CallumPar

Usually think McPake’s honesty is refreshing from a manager. But I stopped reading after his first sentence today. Blatant nonsense.

Slightly better second half. But I think Thistle still looked in control and were never likely to drop points. Great to see Todd score again, but we can’t play like we did in that first half and expect to get anything from a game. Thistle managed the game well second half, letting us have a lot of the ball but not letting us create much. A lot of folk were moaning, but I honestly thought the ref had a fairly decent game. Let it flow, didn’t throw yellow cards around for everything and was fairly consistent. Certainly nothing too controversial, as far as I’m concerned.

Half time thoughts - Partick Thistle are a much better team than us. Set up to win the game, and they’ll do it with ease, barring a second half disaster. We haven’t been at the races at all. Brian Graham is bullying our defence. Their centre halves won’t have an easier day all season, than they’ve had so far either. We’ve been horrendous and second best in all aspects.

Mehmet… we’ll never challenge for promotion with him in goals. Simple as that I’m afraid. Far too error prone.

Head knock. Probable concussion. We’ve been terrible. But who’s that Partick number 23? Looks like an old man that’s come out of retirement for one game. Paul Allan and show Chalmers running by him with ease.

This thread is a car crash. Thought a lot of the Falkirk fans on here were bad last season. There’s a small number of Raith fans (vast majority are alright) that are taking obsession to a whole new level and hijacking every thread that mentions us right now. Really odd behaviour.

Honestly, we were very comfortable. Could easily have been 3/4-0, had we had a bit more luck and if we didn’t give away a stupid penalty right at the end. We were in control for more or less the full game. Wasn’t like we had them under constant pressure or that, we just controlled the game. Didn’t give them anything and had some good moves that resulted in great chances - including 2 that went just wide from Chalmers & Edwards. Airdrie keeper made 3 decent saves from Jakubiak too. Not going to criticise Jakubiak - his shots were low and hard (and most importantly, on target), which is what I think a striker should be doing in those positions. Their keeper just did well with those saves. I genuinely didn’t think we were conceding yesterday. Only reason we did, was a bit of a brain fart to give away a needless penalty, but thankfully it didn’t impact the result.

I’d imagine there would be a few managers ahead of McPake in any shortlist. Ian Murray being an obvious one, but Doolan at Thistle also doing a very good job. Callum Davidson surely a more appealing option too - particularly whilst he’s unemployed!

I hope there’s no top flight clubs needing a LB next month, cause Josh Edwards would probably be top of most scout reports. Easy to forget he’s only 23, because he’s been such an important player for so long. Apparently that was his 160th game for us today. He's playing very well just now and I honestly don’t think there’s a LB in the league that I’d take ahead of him. We have a problem if we lose him at some point. He’s so bloody fit, we’ve never had to worry about having any cover for him.

Who was your number 5 by the way? Thought he had a decent game and stopped a number of promising attacks. His positioning and timing of the challenge were very good. Also seemed to use the ball well.

No idea how he avoided a booking for that. That was a wild lunge at Summers and if he’d made a cleaner contact with Summers, he would have been off - it was very high and out of control. Worst part was, he started coming, then thought it through and stopped… before charging straight towards Summers, not even looking at the ball.

Good performance today. Jakubiak on another day would have scored a couple. Edwards and Chalmers were both unlucky with efforts that went just wide second half too. Airdrie had no idea how to deal with Jakubiak and Todd when they came on and the subs really changed the game massively in our favour. Airdrie had started the half fairly well, but there was only one team winning after those 2 came on. Airdrie had a lot of the ball, particularly second half. They had some good passing moves, but never really troubled our goal, I thought. If it wasn’t for the penalty, I don’t think they looked like scoring at all and I felt pretty comfortable that we were keeping a clean sheet. Then I listened to the radio on the way home and Chic Young must have been at a totally different game - said Airdrie will be wondering how they didn’t win. Honestly thought that was a wild take. Special mention to Chris Hamilton, who was outstanding. Completely bossed everyone who he came up against in that game.

Bayview is usually freezing, even in the middle of summer. Inverness is pretty cold too. Can’t say I’ve ever noticed Airdrie being colder than other grounds - that being said, it will be freezing this weekend (but so would anywhere else in Scotland).

Can’t really comment, due to the fact I’m a season ticket holder. Can’t remember seeing it for the cup game, but they advertise/market the 50/50 tickets online pretty well. Used to be a good way of chucking in a few quid I had in cash, but haven’t bought them online very often. Unsure how this can be solved, to be honest. It’s maybe just something that’s run its course/we need to find an alternative for? If the club can find a way for Cardle to be useful, whether that be coaching, playing or helping out in any other way, I’d be delighted to see him back. The guy loves the club and is heavily invested in the local community. The guy was willing to play for free when admin hit. He also returned a couple of years later, when we were at our lowest point (football-wise) for 30 odd years, to do his part for the club. He had no previous ties to the area at all, but now has a coaching academy set up in Dunfermline and is raising his family here. I also believe he donates to the local hospital/NHS Fife every Christmas(?). If there’s anyone from the modern era that understands what the club/community is about and is truly invested in it, it’s Joe Cardle.

I’ve emailed Drew Main with the suggestions in my post. Dealt with him before and he’s usually pretty good at taking thoughts/suggestions on board and passing them on, where necessary.

A lot of good news regarding injuries in the update too. Glad to hear all but KRH could be back this month. But I’m genuinely gutted for Kane. Surgery required, so he’s done for at least another few months. Our current list of available players is very attack-heavy. None of our first choice defenders available*, but we have got Wighton, Jakubiak, McCann, O’Halloran, Todd, Moffat and Summers fit. Might end up with another goal fest at Airdrie this weekend… or another game where we miss a load of chances! *classing Otoo as a midfielder, since that seemed to be the role we planned on using him, at the start of the season.

On programmes - I wonder if they’d be better offering the option of a digital match programme? I’m going to be honest, I can’t be bothered with physical programmes (or even books) these days. But would happily subscribe to a digital service and read some of the articles on the morning of the game or whatever. Would also give fans the opportunity to get one, when they’re not in the country or they’re otherwise unable to make the game. Perhaps they could even launch some sort of monthly digital newsletter, with a paid subscription. Would possibly help shut up people (like me!) who have moaned about a lack of communication in terms of what is being done by the commercial team. It’s also somewhere else that some smaller businesses could pay for advertising space. I know, I should have gone to the meeting, rather than post ideas on here. But I just couldn’t make it along for that time last night.

Got a friend who was there and he said we’re going to activate a 12 month extension on Edwards’ contract too. Was also confirmed that Wotherspoon knocked back our offer and he would have been our highest earner if he accepted.

Usually Dave Mackay, rather than the manager. Think he got sent off twice v Airdrie last year? Expect Josh Rae to do something that should see him get sent off, since he seems to save his stupidity for the games against us. Funny that there were so many red cards (including coaching staff) in these games last season, as I genuinely don’t think there was any particularly bad challenges/aggro at all in the games, just 2 teams that wanted to win. Have to admit, I thought Airdrie might struggle this season, due to their defensive frailties last season, but they’re doing pretty well, so good on them for that. McCabe seems like a decent manager and clearly seems to get the best out of the group of players he has. As others have said, expect another close game, but I hope we can come home with the 3 points.

We should have just installed one of those all weather pitches at East End. Would mean that we would avoid postponements like today. I’m sure Livingston, Kelty, Alloa, Falkirk etc won’t have games postponed because of a bit of snow.

Game is 100% off. Live 5 mins from the ground and there’s honestly not a chance this will be ok. Roads seem to be a nightmare too, so it’s not just a question of ‘will the pitch be playable?’

Dunfermline is very frosty this morning and it’s not supposed to get above freezing until well after the game is due to be played. Game will be off.

Good to get some official word from the club, that puts to bed all the reports/rumours from ‘in the know’ people, who apparently didn’t know anything. Pleased that work is underway and it’s nice to get an idea of the timeline as well.

Thats certainly what I thought. Good on the officials for finding a way to let the fans know what was happening. Obviously there were 2 lengthy delays for injuries before the 90th minute, so I was expecting a lot of added on time. But I thought it was decent of the officials to ask someone to put up a board.

After we scored the 3rd goal, the linesman approached our bench and we put up the board to indicate 10 mins being added on.