ShaggerG

Aye, I thought so as you tend to use a lot of Americanisms in your posts. Are you a fifer in exile or a soccer supporting Texan that stuck a pin in Kirkcaldy?

FFS, don't say that 3 times!!

Do you live in the USA?

Bizarrely, going right back to Hughes and including the current incumbent, I would take Houston back before any of the others that we've had since then apart from Holt and yet I still think it was time for him to go. Crazy old game right enough.

You can't have been reading very carefully then.

Would someone who claims to be a Falkirk fan and has been reading P&B for 5 years not know the answer to that?

Aye, we're Famous for it.

Too many screw ups, yes?

I have it on very good authority that McMillan is a very useful LWB,

I think you're probably right with the 3-4-1-2 thing. 3 defenders should be enough so I think we could play Doyle, Telfer, Gomis and Connolly across the middle with Tidser or Longridge behind the strikers. It's certainly not ideal and a bit unbalanced but would give us at least some width. Dickson would be important in that formation though because Connolly would offer very little cover defensively.

Oh aye, I know, we don't have the players to play wing back unfortunately although I'd settle for Doyle in that role if we had a credible option on the left too. There's only really Connolly & McLean also that could be remotely described as wingers so I think the lack of width is going to cost us big time.

Didn't know you were an accountant, far less Ray's.

Ok, as I say, maybe there's times when you're not making yourself entirely clear? Other than the obvious lack of width, which I personally think is best solved with wing-backs and, as you say, perhaps a box to box midfielder I think that the squad is quite well balanced which maybe shows that the glaring problem is that McKinnon isn't using it properly. I really hope that he wakes up soon to smell the coffee because he seems like a good guy and it would be nice if it was him that managed to get us back at it again.

Your reply: Completely agree. Who, in your opinion, could we have signed that would have allowed Tidser, Telfer, Doyle, Sammon etc to be squad players? ________________________________ As above you brought up those players not me. Thanks, you've showed that you said that we should have been 'using the guys we have as squad players'. Last time I checked that included Tidser, Telfer, Doyle & Sammon. You also claimed that McShane, Tidser, Gomis and Telfer shouldn't be in the squad at all. Is that what you meant or not?

Well, unless you're going to claim that Shadwell & Shodwall are two different people then I'm afraid that you're wrong.

I think one of your biggest problems Shadwell is that you say things that you don't actually mean.

You said that Sammon has no pace and should be a squad player. You said that Gomis, Tidser, McShane & Telfer shouldn't even be in the squad. In an ideal world I wouldn't have McShane, Gomis & Tidser in the same midfield unless he tried using Tidser behind the strikers and I think that Telfer's creative enough to be used in front of McShane anyway. I agree that a box to box man would have been good, no idea if he tried to bring anyone of that ilk in or if it's a failure in his part in not trying? I think that McLean & Johnstone have been brought in as back-up and, in that context, I think that's fine. Miller doesn't have a bad pedigree either, maybe he could be used as a midfield runner given that he's apparently quite versatile? Again, the only signing that doesn't seem to fit for me is Moore. I think that McKinnon may play him on Saturday though so maybe that will give us more of an idea?

Well, I'm afraid that I have to say that this is just utter bollox. If you think that we, as a L1 team, could attract better players than those you've listed you're deluded. Sammon's biggest asset IMO is using his pace (that you think he doesn't have) to chase balls over the top, I actually think he's not that good in the air. You've omitted telling us who you think we should have signed instead btw.

Aye, I'm sure there were and I'm sure that he'll have tried to get them too. IMO, I think that he's done quite well to get the calibre of player in that he has, especially at this level. The problem that we have is that he doesn't know what to do with them!

Completely agree. Who, in your opinion, could we have signed that would have allowed Tidser, Telfer, Doyle, Sammon etc to be squad players? In fact we could go a step further and make the guys that we could have signed to let the current ones be squad players be squad players by signing even better than the ones that we could have signed to let the current ones be squad players.

When no doubt he would have been criticised for missing out on players who had by then signed for other clubs. I'm no fan of McKinnon as he can't seem to get the best out of the players that he's signed and his tactics are baffling at times however he'd be damned if he did or damned if he didn't in this situation. For example, I'd much rather he'd signed DKD than Robbie Leitch (which is no reflection on Robbie but we know what DKD can do) but there's no way that he could have known that RC would free him on the last day of the window. Similar with Armstrong. Moore and Miller have had about as much game time as they could realistically have hoped for I would say although, personally, I'd have played Moore in a different formation and it really pisses me off that he's signed a guy with no left foot as a possible replacement for a LB that is providing almost zero attacking threat! (and neither he should because he's not that type of player)

I thought Longridge looked better on Saturday. Haven't seen enough of the rest to comment and we may not see any of them get enough game time to form an opinion. He still needed to bring players in to fill out the squad though.

What makes you think they're shite?

Don't see anything wrong with him making the signings, we'd have been seriously short of numbers if he hadn't and folk would (quite rightly) be giving him a hard time for that. Moore's the one that puzzles me a little though. McKinnon claims that he can play in a few positions down the left yet it appears that he hasn't got a left foot. In the current situation someone who could play LWB should surely be starting but, with the possible exception of the diddy cup matches, I can't see him taking the chance. I wonder if he even had the laddie watched? Seems like a lazy signing to me.

Forced myself to watch the 'highlights' specifically because I wanted to check this. Managed to freeze the frame just as Buchanan headed it (which isn't easy to do) and Sammon was level at worst although I thought he was marginally on.