Mr November

Here's Sam Wardrop explaining why he's left

Seems like it’s just personal circumstances going by this, doesn’t seem like there’s anything malicious in it anyway. Fair play to him for walking away if he’s realised he needs a bit of time away from football.

This is a surprise. I was happy when we signed him but he’s struggled so far, Watson looks a better option at right back based on Saturday. I don’t think he’s a huge loss to the squad based on his performances so far but hopefully he’s doing alright and gets the time away from football he needs. We probably need another defender in now given Lyons seems to be out for a while and Kerr still isn’t ready.

I thought that was a really good point today given the circumstances of the last few weeks. It wasn't a spectacular performance, other than Frizzell's shot in the first half I never felt like we were going to score, but for the third time this season I never really felt like Queen's Park were going to score in open play either. Currie made some good saves and had his usual good game at Firhill but defensively we were very solid, much better than the games against Montrose and Falkirk anyway. I thought McCabe was our best player once again. We missed him in midfield (Agnew was ok while Scott McGill and Frizzell did well but we lacked McCabe's composure in there) but I thought he strolled it at the back, won his duels and kept things organised. Quitongo had another good game and Watson did quite well at right back. When Josh Kerr is fit again I'd keep Watson at right back and move McCabe back into midfield but until then I'm happy to go with the back four that started today. We struggled up front today, Callum Smith's energy and pace was a big miss. Gallagher has had a poor season and even accounting for COVID he really struggled today, he looked off the pace and I thought he should have been taken off earlier. Jordan Allan worked hard when he came on and did well with the limited service he had. Gabby McGill worked hard and created some decent opportunities but he's not a winger, I'd rather see him through the middle with Jordan Allan out wide when they're both on the pitch if we're only going with one up front. I thought Ian Murray was strangely quiet today. Usually he's too vocal if anything which leads to the numerous bookings but he seemed to spend most of the game sitting in the dugout with Prunty giving instructions. A couple of big games coming up next week. Given our start to the season we really need a couple of wins before a tough trip up to Cove. Our Tuesday night home form was fantastic at the end of last season so hopefully that carries on this season. Alloa will be another tough game but we need to be winning these sort of games at home if we want to aim for at least top four. Hopefully a few of the injured players are back for Tuesday, we didn't really have any game changing options on the bench today so we could do with something different there.

Alloa 1-2 Falkirk Cove 2-2 Montrose Dumbarton 1-1 East Fife Peterhead 1-2 Clyde Queen’s Park 1-2 Airdrie

I see Thomas Robert has ended up in the Belgian second tier. It’s still a step up from Airdrie but a real step down from the links and trials he’s had over the last year. It was fun for a few months last year when he was signed and then found some form in October/November but I can’t say we miss him too much or that I’d be desperate to see him back.

In terms of strikers, I’d say only Cove (Megginson), Clyde (Goodwillie) and maybe Queen’s Park (Murray) have a particularly great striker at this level. Falkirk have some good attacking midfield options but other than Keena their strikers are pretty rubbish. Montrose haven’t really had a great striker since they’ve been promoted, while Alloa have Connor Sammon. We don’t have a striker on the same level as a Megginson or a Goodwillie but I think we possibly have the best strength in depth up front in the league. Most teams would be happy to take Kouider-Aissa, Gallagher, Smith and McGill with the form he’s in just now. Hopefully once they’re all fit and Gallagher gets his first goal we’ll be alright. You’re right about a lack of holding the ball up towards the end of the game being an issue, particularly on Friday and against Dumbarton, but I think that was mostly due to McGill being visibly knackered for the last 10/15 minutes. I’m hopeful that Kouider-Aissa will help with that when he’s fit, as while Gallagher is alright at holding the ball up at times he’s more of a penalty box striker and it’s clearly not Smith or Allan’s strong point either.

Clyde 1-3 Cove Rangers East Fife 1-1 Peterhead Falkirk 2-1 Queen’s Park Montrose 2-0 Dumbarton

At least we know what Thomas Robert’s agent is up to now it’s all gone quiet about his move to Salford.

I think that was Wolecki Black’s first game in charge. I wasn’t convinced by his appointment but I remember thinking at 3-1 that we actually looked pretty good and maybe this might actually work out alright. Unfortunately it ended up being more like the last 10 minutes.

Fair play to Dean Ritchie if he still can’t get a game today. I think Hearts played Scott McGill at centre back for a bit in pre-season so I think he might start there beside Fordyce. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see a back three of McGill, Fordyce and McCabe. Not surprised to see Craig Watson’s one of them given his views on Twitter.

We seemed to be quite lucky last season, I don’t think we ever had any big incidents did we? Currie isolating after (I think) going on holiday is the only incident I can remember. It’s the last thing we need after our poor start but just have to get on with it. No mention of it on the match preview interestingly, though those often seem to be based on interviews from training on Tuesday nights when this might not have been an issue. We only really have 18 players available for tomorrow with Kerr, Salim and Lyons out injured so it should be pretty obvious who has it, hopefully they’re all alright. I feel tomorrow is going to be one of those days where we look at the teamsheet at 2pm and don’t have a clue what Murray’s up to.

Alloa 1-3 Queen’s Park Dumbarton 1-2 Cove Rangers East Fife 1-2 Montrose Falkirk 3-1 Clyde Peterhead 2-2 Airdrieonians

The board were quick to punt Findlay when it was clear he was out his depth despite heavily backing him to build his own team. I think Murray will get slightly longer as he's shown he can turn things around before but things do need to improve very quickly.

I rarely felt McCann's height was an issue at Airdrie. Teams regularly targeted it but I can't remember it ever causing us too many problems, for his height I think he wins a reasonable number of headers against generally taller opponents. As you say, most of the issues today seemed to be getting caught out by long balls over the top of him rather than direct headers. Most teams will probably target him given his height but I'll be surprised if it ever becomes a big problem for you, for me he's the best left-back in the league.

It's especially bizarre given how all the pre-season and cup games were pretty much solely 3-5-2, not even a hint of anything else unless we were chasing a game. I remember about half the warm-up before the Queen's Park game was focused on the wide players getting balls into the box for the strikers, something we really struggled with against Annan, so it seemed like something we were trying to tweak as we went, only for Murray to abandon it after one league game. I was a bit surprised when it became clear the recruitment was fully geared towards a 3-5-2, as while it worked well last season that was largely due to Turner and Paton making us very solid in the middle and adding quality going forward. There did seem to be a logic to the recruitment though, certainly more so than the previous two summer windows. A back three of Watson, Kerr and Fordyce seemed reasonable. Watson is a decent enough replacement for Paul McKay, although perhaps not as good a player overall he's probably a bit better on the ball than McKay was. Wardrop and Quitongo did well at Dumbarton and while Walker was fine at the end of last season, with McCann leaving we definitely needed two new full-backs. When we signed them I assumed we'd be going with a back four as neither are particularly attacking full-backs but fair enough if Murray felt they could work as our wing-backs, he certainly signed them up quickly so it was clear he was keen on them. We needed a completely new midfield and Murray seemed to make a big effort to bring in ball players like Agnew, McCabe and Easton. On paper that makes some sort of sense, trying to play through midfield rather than launching it long or relying on crosses which haven't been too successful for us recently, but I'm not convinced that midfield works without a proper defensive midfielder in there. Agnew and McCabe are good on the ball but are much better with the ball than without it, while Easton offers very little defensively (though that's not what he's there for). According to Stevie Aitken we tried to sign Paul Paton again, which if true is strange as we haven't even bothered signing a similar player. It seems like Murray had a pretty clear plan in how he wanted us to play this season, so to ditch it so early on is quite concerning as you say. Perhaps the back three might return when Kerr is fit, as I'm not sure who else can play there at the moment with him and Lyons out. Other than Smith we lack any real pace going forward which is what happens when you build a team to play without wingers. McGill works hard out wide and is a great option for long diagonals but he's clearly not suited for running at a full-back and causing them problems in the way a classic winger would. There's certainly a lot for Murray to think about for next week. To be honest I don't have a clue what our best team is at the moment, perhaps that will become clear when Murray stumbles upon it like he usually does

Yeah some are unconfirmed but I'd guess Walker, Fordyce, Quitongo, McCabe, Easton, Frizzell, Smith and maybe McGill are full-time. Disappointing performance today. We certainly had a lot of the ball in the second half but ultimately didn't do enough with it or create many clear chances. Our best threat seemed to be long diagonals to McGill, which both McCann and Miller struggled with, but once he went off we lacked any real threat. There were far too many occasions where players out wide took the safe option and passed it back inside, or mostly in Frizzell's case just ran into the opposition, rather than get the ball into the box. It was certainly much better than the Montrose game but that doesn't count for much when we've got nothing to show for it. That's the best I've seen Falkirk play since they were relegated. I wasn't hugely convinced by them before the season started, I felt they lacked a quality centre back and striker, but Keena did well today and the attacking three of Morrison, Nesbitt and McGuffie will cause problems for most teams in this league, the first two especially. I don't think we really put their defence under anywhere near as much pressure as we should have today but they actually looked alright defensively, even with a few players out. I liked the look of Queen's Park when we played them in the cup, early days but hard to see beyond those two as the top two this season so far for me. We certainly have quite a bit of improvement to do in both boxes for us to be up there with them.

Looks like a tough battle for the Celtic job

Pretty much how I feel too. I (somewhat) optimistically predicted a draw in the other thread but can't say I'm very confident going into this. I was fairly impressed with Falkirk's business over the summer, they definitely lack a striker and I'm not convinced by them defensively yet but McCann, Nesbitt, Hetherington, Williamson and McGuffie are all good signings. Most importantly, Sheerin seems like a pretty big upgrade on the PE teachers from last season and McKinnon too. While a draw wouldn't be the end of the world, we could really do with a win here. The Montrose game was abysmal and while we played really well up until the sending off at Dumbarton, the combined heads gone and performance after that was a bit concerning. Murray does tend to get a result when you least expect him to though, often against Falkirk, so that bodes well. I remember being convinced that we'd lose the game at Falkirk last season only for us to shitfest our way to a 1-0, I'd happily take the same again on Saturday. If Kerr is fit I'd probably bring him back in with Watson moving out to right back, if not McDonald seems the obvious option to start in place of Wardrop. Although they did well on Saturday I'm not sure how a midfield three of Easton, Frizzell and McCabe will cope against a better team. I'd be tempted to bring McDonald in there for Frizzell if he's not needed at full-back, which would hopefully give Easton a bit more freedom to get forward.

Airdrie 1-1 Falkirk Clyde 1-1 Alloa Cove 2-1 East Fife Montrose 2-1 Peterhead Queen's Park 2-1 Dumbarton

Yeah I was quite concerned by this too. I’m hoping it’s just come across badly and he’s meant we need to be winning these games comfortably when we’re clearly in control, like we were before the sending off. For all the control we had we still didn’t really create too many clear chances, which is something we’ve struggled with in every game so far. If it is a case of thinking we can turn up and beat any team in this like then that’s a bit of a concern, as no one in this league is capable of that and we got a pretty big lesson in that last week. I do think it is the former given our performance before the sending off but yeah, not great wording at all.

Big David Hutton vibes when he did that, reminded me of Hutton getting booked for storming halfway up the park against Raith in the 4-3 game after Iain Davidson headbutted Grant Gallagher off the ball. Quite funny when it’s your team, though I can see why it upset Dumbarton fans.

Yeah I just didn’t think there was too much in it, even for a yellow card. Might change my mind after seeing the replay though. Did any of the officials even notice Currie picking MacLean up? I thought that was a certainty for a booking but didn’t see anything come from it.

Said the same thing on the match thread. Hard to fault Murray today up to the subs given how well we played before the sending off but the subs didn’t help at all. Gallagher wasn’t really involved in the game but McGill was clearly done, a straight McGill for McGill swap to shore things up on the right hand side seemed the obvious option. Big game next week now, as although it’s early days no wins from our first three games would be very poor.

Even from an Airdrie point of view this was funny. Proper pantomime villain stuff but it makes games like this so much more entertaining. That was definitely much more entertaining than Dumbarton v Airdrie usually is, I’ll put that down to Jim Duffy not being involved anymore. Dumbarton started well but fell out of the game after our first goal and we controlled things until the sending off. Quite a few of our players seemed to have a heads gone during and after the sending off and we never really recovered from it. I’d need too see it back but I thought Wardrop’s sending off was quite harsh, if anything you could probably make an argument for Quitongo and Geggan being more deserving of a sending off for what happened afterwards. My highlight of the whole thing was Currie storming out his goals to pick MacLean up. Big David Hutton vibes. I think we got lucky with the penalty though so perhaps we can’t complain too much. I’m not convinced Dumbarton would have got back into the game without the sending off but fair play to them, took their goals well and probably deserved a point in the end. It probably wouldn’t have had a huge impact anyway but not convinced by Murray’s subs today. Gabby McGill looked done so I was surprised when he took off Gallagher first, even if he was struggling to get into the game. Bringing Scott McGill on seemed sensible to shore things up but he seemed to be playing very high up on the left, almost as a striker, which didn’t make much sense to me. Jordan Allan as the lone striker to hold the ball up was a strange one too. The goals came from set-pieces and poor defending so it probably wouldn’t have changed much anyway but it definitely didn’t help.