Diamonds are Forever

I think the core of the team is good. Rae has been a bit up and down this season but overall he's a good keeper for this level. The full backs (Megwa and Ballantyne) are excellent, the centre backs are okay and we have plenty options in central midfield. I think we look well drilled and coached and we'd struggle to get more out of most of them - a few of them are arguably League 1 players playing above themselves. The problem is our options around the edges of the team are just nowhere near good enough. You can be as well coached as you want but once you get into the final third you need players who can make things happen, see a pass or score a goal from nowhere, we just don't have that. Gal will get goals if given the service but he doesn't get it often enough. The wide options are terrible and the more I see Frizz the more I want him to move back into that deeper role he played under Murray where he was excellent. He's not a number 10, he doesn't have the touch or passing to play there at this level. Of course the problem is we have no-one else who could really play there. I'm confident we'll have enough to be okay this season and then hopefully add some quality over the summer in forward areas.

Dissent could be fixed in 2 weeks if they actually just enforced the law strictly. Make sure any dissent is an instant yellow card, you'd have 2 weeks of chaos before teams realised they'd end up with 8 men and would learn to shut up. Previously I've wondered why referees are so willing to just accept abuse and do nothing about it but I think there is a fear that they'll look ridiculous dishing out all these bookings when other referees aren't, therefore it needs a united effort with everyone doing it at once. It would also give more power to grass roots referees to enforce the same laws and stop them getting treated terribly. Making things more complex by bringing in sin-bins, when there is a perfectly good solution already available, is ridiculous.

It's exactly the type of job that he should be interested in, still part-time but a much bigger challenge than Kelty bullying their way to League 2 title and maybe a good stepping stone to earning a full-time job at a bigger club. However like you I don't think he'd be interested, he seems to think one season in management achieving what anyone would have achieved has allowed him the right to hand pick the perfect job. He didn't fancy the Kelty job in League 1 when he knew the budget would be cut so doubt he's going to take Arbroath. Never know though! I think it's really interesting who'll take this job. As has been mentioned I don't think it suits the recently retired, younger 'playing the right way' types like McCabe, Bartley etc which is where most clubs are going now. Which leaves experienced lower league managers like Petrie, or the usual names like Yogi but I wonder whether they'd want it.

The last 10-15 years was very frustrating watching a similar club like Hamilton play Premier League and be a good Championship side while we struggled badly in League 1. However as you say the other side of that coin is that we could have easily done a Clyde, another similar sized club, who got relegated to League 2, bounced back up again briefly due to signing Goodwillie, and then got relegated again when he left. And now are on the brink of Lowland League. There were 2 or 3 years where we were very close to going down and may never have come back. Football can change very quickly so who knows what will happen but we seem to be through the worst of it and have found a model that works for us. The fact that we have done well under Murray and McCabe gives me confidence that we aren't just benefiting from having a good manager, the club seems quite stable and when McCabe leaves hopefully it's easy enough for another manager to come in and continue things, just like McCabe did after Murray. The last time I was at Stair Park was a 3-2 defeat I think (Dale Carrick's debut when he scored after 2 minutes I think). Going there now 2 league above them is a nice reminder of the progress we've made. Hopefully there are no slip-ups!

Yeah I think that's it. If the weather is decent I enjoy going there and sitting behind the goals. But if it's like yesterday you either end up getting soaked in the WDE or get put into the corner of the Main Stand which is by far the worst place to watch a game in the league. Would almost always pick an older ground to visit like Somerset or Cappielow over a ground like ours or Broadwood, but being stuck in that end of the Main Stand is probably the exception.

There is a huge level of arrogance (or perhaps delusion) in the way he speaks about players making mistakes with his whole 'I've told them what to do/not to do, but they keep making these mistakes, I don't understand'. All these players he is coaching have been playing football for 10-15 years with dozens of coaches who will have been trying to improve them. If they are still making these errors it's because they firstly lack the fundamental technical skills, but also struggle with making decisions in a game situation. That doesn't mean that you should stop trying to coach them, obviously you should, but he seems to have this idea that all they needed was him to come in and tell them what to do and then suddenly they'd be a good player, it really doesn't work like that. His bemusement at Ambrose making a mistake is the epitome of this, has he ever actually watched Efe Ambrose play? He's made blunders his entire career, why would that stop now? He says they think 'doing the basics is too easy', no, they just can't do the basics which is why they are League 1. You can have the all the drones in training, sports science developments, filming training etc you want, and they obviously can and do help if used correctly. But they are marginal gains. The core of football management at this level is recruitment of players who are suited to that level, and then having a style of play that suits those players. If you sign poor players and ask them to play a style they can't play then all the rest is a waste of time.

Great appointment, a club in Clyde's position couldn't hope for a better appointment. Very surprised he's dropping that far down and hasn't got a club higher up to be honest. Assume they'll be some agreement that he can move on should he do well. Absolutely bizarre that anyone would consider that balloon at East Kilbride over McCall.

Watched the interview after reading the comments on here and felt the same as a lot of the posters on here. Any time I watch a Bartley interview he likes to say how he takes responsibility, whilst simultaneously blaming individuals for their errors. It's a real pet hate of mine when managers talk about 'individual errors' - you picked the individual, you asked them to play in a way which resulted in an error, and you picked a team that couldn't score a single goal which meant the error actually mattered. They never discount wins due to 'individual brilliance' obviously, it only works with errors... The highlighting of these errors is only going to make players play even safer resulting in an even more slow, plodding style of play. We've lost a bunch of goals through giving daft possession away in our own third both last season and this season, but McCabe's comments are always positive towards the player and he genuinely takes responsibility by saying 'I ask them to play that way so it's my fault' etc. You have to accept that at League 1 level players will mess up the basics from time to time no matter how much preparation is done. If the system or tactics mean that these errors are regularly costing you then there are bigger issues that need addressed. I also found it weird how he spent about half the interview on the one error. Losing 1 goal away to Alloa is more than acceptable and I'd bet if you offered most managers that before a game they'd gladly take it, backing themselves to at least get 1 goal and get a point or get 2 or more. It doesn’t seem like that is the major issue.

How on earth is that a penalty?! Scandalous.

Fair play to McCabe again for showing an ability/willingness to change things the last couple of weeks to get results. There's always a worry with managers who claim to have a 'way of playing' that they will stick too stubbornly to something if it isn't working but he showed last season, and already this season that he'll change things about. It's a huge win, particularly with 3 weeks until the next league game it gives a more comfortable look to the table. Plus all the teams that I'd predict would be bottom 5 (if you exclude us) lost this weekend - Ayr, QP, Morton, Arbroath and Dunfermline. So it gives us a nice cushion for a few weeks.

I don't see how that's any easier, or what it achieves. You'd have fans making flippant comments about goals being disallowed for belly buttons being offside. The constant moaning about 'toenails being offside' etc is just ridiculous to me. By definition offside needs to have a cut-off point. You can play about with the cut-off point forever more but we're still going to have the same amount of borderline decisions and people being called offside for being marginally ahead of the cut-off point, because that is the nature of the law.

I think playing better teams suits us because they come out to play and that allows us to play through the gaps. Our best performances this season have been against the top 3, plus Ross County in the cup. And worst been against the likes of Arbroath, Ayr and ICT. Numerous times on Saturday we played nice passes in behind the midfield, but in lots of games this season that's not been possible because teams have worked out that if they sit back and let us pass it about we usually go nowhere and they can pick us off. The best way for Raith to beat us would probably be sit in and counter us with pace, but that's not going to happen, especially at home. If we could guarantee that all games were like Saturday with 2 teams going hell for leather I'd be confident of doing well this season. But with the usual week to week reality of cagey games we need to find a way of breaking through teams who don't play the way Raith do.

The Arbroath game on Saturday is so important that I wouldn't be playing anyone who is likely to be playing on Saturday. We maybe don't have the squad for that without playing reserves but I'd be playing as few as possible. Ever since they messed the tournament up with B sides etc I've had no interest in it, and if you look at recent seasons it's often teams who have poor league seasons that do quite well in it. Accies won it last year and got relegated, Raith lost in the final and finished 7th in the league. The year before Raith won it but their league form from Christmas onwards was the worst in the league. Queens lost in the final and got relegated. Going back pre-covid Dumbarton are another one who reached a final and got relegated. Even the last time we won it we got relegated, and losing finalists Ross County finished 8th. Accies got relegated by 3 points last season, and Queens by 2 points (from 9th) the year before. I'd say it's pretty likely that having those extra 5 games and the distraction of a cup final cost them their league place. Accies lost 7-0 to Dundee 6 days after their win last season which is no coincidence. Hopefully we'll be not be that close to the bottom anyway but it's hard to say at the moment and given that injuries are piling up and we don't have the biggest squad I don't think it's worth the investment. Staying up is all I'm interested in, the Scottish Cup is worth the investment because of the potential financial rewards that come with it, this is just a distraction in my opinion. If we can go far by playing a reserve side then great, although given the reserve results that's unlikely.

What does that look like? The referee didn't even give it until VAR highlighted it, I'm not sure how not giving it in real time can be seen as 'looking to give it'. As for the 'clear and obvious' thing, a blatant shirt pull in the box is a clear and obvious error. The phrase itself I think is stupid as most errors are obvious once you realise it's an error, so it's pretty meaningless. If VAR is correcting match-changing wrong decisions (or non-decisions) then for me it's doing it's job regardless of how people want to interpret 'clear and obvious'.

Ours was a dive, Frizzell runs in front and then does a Superman impression.

A ridiculous dive, fair play to the referee.

This is what I was thinking last week, you can look at that one of 2 ways - we're sitting 4th despite only playing well in a few patches of games so think how we'd do if we started playing well. Or you could say we've been fortunate, had some narrow wins and that we're now getting caught out. With every defeat it seems more like the second option. It's been said a few times but teams have now worked us out which is why results are drying up a bit, you can see from the line-up yesterday that McCabe is trying to do something by changing personnel, if not so much the style. We also had a very settled side at the start of the season because it was basically the same team as last year, so while everyone else was trying to get a settled team to gel we were just picking up where we'd left 2 months previous and I think that explains the League Cup results and decent early league form. Now of course everyone has had time to get a settled team so that advantage has gone. My biggest issue is that we seem to have the balance between risk and reward skewed. We take a lot of risks in our own third but as we progress up the pitch we become risk averse and decide to turn back and keep possession. That's going to result in conceding cheap goals and not scoring many, which is us at the moment. I've no issue with losing goals like last week if that's part of an overall quick passing style resulting in lots of chances, goals and attacking play, even if it means conceding a few. But it doesn't, it's slow and mechanical with a lot of risk and little reward. The main issue in terms of personnel is that we just don't have the attacking threat we had out wide last season. McGill had the season of his life last year and is nowhere near it this year. And McGregor isn't at Smith's level. I'm not really sure what McStravick is meant to bring to the team. McGill has limitations but I think I'd rather he was kept in the team and hope he plays himself into form because the alternatives don't really seem to offer much.

I said this after the game against you guys and got stick from some other Airdrie fans because he was the least of our worries that day, but the way he deals with one on ones just seems ridiculous to me. I think 3 times against you guys he was walked round by the attacker, and again tonight. He's a big guy, at least make the striker make a good finish by making yourself big and making him beat you, like Ferrie did to Gallagher tonight who needed a really good finish to score. Rae just lunges out, risks getting sent-off (which he's done twice already) and makes it so easy for the striker to jink round him and tap home. I've no doubt strikers have noticed this too. Clearly I'm not a professional level goalkeeper, so you could say what do I know (which most of the time is fair enough!), but I can't remember seeing any other goalies doing what he does so regularly, so it can't just be me.

I think up a league, and without knowing how we'd cope, he's put huge emphasis on 'controlling the game' to ensure that we aren't out our depth, and to be fair to him we haven't been. However what tonight showed perfectly, from both teams, was that 'controlling' the game by having possession doesn't mean you aren't going to concede, and doesn't mean that you'll create many chances. The 2 best chances tonight were from defensive errors. Last season was much more dynamic and direct with our passing. Obviously the teams were much worse but even just the intent seemed different. This season we seem totally focused on keeping the ball, and if that happens to result in an opening 15-20 passes later then great, but there doesn't seem the same urgency. Numerous times a game we have Rae or the defenders literally standing still with the ball at their feet for 5 seconds which removes any tempo from the game and gives us the illusion of control, but as we saw tonight 5 seconds later the ball can be in our own net. It's picked us up enough points so far and perhaps the alternative would be worse, but I can't help but think we've gone a bit too far in this direction. We seem to take big risks in our own third but then take less risks the further up the pitch we go, which seems upside down to me.

Hard to know how to judge the first quarter. 13 points per quarter would have us easily in mid-table, maybe 4th spot, which would be great. I also wouldn't say we've played particularly well so far, we've had moments or spells of quality but I can't remember a game where I'd say we've dominated and played really well. Therefore getting the points we have, with basically last season's team and without doing anythijg special is pretty good going. And suggests that of we can 'click' then we'll have a good season. However I'm increasingly worried about how few chances we are making. Losing goals like tonight is only excusable if that style pays off by creating lots of chances, but if it doesn't then effectively you are taking big risks for no real rewards. Once or twice a game we pass through and create something (like Raith and Morton games) but it's rare and is not a realistic way of expecting to score enough goals over a season. I'd like to see Telfer in instead of one of the deeper lying midfielders as I think that would allow us to be a bit more progressive through midfield. And I think we do need to mix it up at times just to keep the opposition guessing, we're so predictable that teams can take their pick - either sit back and watch us passing the ball about (usually the preferred option if they are winning), or if they are losing press us high up the pitch and force an error like tonight. I think most people would have happily taken 13 points from the first quarter when the season started so we shouldn't be too critical or negative, but we're going to need to improve as the season goes on and teams work out how to play us.

I get the sentiment and it's something a lot of people say, but in practical terms what does this actually mean? If you are going to have the offside law then by definition there needs to be a defined boundary or margin which you judge it by. And no matter where you put that boundary or how big you make the margin attackers will always push themselves right to the limit of it. Say you said you're allowed a 1 metre leeway, strikers then just push themselves to the edge of that and then you're back to disallowing goals for being 1 centimetre over the 1 metre leeway, you are literally back to square one except even worse because it becomes impossible to measure the distance, at least currently you have defined body parts which can be used. If people think having an ever changing, entirely subjective version of offside is going to somehow improve the game and not lead to horrendous inconsistenties and arguments then I'm not sure what to say. The debate should be around how we best measure offside, the reliability of the technology and how it is communicated. But constant moaning about toenails being offside is completely unhelpful.

But it's also worth remembering that the referee gave the goal initially. If not for VAR we'd currently be qualified for Euro 2024, so he wouldn't be a very good cheat.

I completely agree with this, others will disagree but I think in the end it was probably correct that the goal was disallowed so I'm not more frustrated at the result anymore than I'd normally be. But whether it was even disallowed for the right reason is very questionable and the actual process and way they got to that decision is disgraceful. The reasoning that they maybe wrongly signalled might explain the confusion, but it certainly doesn't excuse it. It is amatuer stuff. It's partly individual incompetence but a bit like the Spurs Liverpool game I think it's indicative of a wider issue with the way games are officiated. I know comparisons with Rugby are becoming a bit tired now, but when you compare the process they go through and how clear it is to what you get in football it's ridiculous. I don't know Rugby laws very well but from watching games I understand exactly why a decision has been given because it's explained so clearly and then communicated to the players. I've watched football my whole life yet you're sitting there for 2 or 3 minutes in silence with not a clue what they are specifically checking for, why they are checking it and then last night, why it was even disallowed. I don't understand why those discussions are not available to be heard. This game was arguably the most important game in this round of qualifiers so should have one of the best referees in Europe. He's either given a horrificly bad decision by saying it's a foul (as will the VAR who told him to check it), or he's given the offside but not signalled this or communicated it properly to the players and the VAR, who have then given out the wrong information. It's a shambles. Not really sure of your point here, you can't be offside before the ball is kicked so obviously it happened once the ball was on it's way. The alleged infringement happened as the ball was making it's way towards the keeper so there's nothing wrong with the timing of it, it's just a question of whether he impeded the goalie during the flight .

Can we accept goals that are half a centimetre over the goal line? Or give penalties that are half a centimetre inside the penalty box? Or should we have a similar blasé attitude to those too? It's not about 'what the rule is for', you need to have a consistent standard otherwise you have no rules. Is 2 centimetres offside okay? What about 5? What about 20? Or is that being picky too? At some point you need to draw the line, how offside do you think someone needs to be before they are actually offside? There is a very valid debate to be had about the reliability of the technology and how much weight we should put on it, but basically just saying he's only a wee bit offside so it doesn't count is ridiculous.

Who has said this? All I've seen is McGinn say that 'he changed it in game' - which is just what everyone watching was saying. If someone else has mentioned the referee speaking to them then I've not seen it. But if it's McGinn you're referring to in the TV interview he's said nothing about referees speaking to anyone on the field. I'm not disputing that the referee gave a foul either way, just trying to assess what happened. The referee telling the players on the pitch that it was a foul would be complete proof but despite what has been suggested I can't see any quotes which back this up. I just interpret McGinn's comment as saying what we all saw - the ref signalling for a foul and the screen backing this up, then later finding out that wasn't the case.