renton

Listening to Malpas' interview at work. If your ever stuck in the biggest lingerie store in Ireland, and you need to make a discreet exit, pray you have Malpas with you.....

Yoss is a guy who's opinion I always look out for, for lack of a better word, he's a moderate, in so much as he doesn't go overboard either negatively or positively about things and tries to come to a rational, reasonable opinion. You've got to respect that. On Perry however, his moderation fails him. He was simply fucking awful.

Yeah, back four.

Absolutely gash, sorry. Positionally suspect, get's on the wrong side of his marker and his default setting is panic punt.

Their mothers always told them Baird was no good for them......

Small mercies.

Yeah, was he not at Ballingry when they went bust?

Does that not strike you as bloody idiocy on Baird's part. Falkirk's title/playoff ambitions aside he's swapping 18 months for 6 months job security. Were things really that intolerable at Queens? Was there really so little chance of him forcing his way back into the Queens team?

Some players just hit a cliff edge I guess. Another example is Allan Walker, who's regresssion from scoring 12 in a season, first name on the team sheet to worst midfielder ever seen at Brechin was fairly spectacular. Or even Craig Wilson, ever present right back in a team that finished 2nd in the 2nd tier of senior football - out of senior football altogether after barely getting a run out at Forfar Athletic in the 3rd tier.

You really have to ask?

Yeah, McKay is a luxury in that respect, Conroy isn't the quickest but does provide a wee bit more cover.

Incidentally, as some others have remarked, we've been seeing an upkick in performance since the Livi game (if not always in results). It may just be causal but I do think getting Ross Perry out of the team in favour of Douggie Hill has helped. Both Watson and Mckeown look more comfortable and we are more apt to retain the ball from defence when he isn't lugging it up the park every opportunity (when he wasn't getting the wrong side of his marker or missing ridiculously simple balls). So our defence is under less pressure, we are getting pinned back less and hopefully taking more confidence from that. I know it's not as simple as pinning the blame on one guy (and you can make a case for both McGurn coming back in and Murray restoring two guys up front, properly as improving performances) but I recall how Todd Lumsden used to look with Crisis Mcleod on one side of him and Paul Hilland on the other, and how he looked with Sparky and Marv alongside him and the difference, not just on the overall defence, but on the man's level of competence and confidence in himself - and you appreciate what getting those pairings right is to the whole team.

Last I heard he was at Blyth Spartans a couple of years back, f**k knows where he is now.

McGlynn did it for his first six months in charge before reverting to 4-4-2 for a whole season, starting the promotion season in the same vein before Jaun 'he's Spanish, he must be good' Gurrero's shiteness forced the fabled 4-3-3 onto him (though he did revert to 4-4-2 in the late run in). Incidentally we played the majority of the next season 4-5-1 with tade as a lone forward before Jamie Mole came in near the end, the seaosna fte rthat as a straight up 4-4-2 and the last McG season varying it a lot - for exmaple, 4-2-3-1 when we had all the Hearts guys, before finishing it 4-4-2. I'm talking about Murray's first season - we beat Morton 2-1 and drew with Thistle 0-0 in back to back games at Starks, playing a 3-5-2 - although in both cases we made tactical changes as Murray didn't have 90 minutes left in him, which is a shame as we were bossing Thistle up to that point. He's also played flat 4-4-2s when it was Graham and Spence, 4-4-1-1 when it was Graham with Clarke, a flat looking 4-5-1 and evena 4-2-3-1 as well. Basically, both guys are a bit more flexible, tactically, than sometimes given credit for. What becomes excrutiating to watch is the common little routines and habits that you see, less to do with the overall system and more about how players react with each other, whether it's a throw in routine or a switch along the back line, or a midfielder out of position, and sometimes it's not 'the basics' but something more deep set that Murray has to try and coach players out of.

He's done it before - back to back games against Morton and Thistle when those two teams were challenging for the league. Anderson was used as the third midfielder with Joe Hammil at left wing back and himself, Mensing and Hill as centre halfs. Worked quite well against two teams both using variations on a 4-2-3-1.

Don't get me wrong, I think Callachan has been pretty good during his run in the team, his style of play is built on his dynamism, same as Scott - they are quite similar and will chase things - often at the same time. Neither is a classic sitting midfielder, neither is positionally great. Moon is more measured but still quite combative (his use of the ball is generally a wee bit more imaginiatve as well). If anything, I wish Fox still had half a leg to run the length of himself, becuase he's the only sit in and knock it about kind of midfielder we have, he's just too slow at times to keep up with it though.

Short of a twenty goal a season striker, a penalty box poacher, a midfield general, Something who can hold the ball and use it, a couple of maruading full backs and a blood and snotters Centre back? In all honesty, we've got cover in every position, except full back, but even then, we've had that weakness from the start, and it wasn't deemed a priority. The only thing you could say is that none of our strikers are likely to score that many, yet trying to turn up a genuine quiality forward in the January window is a fairly hopeless task at the best of times - unless we end up bringing in a young player from the SPL reserves (which in turn will inspire all kinds of complaints about not giving our own youth a chance). We don't necessarily need more players as such, though - arguably I'd say what we do need is to find a better balance in the midfield. You've got Scott and Callachan who are all action, dynamic headless chickens and you've got Moon and Fox, more measured, good positional sense, probably not quick enough as a unit. Somewhere in there is a pairing, or even a trio that will offer us the balance of covering pivot but able to support the forwards that the latter need to score more goals. nade and Stewart have proven before that if they get chances, they will score.

Nah, yeah I totally agree. Got to assume it's Falkirk - you'd guess Kerr put in a word for him or something, and knowing that stomping his feet would get his way, simply copied Kerr to get out of his Queens contract.

I honestly can't see him haivng decided to walk away from 18 months of secure employment unless he already had a very good idea that another club wanted him.

Well maybe, depends if Falkirk fancy signing any more of your players I guess.

Well, at least that's one less goal QoS are guarenteed against us....?

Half a whole new team by the looks of it.

Maybe he has, but the Falkirk game certainly came too early for him to have any kind of influence. It's not that likely he'd even seen us train by that point. I think Malpas will be valuable to Grant Murray in the long run, but I doubt he'll have been able to stamp any kind of new thinking on management and players in this space of time.

Absolutely agree, if the buck stops with Murray, and we excoriate him in defeat, then it also stops with him in victory and we should afford him the plaudits.

Relatively speaking, yeah I agree. Though he was a defensive coach to a manager with strong opinions and a track record of success. I'd guess Malpas will have more input. Whether that's good or bad we'lol need to see.