foxinperu

I was saying before the game that I’d give Mochrie and Meekison one more season, but that I think both Glass and Chalmers are now at the point where they should be moving on. The upside with Mochrie is that I think he could get a good amount of goals if it clicks for him. A bit like Fotheringham, who seemed to go for ages getting lots of promising chances, without taking them….then all of a sudden, this season, double figures. A big challenge for both Mochrie and Meekison would be that they would have to do that in the Premier, not the Championship, presumably on limited opportunities from the bench, after we’ve strengthened the squad. Both Mochrie and Meekison still seem a bit too slight, and maybe not physical enough to be trusted in rough and tumble of games. Thomson is similarly slight, but his reading of game and tenacity seem to make that less of an issue in games (maybe the position he plays too)

Question for Morton fans. Does the lad Wilson (no.27) usually play centre midfield, or was that an experiment in the first half? I don’t think I’ve seen a more unlikely midfielder in a long time. It looked like a centre half playing centre mid, with predictably horrendous results.

Was it 800 fans? Is that from an official attendance figure, or ticket sales or something? I mean it was a horrendous night and game was on the telly, so couldn’t really blame anyone if folk DID stay away. That said, I managed to get into what ended up being an absolutely packed away section of the covered seated grandstand. The relatively sparse numbers you saw on TV, stood on the open terracing behind the goal, are only the poor buggers who never managed (or didn’t want to?!) to get into that stand.

United were shite tonight, far too many players off it. What the hell was Goodwin playing at fucking about with the shape though? Can’t help but think we’d have dealt with that game an awful lot better playing the 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1 we normally play. Well played Dunfermline. Thought you took your chances very well. Enjoy your night / weekend.

Absolutely delighted to see United come out on top in an ugly, absolute war of a game. Whilst I’d love to see more quality in final 3rd and finishing, just to see us compete, not get bullied etc. is very refreshing. No serious complaints at all with that United performance.

Fair enough. I only saw it in real time from a bit further down the line; probably a combination of my tangerine tinted spectacles, annoyance at the outcome and general disposition against that ref. that has played to my faulty perception there.

Was fuming about it. Thought it was absolutely clueless refereeing that he didn’t see it as a fairly cynical foul to stop a promising move down the line, as i thought it was obviously late and reckless, rather than legitimate attempt to win ball. Was even more annoyed with the Arbroath player as he has obviously done him a right sore one with it. Not heard an update but hopefully it’s not a lengthy lay off for McMann.

On an administrative note - what’s the deal with parking? Can you just pitch up and park in the spaces right in front of Hampden? I’m guessing there’ll be reasonable parking capacity for these games. Any charge?

Really important game for United this. We are struggling to find any kind of form at the minute, with several players out of sorts and a real gap between promising moments being turned into goals. If we don’t win on Friday then, with the pressure of being biggest club, with most expensive squad who are expected to win the league….the wheels may fall off. There is a long way to go in the season, Raith may have a tough spell themselves, but in the immediate term we need to be winning every game in order to exert some pressure of our own. I’m hopeful that it all begins to click again and QP bear the brunt. As a minimum, Utd players need to look like they are prepared to run through walls and are peppering the opponent's goals on a regular basis. Need to see an urgency and hunger to win, rather than ‘the game will come to us in the end’. Given recent results (cups and Raith) I’m not sure the Utd crowd will show any kind of patience.

Over a month since we’ve played at Tannadice. Whatever we get today, will be nice to be back home. In saying that, with the apparent relentlessness of Raith, a resounding performance and 3pts for United today would really help further build the anticipation for the Raith game next week…yeah, let’s go with that.

I thought it was a strange ‘almost good’ type of performance from us today. A couple of regular starters down (with replacements who understandably aren’t quite as good) and a majority of regulars who it wasn’t quite happening for today. No complaints with the application, just too many players having an off day. We’re going to get these days every now and then. It is a bonus that Raith dropped points too. Just need to go and put another strong performance against Dunfermline and get all 3pts on Friday. From an Inverness’s perspective, I thought they look well organised, played some decent passing football whilst mixing it up with some longer stuff, and look really dangerous in quick transition. Having seen the other teams in the league, that current 9th place looks a false position for them and I’d imagine they’d be reasonably optimistic about moving up the league and out of trouble?

The clarity of fans swearing on the audio of BBC championship game live matches is magical. Don’t know why, but it elevates the football on tv watching experience.

Kilmarnock today, in Motherwell on Wednesday night and Hampden on Saturday evening. That’s brutal. Do you know whether the team are/have considered staying down in between? If they are back and forward between the games it will be quite the yo-yo of additional travel. I know teams tend to travel the day before fixtures that involve a bit more travel, but the back and forth of all of this could be disruptive in itself. Quite a reasonable expense for the squad to stay away for the guts of a week, but probably would give you best chance of success through those fixtures.

We had a horribly unbalanced collection of individuals, huge deficiencies and the wrong collection of ingredients. I don’t particularly blame Goodwin for not turning that ship around. The jury was still out on him at start of the season (given that relegation), but for me the biggest testament to how he has done is how balanced that team now look. It is clear what we are trying to do & who does what. All the additions to the squad have addressed and corrected issues and weaknesses that we had. All the existing players remaining from last year are playing better than they were, and many who fans had written off are delivering regularly (albeit at the lower championship level…remains to be seen how they’ll all get on when stepping back up a level, in a confident, organised team). We were weak and regularly bullied out of games, now there is a battling quality to us. Given all that, Goodwin will do for me.

Firstly, huge respect for whoever came up with Billy Ocean ‘Red Light Spells Danger’ on the pre-match stadium music playlist. Thought that was really clever, and also a brilliant tune. Thankfully, did not prove the case tonight though. As you’d perhaps infer from the score, I thought it clicked for us all over the park and Glenn Middleton, in particular, looked unplayable (albeit Arbroath seemed to give him a lot of starting space, which really didn’t work from their point of view) Lots to admire from United’s point of view - Docherty’s control of the game, some of Kai’s first touches, everybody just being bang at it. Very enjoyable night as a United fan and nice to mark the occasion with such a fine performance.