dregs 83

Just seen the first goal on social media, what an outstanding peice of play from Shankland. Looks like he might be both a number 10 and an out and out striker.

A reminder that in the last 11 competitive games, we have conceded 6 goals, never conceding more than 1 goal in each of those games. 3 of those games were against premiership opposition. I would be more than happy if that record continued throughout this season. By no means are they perfect, but I think the level of flak our defence is receiving is a little unjustified.

Wonder what it will be like when we actually lose a game...

Based purely on last night and the Dumbarton game, Appere looks like he will be a player. Excellent running, strong and very good at receiving the ball and holding it up/ laying it off. I would be starting him up top with Shankland with Clark and Sow as options off the bench. No doubting Sporle was poor last night, but there was enough in his late cameo at Dumbarton to lead me to believe he’s a better player than that. That was good premiership opposition, away from home, in the pishing rain, with no-one having had a full 90 minutes under their belt previously and essentially with a second string midfield bar McMullan, I think we did absolutely fine.

Would be good for all parties, if we got that Hall boy in as well. Nothing against Frans, seems a nice guy, but pretty limited.

The video accompanying it is brilliant as well, Nicky Clark stripping off in a newsagents [emoji23]

Holy fucking shit, that kit is absolutely stunning [emoji7]

My perception of it at the time was that was a poor pass, but Reynolds still should have been able to control it and then get round to prevent a clear shot at goal. However happy to be corrected, you would have had a better view.

Totally forgot about Bouhenna, was thinking more of him as a midfielder now. I suppose with him, the cover is actually ok.

Yeh, but it was a cock up from Reynolds which led to the third, although I’m not saying that’s indicative of his ability as a whole. Was impressed with Sporle from what I saw of him though and by all accounts Smith was excellent last night.

Result today wasn’t the most important thing obviously, but there were a few things which should be instructive. Some of the defending today was appalling, all 3 goals were weak and I think we should be replacing Frans or Watson with someone who could challenge Connelly and Reynolds more, probably Frans as he can’t cover right back. Robson is decent getting forward but defensively so poor, he should be left sided midfield cover only. Some very sloppy passing in midfield as well, Harkes and Cammy Smith weren’t great. Of the young boys playing today, only Appere and potentially Chalmers look like they could be options from the bench, was really disappointed in Glass and Mochrie. Mehmet was good though and shankland looks the type of player who can get goals even if he isn’t playing well. Of the trialists, Ganet looks the better player, but neither were overly impressive. Still think we are only one or two away from a league winning team, but there is a lot of fat that needs trimmed from the squad as well.

Pretty apt given the quality of the football on display so far

Yeah, bang on that. What is a bit weird is that the article actively says that we want Sow off the payroll, although that may be bollocks given it’s the S*n. If true though, it would indicate to me that it’s more Ashgar than Neilson who is making moves, given RN’s insistence on playing him. Also Ashgar seems to have been the driving force behind the Shankland signing, saying it was himself who identified him as a target etc. I’d be interested to know what their working relationship is like in reality as a situation like that could lead to some degree of friction I would imagine.

That goalkeeper kit reveal video on Twitter, absolutely outstanding by the media team

I know it’s very early days, and there were 11 subs at half time, but anything else coming out of the game?

Week 1- queen of the south

Bottom left has me wondering if Jamie Robson has a time machine

Ah, I hadn’t realised that. Well hopefully it’s in a similar vein to theirs as I like all of theirs this season. To be fair, the St Johnstone home kit is actually very nice, it’s just the away one that looks grim (although it might have had something to do with Murray Davidson modelling it)

Hadn’t appreciated how many premiership and championship teams are using macron, they are decidedly hit and miss from what I’ve seen. For every Hibs and Motherwell home, there’s a St Johnstone or Ross County away. I just hope they stick tangerine and black for the home and black and white for the away, and don’t dick about with the collars or anything.

Excellent to see the word malfeasance getting a run out here.

Is the first derby likely to get moved to the Friday?

Quite the life you have there

Exactly my point, if we stop teams scoring, we win all but 4 games last season. We do need more goals in the team however, in order to kill off games, which was a major problem we had last season.

We shouldn’t be looking to switch from ‘concentrating on not losing goals’ as you put it. We should be looking to consolidate our relative defensive strength in the last half of last season, whilst bolstering our attack and trying to make it more clinical. I can totally understand why people are against the formation, and I completely agree that at times last season under Neilson it was brutal to watch. However, I firmly believe the most important thing in this league is to stop the opposition scoring. Although there we didn’t score 2+ goals in many games last season, I think you could count on one hand the number of times we didn’t score, despite our attack having obvious deficiencies and injury problems. That’s why we climbed the league last season after Neilson came in- because we stopped shipping goals. The ‘balls out’ approach that Ayr used, which you are advocating, has far more deficiencies than the approach that Neilson uses, in this league at least. That was evidenced by the fact that Ayr finished comfortably below us in the league and crashed our in the first round of the playoffs despite having the most prolific scorer in the division.

As Granny mentioned I think Bouhenna could come in to replace Butcher quite competently if required. On paper we have at least two central creative midfielders (excluding the young guys) in Cammy Smith and Sam Stanton who are pretty competent, but I get what you mean about something still being required there. The situation with Smith in particular is frustrating, given how good he was last year for St Mirren and Neilsons reluctance to play him in that role. Makes you wonder why he signed him in the first place.