airdrieman

Spying on Arbroath’s training session obviously.

I wouldn’t be against it if McCabe thought he was ready. Ideally we’d play another keeper in this game but even playing Stirling Uni is a huge step up from U18s football. I’ve always traditionally been a big exponent of the Challenge Cup. It’s important that there is a cup competition for lower league teams to win and, as such, we should be taking it seriously and looking to win it ourselves. Totally agree with @Mybitchunderprotest though that the inclusion of B teams has devalued the competition. No interest at all in watching us play B teams or supporting that project so I’ll continue to boycott any games in the competition involving them so long as they remain part of it. I’ve no interest in watching us play a university team either (unless the game took place at the university sports grounds) so I’ll be giving Saturday a miss. Looking forward to a grand day out at Gayfield next Saturday though.

FWIW he played well on Saturday considering he was thrown on for his debut after 5 minutes, alongside another teenage debutant, at Tannadice. Not sure I’d say he’s an attacking midfielder based on that game though. I think Elliot Dunlop is a more attacking player so would possibly be him? Although he’s actually played less first team football than Gallagher and is younger which is probably not what you want to hear!

Something like - Rae Watson Fordyce Hancock Fellows GavGal McStravick Telfer (if fit) McGill Todorov Dunlop would do me. Lets a couple of fringe players play and some others increase their match fitness/sharpness. I’d let the likes of Cassidy, Spalding and Kavanagh feature too assuming we put the game to bed early enough. I’d swap out Rae for Hutton but I assume he can’t/won’t play anymore and I’m not sure how au fait he’d be with our current style of play anyway And I wouldn’t rush Telfer back if he’s not fit yet. Hopefully this week is a good opportunity for the injured players to recover in time for Gayfield.

Not too disappointed at all after that. Would have to agree with the majority of comments already posted. Really sloppy start and a soft goal to lose. Feared the worst after that, especially with McMaster going off. But once we settled down I thought we competed well and made the game a genuine contest. Had plenty of the ball and some control of the game in the second-half, which was presumably why Goodwin completely lost the rag at one point But we just lacked a cutting edge today. Probably worth mentioning within that that I thought Declan Gallagher strolled it at the back today. We won’t come up against as many centre-halves as solid as him in this league. I continue to be mightily impressed with our young midfield. McStravick looks like a really lovely footballer. Some really class touches today and I’m excited to see more of him. I’d have kept him on the park rather than subbed him off. I thought GavGal did an okay job in the holding midfield role. Kept it simple and kept things ticking over fine. Not an easy place or game in which to make your debut but he showed enough IMO to illustrate he’s worth a place in the squad. And like @Kenny_m I thought Aiken was superb once again. Hopefully Hibs’ impending relegation will see them have a bit of a fire sale and we can take him off their hands Obviously always disappointing to not take anything from a game but I thought we have a good account of ourselves against the favourites for the league, and we’ve more positives than negatives to take from the day. Agree that it’s frustrating not to be a wee bit clearer of the bottom of the table. But if we can continue taking care of our own results and beating/taking points off the teams around us I think/hope we’ll be fine. Arbroath is a big one in that regard in a couple of weeks. Hopefully the cup game next week will be a chance for the injured players to recover in time for Gayfield.

Saw on Instagram he was in training but not sure whether his clearance has came in or not.

Totally agree. There’s something about two teams going toe-to-toe wearing their historic colours/stylings that really adds to the experience for me. I know sometimes you might be obliged to wear a certain kit x number of times for sponsorship reasons but all our kits have the same sponsor so it presumably can’t be that. Seemed a complete waste of time for everyone involved. Think he came on for about 9 minutes when 6-1 up v Kelty and he didn’t get near the ball. My brother is pals with someone who briefly played for Gretna this season and he said Dixon was terrible even at that level his da knows Jackie Mac so can only assume he was signed as a cheap punt as a favour to him as by the sounds of things he had no business being at a League 1 club.

A ‘yer da’ thing that annoys me is when a team wears their away/third kit when there’s no need to. Why are we in purple tomorrow? We have an iconic and beautiful kit and should wear it every opportunity we have. Not as if we haven’t seen the purple kit in action already.

Moffat going to Dunfermline means he’s almost guaranteed to sign for us sooner rather than later.

To answer your original question - no. I think the last thing you could accuse this Airdrie team of is being ‘dirty’ or ‘hatchet men’ or ‘cynical’ etc. We do pick up cards but that tends to be as a result of Josh Rae coming steaming off his line regardless of the score or circumstances (including being 5-1 up in a play-off semi-final first-leg) or an outfield player doing something daft. I’d like a destroyer type midfielder, and I think it would add something to this team even if they didn’t play every week, but McCabe has never, at least outwardly, identified that as being an issue and we’ve largely got by fine so far. So fair enough. We’ve got a very defined style of play #McCabeball so expect us to play out from the back, retaining and moving possession quickly (at our best), getting the ball out wide and just generally going for it. We scored 99 goals last season so when it works it is a joy to watch. And there can be the odd disaster which is a good laugh at least. We’ve had as a good a start to the season as we could have asked for really. 100% record in the League Cup group and took Ross County to extra-time and 6/9 points in our first three league games. Despite that, I’m not very hopeful about this game at all. Was always likely to be a tough ask but with Frizzell out, if McCabe and Telfer are also missing, I think it will be a bridge too far for our young and thus far impressive midfield. It feels a bit defeatist, and I wish I wasn’t so for a league game, but if we avoid a humping I’ll probably be content enough with that. Whatever happens it’ll be an interesting test to see how we stack up against the clear favourites for the league. All that being said, looking forward to shitfesting a 1-0 win from a Todorov header from 2 yards out. After Fordyce is sent due to cracking Louis Moult for being a Motherwell b*****d and red cards for David Hutton and Jim Goodwin paggering the tunnel at full-time. Both teams fined for bringing the game into disrepute.

Should expand our player/coach repertoire and play Ryan McStay in the middle of the park on Saturday. The most obvious solution IMO.

Updating the servers in preparation for all our deadline day business tomorrow

Don’t remember that one but I do remember ‘Johnny Martin’s Willy’. Speaking of ‘interesting’ posters, whatever happened to @Cooper81? Did he get stuck when P&B was in purgatory and never make it back out?

A few posts discussing signing a left-back. IMO, Ballantyne has been such a revelation at left-back I’d be for keeping him there and signing a backup right-back to Watson. We’ve got Hancock who can cover left-back and even Fellows should he be deemed ready. Whereas if Watson is out through injury/suspension/loss of form we’d have to move Ballantyne over and play a new left-back rather than just replacing him like-for-like with x player as backup.

Assuming it was them Sean Kelly, Stephen Bradley, Jack Hamilton and Dan MacKay are all first team players and there might have been more in the Livi team for all I know. Bradley is a decent Premiership player let alone against essentially an U18s team and MacKay, who scored a hat-trick, scored for Inverness in the Scottish Cup final last season. The difference not only in experience but quality between the two XIs is night and day. A tough lesson for them today but hopefully it was exactly that.

Impressive that this thread got ruined more quickly than the old Airdrie v Falkirk ones used to.

Glad to hear he's doing well. I don't think he was ever likely to make it with us, but he was on the bench several times. He became reasonably popular and a bit of a cult figure even without playing, mainly on account of his da' being a lovely guy and a bit of a character, as seen by his appearances on AirdrieFanTV and the Facebook page that he runs on behalf of Bright (where he's compared Bright with Messi, Eto'o and discussed his future international prospects, all with some excellent use of imagery). Bright also got wired into the post-play-off celebrations which was nice. I hope he and the Rovers as a whole continue to have a good season. Get back up sooner rather than later.

Agree with the comments from others, and McCabe and McMaster, that we didn’t play particularly well. Equally I don’t think we played that badly either. I don’t think we had to get out of second gear at all. Inverness had a lot of the ball but did largely nothing with it. While we were hanging on a bit at the end I don’t think Inverness really put us under the cosh at all. They looked a poor team. Some good individual players but no identity or clear plan which I think was one of the key differences between the sides. Can only add to the superlatives regarding McMaster and Aiken. Really mature performance from both of them and McMaster is already a leader in this team. Seems daft to say but it makes you feel proud seeing his development. So good positionally and tactically, and we especially saw that yesterday once we went down to 10 men. He held that midfield together, dropped in between the centre-halves when he had to and kept us solid enough to limit Inverness and see the game out. Never wasted a pass once again either. Aiken was also very good, although that ‘attempt’ at goal might be one of the worst I’ve ever seen Obviously the age or lack of experience in our team has been a fairly contentious issue this week. But kudos to them for seeing out a win in a midfield which didn’t contain any of McCabe, Frizzell or Telfer. I’m not sure anyone would have expected us to do that last year in League 1 let alone the Championship so fair play to them. That’s not a position we want to be in every week mind so if Telfer or McCabe aren’t back next week it could be a tricky afternoon. Agree also that Frizzell needs to be careful with the number of bookings he’s collecting. The first was soft but the second was unarguable. Needs to be smarter there as while the foul was ‘cute’, I’m not sure it’d have led to a goal. In some ways I’d rather Frizzell missed Tannadice than Gayfield but he’s still a huge loss. Credit to McGregor also who I think is getting better as the weeks go. Gave Davidson a difficult afternoon and was instrumental in the two goals. And that run also deserved a goal. Could have been a real turning point since they went straight up the park and scored after it but it thankfully didn’t matter in the end. Paying a fee for a player is both terrifying and exciting! Neither necessarily mean anything but he’s played and scored in his limited amount of first team games and he’s spoken of highly by folk, including Airdrie Challenge Cup winner Marc Smyth. If nothing else I hope he’s better than Jonathan Page and the Northern Irish jobbers we had on the books last season. I hope folk are patient with him as, however talented he is and even with a transfer fee behind him, he’s still likely to be a young and inconsistent winger given his age and lack of experience. Really looking forward to seeing him in action though. 6/9 points is probably as a good a start as anyone could have asked for. I know we should maybe be looking up the way rather than down, but a 6 point gap between us and bottom is a good bridge to take to Tannadice with us. Just a pity Arbroath and Thistle both won yesterday as well! Really looking forward to Tannadice next week. It’s a ground I like although I’ve never seen Airdrie play there before so I’m looking forward to it for that alone. Not expecting a result but it will be fun going there as the underdogs. Very much a one and done for me though as f**k paying £25 again. Hopefully be a good crowd through for it. Speaking of which, it’s been fantastic seeing the main stand busier than it’s been for years. Long may it continue

You should get an email from the club when your card is ready to pick up. I’m not sure how long it takes as I bought mine when they first went on sale, and picked it up the week of the first game, but they’ll probably be available quicker than that. If you’re unsure I would give the club a call/email. I don’t know if you saw mate but I found this week that Joe Caven passed away a week or two ago. Last player to score 5 in a game for Airdrie and his scoring record was something like 57 goals in 105 appearances which is some feat! I think he was a Scottish Cup semi-finalist too? Sad news. RIP.

I would file calling him a ‘bloody wean’, ‘a joke’ and ‘pointless’ in the writing him off category. Of course the season has been a small sample size so far. And maybe it will all come crashing down. But considering that we’ve only lost 1 game out of 7 in 90 minutes thus far, to say we haven’t signed anybody good bar Todorov and to infer that Gallagher won’t be any good because he’s inexperienced, is IMO OTT. I would like more experienced signings also. Indeed, I’ve been banging that particular drum since last season. But I’m not prepared to write him off before I even see him play.

Of the new players we’ve signed I’d say it’s only really Dunlop who has proven not to be a Championship level player thus far. And that’s purely because for whatever reason McCabe hasn’t saw fit to use him. Maybe he doesn’t trust him yet, maybe he’s not and won’t be good enough in general. Perhaps Gallagher will be the same. But as for the rest - Todorov, Aiken and McMaster all look worthy of this level. O’Connor too, who while he has his faults, is definitely good enough to have a role in a Championship team. I suppose we can’t judge Hancock yet but he looked fine last week so hopefully he’ll also prove to be a good addition. Either way, I think it’s pointless to judge or write off the boy before we’ve even seen him play.

Signing low (wages wise) and young has worked out predominately well so far. Obviously he won’t have the benefit of a year in league 1 to get up to speed like Devenny and McMaster. But we’ve seen how far both have developed under McCabe’s tutelage, as indeed have more experienced players like Telfer, Frizzell, CalGal and Gabby. Maybe he’ll be rubbish but if he can develop into even a half-decent or useful squad player then he’ll be a good addition. It’s not exciting or glamorous but if the market we’re in is either young players or average-worse than average Championship/League 1 jobbers, I’m happy to take cheap punts like Gallagher than spend money that isn’t worth it on players who probably won’t fit into our system any better than Gallagher anyway. That being said, if Wotherspoon could decide who he wants to sign for sometime this calendar year that would be nice.

Who knows how good he’ll be. But we have done very well with young centre mids of a similar profile under McCabe. Devenny and McMaster came from the same level and have (so far) developed into two good Championship central midfielders. Obviously Gallagher is a year behind but hopefully he’ll prove to be another such gem. Rather than a young signing of the Jay Riley or Joe Dixon variety He’s also, crucially, *not* Grant Gallagher which was my first thought when the Tweet appeared on my phone.

That wasn’t very Wotherspoony.

Jobber sub goalie IMO