capt_oats

My take with Long, overlooking his torn face, is that he's probably our most expendable forward - he's barely turned up this season, he's not kicked a ball for us since 12th December and he's only got less than 6 months left on his deal. Clearly were he here he'd most likely be our first choice sub ahead of White but even then I'm not sure he's the player we need right now. He's never really been a prolific goalscorer and his game seems to be far more about running the channels than playing centrally. If we're wanting to bring players in then you'd think we'd need to move a few out and he 100% feels like someone we'd happily mutually consent if he/we found another club. Hastie would need Rangers to agree to take him back, Jordan White has 1.5 years left on his contract. He's also probably still got more sellable qualities than someone like Seedorf when you consider he's come through at Everton, moved to Burnley in the Championship and hasn't played below League 1 level in England.

I'm absolutely not judging but I had been wondering how much football he'd actually played since he left (bearing in mind he was injured when he actually signed for Preston). He's not played at all this season and (apologies in advance for the tiny screenshots) these are his seasons since he moved to Preston. The large red blocks are when he's been injured or not in the squad.

Aye, this feels about right. You had Robinson not even hinting about certain players attitude and even Alexander has kind of continued the theme in saying that he wants players who want to be here and basically said that he expected a few to go. I'd honestly feel a bit more confident about things if we got the trebuchet out soon and just started launching folk. Given the size of the squad I'd have thought it'd make things a bit easier to get players in if we had a few outgoings first.

I mean, that's 2 in 2 for Cole under Alexander and Watt's assisted both of them. Obviously the problem is we're not scoring more than that and we're falling over when we have to make subs. I've no idea if there's anything in the Rooney rumour (I assume not) but a signing like that would be a notable shift from what we were used to under Robinson: "he's a great option to have and can play anywhere across the front 3". Actually having an experienced penalty box striker to drop in to the team would be an absolute fucking revelation IMO. It's such a small sample size you can't really make any judgements either way but I don't think I'm alone in saying that I have absolutely no idea what Alexander's overall approach to fitba' is but he's set up with a 433 in both games and it feels like he's kind of simplified things a bit. When you compare Bevis' performance yesterday to the game at Ibrox then it feels like incremental tweaks rather than wholesale changes. We went 433 against Rangers at FP last time and were scudded 5-1 - largely thanks to Bobby Madden but still...

Even a wee smile from him and everything.

This is kind of why I'm perplexed about his agent throwing a shitfit. Our whole model is based on "not standing in a the way of a player if he gets an opportunity to progress his career" - the idea that we'd actively price him out the market if say Celtic came chapping at our door is wild.

That's largely where I am on this.

That's the only way I can see that the auto-extension is an issue. If the option is on his side he can just choose not to take it up and there's no problem for him. Alternatively his Mr 20% is just running to the papers with a story and isn't that bothered if it joins up. Live scenes from Fir Park...

Aye, I don't think Alexander is going to Stendel us and he's already got a better tune out of the same squad than Robinson was albeit without actually winning. We've conceded to a non-penalty against St Mirren and a marginal offiside goal today. I don't think he's going to try to re-invent the wheel but going 433 against Rangers today was...bold given we lost 5-1 the last time we did it (although Bobby Madden played a big part in that). Also those two games in hand skew things a bit. If we win them (and they're winnable games) it takes us above Killie. If feels like we've been playing catch-up since October. As I say it depends what happens in the rest of the window. Alexander seems to know what he wants and one of the big positives is that he seems to have identified a few of our issues after a couple of days in the door. It's just a question of whether he can fix them.

Cheers, Steelmen's not a part of the internet I dip into much (at all) these days. If OTF is saying that then it'll be correct. Wasn't suggesting anything by it I just noticed neither were in the squad.

Depends what happens in January tbh. It looks like we're planning on being busy but of those you've listed; O'Donnell's contract is up this month, Gallagher's been angling for a move to Celtic and the story at the start of the month was that Championship clubs were keen on Campbell. As for Chris Long...he's not looked interested since he re-signed and his missus has just had another wean and as of last week he was still down on Merseyside. Like I say, the chat from Alexander is that there will be bodies in the door and naturally a few leaving because he's wanting to trim the squad down.

Speaking of Grimshaw...he's another (along with O'Hara) who wasn't in the squad today. Injured?

Cards on the table lads...I didn't see that coming. Even more so when we shipped the equaliser. Would have taken the point if offered beforehand, so a low-key "Yas!" from me.

100% I see St Mirren fans are at it as well. If either club accept the money to pay the fine it's a brass neck, even if it is a case of fans mugging themselves off. The club making a £10k charity donation would be far better optics.

If nothing else with Robinson out and Alexander in, it'd be nice to get this 'inverted wingers' pish launched as well. It was cool when it was working and Hastie was cutting in off the right and pinging them in against St Mirren and Hearts but it's 100% ran its course.

Tbh, for all I'm keen on seeing who's coming in the door I'm equally invested in seeing who's getting trebucheted out as that seems to be as big a problem as everything else. Excited for Burrows to go full Ari Gold.

I just sort of posted about this on the match thread. We've brought in Kelly and Lawless which is fine it means the Pieman will be nowhere near the team and as you say Lawless is probably an actual LM but the issues with the team are still there - we don't have a striker who'll back himself to score and our assortment of clownshoes defenders are still there. Alexander was talking in his pre-match about expecting players to leave but his main focus is getting players in. In that respect I'm interested to see who's not starting tomorrow as this feels like a game that's just going to be used to assess the squad.

It absolutely feels like a game that Alexander's using to assess the squad. Which is understandable as he's only just in the door and while we've brought in Kelly and Lawless the main concerns (the defence and forwards) are still there. There's no one in attack that would back themselves to score and as dodgy a pen as St Mirren got last week it was still rash and we'd coughed up a number of chances through the game. I know everyone's banging on about the 5-5-0 but I'm curious to see who gets the nod tomorrow and what shape we go with especially with a view to how Alexander sees the squad (ie: are McGinley and Crawford still on the bench?) Hastie's started the last two games but won't be available. I'm presuming Long's still absent as well. Kelly O'Donnell O'Hara Mugabi Gallagher Carroll Cole Campbell Polworth Lawless Watt Honestly get this fixture so far to f**k.

I've always said that expanding the league is something that should be given serious consideration.

Not a fucking chance we take anything out this game. Best outcome is we take some bodies and break some of their noses.

I'm still wildly sceptical about the Rooney thing largely because the tweet I saw mentioning it seemed to be coming from an absolute Walter Mitty character. But to play the game... We've been crying out for an actual striker rather than another forward who can play across the front three. If nothing else he's an experienced #9, albeit an ageing one. Do I think a 32 year old Adam Rooney would have contributed more to us this season than Chris Long and Jordan White combined? Ultimately he's still been scoring fairly regularly at a level we've oftentimes recruited from.

I broadly agree though less so about St Mirren being unlucky with their dose of the 'rona - they fucked it. Killie had a stronger argument but St Mirren were at it. It's an unanswerable question as to whether we'd have won the games at the time but hot garbage or not it's the one point in the season where our form was actually alright. Compared to St Mirren around the same period. Killie's form was far better but as I say, it's an unanswerable question. Would we have won? Possibly. Would we have lost? Possibly. Strongly agree that it's about mentality and getting back to being good at the fitba' if we win the games then it goes some way to sorting ourselves out.

It's Tony in all competitions (6). League is a joint effort between O'Hara, Lang and Watt (3) I'd wonder how they'll cope with all the crosses shanked out of play tbh.

See, I'd much rather the re-arranged games were scheduled for a point at which we've brought in our new bodies and our injured players (*looks at Trevor Carson*) are fit again.