Mr November

Agreed. We play our best football with McMaster sitting higher up the pitch, allowing Frizzell and Devenny to push higher and find gaps. McCabe is a better footballer than McMaster and Devenny but we have a better balance with him at the back or ideally in the dugout. They played well in the second half at Falkirk last time, after we ditched the weird man marking thing we seemed to be doing in the first half with McMaster, Frizzell and Devenny following Kucheriayvi, Henderson and McGinn all over the pitch. We’re not really a team that can sit in, so I’d like to us go with energy from the start, play at a high tempo and then bring on Telfer/McCabe if we need a bit more composure on the ball.

Four players in the PFA team of the season. Gallagher and Frizzell were obvious picks for what they bring and why they’d stand out to other players. I’m a bit surprised half of the defence is made up of our players, I suppose we did keep the most clean sheets outside of Dunfermline and were stronger defensively at the time voting presumably took place, so easy for some to miss some of the nonsense that’s been on display in certain games.

He’d be an odd choice to replace Spencer when he’s a forward than can play out wide! I’ve said before, maybe even on this thread, that Smith to Raith in the summer makes a lot of sense. Murray has signed him twice before and his best form has came under Murray, he’s exactly the kind of ridiculously hard-working wide player Murray likes. I think he lives in Cowdenbeath and has a young family, so a move to Raith seems incredibly obvious.

Pretty happy with that. Edinburgh the only real outlier, 1/2 and 4/5 the wrong way round but the right order elsewhere. I thought Falkirk would struggle to score without a top striker but looked solid defensively, whereas Dunfermline had good forwards but I wasn’t convinced by their keeper/defence. Right logic, wrong way round!

Yeah, I know you weren’t as big on McCann as most but I was very surprised MacDonald got an upwards move before him. I suppose it was a good deal for us though given we ended up getting Kyle Turner out of it. I agree though, if we needed a right back then we could do a lot worse but I suspect we’ll have more pressing issues this summer whatever league we’re in.

I wouldn’t be hugely surprised with either signing. O’Hara fits the hard working forward who can play out wide that we like, though I don’t think he’d bring the same goals as McGill or Smith. The Todorov idea was purely because of his agent, most of our signings seem to be represented by or linked to Jackie McNamara in some way. McCabe and Fordyce seem terrified of Todorov too, see panicking and changing a sub to bring on big Byrd in the 4-3 game when Todorov started getting ready, so I’m sure they’d like him as an option. I suspect he’ll get a Championship club though. We hopefully won’t need a right back, as Ballantyne is signed up and Watson will presumably still be around. I liked Kyle MacDonald at Airdrie but his performances in the play-offs last season put me off him.

I’m already terrified for this. I think a play-off between these teams has always been destined to happen after all the battles since Falkirk were relegated. Falkirk go into it as favourites and rightly so but it’s a very hard one to call, with both teams more than capable of battering the other. McCabe has a few interesting selection choices to make. I’d say Rae, Watson, Fordyce, Ballantyne, Frizzell, McGill, Gallagher and Smith all seem certainties to start. The big questions are who partners Fordyce at the back (McCabe or ATS?) and does he go with experience or energy in midfield (McCabe or McMaster, Telfer or Devenny). If ATS is fit I’d go with the latter for each option, knowing we can bring on some composure and having McCabe to see things from the dugout.

No matter who wins, this thread will break P&B next Saturday with meltdowns.

Livingston got the same points tally in 2017 and while they won the league by a slightly bigger margin, that was in a much weaker league. The Airdrie team that came third that year are miles off the team we have now. I think the perceived lack of excitement from how Dunfermline play is the main reason for it but as someone who’s suffered in this league for a long time, Dunfermline have been the most dominant for a long time. I fancy them to go up and challenge for the top four.

A very impressive season for our strikers this year. Gallagher (22), McGill (15), Smith (10) and even Jamieson (8) have all had a good return in the league, as well as a few cup goals between them too. I think Gallagher has played fewer minutes than Paton too, as well as having more assists, so hopefully that gives him the edge for top goalscorer. It’s a meaningless award for us but he seems desperate to win it. A ridiculous season for him, 30 goals/assists in the league is some going.

Poor Joe.

Poor Salim. If he can’t get a start today then he never will.

The other interesting thing with that is Hartley’s recent rebuilds have been a disaster. I think it’s fair to say our resident Cove fan wasn’t hugely enamoured with Hartley’s recruitment at Cove anyway, so it’s a massive summer ahead for him.

I’ve (half-jokingly) said this for a while. Airdrie and Falkirk, the two biggest bottlers in Scottish football, coming together to make sure Alloa get promoted.

Who wants to do this so we can sign Kyle Turner next season?

I think that’s four very worthy nominees. I wonder if the vote between Dunfermline players will be split, I reckon being up against three Cove players last year probably helped Easton stand out. I do think Gallagher is in with a chance and I’d be delighted for him it he wins it.

It was bizarre wasn’t it? I’m not criticising anyone who went, I know I had people with me who don’t attend regularly, but it did feel like the usual core support was really diluted and spread out that day. The silence was bizarre though, it was genuinely like being in a library. The Montrose game the week before had a big crowd, though that was helped by everyone being already being emotional and annoyed at how bad we were until Callum Smith turned the game around. Like you say, I’ve never experienced an atmosphere like that play-off final. I don’t want to look back at the thread but I’m pretty sure at the time most of our more level headed supporters were cautiously optimistic ahead of that second leg, though wary that Queen’s Park were a tricky team. There were certainly some though who seemed expectant that we’d romp to victory on a better pitch than Firhill. Those posts, much like the ones bamming up Falkirk at this stage, give me the fear.

I think a lot of the prominent fans on twitter are quite young, which maybe explains them being a bit more excitable. I find the facebook page to be a real mix of misery and high expectations/overconfidence. On the whole I think our fans on here, in this thread anyway, are a pretty reasonable bunch who are realistic about where the club are. I reckon it’s the same for most clubs having seen comments on social media in other club threads.

Last year’s final was awful for that. We had a big crowd in but the stadium was silent, the full thing had a lot of nervous energy. As soon as Queen’s Park equalised it felt like it could be a struggle and by the time Murray had taken off all our good forwards it felt inevitable we weren’t going to win, you were just waiting on the second goal coming. I felt pretty good about the play-offs a few weeks ago but the closer we get, the more I’m starting to feel the same way as you. I think it’s hard not to when since the last league win it’s been almost 20 years of disappointments. What I would say is I don’t care at all where we finish in the league as I’m equally as concerned about playing Falkirk as I am Cove or Hamilton. If this team turn up they’re more than good enough to do it, it’s just whether they’re able to do that for long enough over four games.

I think this will be our ninth attempt since they were introduced in 2006. Since then we’ve lost six finals (2007, 2008, 2009, 2012, 2021 and 2022) and two semi-finals (2010 and 2017). It’s a remarkable record, though caveated by us still ending up in the second tier after losing the 2008, 2009 and 2012 finals because of other teams financial issues. It’s the sort of thing that others think is lucky but actually just leads to us circling the drain for another year. The last two seasons have been frustrating as we’ve put in big performances in the semi-final second leg only for it to be for nothing. The 3-2 Cove game in 2021 was a cracker, with the two late goals and then Gallagher scoring the winner with his thigh in extra time. Last year we had the Montrose shenanigans, coming from 4-1 down to make it 4-4 (Gallagher’s other thigh scoring the equaliser) before Afolabi turned into prime Olivier Giroud. I still laugh thinking about the nonsense that went on that afternoon. As you say, last year will always feel like the perfect opportunity. It came down to winning a home game against a team we finished 21 points ahead of and yet we couldn’t manage it, though Queen’s Park absolutely deserved it on the day and across all four games. It’s hard to call this year. This team have it in them to batter any of our possible opponents, however could also easily struggle to play consistently well across four games.

Alloa Athletic 1-3 Dunfermline Athletic Clyde 1-2 Montrose Edinburgh 3-1 Airdrieonians Peterhead 1-2 Falkirk Queen of the South 2-1 Kelty Hearts

I don’t think there’s any argument that McCabe would be one of our best 11 players but the team has more balance without him in midfield. McMaster sits a lot higher and while he doesn’t have the same range of passing as McCabe, he allows the team to be more progressive. Devenny’s running is really useful too and provides a good balance to Frizzell’s movement and quality on the ball. I’d play McCabe at centre back if ATS is out but ideally I’d have him in the dugout, with him or Telfer to come on if we need more control in midfield.

It’s been said before but there can’t be many teams in Scotland who’ve gave more youth players a chance than Airdrie since 2010. From Jimmy Boyle’s time up until Ian Murray came in it seemed like everybody got a chance unless you were particularly rubbish. It leads to guys like Chris O’Neil, Dean Cairns, Sean McIntosh etc. all playing a lot of games without ever doing much then people being very upset when they leave, only for them to all drop down several levels. That’s not even touching on guys like Graeme Goodall, Conor McLaughlin, Grant Drummond etc. who just seem to disappear completely.

Tottenham’s antics at Anfield today reminded me of the time Airdrie equalised in the 93rd minute to make it 3-3 up at Brechin only for Alan Trouten to score a winner a minute later. The team that night had a midfield three of Nathan Blockley, David Sinclair and Liam Watt, with a front three of Liam Coogans, Lewis Coult and Keigan Parker We might still be stuck in the same league, but we at least have a lot more quality these days.

I generally agree with you to be fair. Players take a lot of abuse and I have no issue with them giving some back. I get why Paton has done it today but when it’s someone most fans couldn’t pick out a line up then it just feels like strange behaviour. It’s absolutely not worth getting upset about in the way some people do though.