Mr November

I can see Ian Murray being a contender for this. He’s out of contract at the end of the season and certainly seems to know Falkirk’s weaknesses which is a start! A lot of Airdrie fans wouldn’t be too bothered to see him leave (indeed, a fair amount would be very happy) but if he can get us in the top four again that has to go down as a fairly successful season. If there aren’t any bigger names available then I could definitely see them going for Murray. Of the other managers in this league I certainly think he’s more likely to get it than Stewart Petrie or Darren Young, albeit in Petrie’s case that’s because I don’t think he’d want to go full-time at Falkirk.

I started laughing when it was a triple sub anyway but even more so when I realised he'd chucked on Stokes, Ritchie and Walker. Darren Young had a very good record at Airdrie when he was Albion Rovers manager, I don't think he lost once at Airdrie, albeit we won all the games in Coatbridge. It's been near enough the opposite during his time as East Fife manager, other than one win in 2017 he hasn't won a game in Airdrie since. A shame he wasn't able to trip anyone up tonight.

Four points off top Remember when we thought we might be in a relegation battle? Fair play to Ian Murray and the team, their attitude and performances since then have been fantastic. It would have been very easy for the season to fade away but they dug in at Dumbarton, were the better team against Falkirk, deservedly got a late draw against Montrose and good wins at home to Forfar and East Fife, neither of which were easy games and indeed those are the sort of games we usually drop points in. Really pleased for them. A few weeks ago I just wanted the season to end, here I am really looking forward to the last four games. Not too much between the teams tonight before the goal, it was a dreadful game really, but after that we seemed to kick into gear and were by far the better team. Paul Paton looked really good, definitely made us a bit more solid defensively. Kyle Turner had his quietest game so far but even then he was outstanding in the last half an hour, what a player. If anyone can drag us through these next few games then it's him. Who knows where we'd be if he hadn't basically missed the first three games?

Airdrieonians 2-1 East Fife Dumbarton 0-2 Partick Thistle Forfar Athletic 2-2 Clyde Montrose 1-2 Cove Rangers Peterhead 1-1 Falkirk

There’s a good interview with Euan O’Reilly here. It’s good that he seems to finally be getting over his injury issues, he’s certainly been an important player for us since the restart. Good to see he’s enjoying his time at the club. I quite liked him in the few games he played last season but he wasn’t great in his few appearances earlier this season, you could tell he had some good attributes but he struggled to put everything together and his crossing was especially poor. It certainly wasn’t a lack of effort, he just didn’t seem to know what he was doing when he got the ball. He reminded me of when Raith fans said Mark Stewart was like a speedboat with no driver. He’s been much better since the restart though and seems to be improving with a run of games. He’s still very raw but his pace and directness provide a similar threat to what Callum Smith did for us last season, though not on the same level. Even on Smith’s poorer days his pace and work rate always caused the opposition problems and I hope O’Reilly can have a similar sort of impact if he continues to improve.

This is a nice listen, Crighton touches on the season so far and talks a bit about his role at the club. Seems like he helps out with coaching set pieces and opposition analysis while Murray takes most of the day to day coaching. I've been critical of his performances this season but he certainly comes across as a good guy and he's a good ambassador for the club. Interesting results elsewhere tonight, probably results that suit us too. Seems like Thistle are hitting form at the right time, it takes them a few points ahead of us but good to still have a gap over Montrose. A win next week would go a long way to getting top four, really important we manage to at least make the top half from here.

Enjoyed that Leon McCann interview, certainly seems like he’s got the right idea in terms of playing first team football. I always thought he’d move on to a bigger team than Kyle MacDonald and it certainly sounds like there’s a decent chance of him moving on this summer. It would be a shame to see him go but it’s another great example of young players being given time to develop and progress at Airdrie before moving on to a bigger team. Obviously we need to try and keep our best players but that’s not always possible in the position we’re in, so showing ourselves as a club who can develop young players can only be a good thing in terms of attracting new players. As others have said, he didn’t have a great start to this season but he’s been much better since the restart and probably our best defender overall this season. Playing alongside two experienced defenders in Crighton and Fordyce must be great experience for him. The manager has put a lot of faith in him given Eckersley was barely seen for most of last season and we didn’t bother signing any other left backs this season but he’s certainly showed why. There’s a few decent left backs in this league but McCann is right up there in terms of the best, certainly in terms of potential anyway.

Delighted with that win. I'm normally quite reserved watching our games on streams but proper celebrations when Gallagher scored, I always felt a winner was coming but what a relief when it finally went in. I thought we played pretty well tonight and deserved to win by a couple of goals. We certainly created plenty of chances but our finishing was really wasteful, I'm still baffled at Gallagher's miss at 1-1. It's good that we are creating these chances though, that's two games in a row where we've looking really exciting going forward rather than being stodgy and hoping for a set piece. While we've wasted a lot of chances in the last two games we're bound to start scoring more of them if we continue to attack teams in the way we have. I was really pleased for Gallagher to properly score, he's a very good striker at this level but hasn't really got going yet this season. It's good for Connell to score too, hopefully all our strikers are coming into form at the right time. I think the 3-3-2-2 system that we've moved to certainly helps with that, as we always have two strikers as well as O'Reilly and Carrick pushing forward with support from McCann and whoever replaces Jack McKay after an hour. It does leave our midfield a bit isolated, it was just Turner on his own for large parts of tonight's game, but he's clearly capable of running things himself in there. I do worry about that set-up against better teams should we make the top 5 but it's certainly making us a much better team going forward. Bringing Paton back into the team for O'Reilly or Carrick might make us a bit more solid for bigger games and allow Turner to get further forward and I reckon Murray might go with something like that. Defensively we still seem to be vulnerable to quick counter attacks. It's a concern as we're not necessarily a slow team, we just seem to be a bit all over the place defensively in those situations. Jack McKay was useless once again. I'm not Thomson's biggest fan but he clearly made an impact when coming on against Dumbarton, Montrose and again tonight. Thomson contributed more within ten seconds of being on the park than McKay did the full game. I'd certainly be looking to start Thomson next week as he offers so much more out there.

Ian Murray will have a contract waiting for Forfar's number 14 to sign after this game based on those long throws.

Airdrieonians 2-0 Forfar Athletic Partick Thistle 2-1 Clyde Clyde 1-1 Dumbarton Partick Thistle 1-1 Montrose Cove Rangers 1-1 Falkirk East Fife 2-1 Peterhead

I mentioned this after the sending off a couple of weeks ago but he’s been a liability at times this season and is probably one of the reasons why we’ve been much worse defensively this year. Fordyce and Kerr were very solid in the few games they played together last year, would be pretty happy with them as the starting centre backs next season assuming we’re still in this league.

Enjoyed this. On the point of signing proven, experienced players, I suspect that has become quite difficult for us and is going to continue to be so for us over the next few years. We’re the smallest full-time team, Falkirk, Thistle and Queen’s Park will always be able to outbid us for any players nevermind Championship teams. We should be well placed to attract the best part-time players but Arbroath and Alloa have the advantage of Championship football and we’ve also seen teams like Darvel, Kelty and even Stirling Albion in the case of Andy Ryan outbid clubs at our level and above for part-time players. I think the club is in quite a difficult position, do we continue with a hybrid system that in theory allows the best of both worlds but in practice probably isn’t a huge benefit or revert back to being completely part-time, even if that doesn’t guarantee being able to offer the best part-time wages. I’ve posted about this before but the club’s recruitment strategies over the last five years have been a shambles. Trying each different strategy is fair enough but as none of them have worked out, we’re left with very little continuity over that time period. We’ve tried going completely full-time with a squad full of young guys which never worked out as the team lacked quality and experience, as well as a good manager. We then went in completely the opposite direction with Findlay’s experienced League One jobbers, who were really dull, slow and ultimately nothing more than a bang average League One team at best. Any successful team needs a mix of youth and experience and I had hoped we were moving towards that but last summers recruitment was almost entirely focused on bringing in younger players. That’s fine when we already have guys like Carrick, Crighton, Fordyce and Gallagher around but when they’re having poor games it means we’re very reliant on an inexperienced group of players. Ultimately, I think the club has a big decision this summer in terms of whether we stay as a hybrid or not. If the suggestion of us only training Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday before the restart is correct then that would suggest we might be moving back towards a part-time system. Either way, I think there’s always going to be a few clubs who can offer more than us for the better players at this level.

Cove Rangers 2-0 Dumbarton Falkirk 2-1 Clyde Forfar Athletic 1-1 East Fife Montrose 1-1 Airdrieonians Peterhead 2-2 Partick Thistle

I quite enjoyed watching this. I forgot Falkirk played such great, free-flowing football, it’s a disgrace that Airdrie like to use long throws which Falkirk consistently can’t deal with.

Massive win tonight. I really enjoyed that, our record against Falkirk over the last couple of seasons is pretty remarkable given we're pretty inconsistent against everyone else apart from Clyde. It does make losing the first three games after the restart even more frustrating, as even winning one of them would have us sitting at least 3rd. Good to see us back in the top four though, even if the teams below us have games in hand. I thought tonight was the best we've played since the restart too. There were times where Falkirk were on top but on the whole that was a good performance, much more convincing than last week's win at Dumbarton. I thought Ritchie and Turner did well in midfield and Gallagher and Roy were excellent up front. Really pleased for both Gallagher and Roy, I was a big fan of Gallagher last season but he hasn't really got going yet this season, he played well tonight though so hopefully the goals will come soon. I've been critical of Roy as most fans have but I thought that was his best competitive game for us, hopefully he can keep up this form as he looks a real handful at the moment. Crighton and Fordyce were much improved on their last few games together too, though that was partially helped by Falkirk running out of ideas and just launching balls at them towards the end. I'd like to see Jack McKay dropped for Saturday, though I'm not expecting it to happen. Playing Carrick, Thomson or Robert out there would surely benefit the team much more than McKay who wasted a couple of chances going forward tonight and hasn't looked convincing defensively at all.

Worrying how poor Airdrie look every time Falkirk are on a counter attack. Other than that, I've been pretty impressed by us, it's certainly a much more open game than I was expecting. Jack McKay is still the clear weak link, we'd be a much better team with Carrick or even Thomson out there.

Airdrieonians 1-1 Falkirk Clyde 1-1 Cove Rangers Dumbarton 0-2 Montrose East Fife 1-2 Partick Thistle Forfar Athletic 2-2 Peterhead

I’m guessing they’re busy at East Kilbride these days but are the Aitken’s army lot still around? I haven’t seen them mentioned for a while and with no fans at games I haven’t seen anyone waving at Bryan Prunty either.

A terrible game as expected but delighted with the win. Pleased for Roy and Thomson, two players who haven’t really got going at Airdrie yet but both did well for the goal, hopefully they can kick on for the rest of the season. The time wasting in the last ten minutes was brilliant, probably the most enjoyable part of the game for me. The commentary team were great too, even when there wasn’t much going on in the game (most of it really) they were very knowledgable and engaging. Definitely the best I’ve heard this season.

This is a massive game for both clubs and I suspect the winner will probably tell us a lot about how each team's season will go from there. I'm expecting a terrible game tomorrow but I'd be delighted with any kind of win at this point. I think this is very much a first goal's the winner game, Dumbarton don't score too many and Airdrie really struggle to come back from losing positions. Before the restart I was hoping we could go into this game on the back of 5-7 points from the opening three games, hoping to get another win to push up the league. As it stands, we really need a win just to make sure we stay away from the bottom three. It's hard to judge the Peterhead game given we played near enough the full game with 10 men but other than a decent enough opening half an hour against Partick Thistle we've looked poor since the restart. We've had a pretty good record against Dumbarton over the last few seasons with three wins, five draws and the defeat earlier this season. Most of those games have been pretty tight though, with Dumbarton scoring a few late equalisers for the draws and the 1-0 win last season was pretty unconvincing. I'll happily take that kind of win tomorrow though! I reckon Robert, Turner and Gallagher will all come back into the team, possibly others too as the guys brought in last night never really took their chance, albeit they weren't helped by us playing without a midfield for the full game. It's hard to predict who'll play though as Murray seems to be in one of his thinking outside the box and overcomplicating things moods going by the last couple of games.

Maybe Stuart Millar picking the team wasn't so bad after all...

I think the team that was meant to start tonight seemed fair enough considering the circumstances. The defence was a bit of a shambles but that's what happens when your only proper right back is a young player who's played once, two of your competent centre backs are out and the back up isn't very good. Paton and Sabatini seem like a decent enough midfield two and should provide a solid base for the front four and offer more of a link between defence and midfield. Why Murray decided to bring Thomson in and move Carrick deeper and O'Reilly into the middle when he could have just swapped Ritchie straight in is beyond me. You can't start a game against one of the better teams in the league with one centre back, one full back, two wingers, two central midfielders and four forwards and expect them to form a competent team. Similarly, there was absolutely no shape when we were chasing the game at the end. It looked like Calum Gallagher, who while he hasn't been up to it this season is probably still our best poacher, seemed to be playing in midfield alongside Ritchie and Robert. What's the point in playing players wildly out of position when it's clear it's not going to work? It reminded me of the home game against Raith last season where we played the last half an hour with five strikers on the park and Nat Wedderburn on his own in midfield. The kind of thing I do if I'm out of ideas on Football Manager never mind real life. Incidentally, in terms of results there wasn't too much between us and Raith last season. Raith were clearly a better team but all three games were 1-0 defeats and we probably deserved something from the game up at Kirkcaldy. Look at the difference between the teams now though, Raith have improved their team and are now sitting second in the Championship having beaten their rivals 5-1 on national tv, whereas the only play-offs we're heading for at the moment are the relegation ones. Thursday's game against Dumbarton is massive now and not for the right reasons. We really need a win to end this run, otherwise it's hard to see where a win is coming from next week the way we're playing.

Does anyone know if any of our players, other than Thomas Robert, are signed up for next season? I don't think the club announced anything specific last summer so I'm hoping not, though we obviously only found out about Robert midway through the season.

Have any of Murray's triple subs ever worked? For me they're normally the sign that the game is done. His subs weren't particularly great last season but having more subs available just seem to cause him problems, he makes a triple sub for no real benefit just because he can.