Sons' sorrow

[cameron2000]

Also I think having seen Aitken's interview after the match on sons tv, he is far to casual and plays down loosing the biggest game of the season so far. I still support him though.

[Jan Vojáček]

Also I think having seen Aitken's interview after the match on sons tv, he is far to casual and plays down loosing the biggest game of the season so far. I still support him though.

You know I think that's a good point.

After the game Aitken is always positive, never blames the players and is upbeat. That's fine...to an extent. But it begins to be become an issue when the performances are consistently poor - especially on the road - and he appears unable to address that as he's too nice.

Perhaps Faz does the horrible guy bit, tears into them and Stevie is prepared to be the good guy in the managerial duo. Praising players and playing down damaging defeats is brutal when you've spent decent money travelling and getting in to watch 90 minutes of frustration.

[cedrick1]

Highlights confirm what I thought at time. Although Walsh lost ball twice Fraser wrights job is to defend and he didn't. Buccy could help at second but again I though it was wrights fault.

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

He's really playing that down.

I think he's coming across as seriously feeling the pressure. I don't like to compare Stevie with Murray but even when Murray was at his shitiest worst I was always confident we'd be safe and he never looked under any pressure.

This season I have no confidence whatsoever.

[pleslie99]

This was always going to be a tougher season than last. I reckon Alloa are down so it's between us and livi for that dreaded 9th place and the playoffs. 2 more wins should hopefully do it as livi are pretty poor as well and I'm not sure where they are likely to pick up points

[Howlin' Wilf]

He's really playing that down.

I think he's coming across as seriously feeling the pressure. I don't like to compare Stevie with Murray but even when Murray was at his shitiest worst I was always confident we'd be safe and he never looked under any pressure.

This season I have no confidence whatsoever.

I seem to remember being one of the few here about a year ago, defending Murray. There seems to be common agreement that we have better players now and yet we are struggling. I know Cowden aren't here this year and that does make a difference. However, I think the initial optimism about Aitken over Murray might have been a misjudgement.

[optimistic]

He's really playing that down.

I think he's coming across as seriously feeling the pressure. I don't like to compare Stevie with Murray but even when Murray was at his shitiest worst I was always confident we'd be safe and he never looked under any pressure.

This season I have no confidence whatsoever.

good post, the one thing I will say about a positive managerial reaction, maybe it would get a better reaction from a player or two if they got a bit of public criticism

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

I seem to remember being one of the few here about a year ago, defending Murray. There seems to be common agreement that we have better players now and yet we are struggling. I know Cowden aren't here this year and that does make a difference. However, I think the initial optimism about Aitken over Murray might have been a misjudgement.

Murray's time had come, it was clear he had to go. Even if he hadn't gone to St Mirren I would have considered replacing him, he looked like he had lost interest and the fact we trundled through the 2nd half of last season with Archie Campbell as our main striker was utterly criminal stuff. That being said I think he went about things more professionally than Stevie and never looked under pressure. That instilled a confidence in me that we wouldn't go down.

I'm not saying I'd rather have Muzz over Stevie, I think Murray proved at St Mirren he's not all that. Stevie was absolutely the correct appointment, he's just not making me feel as confident as Murray did about staying in the league. By the end up I had started to dislike Murray, there was dressing room fights and it he just came across as a bit dour faced and stubborn.

I just hope Stevie has the right balance of good guy and bad guy in him. I'd rather our assistant was the good guy and Stevie was the bad guy but it appears to be the other way about. Either way I hope baws are being booted and I hope the players realise just how important a win on Tuesday is. With Stevie playing it down I'm not so sure that they do...

[Howlin' Wilf]

Murray's time had come, it was clear he had to go. Even if he hadn't gone to St Mirren I would have considered replacing him, he looked like he had lost interest and the fact we trundled through the 2nd half of last season with Archie Campbell as our main striker was utterly criminal stuff. That being said I think he went about things more professionally than Stevie and never looked under pressure. That instilled a confidence in me that we wouldn't go down.

I'm not saying I'd rather have Muzz over Stevie, I think Murray proved at St Mirren he's not all that. Stevie was absolutely the correct appointment, he's just not making me feel as confident as Murray did about staying in the league. By the end up I had started to dislike Murray, there was dressing room fights and it he just came across as a bit dour faced and stubborn.

I just hope Stevie has the right balance of good guy and bad guy in him. I'd rather our assistant was the good guy and Stevie was the bad guy but it appears to be the other way about. Either way I hope baws are being booted and I hope the players realise just how important a win on Tuesday is. With Stevie playing it down I'm not so sure that they do...

Agree with most of that, but my point was the comparative between Murray and Aitken. I was saying that Murray did better with a supposedly inferior squad. It doesn't add up to much but I do think that it's a fair point to make.

[cedrick1]

I suppose te point to consider is which squad is the best and will no doubt split opinion.

I for one didn't buy in earlier on in season that this is better squad than last year or year before.

I still think target for me was and still is 8th spot and will be very disappointed if the Livy team from yesterday beat us to it. I think squad is good enough to achieve that so it will be all down to selection and management of the squad starting on Tuesday.

[Jan Vojáček]

I suppose te point to consider is which squad is the best and will no doubt split opinion.

I for one didn't buy in earlier on in season that this is better squad than last year or year before.

I still think target for me was and still is 8th spot and will be very disappointed if the Livy team from yesterday beat us to it. I think squad is good enough to achieve that so it will be all down to selection and management of the squad starting on Tuesday.

It's much better than the dross we had last season, no doubt about it for me.

Look at our squad from our 1-0 win over Alloa on the 7/3 last year:

Rogers

Taggart Graham Findlay Linton

Gilhaney Turner Agnew Easton

Fleming Duggan

Subs: Megginson, McCallum, Petrie, Ewings, Campbell, M.Wilson

I'd say from that squad I'd only take Findlay, Rogers and Agnew back. Wright is better than Graham, Sparky better than Linton, Waters better than Easton, Lindsay better than Turner and Nade much, much better than Hacksaw.

The only other one is Gils or Walsh. Toss a coin for that one, wingers who don't assist much.

The squad from two seasons ago was excellent, far better I'd agree with you there. A fully fit Chris Turner, a decent Colin Nish. Paul McGinn, Chris Kane, Kirkpatrick running games. Mikey Miller, Ching and Andy Graham in the form of their careers, Mitch Megginson on flames and Prunts!

The glory days

8/3/2014 was the Aberdeen game where we lined up:

Grindlay

McGinn Miller Graham Linton

Gilhaney Agnew Kirkpatrick Megginson

Kane Nish

The greens would stroll into our team at the moment.

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

Agree with most of that, but my point was the comparative between Murray and Aitken. I was saying that Murray did better with a supposedly inferior squad. It doesn't add up to much but I do think that it's a fair point to make.

Fair point indeed, I do believe Muzz had a more balanced squad minus the striker embarassment towards the end of last season. Stevie doesn't really have any excuses as he had free reign to build his own squad and wasn't held back by having to work with another gaffer's squad.

In Stevie's defence I think it's a real fine line between success and failure this year. 8th place I'd consider a success but 9th would be a failure IMO.

I'm keeping the faith at the minute but alarm bells are well and truly ringing. As someone else pointed out (OKIII? BSF?) that's 3 very winnable away games that we've completely shanked in Morton, St Mirren and Livi.

[cedrick1]

IMO in the form they were in at the time last year I'd have tags gils maybe Linton and Fleming would be in in addition to the ones mentioned

[Jan Vojáček]

IMO in the form they were in at the time last year I'd have tags gils maybe Linton and Fleming would be in in addition to the ones mentioned

Taggart and Fleming are in the squad now though, that's why I didn't include them.

OTD last year we had yet to win in the Championship since the 27/12, so I wouldn't say they were in great form either.

[cedrick1]

Nope they weren't playing great or in great form.

Ultimately they were safe with 6 games to go. I'd settle for same outcome.

I'm not suggesting last yea s squad were world beaters ,just don't think they are worse than this years.

Thus years gave produced some big results(hibs) but some poor stuff along side.

Hopefully this time next week were lauding praise from 2 victories and a 7 point gap on livi??

[squeezeboxson]

Said to BBPF yesterday at the game, the difference between this year and last is that Murray gained more points and had us in a much safer position at this point. I'd say we are probably playing about the same if not slightly better (inconsistent as...) tha this point last year. But we require points more than we did last season. Looking difficult but we have a squad capable imo and we are in the prime position with the games in hand and actually being the team in th atm. Form is the thing against us though.

[pleslie99]

If we finish 8th all this will be irrelevant as we will have achieved what we set out to do. Let's trust stevie to finish what he's started and build onto what has the makings of a good squad for next season. We might not be playing great but we need to remember the quality of the other teams is much better this year compared to last, we are still punching above our weight and long may it continue

[cameron2000]

If we kept Murray this year where do you think we would be? he built a poor sqaud at st mirren with a bigger budget

[Nowhereman]

Said to BBPF yesterday at the game, the difference between this year and last is that Murray gained more points and had us in a much safer position at this point. I'd say we are probably playing about the same if not slightly better (inconsistent as...) tha this point last year. But we require points more than we did last season. Looking difficult but we have a squad capable imo and we are in the prime position with the games in hand and actually being the team in th atm. Form is the thing against us though.

This time last year we had a point less from the same number of games played. We were in a safer position but that is because both Cowden and Alloa were below us as were Livi with a points deduction. This year Alloa are worse off than they were last year and of course Livi arn't the same mess they were last season. So we are actually slightly ahead of where we were last season.

[George Parr]

If we kept Murray this year where do you think we would be? he built a poor sqaud at st mirren with a bigger budget

It's hard to say. Difficult to compare the part-time player market to the full-time. I suspect that Ian simply underestimated the size of the challenge at Paisley and buckled under pressure from a demanding support.

I expected more from Aitken this season following the quality of player recruitment in the summer and the start that we had. An 8th place finish would now be very welcome but I genuinely thought we could have competed with Morton, Raith etc for 5th or 6th given the personnel at the club.