Sweet Pete

That Facebook group man. Jesus.

Squad has definitely looked thin and plenty posters on here said exactly that in the summer. The Gemmell gamble is now looking like a failed experiment after the initial internet buzz it provoked. Hindsight is always 20/20 of course but again the question was asked on here at the time why sign someone out of retirement when the more logical choice would be to find a forward on loan from a full time club to occupy that place in a sparse squad. Edit: I'm not laying any blame at John Gemmell's feet, he's a footballer and wants to play football, and worked extremely hard to get himself back into the pro game. I lay the blame at the management for only signing a small squad with limited positional cover. Whether that's down to poor management or lack of wage budget is something that will likely be debated until the cows come home. The answer will probably be 'both'.

I don't buy that the cup games don't mean anything. You can only play the team in front of you and it all counts towards form. It's not like the players themselves are thinking 'oh it's not league 2, it's only the Scottish cup so let's have a night off'. Yes, this is a tight league, but Annan are 9th for a reason, we've already soundly beaten them and they were soundly beaten last night by a lesser team than us. Away win.

The man himself says he's not had a scan yet and only got the club physio assessment 5 days after the injury. He says the diagnosis will be confirmed after a scan, but he's worried it's serious and in the meantime it's agony. Frankly, his various comments make the club's healthcare of its players look pretty poor.

I broadly agree, but we comfortably defeated a west of Scotland league side who sit above Pollok and Annan conceded four goals and were defeated. We also stuck four past them last time. And regardless of the fact that it was injuries that forced it, we're now back to using the team that had us clear at the top. I'm staying positive on this one.

He's done his meniscus/MCL by the looks of things, so not looking likely he'd be fit by then.

Did you see their game against Pollok last night? They're fucking shite.

Rob Roy was my granda's team. He was from Waterside. I was sad to see the ground turned into houses.

I watched the game late on iPlayer as I'd been busy. Perfect line up, though of course we had little room for change, but Wallace did well after coming on, his skill made us more effective in the attacking third. I thought we soaked up pressure well at times, happy to sit back and let cumnock wear themselves out without troubling us. Finlay Gray bursting to life late in the game is becoming his trademark and he played well otherwise also. Carswell dealt fairly well with the boy Jordan Moore, who came across as a p***k. We weren't hugely troubled and we're through, so an all round decent result. The cumnock scorer is a mate of mine. He almost never scores, usually doesn't start games and never plays wide left normally, he's a defensive mid. I thought he had the beating of Lynas at times last night, and Lynas' error lets him score, so bit of an off night for Aaron, but no harm done in the end.

Christ, that's no one on here is it? Don't believe so. Newcastle fan.

Right, Farrell, the following is the team we should use: Long Lynas, Carswell, Buchanan, Mcniff Blair Orsi, McKee, Gray, McLean Byrne No more chopping and changing. If anything, the amount of forwards we have unavailable hopefully forces us back to this anyway.

Horrific. And they're sure to find far more as they reclaim more captured territory. Not to mention those who've been forcibly transported and will never return.

There definitely feels like there's a pro war mood being pushed in the media, not only with Ukraine and Russia, but also where Belarus, Iran, China and Taiwan are concerned. The language is all adjusted to the 'us and them' stance we've seen before other conflicts. There's a certain feeling of inevitability that it won't be long until it's 'we need to send troops'.

Looks like we'll be without Ally Love. In his words "my knee's fucked".

You've never been the same since Nuremberg.

I wouldn't need to if I'd flattened them with artillery from 8km away. Or just shot them from 600m while they were cartwheeling towards me...

I wonder how bouncing over chains trains them to evade HIMARS or Bayraktar... It's like those videos you always see of Russian Spetznaz doing front flips while throwing hatchets and jiu jitsu flipping people. I'm sure it's great fun to learn, but learning things like marksmanship, tactical patrolling and how to operate modern military hardware would seem a wee bit more useful.

Just had a phone call from Joseph McKee. Apparently he's volunteered to help out on the commercial side and is trying to drum up sponsorship. Nice fella and good to see.

Absolutely. The 4-1-4-1 we were using where Blair mops up from deep, McKee plays balls from the middle and Gray pushes on to support Byrne is clearly the best formation/tactic for this team.

Yep a back to what was working approach is the simple and obvious solution. We're fortunate that we had such a great start and that this league isn't overflowing with quality teams, so we'll still be in the race. We've added another point to the tally and didn't lose. We didn't play well, but neither did Rovers so it's not a huge deal. Friday night will be interesting. Hopefully he goes back to the team we were using early in the season and focuses on a return to our simple tactics of being compact, defensively stout and getting the ball into the penalty box for Byrne. Hoofball isn't a tactic that suits the players we have so it's odd that we've opted to use route one as our main focus recently.

A couple of fellow p n b users said in the bar post match that Stevie Farrell speaks very well and could probably talk his way out of difficult criticism and I think that's true. He's very erudite and talks a good game, but he'll need the team to do their talking on the pitch.

We looked a team void of ideas today. Not miles apart from the team who won seven, but light years apart from the team spirit we had then. I missed the Bonnyrigg home win due to illness and didn't go to the subsequent three away games, but before today we'd seemed ugly but lucky, unadventurous but resolute. So what changed?

Enjoy lads

Two poor teams. But for Sons to keep shelling long balls was criminal. It wasn't working from minute one, so to still be doing it at minute ninety is unforgivable. Brett Long pulled off a save late on that saved the point. A mixture of what looked like Buchanan's hand and Long pulled off a goal line save at the end of the first half. Wallace added nothing when he came on. But we should have changed the tactics to accommodate both him and Byrne. We didn't. Neither is a target man. Gray again the stand out and one who looks like he'll do something. It wasn't a day for wingers or full backs, width was negated by constant high balls. Both teams showed the odd spark when playing through but neither stuck to it and both instantly reverted to long punts. Our one decent attack second half was stopped as some kids outside threw a smoke bomb on the pitch. Point each is fair from a shite game. "That's the end of Gemmell" is the word from an unnamed source. Looks like an Achilles injury based on initial assessment pending tests etc. Pish poor tactics today, and no attempt to change them even though it was clear they weren't working.