Valentino Bolognese

Week 1: Falkirk Week 2: Queen's Park

I'd be happy with the personnel but shuffle Wright to WB and Carey on the left of a front 3. As per other thread though, unlikely to go with that shape.

Probably not, especialy at home. Back 4's not exactly worked in competitive games so far though.

Risky starting either Brown or Dare as a RB (are either fully fit) and we know Wright doesn't work there and McGowan isn't great either, and it takes away the midfield option. With that in mind I think we might see a back 3 to let Wright and Gallacher be WBs and bring McGowan into the middle to hold and Dan to do box-to-box. Ahead of that no idea but I' think that Carey, May and Jephcott would be the option. If we get the WB's high enough up the park (we know Drey can do this but less sure about Gallacher) that doesn't need to be as negative as it looks on paper.

Surely he won't even be on the bench - has he actually signed yet?

Gilmour's not injured?

What happened to the McGrandles chatter? Dead?

Hearts shook off the Curse Of McDairmid last season and the spell is broken. It holds no more power. Also, we're absolutely rank. Still, it's football after all. St Johnstone 1 - 0 Hearts (Doak, 93)

Week 1 - Falkirk

To be fair to the Andorran facilities they do have a better scoreboard than the one at McDairmid. Today we lost to a team that don't have player names on the back of their shirts. Again.

If we're starting with one up front, I'd go with Jephcott. May's been honking and even on his best form can't play that role. At last, as I understand it, Jephcott has. Saying that he looks miles of fitness. And he wasn't kidding when he said in the press he wasn't quick.

Agree with this entirely. The age and potential profile of the signings is right but the club's hand is forced and it might be too late to pull out of the tailspin, as innevitably with this signing policy we'll have starting players still learning their trade as the season goes on and with less experience relegation pressure might be a factor. CD was in a self-created circle of brining in 'experienced' players who perhaps he thought would be able to handle the pressure, but in actuality they weren't good enough, too old etc. Plugging gaps with loans didn't help. Montgomery was great for us but now we've got a starting left back that's lost a full season of his career and no cover or options at CB. Which is even more mad considering he played 3 and McLean's playing 2. Edited to add ... I actually think that we're doing as good a job on the signings front as we could have realistically expected, still on the fence on McLean, overall I'm 50/50 on whether we'll go down.

Signing Bair would absolutely qualify as 'banter'. But if he scored a (consolation) goal against for you at McDairmid, the home crowd would be on their feet. Ideally played in a front 2 with Jahmal Hector-Ingram.

Saints TV seem to have a stream avaialble but no information if this is for UK or international subscribers. Separate link to PPV stream. Anyone?

At the game it looked like Alloa had a really good shout for a penalty when McGowan handballed. From where I was standing it looked like one that VAR would definitely give. Did that get picked up?

Are you also surprised that it was a joke of a booking, for his first foul? Ref was dreadful today.

Agree with that.

We seem to be playing Wright as a right back. It's not working.

Am I being a bit daft thinking that the delay in this announcement is because we want to do two at once?

Said this in the car back yesteday, but I have a feeling that despite the paper talk about 4-3-3 (did he actually say this or are folk just assuming?) if/when Kane and Nicky are back in the squad we'll be looking to play a 4-2-2 and we will be better for it. If the rumour that we're bringing in a wide player is correct then I would think that would support that line of thought. As others have said biggest problem yesterday, to me, were the CBs. The lack of pace, mobility and distribution aren't so much of issue with a back 3 where there are more outball options and you'd have a 3rd CB to do that ball-carrying work. This was made worse by McGowan having his worst performance in a Saints shirt (he was absolutely rotten) and Gallacgher being a downgrade on Montgomery (with, to be fair, not much to base that on so far). I simply cannot believe that McLean is playing May as a lone striker by choice. If we are to take positives from yesterday wee Max and Fegusson at least brought some energy although to me Ballantyne seemed a bit scrappy. Knicker status: damp

Yes. Collective incompetence.

The only reasons I can think of are that we're not based in Kilmarnock and our manager's not a racist. But a fair point.

Agree with that assessment on quality. I would say that we need to bring in at least 4 starting players and you could argue that they would have to be our 4 best players. We do have good youth but they are pretty much unproven, particularly at this level. I agree that's the base we need to look to build on but after 2 years of flirting with relegation, to me it's very high risk. We might not have a choice though.

In terms of knicker-wetting, I'm moderately damp at the moment but the closer we get to real games the more the huggies pull-ups come into play. I guess what's bothering me most is that I'm not really understanding the reasons for the lack of market activity. As a club that's up for sale there will be big pressure on cutting operational costs to make the books as attractive as possible. But, we've shed an awful lot of playing wage bill - so you have to think that would have freed a good amount of headroom. It may well be that we were carrying so much wage cost it was putting us into operating loss, but that would be veyr unusual for us. If it's more the case that McLean is being extremely picky then that's fine and much needed after CD's scattergun approach but surely we're at the stage now where something has to happen. The big worry is that we're just not an attractive place for talent any more, which could easily be the start of a proper tailspin. If we get to the end of the league cup groups without at lest 4 signings I'll be at the 'need to wring them out' stage. But then again, that's normal for this time of year with this club. Actually there's barely been a dry day for the last couple of years.