Francesc Fabregas

We've been drawn at home to Livingston in the fourth round of the Scottish Cup. This is a terrible tie - we'll be comfortably beaten in front of 700-odd fans. A waste of everyone's time. What a disappointment.

After a successful result in the Scottish Cup last weekend, Stenhousemuir return to league duty with a trip to face Elgin City at Borough Briggs on Saturday. The last meeting between the sides in September was an entertaining 3-3 draw and I'd expect a similarly high-scoring match here, with both teams capable in attack (and equally inept at defending). Stenny are, as Stephen Swift has reminded fans in his two most recent post-match interviews, just two points from third place and a victory here, coupled with East Fife dropping points, could see them move into Elgin's spot and "kickstart the season", as it were. I'm not particularly excited by this fixture. I want my team to win, of course, but I feel ambivalent towards Swift and, as I've said many times in the past, I can't see us moving forward as a club until there is a change in the dugout. While progress in the Scottish Cup at the expense of a mid-ranking Highland League side like Formartine is welcomed, it doesn't tell us much in the grand scheme of things; the league is where it's at and our difficult run in December, where we also play Dumbarton and Stirling Albion, will be vital in determining our season. Will Swift be as bold in reprising the same attacking line-up that started against Formartine? Perhaps! Or perhaps he'll go with something more sensible. I've genuinely no idea, so I've just thrown shit at the wall in terms of who might and who might not be available. - Matty Yates - Tam Orr - - Euan O'Reilly - Mikey Anderson - Adam Brown - Mikey Miller - - Callum Yeats - Sean Crighton - Dan Higgins - Ross Philp - - Jay Cantley - We'll no doubt grab a couple here, we have the players who can do it, but we'll also chuck in some daft goals from set-pieces. That's just how it is and there's nothing we can do to fix it.

A good result - credit to the players for seeing it over the line. I look forward to the fourth-round draw. A money-spinning away tie away against a big boy, or one of the last remaining jobbers at home, please!

We've been turned over and embarrassed by non-league opposition in the past - Preston Athletic, Threave Rovers and East Kilbride spring to mind - so it's not outwith the realms of possibility and given how poorly we've looked in recent weeks, especially against Stranraer and Bonnyrigg Rose, Formartine should be coming into today's match with nothing to fear. That said, I would be very disappointed if we lose today.

After the overwhelmingly positive response on social media to the signing of Craig Bryson, someone in our media team got a little carried away and tweeted "#thisisouryear". It was subsequently deleted shortly afterwards following a small backlash. And just as well! Ay caramba!

I've no doubt that Stephen Swift will back himself and believes he can pull Stenhousemuir out of this tailspin and get the team back on track, but he must be one of the very few people who does. From the punters I've spoken to - my own friends, patrons in the Wee Bar, people in the ground, posters on this forum and on social media - everyone's in broad agreement that something needs to change.

I watched back Stephen Swift's interview following today's game against Bonnyrigg Rose and found it remarkable. "We're only two points off third and one point off fourth," he told Warriors TV. "I'm pretty sure with a couple of wins we'll see ourselves in a good position in the league." Our expectations for the season have been stealthily downgraded, from title challengers to play-off hopefuls, and that a top-four finish should be acceptable, despite the outlay on the squad. I also found Adam Brown saying in his post-match interview "the team showed great character to come away without getting beat" bizarre too and it feels like I'm being gaslit here and tricked into thinking I'm incorrect for believing we could have won the division. What a laugh this season's been, well and truly.

That was probably the worst performance I've seen from Stenhousemuir so far this season. We created little and other than the penalty and a few speculative pot-shots that came very close, we didn't really trouble a very limited Bonnyrigg Rose side. They're still the poorest team we've faced but they looked a lot livelier than our previous meeting and could probably have won the match when Kieran Mitchell, perhaps, was put through on goal and dragged his shot horribly wide. Bradley Barrett's equaliser was genuinely jaw-dropping, a stunner of the highest calibre, and one of the best goals I've seen at Ochilview in a couple of years. George Hunter was probably the best player on the park and could be a very useful forward indeed if he lost the puppy fat. I'm aghast at how bad some Stenny players were today. Callum Yeats, Ross Philp and Adam Corbett especially were wretched. They overcomplicated things, misread situations and either stifled promising breaks or presented the visitors with decent chances. Nat Wedderburn slowed everything down, Mikey Anderson and Mikey Miller didn't offer much, and Matty Yates started brightly before fading. Only Sean Crighton, Adam Brown and maybe Euan O'Reilly performed to their potential but on the whole, that was dreadful. After a good opening, where we looked to move the ball around on the deck, it descended into hoofing it forward, slinging it into the box, huffing, puffing, percentages, with no positive outcome. It was a rotten spectacle, the second half especially. That has to be the end for Stephen Swift. No wins in six matches and every display more dispiriting than the last. The longer today's game went on, the less likely we looked as though we could win it. The decision to remove Brown late on, immediately after he slipped in O'Reilly with a lovely reverse pass, was met with derision, and Swift was jeered off the pitch at the end. I can't think of any sound reason for keeping him on. I can understand he can't do much about some of the individual mistakes made today but ultimately he's the manager and the buck stops with him. It's not working - I don't think it ever has worked - and it's in everyone's best interests that it stops now.

Two of the most out-of-form sides in League 2 come head to head at Ochilview as Stenhousemuir face Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic. Stenny have taken just three points from their last five matches, losing their previous encounter at Stranraer, while the Rose have failed to win in their last four. Given how badly both teams have been playing of late, I'm expecting a horrid game that somehow features six or seven goals. Strap yourself in, baby! As mentioned on other threads, I'm pretty scunnered with Stephen Swift and don't think the team will reach its potential until he's moved on. Even so, I'm fully expecting a win on Saturday - Bonnyrigg are, by some distance, the worst side I've seen so far this season and there's no excuses if we don't get the victory. They're big lads who'll put themselves around and cause bother when they hurl the ball into the box, but they're one-dimensional and terribly unfit (I see they've recently employed a strength and conditioning coach but it feels six months too late). On our big pitch, we should have the quality and the legs to overcome them, even if we'll have to score at least three times to do so. Again, as spoken about elsewhere, our defending has been terrible so far this season, with systematic mistakes and individual errors seeing us concede goals at an alarming rate. Even a team as limited as Bonnyrigg will fancy themselves to get a couple. Judging from the weekend's post-match interview, Swift doesn't have an answer for it either, so our forwards will have to do their bit for the time being. Who knows how we'll line up? I'd fancy bringing Mikey Miller into the middle of the park to help shore things up and give us some of the energy we're missing. That does mean bringing Scott Walker in at right-back but that's probably a risk worth taking for the time being. Get Euan O'Reilly playing as an orthodox winger and not some daft left-sided striker, get him at their full-back and get him slinging balls into the area. And get Adam Brown starting, for Christ. - Matty Yates - - Adam Brown - - Euan O'Reilly - Nat Wedderburn - Mikey Miller - Ross Philp - - Callum Yeats - Sean Crighton - Adam Corbett - Scott Walker - - Conor Brennan - Home win. Anything else and it's curtains for Swift.

There's a couple of points in there that I disagree with there. Stephen Swift can sometimes come across as aloof and hasn't done much to engage with supporters but I don't think he can be accused of lacking passion. It's quite clear he cares about this team and he's working hard to address his side's weaknesses and find solutions to our ongoing problems. (Admittedly, these are problems of his own making, but still.) Ross Forbes has actually been alright in recent matches but it's glaringly obvious he doesn't have the legs or the willingness to get around the pitch. So to pair him in central midfield with Nat Wedderburn, another player who doesn't have the legs or the willingness to get around the pitch, is incredible. The pair offer very little without the ball and in the second half against East Fife, for example, we were exposed through the middle numerous times whenever we lost possession and the game turned over. Who's responsible for selecting these players? We've used five goalkeepers under Swift and, with the exception of Peter Urminsky, they've all been dreadful. Conor Brennan is probably the best of a bad bunch by virtue of his ability to "make saves" but he can't command his area, he can't deal with set-pieces and his distribution is poor. After last year's travails, we knew we had to come into the new season with an outstanding number 1; my heart sank when Brennan was the first signing of the summer. Who's responsible for bringing in these goalies? I also disagree with your final point about a possible gung-ho team selection. The XI lacks balance as it is, and that's in a much more orthodox set-up; I'd hate to think how many goals we'd ship in your attacking 4-2-4!

You are indeed!

I think that's the most frustrating aspect of the situation - after three consecutive seasons where League 2 had an immediate title favourite, there was a far more level playing field this time around and I reckon five or six sides might have seen themselves as legitimate contenders, us included. So to be so far behind Dumbarton at this stage is hugely disappointing and my expectations have been downgraded to a play-off push. The board have given Stephen Swift every possible advantage to try and win that elusive championship - we've paid transfer fees for players, most of the squad are likely to be on relatively good wages, we've put together a team of analysts, we've built a scouting department - but this side feels no further forward than it was 12 months ago. Who's to blame for this? A large proportion of the blame has to be laid at the manager's door. What are Swift's qualities? He's certainly brought some very decent players to the club; his teams are always capable of scoring goals (Stenhousemuir have the joint-second-highest record in the division so far this season); and he's been working hard to address our weaknesses, calling in favours from the likes of Jim Duffy to help work on our defending. But his deficiencies - the inability to build a balanced squad, the inability to create a functioning defensive unit, the inability to sign a good goalkeeper, the inability to recruit a high-calibre midfield anchor, the inability to put together a cohesive performance across 90 minutes - outweigh the positives. Coming into the new campaign, I think most supporters were prepared to give Swift some degree of patience (even if the "we signed a brand new group of players!" excuse didn't wash, especially when we had numerous opportunities to usurp a mediocre Edinburgh City side for the final play-off place). He'd had over a year to get to grips with the rigours of League 2, a far more competitive division than he'd ever experienced with BSC Glasgow, and I thought we'd be in a decent place for the season ahead. That hasn't been the case and the same errors that dogged us last time around are glaringly apparent once again. Some of the players have to take responsibility, of course, but the buck stops with the person who brought them to the club, coaches them every week and sets them up on matchday. It's not working - I don't think it ever really has worked - and a change might be in order to make sure we're in the top four come the end of the season.

Once again, it feels like we're entering end-of-days territory with Stephen Swift. We've been here before - the first quarter of last season when we were bottom of the table, and maybe towards the end of the campaign when we failed to overtake Edinburgh City for the final play-off spot - but something about this period all feels a bit grimmer and a bit more inevitable. Last season, Swift explained away our fifth-place finish by pointing out that virtually the entire squad had been brought together that summer and was still in the process of gelling; what's the excuse now? How come we're still no further forward under his management? We've taken three points from the last five matches. We've conceded 12 goals along the way. We're now 13 points from the top of the table and have the worst defensive record in the division. We've spent good money on pulling together this group of players and, on paper least, we have one of the best squads in League 2 (albeit an unbalanced one). But Swift is failing to get anything cohesive out of his team and I can't think of any good reason to keep him on. Time for a change.

I'll look forward to reading the reports from those who attended the match but, for someone observing the game via social media, to watch Stranraer have a man sent off and then immediately score their third, decisive goal, sums everything up. Stephen Swift is running out of time because this just isn't working at the moment.

Hello all, this is a polite (and final!) reminder that A View from the Terrace is on tonight. Please switch on the BBC Scotland @ 10:30pm for a great big laugh about Scottish football. I hope as many of you as possible can tune in - I understand it's a great episode this evening. Thank you!

I suppose I've used the term "target man" in an abstract way - I wasn't referring to a big man to thump long balls up to and battle with defenders, I was mean Yates is a target man as he's very good at playing with his back to goal, taking in passes and popping them off to his team-mates. I do agree that he needs players around him, as was the case in our win over Bonnyrigg Rose where Euan O'Reilly and Adam Brown were a good foil to him.

I'd disagree about the side lacking focus up front - Matty Yates has proven him to be a superb target man and his link-up play is often very good. As for Callum Yeats, he'd started to cramp up towards the end of last weekend's match.

Another enormous match in the push for the play-offs take place on Saturday as Stranraer entertain Stenhousemuir at Stair Park. The last meeting between the sides was a pretty even contest, despite the Warriors winning 3-1, with only their prowess from set-pieces ultimately proving to the be the difference. Since then, Stranraer have bubbled along nicely enough, sometimes winning, sometimes losing; Stenhousemuir, meanwhile, have collected just three points from their last four matches and find themselves some distance behind the sides at the top of the table. There have been a couple of times where it feels as though we've reached the death throes of Stephen Swift's reign (the previous one was back in August, come to think of it) but he's somehow swerved it by putting together a handful of positive results and giving the impression we're moving in the right direction. The same thing is happening again and I worry that another mediocre showing (at a ground we always seem to struggle at, no less) could be his undoing. It's been written about numerous times but we're at the stage where we need to score two goals just to take something from a game. Chuck in the fact we're losing important goals late on - Annan Athletic, Stirling Albion and East Fife all scored at the death to snatch wins and draws from us - and it's a recipe for disaster. I'm not quite sure how I'd line up this team Dan Higgins will miss out but Sean Crighton should be back, so there's a straight swap in central defence right there. I'm not so sure what I'd do elsewhere. Maybe swap out Adam Brown for Will Swell? Get him up close to Matty Yates and running off his through balls? I don't know. I'd like to see Euan O'Reilly playing as an orthodox winger rather than some makeshift centre-forward. O'Reilly is at his best when he's hugging the touchline, taking players on and slinging in crosses. Just let him get on with it and don't be too smart about it! - Will Sewell - Matty Yates - - Euan O'Reilly - Nat Wedderburn - Ross Forbes - Ross Philp - - Callum Yeats - Sean Crighton - Adam Corbett - Mikey Miller - - Conor Brennan - Stenhousemuir need to win the game but given our form and our recent trips to Stranraer, I think it'll be a draw. If you've got low expectations, you can't be disappointed!

Nicky Jamieson, apparently!

I feel a bit sick after that. A point apiece was the fairest outcome given the overall balance of play but to lose an injury-time equaliser was devastating. It was a tremendous goal from Jack Healy and one that probably ends any hopes we have of challenging for the title. We're now 10 points from Dumbarton at the summit and I think this wretched run of three 2-2 draws and a defeat from our last four games means we're looking to finish in the play-offs instead. Our inability to defend properly and keep clean sheets is killing us and we cannot continue to have to score at least two or three goals every game to win. We've tried different systems, different combinations and we've brought in Jim Duffy (?) as a defensive coach but nothing seems to be working. We've conceded 25 goals, the joint-worst in the division! If Stephen Swift can't find a solution, it might be better to replace him with someone who can; I don't think he's getting the best out of this group of players. East Fife started the match well but Stenhousemuir settled into a nice groove around the 10-minute mark, one they'd maintain throughout the first half. They could have opened the scoring earlier when Matty Yates sent a glorious defence-splitting pass out to Ross Philp but Euan O'Reilly couldn't connect with the cross. Philp's goal was very well taken, with the wide man finishing superbly after a nice combination with Adam Brown. East Fife threatened sporadically on the counter but we were largely in control. The second half, however, was a different story, and East Fife looked dangerous any time they moved the ball into our half. Ross Forbes and Nat Wedderburn are good players in possession but useless without it and the Fifers seemed to bypass them at will, with Kieran Millar and Joao Balde increasingly influential. We had no answer to their persistent attacks and only wastefulness and poor decision-making stopped them from truly threatening. It wasn't until the 72nd minute that things heated up - the backline got in a right mess and Dan Higgins, just like he did at Stirling Albion, hauled his marker to the floor inside the box. The referee correctly awarded a red card and a penalty kick and Conor Brennan was on his backside before Alan Trouten rolled the ball into the opposite corner. I thought we would capitulate but almost immediately, we retook the lead. Philp forced Allan Fleming into a superb save and from the resultant corner, Mikey Miller bulleted home an excellent header. Trouten should have equalised but seemed off-balance and shot straight at Brennan from close range; Healy went one better in the 92nd minute, cutting in from the left and curling a shot into the corner of the net. He'd been threatening to do it all match and it was so dispiriting we allowed him the time and space to try it one final time. It was such a miserable sequence of events - O'Reilly lost possession cheaply in the corner, the Fifers broke upfield unimpeded and levelled. Incredibly, we could have won the match when Yates squirmed into the box but his low shot was stifled by Fleming then cleared off the line. East Fife are a decent side - I was impressed with them in our second-round Scottish Cup tie and I thought they did well again today. They're a little lightweight and lacking up front but they like to be on the ball and can shift it around well. There's certainly a lot of legs and enthusiasm in the team and they're a good shout for a top-four finish. What to say about Stenhousemuir? Yates is an excellent player and we're lucky to have him at the team; Callum Yeats played well upon his return from injury and gave us a new dimension on the left flank; and Philp turned his best performance since he joined the club on loan from Kelty Hearts. Everything else, however, is just the same systematic failings that have dogged us throughout the season. Special mention to Niyah Joseph and Mikey Anderson, two substitutes introduced with the intention of "shoring things up", but who somehow made us worse. Joseph chickened out of every block and tackle expected from him and Anderson conceded a series of cheap fouls and failed to get to grips with Healy at the death. Swift is the very definition of the phrase "you're only as good as your last game" and that was rubbish!

This is a polite reminder that A View from the Terrace is back on your screens tonight @ 10:30pm on the BBC Scotland channel. Apparently this evening's episode has "bold, strident opinions" and "something that almost resembles a half-decent joke", so please tune in!

The impression I've always had about Liam Brown's loan move to Stenhousemuir, and this is nothing but pure speculation, is that he's been used as a makeweight between the clubs to reduce Queen's Park's rent for Ochilview. There's zero chance that Lesser Hampden will be finished this season so the Spiders will be groundsharing with us for the foreseeable future, and moving on an out-of-favour player on agreeable terms would have seemed appealing to most parties. I say "most" because there cannot be any appeal for Brown to move to a middling League 2 team. He rejected a loan move to Alloa Athletic to win back his place in Owen Coyle's side, so it was an enormous surprise to see him drop down to a level well beneath his ability. The sentence in the statement about entering into the agreement with the player and his agent suggests Brown didn't fancy it. Stenhousemuir's statement is pretty definitive but it still raises a lot of questions about this transfer. We move on.

The club have posted an update about Liam Brown's situation: CLICK. Brown has an "ongoing medical issue" and is unlikely to feature for Stenhousemuir at all this season. I wish him all the best with his recovery and hope he's playing football soon. Nevertheless, it's very disappointing - on paper, he is the best player in the division and could have played a huge role in our supposed title challenge.

Will there be fireworks when Stenhousemuir and East Fife meet at the weekend? Probably not, but it still could be a decent laugh! It's fourth versus third in a repeat of the Scottish Cup second-round tie from earlier in the month. That was an entertaining contest and I expect more of the same on Saturday. Based on that encounter, I thought East Fife were one of the best passing sides I've seen this season and always looked to move the ball around quickly with one- and two-touch play, but they seemed a little soft-centred and naive at times, something we were able to capitalise on. I'm not 100 per cent sure who's available and who's absent for this one - Sean Crighton might be back but Callum Yeats and Nicky Jamieson are out for the foreseeable future; Nat Wedderburn limped off against Albion Rovers and I'm not sure how fit he is; and it would be nice to have some clarity around Liam Brown's situation because the conjecture and gossip isn't helping anyone. Regardless of how we line up, we really have to win this game to pull ourselves back into the title race, however remote that might seem. As we saw against Stirling Albion a couple of weeks ago, Stephen Swift has a tendency not to lose bigger games rather than try and win them and I hope that isn't the case here - we've beaten the Fifers twice already this season and we should be looking to make it three. I think we'll go with the same line-up and system that started against the Rovers: - Matty Yates - Tam Orr - - Euan O'Reilly - Ross Forbes - Nat Wedderburn - Ross Philp - - Scott Walker - Adam Corbett - Dan Higgins - Mikey Miller - - Conor Brennan - I'd be really disappointed if we don't win this one, all things considered. Let's go out there and make a statement!

I thought that was a decent game of football and a "good advert for the division". It pretty much played out as I expected it to, with the game ebbing and flowing in both directions, and both sides might feel unfortunate not to have won the contest outright. The Rovers probably had the better of the play but Stenhousemuir had a flurry of chances at the death and Niyah Joseph or Ross Philp should have tucked away one of their efforts. As I said in my first post, Albion Rovers are a far better side than their league position would indicate and I was especially impressed by Blair Malcolm and James Leslie. I think they'll be fine come May. Nevertheless, if you're serious about challenging for the title, you have to go and beat the team at the bottom of the table. A point isn't really any good, especially when the three teams above you all pick up wins. Having watched the highlights, I think both Rovers goals could have been preventable. Conor Brennan gets down late when trying to save Leslie's header (although he may have been unsighted) and we should have been far better in stopping the second - Ross Forbes and Mikey Miller were too slow in chasing back Charlie Reilly and blocking the cross and Philp didn't do enough to stop Calum Wilson from shooting. I appreciate it all happened very quickly so I don't want to be too critical. It's all just very frustrating. The strange thing is, I didn't think we played too badly over the piece (and I have to say, Matty Yates really is a superb wee player), we just let ourselves down at key moments. Neilly sums it up well - another season appears to be passing us by. On paper, I thought we had the best collection of players in the division and could go out and really make an impact, but it's all been in fits and starts and just when you feel like you've turned a corner, you get a poor result that leaves everyone confused and bewildered once again. There's still a long way to go, of course, but days like Saturday come around too often.