Francesc Fabregas

That was, by some distance, the most entertaining game I've been to so far this season. Some brilliant goals, some slapstick defending, end-to-end action at the death; this match had a little bit of everything. I think a point apiece was probably the fairest outcome but Stenhousemuir should feel disappointed by the calibre of goals they're conceding on a weekly basis. Two were direct errors and the other was shabbily defended - if this side have any aspirations of challenging Dumbarton at the top of the table, they must cut out these stupid mistakes; on the evidence of what we've seen so far this season, I won't hold my breath! Elgin City's first and third goals were excellently taken - Kane Hester was tremendous this afternoon and turned in a five-star performance - but he was directly aided by two dreadful mistakes. Nicky Jamieson's poor start to the season continued when he failed to cushion a header back to his goalkeeper and let Hester in to finish, while Conor Brennan's shabby distribution and erratic decision-making played its part in the third. Brennan's always had a mistake in the post and it arrived today, booting the ball straight at Hester and then allowing himself to be lobbed. The second, scored by Russell Dingwall, was soft - the ball in from the right should have been cut out (Dan Higgins and Callum Yeats showed up badly here), Sean Crighton should have done better with Darryl McHardy at the back post, and someone should have been checking Dingwall as he loitered at the edge of the penalty box. It's a shame to be complaining about the calibre of Stenhousemuir's defending because their first and second goals were superb. Mikey Miller capped an excellent team move with a wonderful finish, curling the ball around Daniel Hoban with his left foot on the stroke of half time and Adam Brown's goal was terrific, a great shot that was destined for the back of the net as soon at left his foot on the edge of the area. There might have been a bit of debate about Crighton's late equaliser and whether or not his header crossed the line but the Warriors deserved it for their endeavours, if nothing else. The rest of the match was good fun, ebbing and flowing, and a "good advert for the division". Stenny were certainly better here than when the sides met in the Challenge Cup a couple of weeks ago, and we looked quality in spells, especially the opening 10 minutes, but we're a frustrating mob. We looked slow and static at points, Crighton was on the ball too much for my liking, and Stephen Swift took far too long to change things about. Euan O'Reilly should have been on the pitch far earlier than the 83rd minute. Who knows, we might see him against East Fife on Tuesday or Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic at the start of October. It's been a funny first quarter so far!

I'm not quite sure what to make of today's game. On one hand, I'm pleased Stenhousemuir collected their third win of the season, finally defeated Stranraer and moved into the top four; on the other, they turned in another anxious, disjoined display and made things a lot more complicated than they needed to be. In his post-match interview, Stephen Swift was delighted with what he saw but this seems to be a very generous interpretation of the match. It reminded me a lot of our encounter with Albion Rovers on the opening day where an inferior opponent had us pegged back for long spells and could have snatched something had they been a little more assured in front of goal. Stranraer were all over us in the second half without having a real cutting edge. It was a brutal, dismal game of football, a terrible advert for the lower leagues. Balls leathered long, big headers, poor touches, no control. There were a handful of nice moments, particularly Stenhousemuir's first goal and a flurry of passes that ended with an Adam Brown shot hitting the top of the bar but other than that, it was am ugly fare. I thought the match was over and done with in the first half, with Stenny taking a three-goal lead into the interview. The first saw Will Sewell prodding home Callum Yeats' low centre, and the second and third came courtesy of Nicky Jamieson and Sean Crighton respectively, both from corners. The scoreline perhaps flattered the home side because there wasn't all that much between the teams but the Warriors' ruthlessness from set-pieces was made to count. Swift mentioned Stranraer's lack of height and he had the players who could take full advantage. An injury to Dan Higgins just before the interval forced us to change things - Adam Corbett was expected to replace him but he fell injured again while warming up, meaning we had to reconfigure the whole team, starting the second half with a back four. The change in shape did not work and Stranraer looked threatening any time they got on the ball, tearing through the midfield time and again. I thought Dylan Forrest and Matty Grant played well for Stranraer, Grant especially, and he gave Yeats a difficult afternoon before his dismissal. Their goal came shortly after the restart when Stenny failed to clear their lines and James Hilton smashed the ball home from 12 yards. All of a sudden, Stranraer were dominating the match but just couldn't find a breakthrough. Stenhousemuir brought on Euan O'Reilly, who went past Scott McLean a couple of times, but fluffed a great opportunity to set up Tam Orr when he melted in a cross instead of slipping it across the deck. But make no mistake, this was a terrible game of football overall. Jamieson was probably the best player on the park and Matty Yates did his best to get Stenny going but that's about it. Two consecutive wins should quieten any dissenters for the time being but I don't think it's unfair to be expecting better from this group of players. Three points gratefully accepted and we move on to next week.

All the very best to Craig Bryson - I wish him well in the next stage of his career. I wonder how his wage will be reinvested in the squad? We're now light in the middle of the park, so I imagine we'll be recruiting a direct replacement and, as always, I'd like to see us bring in someone to play on the right wing.

Stenhousemuir's record against Stranraer is dreadful. I didn't realise how bad it was until I checked - their last win over the Blues was in 2017. Based on last season's meetings - three abject embarrassments - I'd leave this one well alone!

Dan Higgins did okay-ish last weekend; Adam Corbett wasn't fit enough to participate; and Ross Forbes assisted our opening goal with a corner.

I think you've mixed up the Terrace Podcast (which published this interview with big John and produces around five podcasts per week across its main and subscription channels) and Tell Him He's Pelé (which is very much in the mud).

Great podcast, would highly recommend it!

The sixth game of the league campaign sees Stenhousemuir FC taking on their bogey team, their bete noir, their kryptonite: they're taking on Stranraer! Uh-oh! It's fair to see the Warriors were comprehensively embarrassed by the Blues almost every time they met last season, with three of the four fixtures ending in humiliation; it might be fair to say those three matches were the team's worst displays under Stephen Swift. Things are a little different now, and the Blues lost some of their best players over the summer (Matty Yates, Ayrton Sonkur, Tam Muir), but they appear to have handled things reasonably well with one win and three 2-2 draws so far - a good return for a side expected to struggle. I am, quite frankly, approaching this encounter with some degree of trepidation, hoping for the best but expecting the worst. Swift's tactics of throwing ideas against the wall and hoping that something might stick appeared to have paid off yesterday after his untried three-at-the-back system delivered a competent performance and a deserved 2-1 win over Forfar Athletic. As I said in another thread, I'm not sure if this will work out in the long term, but it did well enough yesterday and is probably worth pursuing with for the time being. We did looks reasonably sturdy, even if Conor Brennan had to make a number of decent stops and the centre-backs were chucking themselves in front of goal-bound shots, but I worry about the lack of protection in midfield afforded by Ross Forbes and Nat Wedderburn, something we saw in the second half, and there's no place for Euan O'Reilly here. I remember last season we deployed a back three at a sodden, wind-swept Cliftonhill to defeat Albion Rovers, then did the same the following week at home to Cowdenbeath and played terribly, going down 2-0 before changing the system when it was far too late. I've got a bad feeling the same kind of thing's going to happen on Saturday, followed by "good honest chats" and something new from Mick Moore's laminated pages of tactics at East Fife. We'll put out the same team as we did at Forfar: - Will Sewell - Matty Yates - - Adam Brown - - Callum Yeats - Nat Wedderburn - Ross Forbes - Mikey Miller - - Daniel Higgins - Nicky Jamieson - Sean Crighton - - Conor Brennan - Swift's position is still under scrutiny and only a win will really do here. I'd like to think we can beat Stranraer but who knows what to expect anymore under this Conservative government!

No. I didn't think Stenhousemuir were shite at all. Forfar, yes; Stenhousemuir, no.

Fair play to Stenhousemuir FC today. That wasn't the most convincing of performances but it was a positive result and a step in the right direction. A good first-half display was followed by a gritty showing in the second, followed by an unnecessarily anxious ending. I'm still not sure about Stephen Swift, and I don't think a three-man defence is viable in the long term, but the three points was gratefully accepted. Our two first-half goals effectively sealed the contest. The first saw Nicky Jamieson stoop to head home a corner kick from close range; the second saw Will Sewell out-pace Andy Munro and score with a sensational finish, angling the ball across Marc McCallum and into the net. It was a really deft strike and I hope there are more to come from him. The second half was scrappy, with neither side showing much fluency, until Craig Slater's late free-kick hit the post and Robert Nditi reacted quickly to prod home from close range. It was the fourth goal we've conceded from a set-piece in the league and it set up a nervous finish, but Stenhousemuir largely kept their hosts at bay. Forfar Athletic are the worst side I've seen in the division so far this season. I thought they were the poorest side we encountered last time around and nothing has changed. McCallum is a good goalkeeper and he made some brave, decisive saves, and Craig Slater is a superstar midfielder, but the rest look less than the sum of their parts, somehow - they're a poor defensive unit and light up front. I find it remarkable that Gary Irvine is still in employment because there's no indication this club are moving in the right direction under him. Stenny weren't amazing but I was pleased with the performance of individuals like Nicky Jamieson (the best player on the park), Mikey Miller and Callum Yeats, as well as the impact of substitutes Mikey Anderson and Tam Orr (who probably should have scored). All five have fallen below the standards the set last term and I hope, to quote Swift, that "the season starts now". They're good players and a lot is, rightly, expected from them. Elsewhere, Sewell and Matty Yates played well in the opening spells before falling away as the game drifted on, Clangers Brennan made some decent saves, and Nat Wedderburn put his big frame to good use to waste time at the death. When I saw the team and the formation, I thought Swift was done for but this result has bought him another week at least. I'm not sure if his tactics won us the match, or if Forfar are such a poor side that we'd have got the victory anyway, but fielding Dan Higgins at right centre-back isn't the answer, that's for sure. I expect us to line up with the same system against Stranraer next week, and to lose, somehow. Football, bloody hell!

I wasn't excited; I was pretty wary about Ross Forbes' addition. I haven't been disappointed because he's performed how I expected him to. Ross Forbes in theory is much more palatable than Ross Forbes in practice. One of his final games for Dumbarton was a man-of-the-match performance against Edinburgh City in the League 1 play-off final, where he dominated the match and had a hand in every one of their goals. Sons fans, however, advised us that this kind of display was very much the exception and we should be cautious. And they were right! We've had one good 45 minutes from him against Forfar Athletic on Boxing Day; other than that, he's waddled around the pitch to little effect. There's no real place for him in this team. He's no use without the ball and doesn't want to get stuck in (Dumbarton's third goal at the weekend is a perfect example). His much-lauded prowess from free-kicks has yielded two goals against Benburb and Syngenta, two powerhouses of the game, in pre-season friendlies last summer. He's too soft and immobile to play in the middle of the park, and Nat Wedderburn's better in there anyway, and he's not speedy in thought enough to play as a 10. So the only area he can occupy a strange position on the right of an attacking three where he can cut onto his left foot and pump balls into the box, which has yet to pay off. He is quite good at keeping possession, to be fair to him, but that's about it. A poor signing, on a two-year contract, no less. Stephen Swift says he has "100 per cent faith" in players like Forbes; God only knows how.

I'm not sure how the board can be criticised over Stephen Swift's appointment, in all honesty - he was the right profile, a young, up-and-coming manager who had enjoyed a relative degree of success in the Lowland League and deserved a chance in the SPFL. I think we were all broadly in agreement about him at the time, it just hasn't worked out. (I do accept, however, hiring the likes of Colin McMenamin and Davie Irons was a little lazy on the board's part, from an outside perspective.) And let's have it, at this level, you're either going to get a novice starting out, or, someone with a few black marks against their name. This candidate with a "decent record" you're looking for probably isn't out there.

I know we described tonight's SPFL Trust Trophy match with Elgin City as a kickabout and that its result was largely inconsequential but that was another underwhelming performance, replete with another series of comedy goals. The first saw the home side spring an apparent offside trap, with Dan Higgins standing with his hand in the air as Kane Hester strolled through and scored after his first effort was block. Jake Dolzanski doubled Elgin's lead shortly afterwards with a looping header at the back post, and Russell Dingwall completed the rout when Hester robbed a dawdling Craig Bryson and slipped him in to finish superbly. Every goal was preventable, especially the first and third. If you want to be charitable, you might say Elgin opened the scoring against the run of play, but we were hardly dominating the proceedings or putting them under any real duress. And yeah, we did create some chances as things petered out, and Tam Orr did score a neat consolation, but it doesn't really count if you only start playing well when the game is beyond you. In his pre-match interview on the Stenhousemuir website, Stephen Swift said that tonight's fixture was the perfect opportunity to bounce back from the weekend's loss to Dumbarton and that our fringe players had the chance to stake a claim for a starting spot; to me, this evening has shown that Higgins and Niyah Joseph are not good enough and cannot be trusted, Bryson isn't offering us anything, and Swift is one step closer to the exit door. Matty Yates looked the part when he was introduced, as he always tends to do, but this is a team who are going through the motions and, at worse, don't look as though they're playing for the manager anymore. That's now four consecutive defeats. Looking at Swift's time in charge of Stenhousemuir, from the tail end of the miserable 2020/21 campaign to now, there's only been two periods where we've looked the part (the five-game winning run between October and November last year; the six-game unbeaten streak from the end of January to the start of March). We've been poor for large spells, passed up numerous opportunities to get into the play-offs, and started new season in terrible form. I had high hopes coming into this campaign and believed we had the tools to win the title. It looks like I've overestimated how good a team we have and I've overestimated the manager's ability to build a squad and learn from his mistakes. I can't see things turning around, I'm sorry to say. I don't things have ever been facing the right way under Swift, come to think of it. A change might be in everyone's best interests.

Here we go! It's a meeting between two of the most under-performing and under-pressure managers in League 2 as Forfar Athletic welcome Stenhousemuir to Station Park. Gary Irvine's Loons have been in mediocre form since about December of last year, while Stephen Swift's position is in danger after his side lost their last three consecutive league matches. As my esteemed associate Neilly has said elsewhere, this fixture feels like it has a real "loser leaves town" stipulation attached. Swift's predicament is a more complicated than just a poor run of form - his team looks slow and confused and unable to execute his apparent tactical plan, while conceding embarrassing goals on a game-by-game basis - and a poor performance and negative result might just finish him off. Preparations for this match are disrupted by Tuesday night's SPFL Trust Trophy clash with Elgin City but I imagine we'll be fielding a shadow side in midweek, with our big guns held in reserve for Forfar. Even then, it's difficult to work out who'll be playing and what kind of formation we'll start with because, already, we're in the throwing-shit-against-the-wall territory in the hope we'll alight on something that might work. In some regards, it's probably easier to look at the players who'll miss out on Saturday. Scott Walker was dire at right-back (and then left-back) against Dumbarton, Nat Wedderburn could probably do with some time on the bench after his recent performances and Tam Orr was poor leading the line. Adam Corbett should come in at right-back, Mikey Miller should be restored to the starting XI and Will Sewell should partner Matty Yates up top. It's easy enough to have a pop at the manager but a number of the senior players need to step it up a bit and justify the faith and outlay we've given them. Why not try something like: - Euan O'Reilly - Matty Yates - Will Sewell - - Mikey Miller - Mikey Anderson - Adam Brown - - Callum Yeats - Nicky Jamieson - Sean Crighton - Adam Corbett - - Conor Brennan - I don't know what to expect here. I really hope we get the win and turn in an improved performance that acts as a catalyst for the rest of the season, but I have my doubts. I'll see you all there!

It's perhaps worth pointing out the calibre of the goals we're losing this season. We've conceded eight so far and aside from Stirling Albion's first and third goals last weekend, they've been embarrassing. If we're not letting the opposition help themselves, it's patently clear there are big issues in dealing with set-pieces, with three coming against Annan Athletic and Dumbarton from dead-ball situations. I've just watched back the highlights from yesterday and I can't believe what I've seen. The Go Pro cameras behind the goals (an excellent addition, by the way) sum up how rotten they were from our perspective. Who's taking charge here? Who's making sure this isn't happening?

It's not looking good for Stephen Swift. Three consecutive defeats from has left us in a precarious position, even at this early stage, and we might need to recalibrate our expectations already. I think this was the first season since 2005/06 that I thought we could mount a title challenge but that's looking increasingly unlikely on the evidence we've seen so far this season. I've said it before in numerous posts but our defenders are being asked to do things they're uncomfortable with, our midfield is unbalanced and lacks creativity, and our forward line lacks presence. We've only performed well in short spells, most notably the games against Annan Athletic and Dumbarton, most notably when we were already two goals down. Given the obvious outlay on the playing staff, it's not really good enough. Last season was undoubtedly a disappointment but Swift could perhaps be given the benefit of the doubt after having to assemble a virtually brand new group of players (and even then, it's still a bit of a stretch given the number of opportunities we had to overtake Edinburgh City in the final play-off place). This time around, he retained the core of last term's squad and apparently added quality, including a former Scotland international and someone who'd scored 41 goals in his previous campaign; on paper, we had done the best business in the division. For the first time in three years there was no monied, obvious favourites for the title, and we looked the most promising out of an uninspiring bunch. There really were no excuses. While Swift has been able to attract good players, squad building seems to be a perennial problem, with too much of some things and not enough of others. This means our team lacks balance and we're compromising in certain areas to accommodate players. I thought he might have learned after last year's struggle but this time around we have too many players who liked to operate through the middle, and we haven't brought in a specialist right-winger. And, just like last season, as the manager tries to find a successful combination, personnel and systems are being chopped and changed on a week-by-week basis in the hope that something might work. We've already used three different players at right-back in four matches! I don't think he knows what his best starting XI is - but then, who does? What's our best formation? It's hard to believe that, 12 months on, little has changed and we're all still scratching our heads at how we can make this work. And Neilly's right, some (most?) of the players require a period of introspection after the kind of performances they've turned in over the past month. In today's post-match interview, Swift said the players are lacking in confidence, but these are largely experienced SPFL campaigners who have enjoyed varying degrees of success elsewhere. Just what is going on? As bad as some of them have been, however, the buck stops with the manager - he's the one who brought them together, he's the one who's encouraging them to play the ball out from the back, he's the one who signed Ross Forbes on a two-year contract and still hasn't figured out how best to use him, and he's the one who deploys Tam Orr as a back-to-goal striker, despite him having a chaotic first touch. Iain McMenamy's tweet early tonight is ominous but Swift will know this current run is nowhere near acceptable and that his position is under threat. I don't know what the tipping point will be - I suspect we'll see a fringe side fielded in the SPFL Trust Trophy against Elgin City on Tuesday night, with the outcome being pretty inconsequential, but a loss and another poor performance against Forfar Athletic might finish him. I hope this isn't the case and we can use today's defeat as a turning point. I just want to enjoy watching my football team!

Fair play - those are the three worst goals a team is likely to concede all season. Dumbarton's third, where Finlay Gray was allowed to run, unchecked, for 70 yards and have two opportunities to score, is the most pathetic, most pitiful I've ever seen Stenhousemuir concede. It felt like the death rattle of some miserable failed regime, not the fourth league game of a new campaign, and it's difficult to see how Stephen Swift comes back from this. He made numerous changes to the side that lost at Stirling Albion, he altered the formation and approach, and we still looked slow, ponderous and out of ideas against a fairly ordinary opponent. I don't think Dumbarton were tremendous but aside from our second-half goal, we didn't ask a them a single question. Gregor Buchanan and Stuart Carswell are limited defenders but they sailed through the match and barely allowed Tam Orr a kick. Aron Lynas was good at full-back and Gray looks like a tenacious little player and bounced back after being chucked around by Nat Wedderburn. They took their time to get into the match but they competed well and scored at all the right times. The high point was John Gemmell's introduction, the big man wearing the 99 jersey like some daft jobber from Serie A, and I'm pleased he's back in the big time; he could be a useful asset over the course of the campaign. Stenhousemuir started well enough, knocking the ball about, albeit without offering any real penetration, but began to wilt as soon as the Sons sussed them out. The opening goal, scored directly from a corner kick, was one of many shambles this afternoon. Conor Brennan has shown himself to be a good shot-stopper but there's always a feeling a mistake is in the post, and so it proved when he missed his punch on Ryan Blair's corner and allowed it to sail into the net. The second goal came from a long throw and somehow tumbled inside the box before deflecting off Martin McNiff's knee. There seemed to be a sense of disbelief when the ball bounced across the line. The Warriors made a couple of changes and pushed forward (and it's dispiriting that team have looked at the best this season when trying to salvage a two-goal deficit). Euan O'Reilly's consolation might have come from a goalkeeping error but the interplay between him and Adam Brown in the build up was sublime. We couldn't build on it, despite throwing men forward, before Gray's netted the third at the death. Virtually the entire Norway Stand emptied. It might sound a little perverse, but the third goal was a relief. Had Stenhousemuir finished strongly, narrowly losing, Swift could have spun the defeat as a sign that his players are doing the right things, his system and his formation is the right way to proceed, and everything will click at some point soon. But the way Gray gathered the ball, motored through several half-hearted challenges, and scored at the second time of asking, obliterates any of that, and he's now under real pressure to turn around this appalling start, the second appalling start he's made to a campaign as Stenny manager. I'd like to say I'm looking forward to his post-match interview on Warriors TV but the important questions are rarely asked and bizarre non-sequiturs put to him instead. I don't have much faith in him, if I'm being honest. He's brought some good players to the club but this team is unbalanced and lacking in some important areas and probably needs additions to bring it up to standard. What a terrible showing that was today; what a terrible season it's been so far.

Big Match John turned in one of the best individual performances I've ever seen from a Stenny player in our Scottish Cup win at Annan Athletic in November 2013. We were two goals down and looked hopeless until he took matters into his own hands, scoring our first and assisting with the other three. He could frustrate the life out of me but when he had the fire in his belly, he was a smashing big player.

He also brought him back in mind mid season. Goes under radar. Again, to be fair to the manager, he had no choice but to bring Marshall back into the team - Davie Wilson's form had declined so badly that a change had to be made. Big Peter Urminsky came in shortly afterwards and Marshall was never seen again. Swift really does seem to have a blind spot for his goalkeepers. Marshall was probably the worst I've ever seen at the club, Wilson was never going to be anything more than an emergency back-up and although Conor Brennan's capable of making good saves, he's doesn't seem great at anything else!

To be fair to Stephen Swift, Ryan Marshall was immediately dropped after that Kelty Hearts game. Yes, he'd been poor in his previous appearances but that was the match that broke the camel's back!

It was! If I remember correctly, your kit man at the time pitched up without a second lot of shirts and asked if we could wear our away kits to accommodate Dumbarton. We refused, and the Sons had to play in our horrid "Argentina"-style tops. When Forbes stood over that second free-kick, my heart sank. Ross Forbes is a lot better in theory than he is in practice and we have yet to see his best at Stenhousemuir. He doesn't offer much and I'm still gobsmacked we gave him a two-year deal when he joined the club last summer.

I'll be honest, I'm a little anxious going into this game. After three performances that have ranged from "underwhelming" to "dreadful", that new-season buzz has well and truly worn off and I'm concerned that a negative result against Dumbarton could see Stenhousemuir adrift in the title race already. We have a backline that looks ramshackle and uncomfortable being asked to build from the back and an unbalanced midfield that seems less than the sum of its parts. Our manager appears to be second-guessing himself already and has an aversion to fielding our most threatening player from the start. Needless to say, it's a bit of a mess. The Sons are, quite clearly, not a team to be trifled with. They've signed well in the summer, there are some quality players in their ranks and, even although there are some obvious question marks over Stevie Farrell, he's made a good impression so far this season. I don't know how we'll line up - there are five or six players whose place in the team is secure, while the rest are mixed and matched from time to time - but, once again, it goes without saying that Euan O'Reilly should be in the starting XI. Feed him the ball, let him run around with it, see what happens. One thing's for sure, we'll need to see an upturn in performance because I think some supporters are a bit fed up already.

Fair play to Daniel Higgins - I now have an answer to the question: "what's the worst individual performance from a Stenhousemuir player you've ever seen?" His three minutes on the pitch really had to be seen to be believed. In the second minute, he failed to get tight to Dale Carrick and allowed him to turn and crash a shot into the roof of the net; 60 seconds later and he got on the wrong side of Robert Thomson, dragged him to the ground, and got himself sent off. Higgins was absolutely atrocious today and left us with an enormous task ahead. Chasing the ball around in that kind of heat a man down must have been soul destroying. I don't think Stirling Albion are a particularly good team - their forwards aside, they seemed slow and ponderous and lacked ideas - but that was a bit of a gentle pumping, all in. Conor Brennan made a number of tremendous blocks that kept us in the match and, briefly, I thought we were going to come back into it when we created a couple of decent openings after the interval. But Thomson's goal, stabbed home after some rotten defending shortly after our missed chances, more or less killed it off. I left after Carrick charged through some mimsy tackling to get his side's third. I'm sure Stephen Swift will say the match was ultimately decided by the red card but I think his team selection and his substitutions didn't help. I was surprised to see Higgins starting - someone suggested it's because he's better at passing the ball out from the back - but what's the point when everyone knows he's not really up for being get shoved around by Carrick and Thomson? Why break up the axis of Sean Crighton and Nicky Jamieson? Why leave Ross Forbes on the pitch, a player who can barely move in a moderate climate, on a scorching afternoon and withdraw Adam Brown, one of the few players in the team who can actually carry the ball? Why start with Euan O'Reilly on the bench? There are some decisions I just can't get my head around. Today was another example of the management team overthinking things. It was a hard shift today, all in, and some players deserve praise - Brennan, despite looking a little iffy at cross balls, was solid; Callum Yeats did his best to get things going from left-back; and Matty Yates was a real livewire in attack, even if it didn't always come off for him. I didn't think Crighton or Jamieson played well and the latter could have done a lot better for the second and third goals, while Craig Bryson didn't impose himself on the game despite a couple of neat touches here and there. Three games in and we've seen two mediocre performances and a bit of a bleaching. I've got a bad feeling about the upcoming fixture with Dumbarton and it feels like we're at the same stage we were 12 months ago, where the manager struggling to figure out his best XI and preferred system and his team playing poorly. He needs to find a solution quickly because we're not really seeing value for money here.

If Nicky Jamieson is to miss out on Saturday, I suspect Adam Corbett will be moved to centre-back, with Mikey Miller taking his place on the right. Corbett was excellent alongside Sean Crighton in the win at Montrose (and, oddly enough, is best "footballer" we have from our pool of defenders), while Dan Higgins missed almost all of pre-season with an injury and I'm unsure just how fit is to be unexpectedly parachuted into this important fixture. As well as the problems we're having passing the ball out from the back, we also might consider what happens when teams are able to nullify Nat Wedderburn. Stranraer did it superbly last season when they beat us 3-1 at Ochilview, when Scott Robertson was pushed high up the pitch to disrupt Wedderburn's ability to turn, create space, and pick a pass, and Annan did it at the weekend through the excellent Benjamin Luissint (and indeed, that's where their decisive goal came from). I'd hate to think we're an easy team to suss out and play against but we do appear to be a little one-dimensional. Food for thought!

The third fixture of the campaign sees Stirling Albion entertaining Stenhousemuir at Forthbank, two sides who have both made underwhelming starts to their respective seasons. The Binos were poor against Dumbarton in their opening match but showed a bit of spirit to get a point at Elgin City; Stenny, meanwhile, have turned in consecutive mediocre performances and fans are a little anxious following the weekend's loss to Annan Athletic. I think Stephen Swift will make a couple of changes for this one. His side were slow and sluggish at Galabank and played without positivity, so I'd like to see Adam Brown and Will Sewell brought into the starting XI. Brown always looks to carry the ball forward and is often a handy player in the final third, while Sewell's touch and movement could cause Stirling's lumbering defenders some problems. I'm not sure who should drop out to accommodate Brown, but I think Craig Bryson and Mikey Anderson are on thin ice after the last two games. It also goes without saying that Euan O'Reilly has to start - I can't fathom the thinking in keeping the most dangerous player in the squad in reserve. Why not go with: - Will Sewell - Matty Yates - - Euan O'Reilly - Adam Brown - Nat Wedderburn - Mikey Miller - - Callum Yeats - Nicky Jamieson - Sean Crighton - Adam Corbett - - Conor Brennan - That team looks good enough to get the better of our hosts. I'd also like to think we'll be a bit more pragmatic with our build-up play because, as we saw on Saturday, it takes one wayward pass from the back and suddenly it's fatal. I don't see why we can't win this, in all honesty, but we really need to see a marked improvement on the past fortnight, if nothing else!