Mr November

Why are we playing in an Albion Rovers kit?

It looks like we played Hearts yesterday and lost 5-2. No mention of who played or scored for Airdrie but at least we’ve improved since January!

I can't say I've had any issues but the emails seem to come from diamondsatheart@airdriefc.com if that's any help, possibly in your junk folder? You've not missed out on too much, just the monthly prize draw emails (which I think are posted on the club's social media anyway) and a couple of Q&A's with directors, Ian Murray and Sean Crighton.

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

No one has officially replaced him yet. I think Sean Crighton is full-time so helps out with coaching during the day and Stuart Millar seems to have become more involved with the coaching too, though I’m not too sure whether that’s a good thing or not. I’m expecting a tough low scoring game here, much like the two games at Dumbarton last season. Dumbarton seem a bit weaker this season, especially going forward, so I can see a 1-0 Airdrie win happening. I doubt Murray will change the team too much but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Kyle Connell get his first start in place of Gallagher or Sabatini.

Yeah the Murray out lot seemed particularly vocal on Saturday, even more so than usual. I like Murray and I think there is a good manager in there, he certainly proved that at Dumbarton, but he definitely has his faults and there's definitely a reasonable number of fans who are quick to criticise him as soon as the slightest thing goes wrong. I feel like that group of fans hasn't really grown much in size over his two years at the club though, it's generally the same people that you see complaining every month or so. Tomorrow is two years exactly since his first proper game in charge, an uninspiring home defeat to Stenhousemuir. Looking back at his two years at the club I think we're definitely in a better position now than we were then. I think most people would agree that the current squad is better than the team Findlay built that season. There's definitely still a lot of work to do but I feel like the team, and the club as a whole, have made slow and steady progress since Murray's appointment. I think we've been unfortunate to have been in a very competitive league last season and this season so we maybe haven't progressed as much as we'd hoped, I think any of last seasons top five and now Cove Rangers too would beat the Airdrie and Brechin teams that finished in the play-offs in 2016/17, but I think the club is definitely in a better place now compared to two years ago. I had a quick look at Murray's overall record over the last two years and using league games only he's averaged around 1.54 points per game, which would get you about 55 points in a normal season and 42 in this shortened season, which might be enough to scrape into the play-offs looking at previous seasons. However, if you take the games from the start of last season where he's had his own team (obviously a very small sample size this season) he's averaged 1.7 points per game. It's definitely not title winning form but that would get you 61 points in a normal season and 46 in a shortened season which based on last season would have got us in the play-offs. I think this is a massive season for Murray in terms of where his managerial career goes from here. If he takes us to the play-offs, promotion or not, then I suspect the board will be relatively happy and he'll be kept on for another year. However, if we struggle and miss out on the top four then I imagine he'll be away and I'm not sure where he would go after that, given his last two jobs would have been failing at St. Mirren and not really achieving anything substantial at Airdrie.

There wasn’t much between the teams in the first half but Thistle were the better team in the second half and probably deserved the win based on that. I thought that was a penalty before Spittal’s goal but ultimately we never showed anywhere near enough on the ball or going forward outside of that. Murray’s substitutions didn’t help either. No complaints with playing the same starting 11 as last week but Kerr struggled in midfield today and while Sabatini wasn’t too involved he was still very composed on the ball when he had it, I’d have taken off Kerr or even McKay before Sabatini. Taking off our two proven scorers in Carrick and Gallagher when chasing a goal is bizarre too when Thomson and McKay were still on the pitch.

Dumbarton 1-2 Clyde East Fife 1-1 Montrose Falkirk 3-0 Forfar Athletic Partick Thistle 1-1 Airdrieonians Peterhead 1-3 Cove Rangers

He does but unfortunately he’s out injured and won’t play on Saturday. He did really well in pre-season and I definitely would have fancied him for a goal if he was fit. I’m expecting another tight game on Saturday, much like pretty much all our games in this league. I think Thistle will have a lot more of the ball but that probably suits Airdrie, we’re at our best when we’re solid, hard to beat and using our wide players for counter attacks.

Delighted with that. I didn’t think there was too much in it until the first goal, though Airdrie probably looked a bit more likely to score, but after that I thought we controlled the game and ended up fairly comfortable winners. It was a fairly typical Airdrie win under Ian Murray, a good solid team performance and I never felt like we were going to concede. I’ll happily take that every week! Crighton and Fordyce were excellent and managed Layne well. I thought Scott Brown had a good game for Peterhead but Kerr and Sabatini stopped him from being too involved and even Alan Cook was fairly quiet and didn’t get his usual goal against us. Certainly a lot of positives to take going into a tough game next week.

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

All three games against Peterhead seemed quite tight last season, I only saw the 2-1 win at Airdrie but we certainly weren’t convincing winners that day. I’m expecting more of the same here, a fairly tight game with Airdrie winning by a goal. I expect us to play the same team that started against Alloa except for Gallagher replacing Roy but Murray’s teams can be quite hard to predict at times.

Yeah I've just quickly checked this and I think we only dropped four points from winning positions last season in the league, the 3-1 loss at home to Montrose and the 2-2 draw against East Fife, although in the East Fife game we did come from behind to take the lead before the late collapse. There was also the Hamilton game in the cup where we lost 3-2 after being 2-0 up. We actually did a bit better than I expected in terms of winning points from losing positions, picking up 8 points in the 3-1 win against Clyde, the 2-2 draw against Stranraer, 4-1 win at Forfar and the 1-1 draw against Falkirk. Only one team scored in 16 of our 28 league games last season which definitely backs up the general though of the team being hard to beat but struggling to break other teams down. To be honest, it's been an issue throughout Murray's tenure. All those 1-0 home defeats in his first season were what ultimately cost us and while things definitely improved last season, the three defeats to Raith and the 1-0 defeat at Montrose just before the season ended were prime examples of a team having no idea how to break down the opposition.

Sorry Paul

Paul McKay as the most attacking midfielder again...

£12 for Airdrie.

It looks like Ally Roy will be out for around 3 months going by Ian Murray’s comments here. I thought we were ok last night and losing certainly wasn’t a disaster but I think it showed the issues most of us were expecting based on pre-season. Alloa looked much more comfortable on the ball and really controlled the game either side of their goals. I actually thought Airdrie probably edged it in between their goals, there was a spell early in the second half where we looked really good, but on the whole we never did enough going forward. I don’t think the Paul McKay up front experiment worked. He’s played all across the defence, right midfield, central midfield and now as a striker, it’s probably about time he finds a settled position for his own sake. I thought Kerr and Sabatini did ok in midfield, Sabatini was excellent during our spells where we looked the better team but seemed to struggle a bit either side of Alloa’s goals when we looked worse, which probably isn’t a coincidence. Thomson and Carrick worked hard as always but there was little end product there. O’Reilly looked decent when he came on and certainly tried to impose himself on the game so I’d like to see him start ahead of Thomson against Stenhousemuir. Overall, I have strangely few complaints for a defeat, with only the front four needing changed for Tuesday. The seven behind them look pretty settled, so I think it’s now a case of finding the best balance going forward.

Looks like a midfield three of McKay, Sabatini and Kerr tonight. I did wonder if Murray would try that given Stokes was a bit hit and miss in the last few games but really reliant on McKay and Sabatini getting forward to support Roy. I must say, I'm really looking forward to seeing us in a competitive game!

Happy to have another striker signed up. He sounds like he'll complement Gallagher and Roy quite well and we definitely needed another option there. Early days but I'm quite happy with how the squad is looking overall. There seems to be decent options for most positions and good cover everywhere.

Yeah I’ve questioned signing Hughes, Burke, Moore etc a few times now given it’s clear they’re very unlikely to ever start this season and I think that showed in the pre-season games. Fair enough Burke and Moore came on a couple of times and are now away out on loan but I don’t think Hughes has played at all despite being on the bench a few times. It would have made sense to give him a chance in one of the Rovers games. I know Pyott was injured at the end of last season so I think he might still be out but I expect him to get a few more opportunities this season.

Certainly a lot to be happy about with how pre-season has went, though I’m not getting carried away. It’s hard to argue with the team that started today based on performances across pre-season. I thought we looked really solid defensively today. To be honest, other than the opening 20 minutes or so in the first Albion Rovers game we haven’t been too troubled defensively so far. Both Currie and Hutton seem solid but neither have had a great deal to do given how well the defence have done. I’m really pleased we have the same defence as last year with Currie behind them, it gives us a great foundation to build on. Josh Kerr has probably been one of our best players over all the games and has probably made himself our first choice defensive midfielder. Kerr and Sabatini seem to have a decent understanding already and they’re much better on the ball than any midfield pairing we’ve had for a while. I’m not convinced we’ll see many goals from them but they look like a solid partnership. Ally Roy’s on an excellent run and definitely deserves to start over Gallagher, which is something I definitely didn’t expect to be saying! He seems a lot more confident than he did last season so hopefully he can keep his scoring run going. I think the only real question mark for the start of the season is the three behind Roy. Carrick’s a nailed on starter for me but the other two positions are definitely up for debate. Stokes and Robert have had some good moments so far but both seem to drift in and out of games, while I think I prefer Thomson to O’Reilly so far there’s not too much between them.

I saw this posted in the facebook group but in case anyone isn’t on there Nutmeg have a really good article on the Steve Archibald and the Spanish team of the early 00s, What Became of the Airdrie Spanish Armada? It was a few years before my time supporting Airdrie but a really interesting read nonetheless.

It looks like we'll be allowed to use five subs going by this SPFL statement. I'm personally not a fan of it but it might benefit us more than most teams given we have a much bigger squad than most other teams at the moment.

I’d also like to see this, we’d definitely win more games with an extra man! I pretty much agree with the players you’ve chosen. The back four pick themselves, Kerr and Sabatini have looked good in midfield together, Carrick was our best wide player last season and we need at least one of Gallagher and Roy up front. I’d probably go with Currie ahead of Hutton too. Hopefully Murray has a better idea of his best team as we seem to have a lot of midfield/attacking options who are all broadly of the same standard.

Yeah the picture seems a lot clearer tonight. There’s been a few instances of the camera not keeping up with play but it’s generally very quick to catch up and we’re seeing a lot less of David Hutton. The commentary is very slightly out of sync for me too but that’s not a huge issue, particularly when the commentary itself is really good by club commentary standards. They strike a good balance between being personable, informative and unbiased. Certainly a bit more interesting than Kelty’s commentator from the other week and less embarrassing than some of the other very excitable club specific commentators (Falkirk come to mind).