CallumPar

What was O’Hara sent off for? As mentioned above, probably his last action as a Pars player. Find it funny that we haven’t had a red card all season, then got 2 today. Dave Mackay sent off - his second red of the season, so the same amount of ref cards as the entire squad.

Cause they’re obsessed weirdos. A normal person would look at a defender’s defensive stats, but Falkirk fans focus on the fact he only scored penalties. They’re as clueless as the Cardiff chairman who questioned why the goalkeeper didn’t score any goals!

Honestly, he’s been fantastic and he’s very popular with everyone at the club - staff, teammates and fans. He’s a natural leader and has improved those around him. Our other CBs are mobile, which has taken a bit of pressure off him. The mobile players at this level also aren’t as intelligent as the ones in the championship, so he’s dealt with those that he’s had to. Despite my concerns about his fitness, he’s played every minute of the league campaign where we have set defensive records. We’ve changed our shape and personnel in defence regularly, but he’s been the one constant, so he’s been an exceptional signing for us. In addition to what he adds on the park, he’s been great with the fans. He may have done similar at Rovers(?), but he’s given his armband away to a young kid after every game and you can see how much that means to them. Little things like that go a long way. He also leads the team to applaud the fans after every game, regardless of the result. Could see what last week meant to him in his interview with the courier. Spoke about how disappointing it was when Raith couldn’t celebrate/finish the season cause of covid, when they won the league. I’d imagine he’s the kind of guy that’s popular at any club he plays at, because he wears his heart on his sleeve and gives his all - also tells other players when they need to up their game and praises them when they do well. Not to mention the fact he really seems to wind up the Falkirk fans, which is always nice!

Don’t think they actually release them every year, to be fair. Your extra money from the cup run will be greater than the prize money lost from dropping down a league place. If you win the playoffs, your overall prize money would be greater than ours and you’d still achieve promotion. If you’re just looking at 2nd v 3rd, then you’ll already have plugged that gap with your cup run. Although the extra £20k or so would obviously still be better.

Where did you find that? SPFL website from 2019 has very different figures: https://spfl.co.uk/news/spfl-prize-pot-reaches-25m Think your figures maybe include TV/sponsorship money being significantly reduced or something during covid? Think prize pot is now c. £30m. So assuming same split (don’t think any changes have been voted for) prize money will be roughly: 1st - £150k 2nd - £129k 3rd - £105k 4th - £102k

We sold cheap season tickets to younger fans. 18-21 were around £100 and U18s were around £50 from memory. Obviously this is the generation that create the atmosphere and will be the lifeblood of the club in years to come. So when these guys are making noise every week and the team were going well, their mates wanted to come along too, which has boosted crowds. As you say, results on the park have obviously made a difference. As have the games v Falkirk. If we weren’t up against them for the title, our average would have been significantly lower, as we wouldn’t have got 9,500 at the last home game against them! Our average crowd last season was 3,414. In 19/20 it was 4,151. In 18/19 (last full season pre-covid) we averaged 5,009. Last season was our lowest average attendance, since the year we finished 7th in league 1.

It absolutely does. Our squad was horrendously mismanaged last season. Both Grant and Hughes were terrible. Every week, match threads were full of opposition fans saying our squad was too good to go down and we’d come good. Then we’d turn up to the game and play with Matty Todd at RB, Ambrose and Donaldson at CB, Polworth and Lawless looking totally disinterested in midfield and we’d get beat without putting up a fight.

That’s fair. I did say winger/attacking midfielder, cause I wouldn’t see him playing centrally in a 4-4-2 and he certainly couldn’t play alongside Todd in a 4-4-2. I wanted to squeeze him into the team though and was struggling to really pick anyone else out wide, without taking KRH, who’s only started about 12 league games.

Expect 5/6 new faces, I’d imagine. McPake has openly said we need to strengthen. We’ll obviously try to keep all of our regular starters, but they won’t all necessarily be first choice next season. Euan Murray been linked with a return. As has Sam Fisher, who we had on loan first half of the season. Watched McPake on plz soccer today and he said we need another striker. If we want to compete at the top of the championship, he says we need a 20 goal a season striker and another who gets double figures (or close to). Think we’ll see some new creative players come in too - we’ve been reliant on loan players in KRH and Mochrie for that this season. We’ve also struggled massively when Todd was out, so we definitely need to add depth in attack-minded midfielders.

No. I’ve seen this claim a few times now and it’s just not true. We have, at most, 4/5 regulars from last season that are still with us. One of them is O’Hara, who has barely played this year. We’ve used 20 players in the league this season: Regulars last season - Comrie, Edwards, Chalmers, O’Hara, arguably Todd - but he was RB ahead of Comrie towards the end, so can’t both be deemed first team/regulars. In and out of team last season - McCann. Sub/backup last season - Todorov, Allan, Mehmet, MacDonald (loaned out), Wighton (loaned out), Breen New/loan signings - Benedictus, Hamilton, Mochrie, Fisher, Mahon, KRH, McGowan, Otoo. First team players that we lost in the summer - Stolarczyk, Donaldson, Ambrose, Thomas, Polworth, Lawless, Dow, Pybus, Dorrans. All of these guys were ahead of this season’s players in the pecking order.

Honestly find this kind of thing challenging. Falkirk been the second best team, but we (clearly) haven’t seen them at their best. Airdrie been very good against us, but I don’t imagine an Edinburgh fan would include many Airdrie players. Josh Rae Aaron Comrie Kyle Benedictus Liam Fontaine Josh Edwards Calumn Morrison Joe Chalmers Matty Todd Adam Frizzell Ruari Paton Calum Gallagher Hard to look past our defence, but only seems fair to pick who I think has been ‘best of the rest’ beside Bene. Josh Rae has made some incredible saves in his 2 games against us, best goalkeeping performances I’ve seen, without doubt - if we ignore that he should have been sent off in both games, not just one of them! Morrison and Frizzell both been good against us. KRH would be a dead cert if he’d played more games. Central midfield was a challenge, deciding who partners Todd. Genuinely can’t think of any central midfielders that have particularly impressed against us, so went with the league assist leader, Joe Chalmers. Frizzell has spent some time playing fairly centrally, but I see him as a winger/attacking midfielder. Gallagher and Paton have been the 2 best strikers in the league, in my opinion.

Will be a return to the back 3/5 I’d imagine. Bene in the middle of a 3 with 2 of Fisher/Breen/Murray would be fine in the championship. Even in a 4, he’d probably be ok most weeks with a more mobile partner - particularly if opponents play with 1 striker. Also got mobility of Comrie (or a new RB) and Edwards at full back and Hamilton protecting the defence. We need to strengthen the team, everyone knows that. But Benedictus will be a starter most weeks, unless he really struggles.

Thanks to you (and many others) for your kind words. I’ve actually enjoyed the threads/conversation with opposition fans on here this season. In general, there seems to be a decent bunch of people in the league 1 threads. Next week, I don’t know what to expect from this team. Usually, I’d say the champions would take their eye off the ball. No pressure, probably rotate the team a bit, so would expect a comfortable afternoon for Airdrie. But McPake’s team seems different. They’re focused on setting club records for clean sheets, unbeaten runs and points. We will rotate a bit, but guys are fighting for contracts and we have a fairly strong group of players on the bench (Todorov, MacDonald, O’Hara, McGowan). Either way, I don’t care about next week. Mission accomplished for us. Airdrie have played very well against us this season, but are quite suspect defensively. Hopefully McCabe can prove himself as a decent manager, he’s certainly made a promising start to his managerial career. If Falkirk play like they did in the first half hour v us last week, they’ll give you real problems in the playoffs. But we’ve seen that you’re also capable of blowing teams away. If you don’t come up this year, I’m sure you’ll be challenging for the title next year.

How young are you guys? KRH (I think?)

Yeah. I said earlier in the week that if you had a go and tried to attack, we’d score goals. I thought Queens were alright going forward - Wilson had a great shot that hit the post and seemed to go almost right along the line. Paton had a good chance in the second half too, which ended up straight at Mehmet. But defensively, you couldn’t cope with the movement of Todd, KRH and McCann. KRH is brilliant to watch. Unfortunately, he’s still contracted to Rangers, but he is out of contract in the summer, as it stands.

Great performance, brilliant result. Delighted for wee Kane getting his goal too. As soon as Wighton indicated it was his goal, he was straight to the NW. Some boy. Also, I don’t know what’s happened, but last few games, Lewis McCann has been unplayable.

If we don’t do it today, it’s 100% your fault. Not McPake’s, not any of the players.

That’s not what he said, or what I said though, is it? In McPake’s interview about Wighton signing a new contract, McPake seems to focus on how he believes Dundee mismanaged Wighton and weren’t fair to him by putting pressure on him when he was younger. Then he says that the managers weren’t the issue, it was the board. It just seems like he was looking for an excuse to criticise the Dundee board. I have no issue with him feeling hard done by with his sacking/feeling he has a point to prove. He’s learned from his time at Dundee and is doing a great job here. I just don’t think it was necessary to slag off the Dundee board when discussing Wighton signing a new contract here. I’d prefer we just focused on where we are now and where we can go. McPake’s absolutely entitled to discuss what he wants, I’d just rather see positivity about where we are and where he can take us, rather than negativity around a player’s spell at another club.

There’s times I understand him bringing up Dundee. But I don’t understand why it seems to happen so often. That interview is another example of that. Yes, he can mention he worked with Wighton at Dundee and knows what he’s capable of. But going on about him being mismanaged there is just odd. Genuinely not sure of the point he’s trying to make. The interview should just have been mainly about how well Wighton has played since he recovered from his knee injury and how he sees him progressing in the future. Scored crucial goals and had some real moments of quality. I’m pleased with Wighton’s performances in general and very happy with McPake’s performance so far. Should be focussing on the positives, rather than bringing up the past like that.

Good news. He was good at championship level before and is playing under a manager that rates him very highly and will be happy to build the attack around him. He’s not a physical threat, but he reads the game well, is skilful and scores goals.

Fair comment. We were decent in the first half from memory. But think Ayr had the lead from very early on in their game. Only really remember Chalmers’ own goal, which summed up his and the team’s season!

Just seen usual parts of NW sold out, section L opened now. Looks like the club are expecting a bumper crowd. Hopefully the team can get the win and encourage everyone to come back for the trophy presentation 2 weeks later. Thankfully it’s not the same manager as last year. Remember a bumper crowd turning up v QoS in the last league game. Performance was atrocious and hardly anybody turned up for the playoffs.

Had a look at the ticketing site. Reckon the north west will sell out fairly soon. Other stands all still fairly empty, but would expect a lot of tickets to be shifted in the next few days.

Think this one could ‘buck the trend’ and be an open game at East End. Queens need to go for the win. Alloa and Edinburgh both favourites for their games and Queens chasing that last playoff spot. I do believe that if they set up to attack and leave gaps for McCann (who’s been good lately), KRH and Todd, we’ll create chances. They’ll test our defence too. Paton looked good earlier in the season and would expect him to cause us problems again. I’ll go for a 2-1 home win.

19 from 32 actually. Did you forget to include last night’s game? Agree with your post. I’ve enjoyed watching us this season. It’s not been free-flowing attacking football. But it’s a team that has been ridiculously well drilled/organised and have earned every single point they have got. The manager was tasked with getting us out of here as quickly as possible and there’s no doubt, that will be achieved. Everyone knows we need to strengthen for next season. I think McPake has shown that he knows what he’s looking for in players, so I have no doubt we’ll add quality to the squad. Also worth adding, I remember commenting in January/February that I thought we needed more players. But I pointed out that the manager/board would deserve praise if they had got it right by not spending more than required to win the league. Well, they got it right. We know we have a significant financial backing, but that’s mainly to improve facilities/academy. We may see a bit more investment in the first team next season, I don’t know. But we didn’t need more this season and got out of here without any stars/expensive signings. A lot of teams (like Falkirk) get relegated and throw money at players in a desperate attempt to get out of the league. It’s pleasing that we’ve got out of here without doing that.