Mr November

I’m not sure Wotherspoon was ever a realistic option. From reading the Dunfermline thread it seems like they made him a very good offer which would have made him one of their highest earners, which is presumably well beyond our limits. McPake mentioned that Wotherspoon seemed keen to try for a move to Canada/USA again in January too, so Inverness might not have him for much longer anyway. Overall though, as @Kenny_m says I feel like most fans on here were a bit concerned at the lack of recruitment in the summer? Yes some were a bit more negative about it but I don’t remember many posts on here with people particularly delighted at our recruitment.

Can’t argue with that. They’ve never fully clicked when played together in midfield have they? I’ve been quite vocal about Raith away being our best performance for ages and that shape suiting the current squad but even that day McMaster was our least impactful midfielder. Funnily enough our other best performance was Thistle at home when we looked fairly decent with him and McCabe together but dominated the game after McCabe went off injured.

I did say the other day that win against Raith looks better every week. @Diamonds are Forever makes a great point about us not being able to hem teams in. For whatever reason the only time I can properly recall us doing that this season was that five minute spell up at Kirkcaldy when Dabrowski pulled off a great save, Todorov hit the bar and I think we had another run right across goal too. If only it was the same against every other team!

It’s not even the first time that’s happened this month!

McMaster has been fine this season. He had some excellent performances at the start of the season (he was our best player in August) and has tailed off since then. Telfer and Aiken have been the pick of the midfielders this season, the others have been a bit more mixed at best, but overall McMaster has been better than I expected at this level.

Queen’s Park 0-3 Dundee United Raith Rovers 2-1 Ayr Airdrie 1-1 Morton Arbroath 1-1 Dunfermline Partick Thistle 3-1 Inverness

I thought we played better today than we did the last two weeks. The first half in particular we moved the ball much quicker than we have recently, had a few balls across goal, one of which Gallagher hit the post from, plus McCabe and Frizzell's long range efforts. The issue is though that we concede another soft goal very early into the game and then run out of ideas in the second half. The latter part of that is a familiar story unfortunately. The only goals we've scored in the last 15 minutes of league games have been McGregor v Arbroath (already winning) and Gallagher's penalty last week (a penalty). When plan A doesn't work, which it generally doesn't if we concede first, then we really need to figure out a way to at least look threatening late in games. We had plenty of possession towards the end there but did we ever look like scoring in the last 15-20 minutes? Even when we chucked Todorov on, it felt like largely the same gameplan, just with McCabe and McMaster (why both at this point in the game anyway?) looking very exposed. We're obviously not going to wildly change our style of play, and I'm not sure that we really need to. Almost every game has been pretty tight, they're just often decided by conceding soft goals and then an inability to create clear chances. We really need to find a way to do something different going forward when we're chasing games. We don't need to go full Murrayball every week but when the patient build-up play has stopped working and we need a goal, why not just go for it and chuck McGill, Todorov, O'Connor etc. on and cause some chaos? A bit of pressure on the next few games now. Morton have picked up and will be tougher opposition than the previous two games against them, while we never really got the better of Queen's Park in the last fixture. I'd say four points minimum from them is required.

Ayr 1-1 Airdrieonians Dundee United 1-1 Raith Rovers Dunfermline 2-2 Partick Thistle Morton 2-1 Queen’s Park Inverness 2-0 Arbroath

After that win tonight Morton are now only three points behind us and could move above us if they win their game in hand. I think that shows how tight the bottom five or six is at the moment. I think over the next couple of months the league will split into a top two, a few play-off chasing teams (Partick Thistle, Dunfermline, maybe Inverness if Wotherspoon stays) and then the rest tightly packed at the bottom. Whatever happens over the next four games won’t necessarily define our season but two or three wins would be huge.

Yeah it never worked at all that day. I think it’s fine to chuck them both on if we’re chasing a game and going direct but not from the start. Gallagher is capable of playing a slightly deeper role in a front two and linking play but neither of them can run beyond a defender, definitely need some pace up there if you’re going with a front two.

The pre-match stuff is done on a Tuesday isn’t it? Suppose Telfer might have picked up an injury/illness between then and the game. Hopefully he’s back next week though as he’s been our best midfielder over the last few months.

I think near enough everyone agrees with the general point that we’re struggling in attack to be fair. McGill has been poor, Todorov has his uses but has struggled so far and doesn’t seem a great fit, Gallagher will score given chances (we can agree to disagree there). The bigger issue is the creativity around them. We don’t score enough goals but I think that’s largely because we don’t have much in attacking midfield areas. Frizzell has had a poor season, McStravick has moments but is still young, McGregor has pace but beyond that we are particularly weak there. He’s not necessarily a creative player in the classic sense but put Callum Smith in this team and we create a lot more chances. We’re not missing loads of great chances every week, so unless we can sign someone who can create their own chances and finish them then I think it’s slightly further back and out wide where we really need to improve.

Tam Courts does seem the obvious shout for what Queen’s Park are trying to do. I do fear for Queen’s Parks sake that it might be Malky Mackay though.

Small sample size but using league games, when Aiken has played at least 45 minutes our record is W4 D1 L3 (two of those defeats were Dundee United). When he’s played less than 45 minutes or not at all it’s W1 D1 L5.

It’s bizarre isn’t it. He has his moments in other games but he particularly loves charging out to the touchline against Dunfermline. We had two keepers on the bench today and I like to think it was because McCabe knew Rae can’t be trusted in this fixture.

I think that game can be summed up by Chris Hamilton winning every header against Todorov. I had the fear we were in for 90 minutes of McPake terrorball when I saw Dunfermline’s back three but rather than shitfesting they were just fairly solid and then cruised it after the first goal. I thought Airdrie edged the first half hour, though there wasn’t too much in it like most games in this league. Our issue is a lack of creativity, particularly when a goal down, and Dunfermline were able to just sit, control the game and then use their pace going forward to attack Fordyce/ATS. I fancied Dunfermline to finish fourth at the start of the season and I still think they’ll do it. I can see the league splitting into a 2/3/5 with the top two miles ahead, Dunfermline, Partick and Inverness for the two play-off spots and then the rest of us scrambling about mid-table.

I thought we played ok today until the first goal. Still the usual issues in the final third but our play was a bit quicker and while nothing really came off, we looked slightly more threatening. Once we conceded the (as usual very soft) goal though we were out of ideas and contributed nothing going forward for the rest of the game. I think we clearly do miss the injured players. McMaster and Gallagher were ok today but neither provide the energy that Aiken does or progress the ball forward quite as well as Telfer. Likewise with McGregor, as I said last week we really miss his pace as an option but that’s more due to the ability of O’Connor, Dunlop etc. We’re in a bad habit of playing ok, conceding a goal and then not being able to recover from it. I don’t think it’s a mentality issue, just a real lack of spark and creativity going forward. I’m not sure how we address that with the current squad other than scoring the first goal which generally helps us.

It was a very tight game but that win over Raith looks better every week. I think we’re the only team that’s kept a clean sheet against them too. I wonder who scored a great finish that day?

Big test is if they can beat Dundee United. Feel like it might end up a bit like Airdrie and Cove a couple of years ago, two sides miles ahead of the rest of the league but Murray’s team not quite able to get over the line in the games between the two teams. This has been a great laugh. Enjoyed seeing Callum Smith score one of his trademark goals and Alasdair Lamont’s excitement at seeing Murrayball in full flow.

Raith Rovers 2-1 Partick Thistle Airdrie 1-0 Dunfermline Arbroath 1-1 Morton Dundee United 3-0 Ayr Queen’s Park 1-2 Inverness

We’ve had better individual players (Gow, Easton etc) but I think it has to be Fordyce or Gallagher for the best Airdrieonian of the modern era. Two guys who have given the club the best years of their careers, very rarely miss a game, never let us down when we need them and have been consistently very good since they joined. It’s mad that Gallagher is comfortably our record scorer in recent times and is still underrated.

We’ve calmed down a bit this season, for better or worse. It’s probably a combination of not having enough quality going forward to score as freely as we did last season and McCabe realising that it’s a tough step up so adapting tactics slightly but we’re a lot more solid this season. That 4-3 game last season was possibly the last time he had a game changing naive moment actually. As others have said, I think he’s still a little bit away from getting a big job. I’m sure he’ll go onto have a very successful managerial career but it would be a bold move for a big club to appoint a 31 year old just now, even if he has done well so far. He’s had a fair amount of good press, and rightly so, but I can’t imagine too many fans of bigger clubs in Scotland would be delighted at appointing such a young manager who only had a decent if unspectacular playing career. It’s always tough knowing when the right time to move on is but he’s at a club where the support and board are fully behind him and he can get away with making mistakes and learning on the job, a bigger club wouldn’t be quite as forgiving.

A continuation of a management team entirely made up of players. The Calum Gallagher, Craig Watson and Cammy Ballantyne dream team, here we go.

Gallagher’s been fine and is the least of our issues going forward. He still has his moments (hopefully that one from a yard out on the opening day was his bad miss for the season out the way) but we’re not going to sign anyone better on our budget and I think he’d improve about half the teams in this league. If you create chances for him he’ll score goals, we’ve seen that across every season he’s been here. I don’t think he’s a particularly amazing finisher but his movement and anticipation in the box is brilliant, get the ball into those areas and he’ll score. His link-up play is really important for us too, dropping deep to collect the ball and move it wide. You’re right about McCabe though @Jack Reed. He was very good in midfield against Raith and then strolled it when he moved back into defence in that game and against Arbroath. As I said on Saturday, I worry our midfield without Aiken are a bit too slow to play a very expansive three man midfield in this league. Having an extra man in there seemed to suit McCabe and Frizzell in particular.

I was having a look earlier and didn’t realise quite how few goals our league games have late on. We’ve scored one league goal in the last 15 minutes (McGregor v Arbroath) and have conceded three during that time (Rae on the halfway line at Tannadice and then the two at Arbroath). I suppose that fits this squad perfectly, we’re pretty solid when we have a lead but really lack attacking options to change things when we’re losing.