GroundskeeperWillie

I think a lot can be attributed to the fact that the majority of this team are playing regular first team football at club level as well, you can tell there are a lot of players out there playing with a good deal of confidence. We've also done a very good job of exploiting the flanks, Doig in particular is getting a lot of joy down his side, while Bowie has been a constant menace both on the right and centrally. He's a player I've been impressed with for some time, I hope his next loan move (assuming he doesn't break into the Fulham first team squad next season) is at a higher level. Also been very impressed with our midfield, Connor Barron is such an intelligent player, while Lewis Fiorini looks sharp, especially given the injury problems he's had. I just hope we continue in the same vein second half, often we've had a good first half and assumed job done and sat back second half, given the momentum I'd love us to keep going and maybe add to the scoreline.

Where to begin with that. Still not sure exactly what I witnessed out there today, but boy was it enjoyable. Not a single failure, some spectacular goals (Liam's free kick and Martin Rennie's second I would gladly pay to see again). In some ways, I thought we had the potential to get a win - in all the games recently under McCall where we've played well, the opposition have not been stuffy, tried to play football themselves. Admittedly after Jordan's first one-on-one that he missed, I thought we were in for one of those games, then everything just seemed to click into place. And a great display from Ross Lyon as well, who I thought did so much right. For me, player of the match though was Martin Rennie. I've given him stick, as have a lot of people, because at times he doesn't show enough bravery. But up front, and in defence, he was simply outstanding. Had we had that Martin Rennie all season, we might have at least not been fighting to stay up. What stood us in good stead today was our pressing game, which recently hasn't been there. We were able to put pressure on their backline and at the same time were able to utilise Jordan's pace to optimal effect. As much as in recent weeks there's been an attempt to ensure we don't get overly 'the world is coming to an end' about where we are, equally I hop we don't get ridiculously over the top in getting carried away either. We need to keep those kind of performances going on a consistent basis if we have to stand any chance of staying in the league. This means not completely shitting the bed against an improving Elgin - who let us not forget handed us our arse not so long ago - next weekend. But for now - fucking yaaassss, ya beauty etc and 'mon the Bully Wee!

That's close to being worse than the Elgin debacle (at least we scored in that one). Towards the end it felt like more than King had chucked it, most of the midfield decided simply not to bother latterly (there was one moment when I think it might have been Morrison had the freedom of Hamilton to run at our defence with most of our lads going 'no, no after you, kind sir, take your time'. I get the Young substitution but at times Leslie felt a downgrade - Young has a bit of strength about him and attempted to hold the ball up, Leslie either ran into dead ends or was easy muscled out of it. While we're not out of it yet, it's looking ever more likely we'll be contesting the play-off, bar a major miracle. It doesn't help when in the 'must win' games against the teams around us, we've failed miserably. Still puzzled as to why McGinn wasn't on from the start with King further forward, seems bizarre that a natural left-back was left back on the bench...

We need to up our passing game. The times we looked dangerous was when we were passing the ball nicely on the deck, latterly in the half we resorted to shelling high hopeful balls which, predictably, do sod all. Would like to see that tackle from Skelly again, looked a naughty one. Forfar don't look up to much, but we haven't done nearly enough to punish them.

A lot of the long ball stuff has been going on for quite a bit of time, even since McCall has come in. At times against Peterhead last week, we were still too keen on the hopeful punt to no-one. It's quite hard to try and see where we go from here now. I've seen some of the best and worst of Clyde over the years and the last couple of years has been some of the worse ever witnessed (and I thought the Gardner Spiers farewell season would ever be beaten...!) Regardless of whether we slide into the Lowland League or not, we cannot do what we did this season (i.e. putting Duffy upstairs and putting one of his lackeys in the 'Head Coach' role), and there absolutely has to be a root and branch review of the club. There has to be some questions asked about McCall as well. For all we showed some signs of improvement, in the time since he's come in we still have only managed one win and - especially in the Elgin game - reverted back to the sort of performance we were lambasting McLean for. As always, the hope will remain until it is literally mathematically impossible for us, but results like today probably sum up why we are where we are, and that in itself makes me really angry with the way things are panning out.

If ever an equalising goal felt inevitable, that was it. Just had a nagging feeling, given the way the game was starting to go that something like that was going to happen. It was a complete mix of deflation, anger (at the time at the referee, although more at the added on time that seemed to go on forever than the actual penalty decision) and frustration. Was a better performance than at Elgin (although low bar and all that) but still too many occasions when we lacked cohesion and allowed Peterhead to get a foothold on the game, even if they did very little with it (bar the good stop they forced from Neil Parry early in the second half). Wonder if the McAllister incident was picked up on the cameras, it happened very quickly so not sure how much malice or otherwise was involved. Agree with the view on Rennie coming on - the way the game was going, it was more suited to Connor Young coming on (slightly baffled why he's been left on the bench of late, think he'd be a good foil for Jordan Allan). As much as we still have 14 games left, it really does start to feel ominous for us now. Despite us starting to look better under McCall, the brutal truth is we still have only won 2 games all season, and it's only 1 win under McCall so far. The defensive lapses still haunt us, and I remain unconvinced about us in midfield. Have to hope we can go to Stranraer next weekend and win, in all reality (albeit it is a traditionally difficult place for us to go and get results from)

We're starting to do enough to show we can start winning games, but while we have built up a reasonable wee run in the league, we really need to start converting points into wins. Today was a real curate's egg at times, we threatened to be completely out of sight in the first 10 minutes or so, when we were doing all the right things, playing the ball on the deck and getting Jordan Allan in behind their defence. Then, for some reason, we just seemed to resort to more of the aimless long passes that do us a disservice. Much as I think Barry Cuddihy strengthens our midfield, he had a game where some of his passing was not up to scratch. I'm hoping the signing of the boy McGinn from Hamilton means Ross Lyon (who was excellent today) can switch back to right back and allow Logan Dunnachie to move more central, although that leaves a quandary as to whether you go 5 at the back, as both Hamilton and to a lesser extent Howie have been really good, Hamilton's coolness and game intelligence make him a stand out. In terms of recruits, I think we need a bit of width , which may well come if McGinn is coming in. At times we could do with someone who can stretch the game and commit the opponent's full backs (Liam Scullion occasionally can do that, but we miss someone similar on the right, unless Kian Leslie can fill that role, which I'm yet to be convinced by). Today's result feels more frustrating as well for the fact that we could feasibly have overtaken Elgin by the end of Tuesday. But it definitely feels like we are going in the right direction, and great to be leaving games feeling more optimistic than not.

Can't have been much longer after that that Gerry McCoy and Martin Scott left us and moved to Albion Rovers. Still shudder every time I see the name Hugh Stevenson on the teamlist. If folk have issues with Jack Leighfield, they'd have been apopletic seeing him in goals (the 'highlights' of his disasterclass against then non-league Inverness Caledonian in the Scottish Cup are freely available on YouTube.

Close but no doughnut Benny, although the auld vet from All Creatures would still have been a better option than Traynor, and definitely a far better anchor of Sportsound than Kenny Mc

Alternatively, have this man hosting it, would be a great excuse for him to open the show debating whether 'all the Old Firm supporting fatties are ruining Scottish fitba', or something like that...

Agree with that last bit. A lot of the problems we have had at times has been the consistently poor distribution from the back, either aimless hoofs up the park or hospital passes. The lack of a consistent, steady midfield hasn't helped in truth, but if we can improve the distribution and hopefully steady up the defence and cut out some of the daft goal concessions, it will provide a platform for us to build. We've shown (especially in recent games) we can score goals, but too often we've been miles off it defensively.

If ever a January transfer window clear-out was needed, this programme deserves it, starting with chief blaw-hard McIntyre. With his penchant for cliched soundbites and his complete inability to control anything, all of what we feared would happen when he took over from Richard Gordon has come true. I was in the car earlier and my wife, while listening to Miller, English and McIntyre debating the 'player of the year' bit (fairly certain it was that segment anyway) described them as 'a bunch of schoolboys engaging in a playground fight' (or words to that effect) and she was spot on. It's become painfully unlistenable at times (actually, most of the time) and there are far too many on the show not because of what they can add, but because of the old pals act. Open All Mics at one point was a great concept, a kind of radio version of Sky Sports Soccer Saturday. But now, it's also a painful listen. Same with how little attention is paid to anything other than the Old Firm (I used to remember when on OAM they would regularly provide goal updates from all the leagues, and although they did round up the latest scores during the first half, McIntyre felt like he was in a mad rush to breeze through them so he could talk more nonsense.

It's an absolute top-drawer strike, had that been scored in the OF game today Kenny Mac would have just blown up. For a goalkeeper, thrust on because the only other option was playing with 10 men, it's not only an unbelievable strike but an unbelievable story. Last time similar happened was when Hull City (before all sorts of money was thrown at them) had to bring on their NI international keeper Alan Fettis and fling him up front. He scored, so they started him next game and he scored again. Fairly certain neither of those goals was 30-odd yard howitzers though!

I had that line saved up for when it was confirmed he was away. As much as he tried, he was patently unfit (despite what his family thought at the start of the season...!) and was too much of a passenger given the position we are in. So far, everything that was put out there by Allan Maitland has come to pass - three really good signings, the cutting adrift of the dead weights (although I feel sorry a little bit for Kyan Gunn, who was subjected to some ridiculous abuse when he wasn't even playing following the 4-0 loss to East Fife, leading to Ray Grant having to step in). Don't think anyone could have complained about who has gone so far, now be interesting to see who else has been lined up and who we can persuade to come on board. Happy New Year to y'all, let us all hope 2024 is more fruitful from a Clyde supporting perspective, don't think any of us could take another 2023...

Not to put too fine a point on it - we are in serious f'ing trouble. I know there's the hope that January will bring a change round in fortunes, but it's going to take some real root and branch reshuffling to even get us close to lip-synching, let alone singing! Highlight of an undoubtedly catastrophic performance today - and about the only thing that made me laugh - was Kian Leslie attempting to chest the ball and it flying about 10 yards away from him thus conceding possession - it kinda summed up the entire afternoon's debacle. I'm no longer sure I can get angry any more when watching such a chronic performance, as we've seen them throughout the campaign so far. What just galls me more than anything at the moment is that Peterhead, a team who were even worse than us last year, appear to have got their shit together and are making a far better fist of this attempting to get out of the league at the first time of asking mallarkey. On that note, many thanks Mr Chairman and Mr Duffy for your sparkling contribution to a thoroughly miserable season so far. Can only hope the reset in January doesn't come too late, as I can only imagine Elgin and Forfar will attempt to do so similar to avoid the trapdoor and if we continue performing like that between now and the window, we'll potentially give ourselves a mammoth task. Have a bit of a fear for Jeanfield next week - like it or not, we aren't very good and having seen them previously, they can be quite a handy outfit.

I reckon only Barnes is the one even remotely likely to come across in my opinion. Up until last month Livramento was being bigged up for a call up to the England squad and if he even thinks there's a slim chance he'll get the call soon, at his age I'd be surprised if he didn't want to hang on to weigh up that possibility. Would love either Barnes and/or Gordon to 'defect' as it were and the one thing in our favour I guess is that Clarke and Carver seem pretty adept at being able to sell the concept of what we are trying to achieve.

Slightly better than Tam 'get a grip Mr Higgins' Miller, maybe a shade closer to Hugh 'witz the keeper daein Tom' Burns (either way, he certainly loves the sound of his voice, seems desperate to prove that he's an educated scholar or something...)

It's quite frightening, looking at who's available, even when you look at who is involved at under-21 level, barely anyone getting game time (obviously Kelly and Clark the exceptions but as demonstrated they won't do at this level) - there is some hope for Cieran Slicker potentially but even though he's moved away from Man City for game time, he's joined Ipswich and isn't getting game time there. McCrorie clearly happy just to take the blue pound and get splinters on his arse, and no-one else looks like they're about to make the breakthrough anywhere.

Given we probably all had this one down as the match we feared heading into the qualifiers (especially if we needed to take anything from the closing couple of games) a point isn't bad, but the performance won't live long in the memory. There was just little fluency in the play (probably not helped by some of the disrupting tactics Georgia employed) while at both ends we were very very poor. Pleased for Lawrence Shankland to get the goal, surprised it took so long to bring him on, it was apparent for long periods that Dykes was well off it. For the Norway that part of the field needs a refresh, would be starting Ferguson as support as I thought he did well for the 45 minutes. Do we change the keeper as well (Clark gave me the fear every time he was relied on to make a save, although he was not helped by the lack of support from his defence - Patterson badly at fault for the second although Clark should have done better with the attempt at a save). Georgian tactics were ridiculous, enabled somewhat by a weak referee. Inconsistent with his cards (Kvartaskhelia should have walked had the referee booked him earlier in the game, while the pony-tailed lad should have seen a second yellow for feigning injury in the incident where he saw yellow for the awful challenge). Norway at home maybe gives us a chance to freshen things up a bit, give players desperate to lay a claim to be in the squad an opportunity, especially now as we aren't topping the group.

He's a sly ratbag (their player not Gilmour, just for clarity...!) The amount of wee kick-outs he has had without action from the ref has been ridiculous (also kicked Patterson after the ball had gone out for a goal kick) yet he is constantly demanding cards and rolling about like he's been snipered any time anyone goes near him. We've been poor so far, particularly defensively and given how toothless we've been up front had we conceded a second I don't think we'd be able to come back from it. Dykes looks a fair way off the pace, reflecting how off form he has been for QPR of late, but then our potential replacements include someone struggling for game time at Luton. I'd possibly throw either Brown or Shankland on for Dykes at half time and get Ferguson on for Christie (who's been surprisingly poor). Given the pace they have on Taylor's side, I'd be reluctant to fling Doig on, just due to relative inexperience (internationally)

It's a cracking appointment and likely a bit of recognition from the board that recent decision-making hasn't been, erm, good and that we needed to get this one spot on. My only faint concern is the length of time he's been out of the game, but given his track record he on paper appears to be the right appointment to get us out of the complete and utter shitshow that we are currently in. In many ways, this has some similarities in many respects to around 30 years ago, right down to where we're currently based - we'd just papped a failing manager, brought in someone with excellent credentials, went on to win the Second Division (caveat, the winning of the league clearly won't be this season) From an objective setting point of view as long as we can keep up with the likes of East Fife, Elgin and Forfar until January, it gives McCall the chance to get his own faces in. Assuming Chris Millar is being retained as assistant? I'd not be averse to him staying on in that capacity to be fair and as a definite also hope there is a role within the club (boardroom ideally) for Allan Maitland.

I completely agree, and as I said above while it had potential as a concept the whole debacle around how it came about meant it was probably doomed to failure anyway, so I've no quibbles around no such post existing. Again, though, the radio silence over it from the board is also a bit embarassing, obvious assumption was the post ceased to be as soon as Duffy left, but it was never made clear. And that's why people get frustrated around the communication problems.

I actually think the DoF role had potential to work, it was a sound enough concept. What ruined it and doomed it to failure was the farcical circumstances in which it came about - i.e. Jim Duffy, who I'm fairly certain about 99.99% recurring wanted out, was just moved into what folk thought was a role artificially created because the club didn't want to pay him off. Another black mark against the hierarchy I'm afraid. If it has been condemned to the history books, then I'm fine with that, but as haufdaft rightly said, the whole process around getting a manager in needs to be 100 per cent spot on, and needs the right time, care and attention given to it. I personally don't think the chairman is the right person to lead that process, given the fact it is probably the biggest decision we as a club will have made of recent times, because let's be perfectly honest here, we get this wrong and even the anonymous backing will struggle to rescue us from the abyss.

Surely his position becomes even more untenable now. As David said previously, he cannot surely be allowed to be anywhere the latest recruitment process. Tongue in cheek here, but amazed we didn't do a Duffy here and just move him to another, newly created, position. Is it telling enough that the post of Director of Football has never been mentioned again since Duffy left the club, despite us all being told it was a vital role to get us into a position of professionalism to move us back up the leagues...! I have my sympathies for Brian McLean as he was handed a real poisoned chalice in may ways, but it's 100 per cent the right move to dismiss him. However, the higher ups at the club need to start looking at the part they've played in this shambolic season so far. To be in a position where we have only so many points that you wouldn't even be banned from driving is horrific, and we are only being kept off rock bottom by the fact Elgin are an even more disaster zone than we are.

First half felt at times like we just overplayed it far too often, could have had a couple of goals (Mulligan put wide when I thought he should have scored). Second half at times we looked lost, decent finish from Bowie though to win it, he's looked good in the two games. Connor Barron looked decent first half, but like most of them fell away from it a bit second period, Alex Lowry fell off a cliff second half (feels at times like he's that kind of player, can look really good one minute, totally anonymous the next). As you say though, seems the one constant in all of this is the coaching masterclass of Mr Gemmill, remains an utter mystery that he has been kept on, close to making me yearn for the return of Ricky Sbragia...!