Ally_D

These Forthbank games are following a worrying pattern. The team starts well, looks fluent and inventive going forward, but once a goal is conceded there seems to be no resilience, no creative drive. (Last night's brief interplay from Bikey and Heaver for the goal was the exception that proves the rule.) I get nostalgic for memorable fightbacks led by the likes of Ross Forsyth in days gone by. At this sharp end of the season, where every game is with closely-matched teams (some of which are picking up momentum at the right time), this lack of resilience is a real problem.

I can see a reason to expand the squad as injury cover in this intense period of fixtures, but are the Darvel guys bringing anything much to the team? Before the break there was good creative balance to the team from defense to attack, which now seems to have been lost. In last night's second half there was some particularly clumsy play with the ball and then a contagion of rashness spreading throughout the team.

Adapting Jane Austen, “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a company experiencing IT problems, will claim to have suffered a ‘sophisticated cyber-attack’.”

It was worrying that for the whole middle section of that game SA were trapped in their own box, every clearance coming straight back, and tha management team standing watching. They need to learn to make changes before conceding.

After I realised it was an automated camera rather than a toddler with a Trump-like attention span, I actually started to appreciate it more, in a geeky way. The software is clearly confused by any white object in the pitch area, but it did fairly well. Add a bit of human override capability for a director and it would be fine.

Especially irritating is KR's habit of shouting one player's name during defensive phases. What message does that send to him? What message does it send to those around him? Does it strengthen or weaken the defense?

You're meaning at home, rather than, say, at the Recs? An afternoon from which Philliben's team never really recovered. (Nice Beefheartian sig BTW, that line came to mind just the other day.)

Dropping a bunch of players after drab performances can only work if the replacements put on a show. Otherwise “I’ll show them” rebounds into who's shown who? If that was the idea, maybe forgiveable in a new manager 3 games into his job, but certainly not after 18 months of non-progress. The resting explanation gets a bit of support in the post-match interview, but it's not as if there's been a fluidity of team performance that got mislaid last night. And I'm thinking of the final Moore season, when they were playing backlog fixtures every other day, building team solidarity in a way that pulled them across the finishing line. The prospects of that seem utterly remote this year.

A few more words. It's hard to see what KR hoped to accomplish from the way they set out last night. He said he'd make changes after Elgin, but these were reckless. Hoping for luck as the ball is launched long towards Mackin's head again? Surrendering half the park for Cove to move forward without pressure, through an absent midfield and into a shambolic defense? Only when Darryl Duffy came on (admittedly at a time when Cove were sitting back) was there some hint of pressing, as Duffy started positioning the midfielders, something which had been utterly missing.