Sweet Pete

He's hoaching.

Killie's reason a few seasons back was to make it easier to defend as they were struggling and stop other teams from playing in a more expansive way.

I actually thought we were better first half, though not by miles. You know what they say about opinions.

Heroin dealing, spouse beating, knife carrying Adam Strachan has died young? I, for one, am shocked.

Yep, lucky escape as he really clattered him and you could hear the slap.

I don't think he's far wrong. It was second half we faded and they came on top.

Positives and perspective: Long, Wallace and Lynas are players. Buchanan and McNiff could work as a CH pair with time and training and Orsi and C Wilson can contribute from wide. Today's game, this competition in actuality, is really a preseason tournament so no harm done. The real work starts in 3 weeks.

Wallace was doing all the creation today, he was everywhere. Which is good if he was a cm, but bad as he was playing as a forward. That means he's having to come deep all the time to retrieve the ball and try to make things happen when it should be the players behind him doing that. As it was, he would appear all over the pitch for the ball, but never have anyone in front in his position to receive it. He looks a good player and plenty keen, but we need someone in the middle doing that job to let him play up front, otherwise the forward line is missing it's key player as he's dropped back to compensate for the midfield passengers.

Was the pen call when mcniff booted the Albion player in our box? As that was a shocker and a clear pen / yellow.

I meant going forward. He shites it when it's him with the ball to run ahead up the wing.

Wylde looks a player lacking confidence. He gets the ball, kicks it too far ahead of him, chases after it, then with space in front of him he checks back and makes a backwards pass. All the signs of a player who used to have "it" but is now scared to make a mistake. Which would explain his career trajectory.

The pies were great

Gave it an hour or so then went to the pub. Wallace and Lynas get pass marks, as does long. Wylde and D Wilson shite.

Pitch looks great. Wallace is doing everything. Pleased with him. Brett Long pulled off a great one handed reaction save. He also came out with the head and saved things when the centre halves had missed a through ball.

Can't quite get my head round today's team sheet. It's either a 4-2-3-1, or a 4-4-2 that doesn't make sense. I guess we'll know in 15 minutes.

Kry moar

3 Nil up currently according to the club twitter.

Apologies, it's been a while since we were in this league. Dumbarton.

Hoping for (possibly even expecting) a top four finish. I don't see an outstanding title candidate among the 10 clubs and our squad looks as competitive as any other on paper. We seem to have gone for a signing theme of mid 20s with experience in L1 / L2, which is a departure from the last squad he built. Ultimately our success or failure will likely be down to the manager, and the fans understandably have doubts there. But he's done his signing business relatively quickly and I'm fairly satisfied with the balance of the squad, so willing to be cautiously optimistic at this early stage. Ask me again 10 games in. With a lot of the squads looking broadly similar in overall quality at this point, the team who finds form will be the one to stand out. But I can see it being one of those seasons where the league positions change every Saturday throughout the season as no team finds steady form and everyone can beat everyone else.

I likewise recommended a decent and affordable one.

Thought he was taking time out to see if he could play still? Is he supposed to be fit again then?

Looks like being a close league this season with all the teams of similar quality more or less. And on paper ours is perfectly capable and fairly well balanced for this division. Form and good management will be the key factors in this division. Sadly. But he's done well this pre season in terms of rebuilding so let's remain optimistic.

Not that it was in any way a hardship last night FYI. Just a useful thing to build on. Would cut queues, reduce stress for staff etc and any additional method for taking in £ can only be a good thing.

The roll shop at bearsden station do that. The fella who owns it is old and tech phobic so the counter lass takes card payments on her personal mobile. Good shout. I believe the season tickets will be QR codes for the first time also. A brave new world at Dumbarton.

Great to see it so busy last night. Bought 2 kids' home strips and 2 season tickets, one of which is the excellent Young Sons membership. Merch was flying out the door and the place was jumping. Having an official shirt launch night was a brilliant novelty and it was cool seeing folk using the club for a midweek pint too. All things we don't usually have and a tonic to recent misfortune. It'd be ace if things like that could be more regular, but that may prove cost inefficient when not an anniversary. Maybe something for future discussion. Side note, and something I've mentioned to stadium staff in the past, but if the club could get more debit card machines they'd be laughing. They currently have 1 to serve all 3 bars plus the club shop, so on match days if (like me) you aren't the carry cash type, buying a pint is a palaver and the staff can be a bit shirty about it. Last night was a perfect example of when more machines would have been a boon as there were 4 people serving at the club shop (3 serving the merch queue and 1 the season ticket queue) all sharing one payment machine. The bar staff said last season that the reason behind this is the WiFi signal not being strong enough, but there are boosters available for signal strength. Definitely worth looking into. (Constructive criticism, not negative).