seems to a be a recipe for disaster. (See what I did there?) Kirk Broadfoot and microwaves, Dave Beasant and salad cream, Jari Litmanen and ringpulls... Then if the food is served on a glass table there is the additional risk of Derek Lyle falling through it.

It has crossed my mind that it may be an affect of playing and training almost exclusively on plastic pitches these days, especially when it comes to the number of hamstring strains we have been seeing, but even if that is the case it doesn't explain how our players seem to be more susceptible to picking up injuries than those at other clubs.

I wasn't there today, did Reilly's injury look bad? I'm not sure if Doherty is out for a while, but it is concerning if we're down to just Hutchinson as a CF, I agree. Plenty of ex-Queens players amongst the goals today elsewhere: Sam Folarin (2), Aidan Fitzpatrick (2), Ruari Paton, Kevin Holt, Nikolay Todorov, Aidan Smith, Ally Roy, Michael Ruth, Stuart Morrison, even Niyah "Bloody" Joseph.

Do you mean to say there are actually bigger teams than Falkirk?

You're right! My apologies! There HAVE been 2 games! Think the Rangers game was nearer the 10000 mark though.

We've only had one five figure home attendance since 1963! Are you Methuselah by any chance?

Manwithnoball.

...says he who drove a decent poster off this site by labelling them a xenophobe.

Not really. Strangely enough the majority of non-FFC fans couldn't care less.