dextermorgan

Delighted with the result yesterday but in the past month or so I questioned as to whether our management team had done t enough research on their opponents, particularly with Kelty and FC Edinburgh. It appeared to me that they concentrated solely on their own style of play without digging much deeper. Yesterday it appeared that they had spent a good deal of time looking at Montrose's weaknesses beforehand (probably with Cammy's help). Whatever they did, worked a treat, especially moving LG to utilise his pace and leaving McMaster out. Same team next week hopefully, but I hope they do the proper research on Clyde as they are not as much of a soft touch as many might think.

Have to agree with that. It does look like the board have budgeted for fourth place with the current personnel in place. I think that many of us seen Rae and Ballantyne come into the squad and presumed that their would be more signings of this quality, unfortunately not. McCabe must hold his hands up however when we come to signings like the new Ally Roy (Jamieson) and the lack of physicality in midfield. I wont even mention Lyness.

The 'not clinical enough' excuse pre-dates McCabe. We have strikers who are 'happy' to hit the target but absolutely no-one with composure up front. To be honest we have not had a striker since Andy Ryan who we could rely on as a match winner. This was never so evident in May when Simon Murray came back to fitness and single handedly got QP promoted. Until we find a match winner up front then we will remain in the lower leagues in my opinion.

That is a great point and I'm surprised more supporters haven't mentioned it. Frizzell in particular is missed just now as he was found all over the park trying to regain possession. I'm sure Mccabe is well aware of this but the real test of a manager is whether he can motivate the likes of Jamieson and Telfer to work harder off the ball. Agree however that we are looking at a side who appear to have lost the 'desire' in general. I wonder if the players are now starting to realise that fourth place is the best we can hope for. It would appear that almost every one of the top six have improved greatly since the start of the season while our confidence from last year has all but disappeared.

I still believe that the management is fairly sound, despite the poor form recently. I do belive however that Mccabe's success depended on two factors. getting more of a 'cutting edge' up front and bolstering the midfield with a physical ball winner. On that note we have loaned Salim out and brought in Telfer who appears to be fairly anonymous. The QOS game summed it up for me in as much as we lose three goals at home and could have scored five or six. The trouble is that these issues are not easy to solve so far into the season with a threadbare squad.

From my point of view the game could have gone either way yesterday as Alloa are a decidedly mid table team. They also scored what are probably going to be their best goals of the season so I can't blame the defence too much. Trouble is, other sides like Edinburgh and QOS have noticed that we are weak in closing players down just in front of our box. This will have to be addressed before next week as you can be assured that Edinburgh will take advantage early on. What really disappointed me yesterday was not the midfield or defence but the reluctance of our players to work their keeper and the fact that when they got a shot away it was woefully weak or missing the target. This I'm afraid is just basic stuff...we can't rely on Gallagher for a two yard tap in every game.

The players and staff who would not get back to Airdrie untill about 9pm will be deilighted to spent Christmas eve with their families however.

McMaster is obviously a talented player and can only get better with age. Just now however, he is not what we need in midfield i.e. maturity, aggression and physique. Our manager is undoubtedly aware of this and for what it is worth I would play Ballantyne in there and have Watson at right back, at least Cammy can put a tackle in.

it's been like that for months. Basically BBC and Sky to a lesser extent don't put any real time or resources into maintaining the lower league web pages. The online betting sites do a far better job of the stats.

Can I just ask why we were coralled together into one section today? Surely it can't be down to stewarding costs. The QOS supporters numbered about 150 and I counted at least 8 stewards there. That's a better ratio than most schools offer. Are the club aware that we are at the start of a new wave of Covid?

From Wikipedia if it can be believed: Lyness returned to St Mirren on a two-year deal in June 2019, after leaving the club less than a year before,[48] however it was announced on 6th October 2022[49] that Lyness and St Mirren had, again, parted company. Good signing in my opinion, not because Henderson is poor, simply due to the fact that other sides will start to 'target' the young boy as we have seen with the winner at Alloa.

The second half tonight gave me some hope but it was short lived unfortunately. The game again showed up our glaring weaknesses in tems of a lack of a cutting edge with forwards who are not match winners. It also showed up in terms of a bare squad and a lack of quality in depth. Surely we would have given young Henderson a break by now, is Hutton really that bad? I can only suggest that a lack of signings may be down to a possible payout to Quitongo and not because there is no one better out there....who knows? Tonight was Ballantyne's worst game by far and forgive me for mentioning that his fitness/sharpness looks decidedly below par. Hard to take too many positives from tonight as it was apparent that Montrose stepped up the gears when they had to and we had no answer.

The one consistent factor this season whether we have won or lost is the failure to convert chances. This is the one worrying factor for me and the one deciding factor which I believe will dictate our position at the end of the season. Wasn't at the game yesterday but by all accounts we were lacking fight in the midfield area. I mentioned this after the Alloa game and it looks as though it is something that needs adressed very quickly. As for kelty, I think that they are looking at a top four finish with the quality they have in the squad. They will also use that tight pitch to their advantage and play accordingly, unlike us.

Watching tonight's game only confirmed a few things for me. Gal and Salim are pretty poor when it comes to hold up play, particularly when a long ball is played. Ben Wylie and Dean McMaster will not commit to serious ball winning in the middle of the park, McMaster in particular was guilty of this leading up to the Alloa goal. Henderson will one day be a very good keeper but he will no doubt have center halfs standing toe to toe with him at corners, especially after tonight. Alloa, despite the commentator's views are a fairly average side and even with their 'first eleven' we should be winning against them in every game. I would hope that the team returns to the one we see every week in terms of desire and urgency, starting at kelty!

Rhys did say at the start of the season that our style of play was 'High risk..High reward' and for the most part this season it has worked in our favour. This style of play is risky when it is 11 v 11 but almost suicidal in my opinion when we lose a player like yesterday. I'm sure Ryhs will have taken that on board but I don't believe that is where our issues lie. His style of play depends on benefitting from playing through the 'press' and hurting sides. When we don't do it regularly then we find ourselves in trouble. Yesterday again highlighted the fact that we squander too many clear cut chances and are 'shot shy' around the box. This, I'm afraid is where our downfall may be this season. Edinburgh showed with Robertson in particular how it should be done. Do we have a player in the forward line who is as dynamic and makes other keepers work?

This result will be forgotten soon but I sincerely hope that we learned from the game today. Even with 11v11 we could see that our build up play was too slow and pedantic and just like the cup game Edinburgh knew that they could hurt us on the break. To be fair, almost every ball fell for Edinburgh today and up until 3-0 I felt that we were still in the game. The crucial miss by Gallagher and the subsequent reply killed the game stone dead. I thought that we would then sit back and maybe give some of the subs some game time, not to be as we went full Murryball and paid the price. Wouldnt be too harsh on the players but let’s just say, some of them had their poorest game for the club. Jamieson I would single out however for his petulant and emotionally immature attitude. He tried to blame everyone else when he lost the ball and if things weren’t going his way. That is for McCabe to sort out however. We shouldn’t forget however that the Ediburgh side is full of players who have played at a higher level and possess a forward line who don’t try to walk the ball into the net.

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Delighted so far with the signings. It seems obvious that the board and manager have looked at where our weaknesses were last season and are looking to improve on these areas. With regard to max Currie in particular, I felt that he would have benefitted with better coaching. He seemed to have all the physical attributes but his decision making was dreadful at times and obviously needed work. Max, as people have said, was a great shot stopper. I agree, but you could almost feel the nerves from him when it came to the crunch games. I hope that our new signing is a step up, at least we have Hutton however who can push for a start if his form dips.

As I have stated in a previous post, Max Currie did not have real competition for his position. This in my opinion was disasterous for us in the end as we could have relied on a replacement for the play off games. Let's be honest, Max cost us big time when it really mattered, that is why he has moved on. Murray's goal for QP was almost a carbon copy of the Alloa/Henderson goal that Max lost some weeks before the finals and his decicion making up at Montrose was shocking. No harm to the guy but we could all sense his nervousness during the 'big' games .

You will find that Max Currie will be a good signing for you if you have real competition for the jersey. I personally thought that Max did not have the mental toughness required for 'big' games and did not show any signs of improving on this. The defence, like ours were this season, will be frustrated at times by his reluctance to leave the six yard box to claim simple balls. He is a great shot stopper and will be an excellent addition to the squad but I for one am not too unhappy to see him move on.

We will probably never know to what extent Murray was unable to influence the signing of players during his tenure. It would appear however that he had full control in the last season which was a joy to watch. This was in complete contrast to the previous seasons where I was convinced that he simply set his sides out to 'not lose'. The football was dreadful at times, despite having some exciting players. One thing you will notice is that his players will have to be fit or they will disappear very quickly. He has little patience for those guys who are not committed to the cause as many found out to their cost. He expects every player to defend when they don't have the ball so he has little time for forwards who don't track back, no matter how many goals they score. He should do very well at Raith, providing he has the full backing of the board and a bit of patience from the fans.

Happy to see Gal signed up for another season. Can't argue with his goal stats in this league but he is like every other player, he needs competition for his place. Hopefully we will see this soon in the form of a center forward who is more direct and has a bit of aggression about them.

This season like the last one ended in the same way for me. We had our ‘final’’ in the first playoff decider second leg as in Cove last season and Montrose this time. And like last year we were effectively undone by teams who were maybe not as skilful but were physically more powerful and aggressive. This was indeed typified in the last match with Jordan Allan facing up to the giant that is QP’s Fox. It is difficult to find fault with Ian Murray’s selection and signings this season however, as we have watched some of the best football from an Airdrie side in a long time. If I had to be critical however I would look to the fact that we did not have adequate cover for Currie. We badly needed a keeper who could realistically challenge for the position and keep him on his toes. Max is very good for this level but his weaknesses are more to do with how he handles pressure during the ‘big’ games. In this respect I feel that his lack of mental toughness has let him down. Disappointingly, despite having a goalkeeping coach, I could not really see any improvement in this respect. As for Gal, most sides in this division would sign him up in a minute. We have compared him to McAllister etc. but it must be remembered that he does not take penalties. If he did, he would more than likely to have been the league’s top scorer. Gal gets criticism for the fact that he is not a striker that ‘makes things happen’ when you are 1-0 down with 5 minutes to go. His skills lie in being in the right place at the right time as others have said. I look forward to August in the hope that whoever the manager is tries to build on all of the positives from this season. For me, part of the problem in failing to gain promotion every year has been the vast turnaround in playing staff. I believe the present board will have looked at this fact and learned from the abysmal scenarios like ‘director of football’ etc. that have dogged our progress in recent years.

Games like this tonight tend to show who can handle pressure and being in the spotlight. As has been said, some of our side 'froze' tonight against a fairly average team. Murray has a decicion to make on Saturday to rectify this, all is not lost but team selection for this game should be based on who has the character to see us through.

The quadruple substitution from the QP manager was a total admission that he hasn't a clue of how to fix things. I knew from that moment on that we would see the game out fairly easily. QP are a fine group of individual players but their lack of creativity in the final third is astonishing. I doubt there have been many sides this season who have created so few clear cut chances against us. As for us, it is hard to remember when we have had such a well organised and talented group of players. The only missing piece of the jigsaw for me is not having a Megginson in the side. I was hopeful like many that Salim would be that guy but glad to see that Callum Smith is showing us what he is truly capable of.