sidofthesouth

Your scenario is plausible. One difficulty might be that WG would find it very difficult to go back to being just a player. I suppose the way round this would be making him player/assistant manager and letting him learn from a more experienced guy for a season or two.

I think those 50/50 scarfs would be a good seller for this friendly

The results Gibson is currently getting out of a very average squad are very impressive so far - long may it last. From the team that played tonight, Connolly, Cameron, Nditi and Cochrane will obviously improve the overall quality once they are back. Thought we might have seen wee McKechnie at some point tonight, but we can keep him up our sleeves for Morton. Although they both worked hard, the sitters missed by Roy & Soares could have cost us the game

1. Light Blue 2. Gold 3. Turquoise 4. Plain yellow 5. Patterned yellow

Forward planning. Wow! Connolly ( unlikely i know) and East next for 2 year deals please

Yes, its time that up and coming young coaches like Martin Rennie, Lee Bullen, Steven Glass, Dougie Imrie, Tam Courts, Sean Maloney, etc, got their chance instead of the same old faces. Wait a minute!

Personally I wouldn’t have O’Connor, Liddle or Gordon in the team. I would also play Wullie back at right back. Debayo, although he has a mistake in him, is otherwise decent compared to our other defensive options so would bring him in at left back and push Cooper into left mid. 4-4-2 Rae Gibson. Nditi. East. Debayo Paton McGrory. Todd. Cooper Connolly. Cameron

He was a fantastic player but has done nothing to suggest he will be a good manager. Would rather go with the guy Peter Murphy at Annan to be honest if Wullie wants to keep playing for a bit.

A compact 4-4-2 would do me for Willies first game. If Cochrane & Mackay still out ( and hopefully Connolly & Nditi available) I would go with something like: Rae Gibson. Nditi. East. Debayo Paton. McGrory. Todd. Cooper Connolly. Cameron

Great timing by the Dons, sack Glass just as Alex Neil gets a permanent job down south

Our defence gives me the fear

I agree, think we’re done. We really needed to bring in a bit of quality & experience in the January window and got neither.

It wasnt so much a recommendation that we go after Griffiths specifically, more a comment about how some clubs will spend additional money when they need to try and either go up or avoid going down

I see Falkirk have offered Leigh Griffiths £1500 per week to help with their promotion push. Thats around £25,000 til the end of the season. If only Queens had money like that lying around……

Yes, have to agree that young O’Connor struggled tonight again. Gave away a daft penalty and I think he was at fault for their 3rd goal when he missed his header. It seems that none of our January signings have made us any better, which is a really bad omen for us staying up. Cameron battled away well tonight and Todd and Connolly were bright in the 1st half. As others have said, Willie had to go into central defence to shore it up for the 2nd half and this made our midfield even weaker for the 2nd half. We sneaked a point at a tough venue, but it’s depressing to think the january window has come & gone and we havent improved the squad for the run in.

One of the issues for me is that the 3 guys we have brought in recently on loan are 21, 22 and 23. We were already one of the youngest squads in the league (if not the youngest) and have added no experience whatsoever. Dont know the exact figures, but i would imagine that Dunfermline team today had an average age probably 4 or 5 years older than us. Our experiment of going with a younger squad hasnt worked. We look naive, inexperienced and are being pushed around by most teams in this league.

Yeah, i get all that and its all about opinions at the end of the day. I just want us to get out of that cycle of having to try and identify & sign 15 championship standard players every season - its such a gamble and we invariably end up signing 5 or 6 that aren’t up to standard

This “not too fussed if he leaves” opinion seems to be the norm among Queens fans. I tend to look at things in a slightly different way. I know Cochrane hasn’t yet set the heather on fire, but i would say he is definitely a championship standard player. The more championship-standard players we retain in the squad long-term, the better our chances of survival and becoming a better team will be. I would say that the championship-standard guys currently are Rae, Gibson, Cooper, Todd, Connolly, Cochrane & McKay. Some have shown the potential to become good championship players - McGrory, East, Paton, Max Johnston, Nditi & Cowie - so again i would be keen for the majority of them to stick around and hopefully improve. The guys I would put into the “ not fussed if they leave” category would be Junior Soares, Roy, Liddle, Debayo, Joseph & (disappointingly) Fitzpatrick. McKechnie, McMahon & Chima come into the “ no idea” category! So, a very long-winded way of saying I would rather keep Cochrane.

Did u catch many of Gavins games in his 5-year spell with us?

It was a no-brainer for us to sign him, given the woeful quality of our striker options and how good he was last time. I guess your season can turn on such decisions….

Decent point for us

Literally, men against boys, unfortunately.

The Waterfront in Anstruther is good

Good post and some good points made. I think the BOD were also on record as saying they wanted to go with a younger squad this season, so again that may have influenced/dictated the type of player AJ was able to bring in. I think it has backfired, as we look disorganised & naive a lot of the time in this league, something that would be helped by having a better balance of experience in the squad

Yes, i thought it would be a stick on that Josh Rae would have got some game time in the recent Scottish & Challenge cup games. He looked decent before his injury and I’d like AJ to prioritise him over a loan goalkeeper. Its possible Rae could be a decent keeper for us for a few years, providing some much-needed continuity. My fear would be that if he doesnt get another chance in the first team before the end of the season he will be off and that will just add to the usual merry go round nonsense of having to replace 15 players each season.