Partick Thistle vs St Johnstone - Saturday 25 October @ Firhill

[jamamafegan]

[RandomGuy.]

Funny how Killie lost their talismanic striker but have improved greatly this season. How come Saintees have gone backwards after losing Stevie May? Is it the budget issue, injuries or something else?

We've lost every single goal threat we had last season. We've lost all competition for places by releasing all our back up players so we're stuck playing under performing players. The players who've been solid for us for years have finally started to decline and its a sudden, sharp, decline but we've nobody to replace them with. Our only decent performers are constantly injured. Our manager has started panicking. Its just a mixture of an inevitable decline, horrendous luck with injuries and a dreadful decision by the chairman to not actually give our manager a budget until the window had ended (although you could blame TW for that). We're in the position of having neither quality nor quantity.

[The Saintee]

A stroll for Thistle.

Keep trying

[RandomGuy.]

Unofficial twitter is fun reading....

Next week will see Saints look to avoid losing 6 league games in a row (in same season) for first time since relegation campaign of 2001/02.

Relegation campaigns of 01/02, 84/85, 83/84, 75/76 only time since reconstruction that Saints have lost 6 consecutive league games in season.

[jagfox]

We've lost every single goal threat we had last season. We've lost all competition for places by releasing all our back up players so we're stuck playing under performing players. The players who've been solid for us for years have finally started to decline and its a sudden, sharp, decline but we've nobody to replace them with. Our only decent performers are constantly injured. Our manager has started panicking. Its just a mixture of an inevitable decline, horrendous luck with injuries and a dreadful decision by the chairman to not actually give our manager a budget until the window had ended (although you could blame TW for that). We're in the position of having neither quality nor quantity.

Cheers mate. Doesn't sound good for your team after a great season. I'm guessing the crowd at this game will be closer to 3,000 than 4,000

[dave.j]

Are The Super J's still playing that attractive, avoid the green stuff, hoof ball, they used to great effect, last season?

[Hammer Jag]

High Flying Academical and the Low lying Skunks of Paisley.

[RandomGuy.]

Are The Super J's still playing that attractive, avoid the green stuff, hoof ball, they used to great effect, last season?

We're playing a poorer version of it

[Radford]

Stark numbers.

Pun intended, I hope.

[P45]

If you offered me a 1-0 defeat right now I'd bite your hand off.

The Super Js will score at least 1 with Seabourne suspended and even more if Muirhead is playing in his place.

If your defence is still good then you could win this.

[Slacker]

The Super Js will score at least 1 with Seabourne suspended and even more if Muirhead is playing in his place.

If your defence is still good then you could win this.

Frans will definitely step in.

And he'll be superb.

[The Saintee]

The Super Js will score at least 1 with Seabourne suspended and even more if Muirhead is playing in his place.

If your defence is still good then you could win this.

Its not.

[Radford]

Any complaint that anyone can come up with at the moment pretty much comes back to the chairman. The manager doesn't know his strongest side but then he wasn't allowed to sign players until August. If we get relegated this season (and that is a possibility) then it will come back to Steve Brown. I hope our support don't forget that.

[Kyle]

I live in glasgow and I'm not going to this game. f**k spending any more than I have to watching that shite.

I'd expect us to lose 2-0 or 2-1, we'll be outfought and one of our back 4/goalkeeper will gift at least one of the goals.

[The Saintee]

Any complaint that anyone can come up with at the moment pretty much comes back to the chairman. The manager doesn't know his strongest side but then he wasn't allowed to sign players until August. If we get relegated this season (and that is a possibility) then it will come back to Steve Brown. I hope our support don't forget that.

Radford. I take on Standfree's point about Stevie May and his contract situation affecting the budget. Do you think it was allowed to go too long?

[Rednyella]

These are must win games to make sure we are not battling in the 10th or 11th spot come March - April. Have to win home games v St Johnstone, St Mirren, Ross County and Motherwell. Then try to pick up points away against them as they are all playing poorly. How long that lasts we don't know as any one of them could perk up and go on a run of wins.

We keep losing goals in last minutes of games and dropping points. It needs to stop as it's been going on since we were promoted. I understand why Seaborne did what he did but fact is Ciftci was having a poor game and Fox may well have saved the effort or seen it go wide. Losing 1-0 with 11 players is better than losing with 10 players heading into this important home game.

We play good football and have some strong players who have really come on in Archie's system but it's not worth much of we can't get better results against teams playing under par.

I think we should beat Saints at home but to be honest I wouldn't be surprised if we give away a late equalizer or lose 1-0 or 2-1.

Jags are due a 4 or 5-0 win and hope it clicks in this game giving us confidence into the away fixtures coming up.

I think Lawless and Doolan score and so I'll stay optimistic with a 2-0 home win.

[Radford]

Do you think it was allowed to go too long?

Two months after the final, the chairman was quoted as saying he still had to sit down with May's agent. Brown said May was made an offer to make him the best paid player but when was that offer actually made? I don't think the club acted quickly enough with May and I think it's incredibly poor management to not be able to firm up a budget because of one player, if that was the case.

But even then, if the club had acted professionally and properly in the days after the final, how many more season tickets would we have shifted? Another 500 and Brown would have had the £170k that he said he needed to give the manager any players. I don't think we would have sold an extra 500 but I'm certain we'd have generated significant extra sales if they'd been ready to go with the packs in the days after the final. But then maybe not if folk had envisaged what their money would be spent on!

Personally and maybe controversially, I think this investment in the youth system is a waste of time and money. Geoff Brown scrapped it a decade ago because it wasn't bearing fruit, so why does Steve Brown think he can make it work now, when there is much more competition than there was back then. That is robbing funds from the first team which is the wrong thing to do IMO. We produced Stevie May without spending to the levels the club now want to. I want to see us with a youth system but can't understand the need to strive for this elite status when it is costing us so much money.

Saints have missed a massive, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. That is unforgivable. Steve Brown isn't his father and is owed no loyalty from our support.

[RandomGuy.]

Any complaint that anyone can come up with at the moment pretty much comes back to the chairman. The manager doesn't know his strongest side but then he wasn't allowed to sign players until August. If we get relegated this season (and that is a possibility) then it will come back to Steve Brown. I hope our support don't forget that.

You could possibly argue Tommy Wright was too weak this Summer, if he'd the balls to go to Brown and give him an ultimatum of "back me or I'll quit" then he'd have won and would've got some of the players he'd wanted, as even Brown would've been smart enough to realise all hell would've broken loose if he'd allowed TW to quit. Dare I say it, if Lomas was in Wrights shoes we wouldn't have such a weak squad.

Again though you can take that back to Brown regardless, as the manager shouldn't need to give ultimatums to get the chairmans support.

[The Saintee]

My fear is TW will hand out undeserving contract extensions because he won't know what to expect next summer.

I know of at least one significant staff member at McD who wasn't happy at how slow the club acted in respect to season tickets and their ideas were ignored in regards to promotion etc after the cup win.

It was also the case that the first fans to arrive back at McD to greet the squad after the final were actually turned away.

[Maine]

Keep the same team with Frans replacing Seaborne. I would like to see a bit more of Eccleston and I think his pace combined with Christie Elliot's greatness will cause St johnstone loads of problems.

Not slating Higgy or anything but we seem to look a bit more of a team in the last two games, perhaps everyone just got caught up in the pass it to kallum and he'll do something club.