The Toun Clock

Never know but I can't personally see anyone else coming in. I have a feeling Bene, Breen and Fisher aren't a million miles away. I'd have liked another striker too, as without Kane we're a bit toothless up front. I know he hasn't scored yet, but his all round striker play is so much better than the rest.

Raith Rovers fans liked him cause he stuck his fingers in his ears at East End after a win.

People get all glossy eyed about Millen because he could score from 12 yards. He was consistently found wanting when he played for us. Now I know he was just a kid, but he didn't fill me with any confidence, his attitude is also rotten. He got sent off in his last game for the club and I'm sure it was for dissent, a 3-0 pasting up at Glebe Park in that 7th place league one season. I was watching him in the New Year derby and if there was a player we were going to target as a weakness to get back into the game it would have been him. Could see as we pushed for an equaliser he was getting a bit nervous. Most of the Rovers fans will tell you, he's been okay for them but they're not overly fussed he's leaving. They said the away game where they won at Tannadice in December he was great but not much else.

I watched on a steam last night and it was a poor 0-0 with not a lot going on. We massively missed Chris Kane up front who is ill, not injured so should be fine for Saturday according to the manager in his post match. We've got you guys on Saturday then Airdrie at home on Tuesday so two absolutely huge games that will define our season. Great result for Ayr last night, was watching the scores on my phone and just when I thought Thistle had done us a turn, you guys went up the park and scored the winner. I don't think any of us seen Airdrie winning at Tannadice. Ayr have certainly enjoyed a good wee spell under Broony!

I watched it on the firestick, fair play to ParsTV it was actually a decent enough stream, clear as day and no buffering/freezing etc. Missed the first 20 mins or so but from what I seen it was two teams lobbing sh*te at each other. We looked like we were coming on to a game at the end of the first half, Jak rounded the keeper and had to score, although it was probably more down to the good defending. I was surprised he went for a double sub at half time. Paul Allan was booked and was constantly in the refs ear at every decision. He was going the right way for a second yellow, so when I seen Chalmers warming up I thought that made sense, straight swap. I can't for the life of me work out why he decided to take Summers off as well. Second half was gash, I don't think either team had any real chances. Matty put one across the face of goal after a run down the right but it looked more like a cross. Credit to Deniz, good save for the penalty. Thought the defence were good, like the looks of Miles Taylor-Welch when he was at full back, you can see he has that experience and wasn't shy giving out orders. Otoo again the best player on the park. Really missed Kane up front so was pleased to learn he was ill as opposed to injured. Point definitely the fair result. No team done enough to win the game and we should be the happier of the two with a penalty save and playing away from home. Unfortunately last night the other results went against us, I certainly didn't see Airdrie winning at Tannadice, however I did fully expect Queens to beat Arbroath and thought Ayr might have beat Thistle. Unfortunately between now and the end of the season we're going to have a lot of relying on other teams to do us a turn. Massive two games now, Ayr have done well since Scott Brown came in and Airdrie with a brilliant result last night, just when you thought they were slipping a wee bit, I think they were 8th at one point last night. COYP!

McPake was shouting to Chris Kane in the second half a few times checking if he was okay so hopefully just a little niggle and he's okay for Saturday.

Aye the win will do wonders for momentum, if we did put a few together teams would be a little more fearful of us than they have been earlier in the season. However I would be satisfied taking a point back down the road but with the players Inverness seem to be missing, we should be aiming for all three. If we did win, that would be back to back wins for the first time since early December, and for only the third time this season. Then we'd be going on to two home games within the next week against similar placed teams in Ayr and Airdrie. Need to start racking them points up, because after that it's a trip to Starks for the derby and then hosting Dundee Utd.

I'd go with the same 11 tonight if we can. Not only for a bit of reward to the boys that went out there and done it, but also because the option of Jakubiak off the bench is a really good one whilst he's still getting back to match fitness. Inverness are a fairly physical side, use the height of Holmes/McCann. However, O'Hallaron should be in the squad so he might go with him as opposed to one of these two. I think Miles Welch-Hayes will be the right back for the rest of the season, but after a much improved performance and a goal I don't see him dropping Benjamin. Does anyone actually know what formation we played on Friday at Firhill?

We don’t need to reinvent the wheel with McCann, we just need him working with proper strikers. Stevie Crawford would have been a perfect coach for him. He would have learnt from Nisbet in their brief spell together but since then we’ve lacked a wee bit in the striker department where McCann could learn, almost like a mentor. Todorov was a proper striker but I suppose more of a target man. Wighton isn’t really an out and out #9. However, Chris Kane is and I think he will be able to learn a lot from him. He doesn’t need to be completely retrained as a centre half. He has plenty attacking attributes that can be enhanced, and thinks he could bring into his game with coaching. I’m one of his biggest critics but I’m convinced if we let him go he’d go on to have good career and we’d all be wondering why he couldn’t do that for us. Something like Jordan White who became a bit of a Premiership journeyman with Inverness, Motherwell, Ross County etc.

He's been really good any time I've seen him this season (0-5 pasting at East End or Morton BBC games). I agree that he'll have aspirations to play top flight in Scotland next season.

To be fair mate, I think most are just saying they would if they could. After the loans, I think it's Allan, Edwards, Fenton that are out of contract, sure the rest are tied down until at least Summer 2025. We have this extra year option with Edwards which I hope we're taking, even if it's just to sell him in the summer and make some cash. Allan doesn't do enough, I don't know his best position. I can't fault his effort at all but it's not like he's getting stuck in, he's just there or nearly there as it's been this season. Fenton, still a kid and to be fair you'd have to be pretty good to shift Josh Edwards out the team so can't really comment.

Is this enough to have QP and Airdrie in the mix for 9th? I think if Morton keep doing what they're doing they could really challenge Thistle for third but I don't see the current top four changing. Dundee Utd or Raith will win the league, the other will finish second and one of Thistle and Morton will make up the rest of the top four. Everyone outside of the top four is still in the mix. The Pars have a game in hand on Ayr, one point behind them and play them at East End on Saturday, before Friday I couldn't see how we would escape 9th place.

I'd quite like a new goalkeeper. Deniz will be here for the next two years anyway and I think with a settled defence in front of him he will do a job but I still think there's better goalies out there that I'd like to see as our #1. I could see Little going, not exactly sure of his contract situation and if he was being planned for the future then he might well stay but I'm sure he's not delighted that he didn't get a sniff when Deniz was injured and Harry Sharp was under-performing. I think Miles might be decent from his short cameo on Friday and the video that was on here. He was very verbal and had that wee bit of game management, telling Deniz to slow down when it came to taking the freekick etc, a bit more streetwise which we lack massively. He's 27 and plenty games under his belt so that's a bonus especially with Bene still missing. I think he could do well but will wait and see. If he does, can we keep him, or do Livi come down and they then want to keep him, time will tell. We have the option of a year with Josh, but I don't know what that means. Can we just say it's happening and that's it? At least if that is the case we can get some cash for him. I think he'll have suitors but he needs to keep doing it for us. I'd be shocked if the manager didn't say to him something like "help us stay up and get your move in the summer" etc. Needs to sort that final ball out a bit though... Summers will be away back to Celtic, and the two Cardiff boys too, although it sounded like MFW was being planned for next season so maybe we might be trying to secure him permanently. I've seen enough from Chris Kane in the highlights from last Saturday and watching the game on Friday that I'd like to see him stay beyond the end of the season. He's a proper centre forward and already ahead of a fit McCann, Wighton and Holmes. I just want to see these boys play as a unit between now and the end of the season, secure survival in the division and get a chance to show how good they can be when we've got less injuries.

Allan is one of the out of contract players in the summer, I know he's played a lot this season but it's because he's had to and if we had a fully fit squad he would be in single figures for starts. I don't think it's good enough to say he's a good squad player, he doesn't impact the game enough. I personally wouldn't be offering a new deal but I have a feeling they might give him a year. with regards to him playing at right back - did he play there before? Because he was shoved in there when we played QP at Hampden in at the start of the year. I know he had a couple of loan spells but not sure if he featured in the defence there. Quite refreshing to be sitting on a Monday, win under out belts, a few places up the table with the next three games coming against teams around us. Not getting ahead of ourselves as Inverness, Ayr and Airdrie will all be very tough games but a couple of wins and we'll all be able to breathe a little easier. All before we then have to play the Rovers away and Dundee Utd at home back to back.

Forgot all about MOH. Aye he could certainly get the nod ahead of McCann, who didn't do terribly on Friday but I think in that position MOH gets the nod. All of a sudden we've a few options and I feel it allows us to breathe a wee bit. Not getting carried away after a good win, but if we can pick up a couple of wins in the next week or so things will feel a bit brighter, all still with our proper defenders to come back in plus KRH at some point.

As soon as the ref blew for full time on Friday I was already thinking about the best option for getting to Inverness, completely forgetting the wife is away to London for work first thing on Tuesday morning. So that bins that but hopefully get a stream on the firestick. Amazing what a win will do. The last 2/3 months have been a really tough watch so to have a wee bit of a lift is great. Inverness has never really been a happy hunting ground for us but we did win up there two years ago so why not. I’d bite your hand off for a point at the moment, but if we managed to get the win it would really give us a bit of momentum going into two massive home games in the space of a few days against Ayr and then Airdrie. I agree with what was said above, I think the top four is set now. Dundee Utd and Raith will battle it out until near enough the end of the season IMO, with one just falling short. Thistle could be caught by Morton but even if they are I still think those four will be the ones in the promotion/playoff spots come the end of the season. With regards to the team, I wouldn’t be shocked if he goes for the same 11 as Friday. Big Holmes did a decent shift in an unfamiliar position but maybe he’ll come out for Jak who looked really good when he came on. Safe travels to all heading up, hopefully three points coming back to the kingdom!

At least you’re not raging about it

I was gonna post this the other day but didn’t want to sound like sour grapes. See when Ashcroft was released for free in 2020, most didn’t bat an eyelid. I actually typed “Ashcroft” along with my twitter handle the other day to see if I could find what I said when we let him go and there was about 12 tweets about him from over the years, only one was positive. He’ll do well for Raith in a team that has more of the ball. By the way, this isn’t me sitting here saying I don’t think he would have been useful for us since we won last night. Is he better than Fagan-Walcott, Benjamin, Otoo, Hammy as a centre half, aye he is but do I want a longterm plan with Ashcroft as the main man at the back? No.

Didn't realise how busy the next three weeks are for the club with six games between tonight and 15/3. Thistle away tonight, Inverness away on Tuesday, Ayr at home a week tomorrow, Airdrie at home on the following Tuesday, away to Raith on the Saturday then the live Friday night game against Dundee Utd. Games coming thick and fast with no free weekends from now until the end of the season. Let's hope for an injury free remainder of the season, never know we might actually get to play our favoured 11 once.

Can imagine this being a poor away attendance tonight. Anyone making the journey? I'm sticking to the telly, few cans and some form of Asian grub into my grid. Someone above mentioned tonight being a free hit, still a lot of football to be played but I do think that is quite accurate. Our games against Dundee Utd, Raith and Thistle are free hits for the remainder of the season, anything a bonus. The games against the other six teams are where the points need to be made, and we can do it, we've beat them all apart from Ayr and Inverness, and in fairness we should have beat them both (Ayr at Somerset and Inverness at home when we hit the woodwork about 8 billion times).

Was away on a stag do last week so wasn't there. Glad to hear we created more chances, but it was against Arbroath...

I know you guys were talking about Ross Millen and some sort of contract dispute but it was all rumours etc. Craig Cairns from the Courier has just posted an article about it, sounds like Millen is done in Kirkcaldy.

They'll have to mate although it could be a hard one to actually digest, I can't imagine things have changed drastically in last season and this season's sessions, we done okay with injurues last season only really Allan, O'Hara and McCann at various stages and McCann's happened in a game. Can't remember the other two. If we had changed something in training, you'd like to think we might have reverted back to the previous schedule that seen us injury free for most of last season. Apparently we have an annual budget for medical stuff put aside and 50% of it was used up in one week which must've been nearer the start when Bene, Kane, Matty all required surgery(s), scans etc and it's just spiralled since. Can you imagine being the medical team waiting to receive a scan/medical report back from somewhere, and having to go into the manager and say another one is long term, requiring surgeries and what not. Must've been a complete nightmare and probably a very lonely place. I know the physio and medical guys are doing their best and understand their line of work but I'd imagine they all felt to blame at some point, even when they probably weren't. Anyhow... roll on tonight, I can't really see anything but a Thistle win and probably quite a convincing one at that given recent performances. Thistle will want to keep hot on he heels of Raith and Dundee Utd, couple of dodgy results for those two and Thistle could quietly sneak into the race for the top spot, absolutely anything is possible in this league. From our point of view, I'd like to see us compete and show a bit of fight and togetherness, come away with no new injuries and hopefully see Matty and Jakubiak play some part. As mentioned above, I can't see anything but a home win so if it has to be a 1-0 without us getting a pasting live on the telly then fair enough. Luck has to change at some point, so if it could start tonight then that would be very welcome!

Aye the new signing now makes a bit more sense if that's the case, although a complete sh*tter of news about Comrie, however not surprised.