The Spiderman

Congratulations Annan. Very well deserved. A brilliant club. No badwillie to bail the manky mob out. Pleasing.

Years in the future, sport psychologists will look to examine exactly how the arse has fallen out of this side. There’s a complete absence of any leaders on that pitch. Tommy Robson is capable of Championship football, but he isn’t a captain. Performance levels have tanked since taking on the armband and his complete style of play is different for the worse. That’s it now 1 win, 1 draw in 9. That’s sacking form. I believe that Coyle is capable of taking us to that next step, but questions have to be asked.

Another game, more goals shipped due to atrocious concentration. We did well to get into that, but we need to stop playing with one arm behind our backs. It’s well winnable on Friday but we need to sort the defence out. Pronto.

I tend to find you do much better in football if you don’t spend half the game trying to gift goals to the other team. Defence has shit the bed in the last 3 months. Pathetic.

Thomas has been pretty rank for weeks. He’s not been the leader I hoped he’d be and Dundee had pretty much figured him out.

Frustration is the main emotion from me here. In a parallel universe Simon Murray has knocked in an 89th minute penalty that was irrelevant as we’d won the league weeks ago anyway. Simply, it’s very telling that we have the worst defensive record outside Cove and Hamilton. We shipped 5 very poor goals tonight. There’s a lack of leadership on the park and refusing to bring in any older, experienced heads in January looks like it’s cost us. Makes you realise how important Murray was as a captain and leader - something that we’ve drastically failed to replace. I also wonder whether our smaller squad depth has taken its toll here too. I felt Coyle got his tactics pretty spot on today- you can’t really legislate for your defence being so poor and not sticking the boot in. Credit to Dundee, they completely outfought us to second balls, were more physical and used the darker side of the game well. Longer-term these are things Coyle needs to bring into his recruitment & player development. Partick on Tuesday/Wednesday. If there’s someone who can navigate these ties it’s Coyle. Fingers crossed the players turn up and give us a bit more to cheer for this season.

You don’t need to look further than his overlap runs forward. I’ve not seen one for week! He tried one in the second half but the ball didn’t get played to him

That is one of the worst QP performances I’ve seen for many years. So much wrong with it and I really struggle to take any positives. We completely failed to do any of the basic stuff right. There’s no leadership on the park and Robson’s form has visibly regressed having taken on the armband. I link back to what @williebraveheart said about Murray and the players who should be bringing the leadership- Thomas, Fox, Kilday haven’t stepped up. There was a complete lack of fight from so many players also. Coyle’s tactics were also ridiculously poor. We play Williamson up top, who hasn’t won an aerial duel all season, then send all game pinging long balls at him? Bizzare decision. We’ve played Morton 4 times this season and they’ve played the exact same way every time. It’s not unreasonable to have expected Coyle/Stewart to have worked out how to better compete with that side by the 4th attempt. I’ve never seen a side look like they want to win a league less. With all the discussion about the stadium, it’s no wonder that I’m starting to think there’s been a word from above telling them to throw this. If someone can get us up it’s Coyle, he’s shown it before and I have no doubts we have the players also.

First half I thought QP were pretty poor. Sloppy passing and poor communication of when to make runs. The tempo was a bit pedestrian too also. It’s clear teams like Inverness, Cove and Arbroath (especially when away from home) will sit in and look to frustrate, trying to hit us on the counter. Need to be a bit quicker v Arbroath to unlock that defence. Then we started thumping it long which has never worked. Frustrating to lose the goal after a bit of gamesmanship from the Caley player but it was finished well by MacKay. A great goal from Savoury after a brilliant cross from Shields to equalise. Eze’s header also is one of the best I’ve ever seen in flesh. Inch perfect. I thought Davidson did okay in midfield and had some excellent runs forward. I do wish him and co. wouldn’t be so terrified to shoot though. There’s a bit of a tendency to shirk a shot now and then. Longridge and Healy did well coming on too.

Obvious statement that it didn’t quite click yesterday. A few times when we looked for an extra pass rather than just hitting the ball at goal. A few times now Shields has been excellent at getting the ball out wide. Frustrating that we need him in the middle though. Thought Thomson was really pretty poor, shirking out of at least 3 or 4 50/50’s, far from ideal from your centre mid. Davidson proved a capable replacement bar a couple moments also. Massive to get that goal. Pressing the ‘if’ button here but it’s wins like that that win a title.

Took this one in today as my team benefitted from Friday Night Fitba. Game ceased to be a contest after Draper’s red card. Actually thought the referee got most things right, bar that free kick for Elgin that led to Hester’s goal? I was really well placed to see Annan’s 2nd penalty, and it should have been a free kick imo, Johnston jumped into the box. Wouldn’t have done much to change the game albeit. Ref liked a booking, the irony with Hester wasn’t unappreciated. That’s some hit from Willie Gibson as well, great to see he’s doing well at this level. Goss unlucky as well to not come away with a hat-trick but for an excellent save from McHale. No doubt Annan will have bigger tests in the run in but I thought you looked good. When the ball was sprayed out to the wings you looked dangerous and Johnston still looks as much a player as I remember.

Couldn’t agree more, he’s disallowed the goal as Eze’s stronger than him. The galling bit about it is that he’s a good view, he isn’t looking through a sea of bodies. It was the linesman’s flag that I saw first however, wonder if that’s what swayed the referee. Fox should be doing a lot better for both Morton goals. Poor positioning.

I didn’t get the best view of either penalty decision so I can’t comment, but that referee was absolutely diabolical. Decisions went against both sides. If this is who they’re having referee the professional games I dread to think about the standard in League 2. Be very interesting to see whether Mr Roncone is dropped further down next week. Failed your audition buddy.

I can’t comment as I didn’t see it, but the referee has been pretty poor so far to both sides already.

And here I thought it was only our ugly sisters that are convinced of a referee conspiracy against them?