Shadwell Dog

The complete lack of pace at the back would giver me the fear with that formation.

You need someone with a bit of bite who'll sit in midfield allowing Craigen to push forward. McKee is a player who likes to get forward and although he can put in a challenge he would be wasted as a sitting midfielder and I'm not sure he has the discipline to sit and allow craigen forward. Whilst I don't want a team of hammer throwers we were soft as shite all last season. Top of the fair play league wins you hee haw and Taiwo's probably about the only midfielder we have that can really get stuck in.

Christ they beat us last season. Get the game under control and then bring Harris on.

You've got to have someone who can tackle in there . McKee and craigen certainly can't and are far better pushing forward. Taiwo or in some cases Kerr will allow them to do that. I'd get Harris on once we've gone a couple of goals up.

McKee was excellent at right mid in the two games against United. Would be unfair to drop either him or craigen and taiwo has to play so we've got at least one midfielder who can tackle. Harris on the bench and will need to prove he deserves a starting spot in my mind.

Thomson Muirhead Watson Grant Gallacher McKee craigen taiwo hippo Austin Loy

It's never great to see one of your better players move on but if the money is spent correctly then it can be turned into a positive. We need to learn from previous feckups though like replacing vaulks with haddies like Rankin and aird.

Yeah your spine should be the same every week barring injury.

I agree at times we were playing a different front two virtually every week and our centre midfield also changed regularly. We need a lot more consistency in selection this season.

I preferred him in a free role behind the striker like he played away to queens in the cup quarter final a few years back. Scored a great goal and always looked dangerous at the edge of the box. Too often in other positions he was stuck around our half way line with 3 or 4 opposition players round him. Sibbald has been a good player for the club but it's time he moved on. Too often he's been shoehorned into a position that doesn't suit him and reduces his impact. He needs a team built around him but Houston seems uninterested in doing that so it's in everyone's best interests that he moved on and we get cash for the manager to sign players that suit the formations he wants to play. Whether Houston signs the right players is another thing but if he does I think we will be a better shaped side than last season. If sibbald does move on it will be interesting to see how he does down south. Again will a team like Luton though use him in the right way.

Stanton's a centre midfielder again. We don't need another one of those. I'd rather we concentrated in the full back areas and maybe left mid as I think hippos the only current player we have for that position.

If the money isn't used to strengthen the team then that's the bod or managers fault. The opportunity will be there to make the team as a whole better. We need to take advantage of that.

We've done it before. Sometimes it's better to lose one player to strengthen the team as a whole. Happened with the likes of Eddie May and Neil Duffy and they were better players than sibbald.

As has been mentioned before the main problem with sibbald is we have never played him in a role that gets the best out of him. He's too slow to play out wide and when played as a centre mid he ends up too deep and doesn't get into the areas around the box where he can do his best work. If the money for him allowed us to strengthen other areas of the team then I wouldn't be too disappointed in him moving on. He had little impact in the two playoff games against United especially the first leg when he was poor and Houston seems very reluctant to play him as a number 10.

Their stadium makes them a load of cash whilst ours costs us. That's a big difference for starters. Their bod also seem to have some basic football knowledge too compared to ours. When was the last time they appointed a duff manager whilst we've had may, Pressley and then Holt.

His hands are tied but it's his own hands that have tied them to some extent. The poor signing of kidd last season who really as a specialist rb should've been able to replace the make shift Muirhead for starters. He could also have let Watson go and used Muirhead as a centre half predominantly and brought in a rb with Watson's wages.

Perhaps the ideal scenario would be sibbald moving on for cash allowing us to bring in a couple of full backs . We're well covered in centre midfield anyway but I really can't see anyone paying 200k for sibbald to be honest.

The opening United goal was caused by Muirhead making a total arse of clearing the ball and letting Murray in on goal. Houston said as much after the game. He's simply not a right back. He offers zero going forward and his distribution is poor. Whilst that level gets you into playoffs winning the league needs a proper rb if you ask me. I doubt finlayson will get a game unfortunately as houston seems obsessed with muirhead playing there. I have no issue with playing youngsters aslong as they perform. It's asking a lot though to play an 18 year old and expect him to keep to a high standard every week of a 36 game season. I'd like to see a steady back up left back to call upon if Gallacher form dips at some point.

Full backs could be our biggest issue this season. Lot of pressure on Gallacher in his first full season starting with another rookie as his back up and it looks like we'll be going into our 3rd season on the trot with a make shift rb starting. Really thought Houston wouldve had rb sorted out by now to be honest and yet he seems happy with Muirhead even after he was shown up big time against United.

I'm not championing anything I was just replying to a post that stated we'd put out a panicky message pleading with fans to buy season tickets in big numbers. I'd still like to see us casting the net wider for players and whilst I'm pleased with loy one quality signing does not a season make as queens have found out.

What age is he 22? Would that be another 2 years then before anyone can get him for hee haw?

What's the story with bikey. I thought anyone wanting to sign him on pro terms had to cough up cash to his previous club. Was that not why he was on amateur terms at hearts and Stirling?

No i think the statement asked fans to buy there tickets as soon as feasible so that it made it easier for us to set our budget for this year. We did and hit our target for early bird and we therefore have seen us now make a very good signing in Loy because of that. Im sure if we were struggling that badly we may have to ask our fans to pump in even more cash every month in direct debits but fortunately we haven't reached that low yet.

Alex Cooper? Surely not the same one we had who masqueraded as a footballer for two seasons. If it is he's atrocious.

He was very streaky at the best of times . Would go for weeks not scoring and then weeks when he couldn't miss. Unfortunately the bad spells outweighed the good last season and Houston kept picking him for far too long. Does a job if your happy pottering about in the playoffs but for promotion we needed better ie Loy.