Durnford

The team will be out at their warm weather training camp soon wont they? I imagine we'll have a few trialists out there as well - shame there's no journo out there as well.

If the story about Martindale telling those, that weren't up for the fight, to call their agents; I wouldn't be too surprised to see a number of replacements coming in. TBH the way Devlin's gone off the boil recently makes me wonder if he's one of the ones seeking an out.

An interesting point; if this was say other business than football we could play him and he could train in South Africa or wherever; it would, in theory, be far easier to get him a temporary UK work visa as an existing employee. I do it all the time. Not sure how that works in the footballing world though.

Said at the time that I though the chances of getting Teto clearance were particularly slim as we'd use a visitor visa to get him into the country in the first instance instead of doing it the proper way. I believe Martindale said they'd used the same process for Lawell but we were fortunate there and, of course, Nigeria are a lot higher up the world rankings than South Africa so that was another hurdle. There are still ways of doing it but none are as easy as simply reapplying in my opinion. So long as we have a good legal team (?) and a supportive local MP.

Actually there's been a few of them. A Brazilian player who never got clearance (at the time of Barcellos I think), a French player who joined with Andreu (Luongo?) who was never fit enough to even make the bench plus the guy I think you're referring to who couldn't get into the country due to Covid restrictions

Didn't think Yengi had bags of pace when up against the Heart defence and probably needs to work on his ball control but looked pretty impressive with high balls into the penalty area. That being said I'm basing that on a relatively short appearance (not as short as Anderson's though) for someone that's just arrived.

And yet truly versatile players like Jack McMillan got shipped out to Partick?

As did I; first half we were rock solid (by our recent standards); not sure bringing Montano on for Parks in the second half worked; the others seemed unsettled.

For the Forrest goal it seemed that Hamilton was in two minds; firstly coming out for the ball and then changing to backing to the goal line. For the second goal it seemed like everyone switched off as they assumed the initial through ball was offside. Other than a vastly improved performance IMO

Personally I'd be prepared to feign embarrassment if only we were able to sh1tefest a 1-nil win

Normally I'd say it was ridiculous to suggest chucking a boy that we've never actually seem play before (or probably even train) straight into a team with a lot of players who he's never played with before but, then again, I wonder if the neutrals thought that's what happened against Motherwell with the entire defence. TBH I'm more worried about the second worst defence in the league facing up against the in-form striker.

Understood - actually some of the posts can be quite witty; interspersed by fishers and one or two bampots.

Happened last year with St Johnstone and I think there was one for Ross County - its the P&B way.

Don't think there's much doubt of that.

We've scored???? Shirley you cant be serious?

Even the most optimistic of us must think we're phuqued!

Suspect Nouble will be performing the Shinnie position of last game; leastways I hope that the case.

I also worry about persistently playing the back three despite it shipping more goals than any other side in the league. Maybe it'd work with a reliable steady back three like we had with GHL but most of our defenders seem to have struggle to make five games without going out injured or being dropped. Also, despite having so many defenders on the books we seem to consistently play other players in defensive positions where that's not really their forte. And, before I forget, Merry Christmas to everyone

Tend to agree that Martindale's press appearances haven't help our cause at all. Not only airing the clubs dirty laundry which can hardly motivate the team but all the desperate attempts to sell player; Nouble and Fitzwater before that seems to totally phuque up the form of the player in question. At the moment a lot more can be achieved by silent determination.

Better team until the goal went in and then the confidence of the entire team seemed to disappear. At the start of the second half we were really rank rotten. One thing I didn't understand is for large parts of the first half we were giving the Hibs right defense a torrid time. After the goal it seemed we decided to ease up o that and start to lose form. Above all I agree with several of the other posters here; any excitement in this game was totally cancelled out by VAR; in almost 60 years of watching live football I've never even considered giving up on the live game; the way its going there's more entertainment watching five minutes "highlights" on Sportscene.

Scoring a goal would be nice

Actually quite glad its off today; under the weather today and didn't fancy sitting in an all seater stadium for a couple of hours shivering my ####### off. We do have heavy duty covers but being situated in a valley doesn't really help. I seem to recall a few years back St Mirren (I think) tried out some sort of heated tent idea. Presumably it wasn't a success as, I believe they have reverted to undersoil heating?

Looking at the beeb; the weather forecast for tomorrow morning is light snow until noon.

At the risk of being seen as the prophet of doom, looking at the weather forecast, I have serious doubt as to whether Saturday's game will be on - unless we can find some way of warming up the ground. Maybe the ground covers can do enough if on early but then that means the team are unable to train.

Actually his new training routine can be found here: