Dink

Really poor performance today. There isn't anything wrong with a passing game and playing the ball out from the back but it has to be done right. Playing 442, is always going to leave you struggling in midfield, and you have to have another option or teams can press right up on you safe in the knowledge that you're not going to exploit the space in behind. I can understand that Peter Grant wants Flannigan in a position where he can get on the ball and dictate play, but too often Flanny was pretty much our deepest player and the defensive side of his game just isn't strong enough (hence the big mistake for the goal). A lot of work needed for us (and we can't underestimate the impact of not having Andy Graham) but well done to Arbroath who were easily the better team today.

As I said previously I'm disappointed with this appointment, but that's entirely down to his poor record as manager and patchy (at best) record as a coach. Also, he has absolutely no experience of working with a part time setup (as far as I can see). On the plus side the hope would be that his time with the Scotland team, and youth teams has provided him with an insight into the decent young players that we may get in on loan. A lot of people are quoting MM's record of recognising and appointing managers but his successes have largely been with young managers moving into their first job rather than experienced managers. Barry Smith and Danny Lennon both did OK initially but were ultimately unsuccessful. Having said all of the above I hope that I'll be proven wrong and Grant will turn out to be a great manager for us. Once the action starts I'll put my misgivings to one side and support the manager and team as always. And anyone who says that they're not coming back because of Grant's Celtic connections is a dick.

Obviously I'd support him etc. etc. but I'd be really disappointed with that appointment if it's true.

The job that Kevin Harper has done with Albion Rovers has been pretty impressive, I think that he'd be worth taking to at least.

Gary Naysmith? Given that he almost got QOS relegated, while Dobbie was banging in a huge amount of goals, I'd hope that he gets nowhere near managing us.

Yes, that has undoubtedly been one of his failings. We've been very inflexible over ticket prices - which may well be why he fits in so well at the SFA.

I suspect that there's a lot of truth in that (the fud comment) and I disagree with a hell of a lot of what he says - especially his arch-tory brexiteer bollocks - but he has done a very good job of running us as a football club. We're far better than we should be given the size of our support, and if you listen to the Pele podcasts every one of our ex players talks about how well the club is run from a player's point of view. He also has a pretty good success rate in appointing managers, something the SFA could really do with.

Surely if you have a board with responsibility for the whole of Scottish football you would want representatives from the whole of Scottish football. Specifically on the Alloa Athletic representative I absolutely don't get why you wouldn't want a man who owns the best part time team in Scotland and is a very successful businessman (even if I profoundly disagree with him on a lot of points) on that board. I work in a public body with a board and committee structure and it strikes me that many of the failings of the SFA will be failings of the executive rather than the board. Any board is only going to be as good as the executive that serves it. With the issue of club licensing and the cancellation of the meeting I would expect any competent executive to be meeting with the chair or deputy chair following the cancellation to discuss the agenda and any issues that require urgent action. There should then be either sufficient delegation of authority to deal with issues such as licensing applications or processes in place where the board could take decisions by correspondence. I've long thought that the SFA Chief Executive shouldn't be a football figure but someone with experience of working with committees and getting things done in that structure. Unfortunately the press in this country would crucify the SFA if they ever made such an appointment.

So, even in our worst run of the season (conveniently ignoring the wins at either end) we were averaging better than 2 points from a possible 18. To be honest I think that we're still likely to be relegated but I'm pretty confident that we'll get at least one more win before the end of the season.

2 points from 6 games would be quite a collapse in form for us - we're currently at 29 points from 30 games. 0.97points per game. Although we probably need to do better than that to stay up.

Ahhh, that's sad news. When we were visiting (for the Scotland game which was curtailed by a power failure - 15 years ago I now realise) the bar was closed for the night but Manolo was still there. When he saw us piling out of a taxi he opened up the bar again, spent ages posing for photos and gave us his number in case we got in bother with the police (no idea what he thought we were going to get up to, or what he'd have done if we ever phoned).

Manolo's bar is well worth visiting. Basically a football museum in a pub, and Manolo himself is extremely helpful and welcoming.

Oh FFS, the only posts I do on here nowadays are random bollocks when my 3 year old has got a hold of my phone.

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I can't see a thread on the game so I'll just post in here. A very frustrating game yesterday. We dominated possession in the first half but it was all very toothless, largely passing in front of the Peterhead defence. I can't really remember us creating a decent chance in the whole of that half. Second half was settling into a similar pattern when a mistake by Jason Marr presented Peterhead with a great chance which they took well. After that Peterhead had their best spell of the game and could have grabbed another. We took control of the game again but still didn't really look to have any goal threat. Peterhead then had a man sent off - he definitely deserved to go out was only a debate of it should be a second yellow or a straight red - I thought that it was sufficiently reckless to justify the straight red but I can see that Peterhead would argue otherwise. We then proceeded to put Andy Graham up front and launch high balls towards him. We had a couple of chances and Longworth had a really poor miss but Peterhead were able to see the game out, and they deserve great credit for their defending in the game. We struggled to create anything and as a result you can't really grudge Peterhead the victory. We really need to play with a bit more pace and purpose when we're up against a team defending in depth. I also thought that the movement and interplay between the front three wasn't good enough to trouble the Peterhead defence. All in all a very disappointing performance.

Hopefully that will be a good continuity appointment without lessening Goodwin's influence on the pitch. If Goodwin is to be a player manager then it will be interesting to see who else he brings in to help him out or if he'll be happy for Paddy Connolly to manage things on the touchline.

Yeah, that's the other possibility. Of course it could also be that there is a flurry of gossip and I've just missed it all through not being based in Clackmannanshire.

Given that there hasn't been any kind of leak coming out in the media I'm assuming it will be someone who is already out of work, and where we haven't had to deal with a third party.

A really good signing, he should have the right combination of ability and dirtiness to make him a bit of a cult hero.

Another good signing, between Spence, Layne and Longworth (plus Scott Hynd trying to break into the team) we should do ok for goals. If we can get the defence sorted and resign Flannigan then the squad will be looking pretty strong.

It sounds like another decent signing by Jack Ross and the fact that it makes it much less likely that we'll be starting with Macausland as a first choice is a bonus. Jack Ross seems to have taken a pretty sensible approach to building a new squad but I'm almost missing the excitement of last close season when we had no idea what to expect from the likes of Catalin Paun and Geoff Mitchell. Unfortunately we got the answer to that after the Berwick game - they were shit!

Delighted to see Kev Cawley back at the recs and Holmer signing a new contract is good news as well. Both are players who have thrived in league one previously, and both bring a touch of guile to the team. I'm a bit more lukewarm about Hetherington, as he has never really impressed me. Hopefully I'll begin to see what other people see in him next season.

Chopra was great for us last season and despite his fitness problems you could still tell that he was a class act. This season was a bit of a disaster for him but you could see Danny Lennon's thinking pre-season - Mitchell providing a physical presence right up front, two pacey and skillful wide players and Chopra pulling the strings in behind. Unfortunately when the new signings didn't work out he was asked to play as a lone frontman chasing hopeful balls out of defence, and Chopra was never likely to thrive in that role.

Wallowing in misery slightly I thought that I'd have a look to see if any team in the major(ish) UK leagues had scored any less (league) goals than us. Predictably none had, with only Threave Rovers failing to have scored at least 50% more goals than us. Although we probably are having a more enjoyable season than Rothes who have conceded 126 goals and only managed 1 point so far. That we have scored so few goals is one of the reasons I really don't mind Jack Ross' decision to tighten the pitch and try to shitfest things. The games really can't get much less entertaining than they have been so far. Oh well, here's hoping that Jack Ross can get us scoring a few goals at the very least. Scotland Premiership Kilmarnock 18 Championship Alloa 8 League One Stranraer 18 League Two Berwick Rangers 23 Highland League Rothes 12 Lowland League Threave Rovers 11 England Premier Aston Villa 16 Championship Bolton 19 League One Blackpool 21 League Two Hartlepool 20 National League Welling 22 National League North Telford 16 National League South Basingstoke 20 Others Welsh Premier Haverford West County 15 Irish Premiership Warrenpoint Town 16

That sounds like a very positive appointment, and it's good that we've not gone with one of the usual suspects. The path of excellent assistant managers becoming train wreck managers is a well worn one but given what the Dumbarton fans are saying hopefully Ross had enough about him to avoid that path. All in all it seems like a positive appointment, it will be interesting to see who we bring in in January.