smpar

Can confirm it was excellent.

That’s exactly what I did!

Trust your instinct on that one, I’d taken a sip or two out of it before the photo.

Watching the Birmingham Middlesborough game, Birmingham could be 3 up in the first 20 minutes alone. Darren Randolph looks both reliable and shaky at the same time, the EFL’s Ryan Scully.

The Quaich. Arguably the Southside’s best pint.

Sorry, I disagree with you here. I certainly don’t think anyone is “accepting mediocrity”, the impression I get from the games, highlights and reactions (posts etc) is that there’s a fair bit of frustration at our form, given the squad Crawford and Shields have assembled. I also think there’s (still) a fair bit of optimism about this squad; the players we signed in the summer seemed well thought out and carefully considered, as opposed to the usual carousel signings. For that reason, the players and/or management have been shown a bit more patience than previous seasons. For me, that’s certainly where the frustration (and perhaps confusion?) comes from - Crawford seems to have signed all the right players, with a good blend and balance of skills and qualities, but he’s been very poor at actually setting them up well. My instinct now is that Crawford has the potential to be a great coach, but he needs a manager above him to be setting them up and motivating them better. As for the club lacking ambition, I don’t see how that could be the case. As DA Baracus said, it looks like the board really backed Crawford by letting him build his own squad, spending a good few quid in the process where we wouldn’t normally. It looks like the club have a more long term plan for aiming for promotion, whereas it’s been the immediate aim every season since we came back up, and it hasn’t worked yet, in fact we actually regressed. Aiming for a solid, mid table finish this season and looking at playoffs or promotion in the following season or two doesn’t, in my opinion, show a lack of ambition. The gist of it is that Crawford is out of his depth as a manager, but clearly has an eye for a decent, promising player and I’d like to see SC and GS work with a more experienced manager. I doubt it, but whether or not the budget would allow for those two AND a manager is another question.

.tnuC

People who do lineups from left to right scare me.

Ryan for me. McCann is a promising prospect though.

“Powderpuff. Absolute powderpuff.” The guy was merely mumbling away to himself until he reached breaking point after Lewis McCann’s long range effort with a big fucking BOOOOO.

Trouten. Always Alan Trouten.

Also pleasing to see Bairnardo hovering about every Paul Paton-related post like a creepy weirdo.

Pretty decent chance you served a young smpar a weak pint and a buckie bomb in that case.

One of the few places up the town I got served despite being blatantly underage. Unrelated question, when did you work there?

Surely Caldwell can’t last much longer as Thistle manager, appalling result for them.

Jiggies shut down nearly 2 year ago.

The board showed serious reluctance to bin AJ, no chance is Crawford getting punted after 6 league games. I know we’re bottom of the league and the stats from the last dozen games or so make for horrific reading, but he’s just not getting sacked that early, at least I really cannot see it happening.

He won the Player of the Month as a left back, and for that reason I’d keep him there.

What makes you think Beadling would do a better job at fullback than Martin, and Martin at CB over Beadling? Apart from that I think you’re on to something.

Regarding my reply to Callum there, would a 5-3-2 work with Martin being one of 3 CBs? Comrie Murray*/Ashcroft Lang* Martin *when fit

This is the key bit for me. The main difference between Crawford and AJ is that Crawford has carefully assembled a squad, as opposed to AJ sticking to the players he knew and rarely deviating from that. Unless we’re in a dire position, which we’re admittedly not that far away from, Crawford should be given time to see a bit of improvement. After all, no reasonably-minded person expected any better than 5th/6th before the competitive games started, I think the decent group stage matches, the first half against Dundee and the game at Celtic raised our expectations unreasonably high. If the results and performances continue as they are then, aye, we should be looking elsewhere. For now, though, I’m just hoping to see some wins and decent performances very soon even though some shite performances and results are to be expected. Tl;dr - I’m prepared to remain patient with a bit of shite here and there, as long as we see an overall improvement and no immediate danger of relegation. Not for me.

I'm saying Cowden. One of their most successful seasons ever includes conceding dobule figures in a single match.

Watch the language, mate.

Always been a fan of Kiltie’s and I was very surprised when he dropped to the Championship (albeit for a loan spell) last season.