accies1874

Couple of proper Forum Legends namechecked there.

You're talking about the guy who was out for five months after slipping on ice.

Losing Fulton (fractured arm), Martin (hamstring) and potentially Kilday is almost as bad as losing the game. Rankin leaves us so open defending transitions that we rely on the individual qualities of those three + McGowan to stop them, so it'll be interesting to see how we adapt: carry on with inferior players, or tweak things (esp on the ball) to make it harder for the opposition to bear down on our CBs with ease?

Don't quite know what to make of that game. We seemed happy to counter early on with O'Hara doing pretty well in that respect, but Tait replacing Martin resulted in us playing a bit more controlled football, even if it left the midfield horribly exposed. After that point we had plenty of the ball and a couple of decent chances, but ended up really struggling with Falkirk's press in the second half.

Happy birthday brother

He's had a couple of OK moments where he's burst past a left-back and fired in a cross to no one. I don't want to be down on an 18-year-old, especially one as promising as him, but I'm just not buying into Doakmania yet in the same way that I did with Gilmour.

The first half was one of the best performances I've seen from him and the second was very good, although he probably didn't see quite as much of the ball. Don't think this is true but it won't have been far off. ETA: Just watched his interview on TNT where they mentioned it too. He definitely shanked one out in the second half, but Adingra must have got a touch just before it went out of play.

He's been pretty bad in all of the Europa League games this season, so I don't think last night was necessarily a blip. I just think he's quite a bit off first team football at the moment.

Part one of a big backlog: 56. Anatomy of a Fall - Cinema A lot of interesting ideas and some great performances, but none of that translated to being an engaging film experience for me. It takes the private cracks of a fractious marriage and puts it on trial for all to see, which is a good idea to play with in theory but ultimately left me bored when it came to actually executing it. There are two scenes which genuinely had me gripped and I don’t think it’s any coincidence that they both took place in the moment rather than in a courtroom analysing the character. That analysis is the whole point of the Anatomy of a Fall, and the film has received universal acclaim so more power to them, but I honestly found it a complete slog. All I could think about during it was that I much preferred how Gone Girl and to a lesser extent Oppenheimer tackled similar concepts. 57. The Eternal Daughter - Cinema Absolutely loved the atmosphere with its pretty minimalist production design, overuse of a fog machine, the constant windy soundscape which blends into the score and its soft-focus cinematography. For a ghost story, it’s much more dreamlike than it is nightmarish. Tilda Swinton’s performances as both the mother and daughter are kind of offbeat, as her emotional reactions are very rarely conventional for some of the situations she finds herself in; the narrative doesn’t make an awful lot of sense with scenes often not flowing into one another; there’s also humour that’s borne out of that lack of logic, particularly from the female staff member who’s got great comic timing. It’s very much carried by the atmosphere and my constant intrigue into what the heck was going on. It’s made clear pretty early on that something isn’t quite right in this hotel, and thus not quite right in the mind of protagonist. There are thematic questions to be asked about why Joanna Hogg chose to cast Tilda Swinton as the mum and daughter, which is why I think it worked really well, despite finding both characters quite off-putting. The issues I’ve seen other people have with this choice are why I liked it so much. I absolutely haven’t worked it out yet, but the ending left a real impression on me. There’s one shot towards the end which made me consider a whole load of different emotions, initially positive but then quickly negative. Like with The Souvenir and particularly The Souvenir Part II, which are to some extent ghost stories themselves, it makes you wonder how much of what you see play out is reflective of Joanna Hogg’s own experiences. Not necessarily in a literal sense as it was in The Souvenir, more in terms of her emotional state. It reminded me a lot of why I loved Asteroid City, as I felt like I was watching the creator work out their own issues on screen in an engaging way. There’s still so much to unpack in terms of reality and the purpose behind it all in how it reflects the psyche of the protagonist. I think the answers are all there in plain sight which is why I’m so keen to watch it again (but didn't get the opportunity to), however it’s still an emotional, atmospheric piece after just one watch. Like another of my favourites from this year, Enys Men, it does feel like a dreamlike paranormal investigation released the public – it’s impressive to straddle the line between being something so fantastical and something realistic. 58. Saltburn - Cinema As soon as you meet Barry Keoghan’s character Oliver, you’ll have a pretty clear idea of his destination, but the journey to get to that point goes in strange directions which made it such an enjoyable experience. In fact, just as I felt that the story was creaking a wee bit, they chucked in the film’s biggest curveball. It does belong alongside the recent spate of anti-rich films, but it was fun seeing an English take on that, and the characters are either just cruel people pretending to be kind or kind people pretending to be cruel which creates a morally muddier environment – something that the final act exploits well imo, although it labours its point a wee bit too much and commits a pretty terrible sin of overexplaining. The Oxford setting is like some of the fantasy schools you see parodied but very rarely legitimately depicted, then Saltburn is a dreamlike summer haven - it's otherworldly. The only location we get in the film that doesn't feel like it's designed purely for the screen is a really nice house in a lovely middle class neighbourhood! These settings provide insight into Oliver’s warped sense of reality, which is fitting as the film is about loneliness as much as it's about class structures. It’s really funny at points too. Almost all of Rosamund Pike’s lines made me laugh, and Richard E Grant occupies his background role perfectly. Those two are the more typical characters in this kind of story, but they cracked me up quite a bit. All of the performers are great, but Barry Keoghan needs a role that isn’t a slimy character sometime soon; I know his face lends itself to those roles, but I wanna see how he carries something a bit more charismatic. 59. Napoleon - Cinema There’s a really tight comedy here that picks apart Napoleon’s ego, but I think that got lost in amongst all of the other stuff. The war scenes are impressive, especially the sound, but we’ve seen plenty of impressive war scenes these past few years, so they aren’t really enough for me anymore. That’s why I was interested in Napoleon’s absurdity more than anything, but I ended up confused by the whole thing.

Not Big Joel

Only in Scotland

No idea how this will go. We are capable of properly having a go, but we haven't shown to be solid enough at defending transitions and at counter-pressing, so I wouldn't be surprised if we revert to how we played at Falkirk. I'd opt for Barjonas on the left to give us a wee bit more control, but Tait mostly hasn't been great and Hewitt and Murray are pretty nothing players so that'd leave us a bit weaker in midfield. Henderson should return up front but I'd keep O'Hara in the front line.

The sole policeman told the Alloa fannies that they'll "just all shite yourselves and run away when they (Accies fans) get off the bus." Thought that was actually quite funny. It was the most predictable half-time sub of all time.

Based on speaking to players after the cup final and being on their flight home from Coleraine, I definitely get the impression that Rankin keeps a happy dressing room. He seems to value the team-building and morale boost of them, for example, going on a bender after the cup final, even if it results in us getting pumped 7-0 the next week. That's not enough to avoid relegation or win a title, but I do think he's shown enough so far this season to suggest that he can get us promoted. The one in the first half was the exact same routine we scored from against Annan, so it seems that we only pose a threat when going short. I find it hard to believe that our routines have suddenly gone to shit after scoring from so many set-pieces last season, so it's got to be a combination of having shite takers and missing O'Reilly.

You probably watched it a month too late and I watched it a month too early. It's very much a Halloween film.

Then how in God's name can you say we're overachievers? We've got the second highest points per game which is clearly at least our level.

How many times have you actually seen us to come to that conclusion?

Could say the same about Barjonas and Longridge, and the less said about O'Brien's 45 minutes the better.

Nope, moved Hewitt into a RB/RCB hybrid role which gave him and Longridge space to step into and pin Alloa in. Also had diagonal runs from the likes of MacDonald and O'Hara which were found by Martin and Tait.

Terrible first 75 but I thought Rankin's tactical switch could've won the game for us. Never looked like winning it prior to that though.

I dunno about you guys, but I've never seen a good game on one of they plastic pitches

We parked at Lidl for the play-off game which was fine other than a wee wait to get out. I think I heard about others who parked there that same night getting a ticket though, so not sure if I should go somewhere else.

Yip I've been charged ~£4 by Nationwide. Seems a bit ridiculous tbh.

He played his first game in a while during the week as Liverpool's u21s lost 4-0 to Bradford in the EFL Trophy. He came off injured with cramp, but hopefully he gets another go in the Europa League as I'm not sure how many other opportunities he'll get after that.

Not involved all that much. From memory, he had one 1v1 to defend against Gordon which he did OK with but did fall on his arse at the end of it, and tbh I don't remember much else from his performance. This is great to hear. He's finally playing every week for a good side whose fans don't despise him, so it's no wonder that De Zerbi's seeing a difference in him. I'm sure he'll have plenty more bumps in the road this season - as seems to be typical of his career so far - but it's quite a difference compared to where he was a year ago, or even back in March/April.