AGPar

No. Ruth was mentioned once in connection with Falkirk in a report months ago, yet his name keeps being regurgitated for some reason. Does not appear to have done very much of anything anywhere, personally think he'd be far too much of a gamble for us given the pitiful state of our current striking options. Not one I'd be sorry to see go elsewhere.

Yes we did. We were toothless. After the penalty miss, QP had the cigars out for the whole of the second half. We never came close to laying a glove on them. They took their opportunity and realised they did not need to perform to any great heights to waltz away with the three points. They dealt with anything we had to offer - basically zero - with minimum discomfort and were quite happy just banging it up in Murray's general direction to get out.. Nothing special, nothing sophisticated, nothing more required sadly. That's an indictment of us. You don't have to play scintillating, attacking football for 90 minutes to deserve to win a game. Really disappointed with that today. An important game at home in front of a large crowd against a direct rival, chance to open up a five point gap on them and to go top of the table in the process., and we never turned up. As usual. Been going on for years and years, and until we rectify that record we're going nowhere in a hurry. For all the talk of the lack of the striking options, cannot belief Sheerin's deployment of Telfer. Said it last week in the Clyde match thread, him sitting on top of our centre halves is complete, total and utter nonsense. What a waste. The boy Ross was a bit-part player at Cove Rangers, so I'm not sure on what planet he's now a first pick for us. One of these players who has perfected the art of looking busy whilst actually doing precious little. Yet he sees out the 90 minutes whilst Krasniqi does not get a single second. Ditch the Old Pals Act, get him on from the start and Telfer in a much more advanced position where he can give the opposition a bit more to think about than he can shackled to that deep-lying role. Big few days coming up, which will give us an idea of whether we are serious about escaping this league at the third time of asking or hoping to do it on the cheap. In terms of genuine quality, we are paper thin. Nesbitt was well marshalled, Morrison having a serious off day with poor delivery, beyond that we don't seem to have that much at all. Desperately need a proper striker, and ideally another wide option as well. Not sure we've got a pot to piss on, so probably going to have to go with what we have.

Looking to get on the ball maybe, whilst rarely doing so. McGuffie another one who really needs to be showing a lot more.

Telfer is completely wasted in that role. Far, far too deep. Ross has barely touched the ball. Put Krasniqi on for him and allow Telfer to get closer to the opposition box where he can impact the game in a positive sense.

Another striker is a must. Keena's finish today was top quality and showed there's some quality there. Him remaining fit and in some kind of form looks like it will be crucial. Below that, it's paper thin. Dowds is obviously not fancied at all. First look at Ompreon today, and on that showing, descriptions of him as "raw" are on the extremely generous side. Never came close to getting into the game. Don't think he even touched the ball until about the 85th minute. Reilly has been predictably rubbished on here by the usual crew but I'd have him all day long over any of our current striking options bar Keena.

Let's see. What's the difference between these three and Holt? Apart from the obvious. Ah yes, they were actual football managers. Their neck, their reputation, their job on the line if their signings didn't work out. Who do you think will be taking the flak and the fall if Holt's job-lot of signings turn out to be a bag of a shite? I'll give you a clue, it certainly won't be Gary Holt. Hate Holt? Nope. Hate the fact that that such an individual is involved in my football club. A big difference which you'd do very well to grasp.

We've literally just signed another goalkeeper, someone who appears to have been highly rated at his loan club and who I would expect to at least be competing on an even footing with Mutch to be No 1. Given that, and the glaring gaps that still exist in the squad, I'd be amazed if Sheerin has decided that chucking a two year contract at another keeper, with zero pedigree, and with a view to being loaned out, was any sort of priority. Short of him looking like the next Donnarumma or Neuer in training, he'd have vetoed it on optics alone, which he's intelligent enough to know are absolutely horrendous. Make him look a bit of a puppet unfortunately. Holt Jr will probably never play a minute of first team football for us and be scratching about for a new club this time next year. Waste of cash. Like his father.

Sheerin may have said it. A two-year deal being chucked the way of Holt's son exposes the veracity of that statement.

It's got nothing to do with what I believe, recruitment falls within his remit as Sporting Director. Holt provides the players. Sheerin works with them on a daily basis. If Holt had to defer to the Head Coach in relation to transfers he would not have had the authority to sign five players on contracts well before the Head Coach, and his preferred formation and style of play, had even been identified. Sheerin actually made reference to the players Holt had signed for the club in his first interview. Holt signs them. Sheerin coaches them. That's the deal, as Sheerin presumably would have been well aware when he agreed to take the job.

There's one person making the decisions on who is being signed by Falkirk Football Club. It isn't Sheerin, beyond his one token signing of a fringe Cove Rangers player.

Not exactly a massive stretch to imagine that Falkirk are lacking in players. There were a few missing from the line-up against Hearts on Saturday, if they've decided that the trialists are not worth persevering with and won't be getting offered a contract, then we could easily be looking at an available squad of 11/12 players, maybe less. We're miles short as it stands.

The latter three are all wingers. If, as everything would suggest, the plan is to go with a narrow three in midfield, then Ross, as things stand, is a first choice. We don't have the alternative personnel to play anyone else.

Totally agree. Hetherington seems to have been signed to do the untidy stuff. We have no-one currently who could be considered more of a conventional number 8 type central midfielder. Miller is completely done, as evidenced by his performance in the first away game at Firhill at the back end of October, when Partick midfielders were literally jogging away from him, he genuinely looked like he was moving in slow motion that day. He never improved after that. He simply has not got the mobility any more. Ross played 150 minutes of league football for Cove Rangers last season, and his impact was such that the Cove fan who posts on here now and again appeared to have forgotten he even existed. I genuinely assumed that he had just been signed as back-up, and never countenanced that someone of that background was being looked at as a first choice. Telfer is more effective 30 yards further forward as more of a 10. Our striking options are pretty much non-existent at the moment, but the central midfield does not really look much more appetising as it stands. Massive upgrade needed in that area.

He signed for Arbroath on the 29th January, two and half weeks after League 1 was shut down and long before any restart had been agreed. He originally signed for EF on a season long loan in September and would have seen out the season there had it not been for the interruption. Never the slightest chance that we would have been signing him at any point. He was basically their replacement for Dowds. Hard to work out who got the better of these transactions. Livingston did, however, have within their ranks another attacking player available for loan, one capable of pretty much carrying a team to the title with his goals and assists. But how were we to know that? Not as if two our our management team hadn't been working with him on a daily basis not too long ago. Just a naïve, inexperienced young kid anyway according to our Sporting Director. And he knows best.

You keep regurgitating this over and over and over and over again. It never becomes any truer. When a player is considering an offer to sign for a club he'll be primarily looking at the financials, the identity of the manager, the style of play and how he fits into it, how much playing time he believes he will get. That we've emptied a few underperforming diddies from the manager's office, or have been and continue to be a complete embarrassment at boardroom and ownership level, will barely enter their thoughts, if at all. Plenty wouldn't even be able to name our last two three managers, or who the chairman is. If we're an unattractive proposition for players relative to every other club of similar size in Scotland, it's because every one of them is currently playing at least at Championship level, whilst we're about to enter our third consecutive season flailing about in League 1. This "Hire and Fire" reputation does not come into it. On the League Cup. If they're treating these matches as friendlies, fine, inform the supporters of this and charge accordingly. We'll have played five, maybe five and half months of competitive football in the past sixteen months. So if they're now writing off a national cup competition, it's because they realise our current squad has gaping holes in it and is light years away from being sufficient, and they're getting the excuses in nice and early. Pathetic attitude.

Noticeable that all the talk is about the lack of striking options, with nothing being said about the midfield. If Sheerin, as seems to be suggested, wants a 4-3-3, with Hetherington as the deepest of the 3, he's presumably got plans to sign two players for the more advanced roles ahead of him. At the moment, we have no one to play in these positions. Our midfield has been complete nonsense for the past five years and if the combined knowledge of the management team, Holt and "Corzo" cannot see that an immediate, serious upgrade is required in the middle of the park, it's a complete waste of time.

He's not even a tenth as effective in a conventional midfield role. Hetherington has already stated his preferred position - fine, that's boxed off, we need that box-to-box type we've been looking for since, well, since Vaulks left the club 5 years ago. We also need at least one first choice centre half and another forward would not go amiss either. Loads of work still to be done right through the spine of the team, but presumably this is a large part of why we are paying a wage to a Sporting Director whilst marooned in the third tier, and you'd be expecting to see the benefits of that very, very soon.

Telfer is never, in a hundred million years, a sitting midfielder. He's a 10, behind the main forwards, able to create chances and pose a goal threat, as we saw last season. If Hetherington is the holding midfielder we need someone beside him with real energy and the ability to break forward. We do not need two midfielders camped out in front of our defence in League 1.

Yes, probably for the best that you say nothing, considering the absolute clown you have made of yourself with your interminable, relentless "aren't Gary Deans and this board so wonderful" campaign that you waged on here for months and months and months. Fair to say you called that hopelessly, spectacularly wrong then.

Really pleased with this signing, and far rather a three year deal for a player with plenty of room for development and age on his side. At last, some genuine attacking threat from the full-back areas, long, long overdue. Credit to the club for getting this over the line (there, I said it)

Oh, I don't know, maybe because they are sick and tired of being treated like complete and utter morons by those who own and run this club. Tired of financially supporting a business who actively hate them. Tired of their club being turned into the laughing stock of Scottish football. Tired of the incompetence. Tired of the contempt. Tired of the waste. Tired of the lies. Tired of being libelled a racist. Tired of the spin. Tired of the marketing bullshit. Tired of the latest "strategy", "review", "rigorous process", 2/3/5/10/50/100 year plan These good enough reasons for you to be going on with? Not everyone can be a good, little uberfan lapdog like you. Thankfully.

Which is wrong then. He signed for 2 years.

The problem with that is the potential that, five minutes into the opening game of the season, your first choice does ligaments or breaks his leg, and we're sentenced to another season of Ben Bombscare Hall. I wouldn't have kept him at all, in any capacity A truly abysmal footballer, appalling positional sense and soft as shite. If it was a straight choice between him and Durnan, I'd probably have gone with the latter. He was terrible in an shite Partick side, barely got a look-in, should never have been signed in the first place. Dumb and Dumber then gave him another year based on nothing and incredibly went into last season with him and Durnan as our only two recognised centre halves, the perfect encapsulation of their cluelessness. He's had another terrible season yet here we are again, stealing a wage for another year. I don't mind the look of some of the signings made to date, but that central defence needs some serious upgrade. I hope we sign at least one proper central defender and play him with Dixon, fitness permitting. If Holt cannot source a few centre halves better than dugmeat like Hall, we're wasting our time. I presume Sheerin hasn't watched any videos from last season, because if he had, there's no way surely he'd have been happy to keep this diddy around. Massive mistake. Ok with Telfer though.

Competing with other clubs for the likes of Hall and Kelly??!! Step well back and let the “other clubs” get on with it. I’d have hoped we’d have now moved on from these guys and were looking for far, far better, players who might be able to get us out of this league, rather than hanging around waiting to see if they deign to sign on again.

But have presumably - and sensibly - chosen not to, other than Dixon. They completed their contracts, they’re no longer employed by the club so there’s nothing to announce. There’s a ton of players available at the moment and Sheerin, if he has anything about him, will have requested as clean a slate as possible. The fewer remnants from last season’s disaster hanging about the better.