Shadwell Dog

It's the worst record since Eddie may I'd say. Not one of his summer signings have improved the side. He's taken far too long to replace Alston with at least a half decent player and his replacement for Vaulks has already moved on. We're 14 points behind a poorer Hibs side than the one we beat in the playoffs last season and 3 points and a game behind a morton side we finished 27 pts ahead of last season even though we've got a bigger budget this season than last. Second place and 400k are there for the taking if Houston gets his finger out. he should be doing everything he can to get the likes of craigen moved on so that we can bring in another centre mid who can go box to box as that might just make the difference in the run in but I won't hold my breath.

His Summer signings in his first and third close season have been very poor. At a time when it should be easier to pick up decent players Houston seems to make a total james hunt of it whilst his signings during the season when it should prove more difficult have been a bit better apart from the likes of Boulding Morgan and Craigen obviously.. He also seems to compound losing good players by signing absolute donkeys to replace them.

No your right to a certain extent he's not going to just say cheerio but have we actually done anything to get him out the door? HAs he been told to look elsewhere? Have other clubs been told of his availability? Probably not after he was given a start in the Morton debacle. In Rankins case that seemed to work quite well . No guarantee the same will happen with Craigen but we should be at least be actively pursuing that and if we aren't then questions have to be asked as Houston has been told he will be able to bring in players if others move on.

Christ St Mirren turned Dundee over in the cup. Stirling Albion did the same to us but their still pish.

I was a happy man last season when we were a decent side playing some good football. This season though has been a mess from start to finish. We've gone backwards on the pitch due to some awful signings and have gone out of both cups without as much as a whimper. At the moment its very difficult to get yourself up for games when we should be doing a whole lot better.

Surely its better not to make a mess of things by signing them in the first place. Craigen has had a number of chances so far and has been brutal. We should be at least telling him that he is free to find another club if possible as he wont be part of our plans and alerting other clubs to his availability. Same with Kidd if he can't get into the team ahead of muirhead at right back then you've gotr to question why he was signed in the first place especially if we actually paid cash for him.

That was only our 2nd win in the last 8 matches. Taking him far too long to rectify his mistakes. He hasn't managed to get rid of Craigen or Kidd yet for starters.

Your going to struggle big time with Watson and McCracken at the back and craigen anywhere in the team. Only Houston knows why Grant was on the bench as he's surely got to be one of the first names on the team sheet every week. Gallachers a fantastic prospect but Leahy was very unlucky to get dropped in the first place as there were a number of others who should've been benched first. It was a ludicrous choice of players and tactics and has cost us a decent wad of cash. Houston has been bleeting about not having cash to spend and yet he may just have got some if he hadn't made a mess of things against morton.

We hardly looked like scoring for the majority of the 90mins. We can't afford to play like that again.

I'd like to think we wouldn't but we were awful against them at East end.

That was during the game when I posted that. It's a much needed 3 points but you would expect to beat a team 7 points adrift at the bottom of the league. Next week will tell us if we really have got things sorted outWe need to start going on a run as DU are their for the taking. Today's result and improved performance underlines how ridiculous Houston's team selection was last week. We aren't a big enough club that we can stick 2nd string teams out in Scottish cup matches.Especially when we rely on income from these games and transfer cash to break even.

I agree Marsh but if the bod don't actually act and change the manager then they have to take some of the blame if we continue to struggle.

Agree exactly Believe the hype. If we'd kept Vaulks and made a couple of decent signings we'd at worst have come 2nd again and would be pushing Hibs all the way for the title as I agree they arent as good a footballing side as last season and DU are no great shakes and certainly nowhere near the sevco side we beat twice. There is no reason we couldnt have been far more competitive without busting the bank to do it.

Or Hibs for that matter. With the crowds you guys are getting you should be top 4 or 5 in the top flight.

DU will be in this league again next season. Their bang average and are nowhere near as good as the Hibs team we beat to second place last season. Ross County gave them a doing as they did us last season and that proved to be a warning for the playoffs game against killie. Whether they invest or not next season isn't the problem as far as I see it. It's the fact that they are in the league gives our clueless directors another chance to use them as an excuse not to invest on promotion.

Just because Rankin meets Queens standards doesn't mean he meets ours. 6 months of wasted wages, wages that had been previously been paid to a player ten times as good the season before. When I saw the headline Madness at the Falkirk Stadium I just presumed it was just another one of Houstons team selections and on the subject of completing the ground do you think we should make enquires?

Problem is that a lot of scottish players move down south and simply can't hack it. Aberdeen have got a team full of them. There's definitely a huge gulf between valuations of players up here and those down south. Mind you there's also a huge gap between your average club up here's players value and players at the likes of rangers. Their players last season weren't all that better than those we had as was shown when we beat them twice but their now talking about millions getting paid for the likes of mackay whilst we struggle to get a few 100k for the likes of Vaulks.

Celtic will be a lot harder to deal with than us. Their more likely to over value him whilst we will probably undervalue gallacher.

Tierneys a lot closer to the finished article than Gallacher and will cost you a few million compared to a few hundred k for Gallacher. One your buying a player for the future the other you'd be wanting in your first team straight away.

The way money is getting flung about down south you never know what a half decent player will be worth in a few years. Andy robertsons supposedly worth 12 mil and yet every time i watch motd hes murder.Their even talking about 6mill for barrie mackay which is utterly ludicrous. I'd prefer to see us holding out for as much as possible up front. With leahy on the way out if Gallagher goes then we'll be looking for two left backs this summer.

I love this give Houston to the end of the season pish. Do we really think that players like Craigen and Kidd are suddenly going to go from being pub team players to worldies over the next few months? Our seasons fecked due to Houstons inability to bring decent players to the club even with an increased budget. It would be unfair to think he could replace Vaulks and Alston like for like but the fact he's replaced them with utter donkeys and also failed to improve other areas of the team is why we're struggling to beat the likes of Morton and QOS. Its pretty7 obvious that one signing in Aird aint going to turn our season around either but Houston seems either unwilling or unable to get his other failed signings out the door to make more funds available. Its okay saying give our own players a chance if their good enough but at the moment none of them are ( pumped 5-1 against sevco on Sunday says it all)mainly due to the bod's policy of selling players before they get a decent run in the first team meaning the ones coming up behind are getting younger and younger. Our centre midfield should really be McGrandles and Blair but they were both packed off down south at the first sniff of cash. When you hit a barren spell I don't see any issues in bringing in loan players from elsewhere. The likes of Thomas at queens and the two mentioned previously at Morton would've been good additions to our squad and at least if they turn out mince you can punt them after 6 months.

Well done Houston. Your clueless team selection has cost us a right few Bob with morton having a nice wee windfall of a trip to ibrox next. Clueless!

Every other club in our league seems to take firm advantage of the loan system except us. Surely we need to start considering using this a lot more. Morton had nesbitt and Lindsay on loan from celtic who were two of their better players. At least with 6 month loan deals you can punt them back to their own club if they turn out shit instead of them being stuck on 2 year deals. Houston seems to prefer signing journeymen jobber instead of using the loan system and I'm afraid it ain't working.

I wonder how many points we'll end up behind hibs this season? A team who are no better than they were last season. I feel sorry for the poor bloke who replaces Houston. He'll have a smaller budget to play with but will be expected to get us up after Houston has wasted our best budget season since probably our first one down. You need to take advantage when things are going well but it's another missed opportunity by manager and board.

Your moving in the right direction whilst we're going backwards at a rate of knots. Houston's last dire league campaign was papered over with a cup final. He's not getting that excuse this year. His signings since he came on board have been very poor in the main and the team continues to struggle more and more as we lose excellent players that we had before him and replace them with dross. The fact that we're averaging over 4000 after the length of time we've been back in the championship is a minor miracle when you look at what's happened to similar clubs who have come down. However, they won't hang around long .