SGMilne

I think there's very little difference between a balanced Premiership squad from 4th down compared to what we've got as Championship winners. If we let Moult go, he would 100% be snapped up by one of our rivals for next season. McClelland will probably only come back to us if Saints are relegated but I wouldn't be against it. Oh and to my earlier post we should definitely resign Miller Thomson.

Mochrie is still only 20 so still plenty of time to develop. But I suspect you're right about big changes coming. This rumoured investment from down south will likely now be finalised, since everyone knows what league we'll be playing in. I don't think that should result in a mass turnover of the squad, but some of the players will likely be off. To my mind, we should keep McMann, Graham, Sibbald, Moult and Mochrie. Holt has been very good, but he's not young and frankly we'll be in a position where we should be looking to bring in someone better for the division. I like Cudjoe but I doubt he'll want to stay. Certainly we've got a few interesting months ahead.

The thing is, other than one team they still kinda are. Raith's results have been statistically incredible (if you're the sort of person who believes in the relevance of xG) and they've managed to hang with us all the way. And now that things are getting that little bit more serious, it looks like while they are holding their nerve, United under Goodwin are beginning to bottle it. And as I say, if we bottle the league championship, we're never, ever getting up via the playoffs.

I don't so much have a problem with Goodwin picking the wrong team as much as I do with him sticking with the wrong team until halftime when he'll have seen from the 20 minute mark that it wasn't working, and then coming out after the game to state that the game was lost in the first 45 minutes. Ogren is facing a dilemma which is that he wants to sell, and the price he'll get for it will be based on the division we're playing football in next season. He has a manager who has delivered him 2nd place minimum at this point, but who has shown he can't field a winning team when it's a high stakes match. So does he a) stick with it and hope Goodwin will somehow get us automatic promotion, knowing that if he doesn't, the high likelihood is we'll lose the playoff or b) make that change and hope a better motivator could at least get us over the line in the playoffs?

We're at the stage where questions do have to be asked about Jim Goodwin, and he needs to reflect on his own tactical performance. I had heard - admittedly second hand - that the long and the short of his tactical instructions is "get it wide and cross it" (and yet we seem to rarely manage that at the moment). As much as we all want products of our youth system to do well, Meekison and Mochrie looked absolutely miles off it last night. In part that's down to a lack of game time, but also it's down to team selection, tactics and their own drive and determination (you'd think Miller Thomson had played dozens of games for us compared to them). I think we might have got away with picking one of them, but not both. Instead, both now would be nowhere near the starting XI again for the remainder of the season. It's not fair to blame them specifically though; the whole team - with the exception of Thomson and maybe the centre backs, although I don't know if one of them cost us the first goal - played like they were in a training game. They sauntered around like it was a foregone conclusion that we'd win somehow. Chief culprits for this were Watt and Middleton. Middleton in particular just hides, yet he stayed on for the entire 90 mins. I don't think we have the money - or a chairman who cares enough - to sack Goodwin, so we just have to hope Raith drop more points than us.

His free kick aside, I thought Moult was once again pretty poor today, and in spite of being due credit for scoring the second, Tillson's passing is absolutely appalling for a professional footballer. Like every game we play, we dominated without doing a huge amount. I don't think there were any really good performances, although Gallagher returning adds some stability. Miller Thomson's corners were better than the norm, but I'm not going to go overboard and say he was 'superb' (as I've seen some say on X) because he wasn't. He's not a right back, and I wouldn't feel comfortable with him playing right back long term. The one player I'd single out for praise is Cudjoe, simply because in a squad of players who like to hold up play and play sideways or backwards passes, he is direct and he tries stuff, and it makes a difference.

"Your half blind grannie would have played them" and yet Peter Houston didn't play Gauld and Souttar. Under absolutely no circumstances would Houston have put those two on from the start - making their 3rd ever professional starts - in a semi final at Hampden against Celtic. It just wouldn't have happened. Both strolled it. At the time, there was a near on unanimous view that that was a ballsy move. And that's what I'm referring to. Like I say, it ended badly for him and that's what he's remembered for, but there was a point where things were good. Arguably things have never been anywhere near as good since.

Yeah, I think history has been unkind to Jackie McNamara. It all ended badly for him and he subsequently had a horrible time of it at York but he deserves credit for a number of things, including having the balls to play guys like Gauld, Souttar and Robertson at such a young age/level of experience, for clearly being the man who got the most out of Nadir Ciftci when he's never come anywhere close reaching those heights ever again, and for the great football we played under him at times. Absolutely, player sales and recruitment in the latter part of his time with us was poor (the recruitment in the season we were relegated was simply unbelievable) but you can't only look at the negatives.

First time this season I've woken up angry about the previous day's game. Correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think there's been a single game this season where we've dropped points where we haven't been on top for large parts and just squandered opportunities (or at the very least, possession). The whole lot of them need to wake up. Raith are a side who - if you look at the stats anyway - have punched above their weight. I believe that's now 19 points they've turned around this season with goals in the last 5 minutes. But they will continue to do that, so we have to go into games and look to have a cutting edge. There's absolutely a tactical element involved here that Goodwin is culpable for, but Watt, Graham, Moult and Holt all wasted clear cut chances. It feels as though the team believe that they'll win the league regardless, but to do that you do have to win games!

If Birighitti goes there then it just proves that he is Brutus Beefcake to Aziz Behich's Hulk Hogan. Points if you understand the reference.

Fotheringham is a good player, but he shouldn't be undroppable. I'd like to see Cudjoe - who some supporters appear to have lost faith with purely because he's been out of sight and therefore out of mind for a while - given a shot again, or even Wotherspoon out at wide right and two up front in the next game. Dunfermline - like a few other teams this season - quite rightly turned up to defend well and maybe hit us on the break, and while we have better players, those players don't seem to have the ability to break that type of tactic down. It's why I think we're better away from home; on their own patch teams actually try to win games. Having said that, we still had the chances to win the game, so that combined with Raith self destructing, means I'm fair confident going in to this half of the season. For transfer deadline day, I'm not really sure what I want us to bring in. The obvious thing to say would be a central defender, but he'd be 4th pick so who are we going to get on those terms? We've now got three strikers, 17 million attacking midfielders, three central midfielders (four if you include Grimshaw) but maybe only 1 good choice each side at fullback? I suppose it all comes down to availability. If we're offered someone who can make a genuine difference to the first XI then we should take him, otherwise, why bring in someone for the sake of it.

To be fair I don't think that's true (the bit about us moving him half way around the globe, rather than the bit about us losing game after game and being relegated with an astronomical wage bill). I think he'd moved over here because his wife is from the UK and while he touted himself to clubs across the country, we were the ones mug enough to take him and then pay the fee his club in Australia wanted.

Glass and Mochrie are essentially the same player; decent technically but lacking in substance. Neither looks to have a natural position and though they have chipped in with a goal or two, you don't ever really think that they will change the game. Our bench right now is so paper thin at the moment. Newman - mediocre young goalkeeper who you wouldn't want starting a game Duffy - untested at this level. Did ok in League One but that's about it Freeman - broken husk of a former footballer Cudjoe - Hot and cold player who very rarely delivers off the bench Mochrie - See above Glass - See above Macleod - Not good enough to get a game for the second worst team in League 2 Denham - Ragdolled by Spartans and Partick Petrie - Who? The narrative that United have this strength in depth that will see us over the line simply isn't true. Of that entire bench, I would imagine that Mochrie and Cudjoe would be the only two players who would regularly start in the league for another team. And I do include Glass in that considering how he couldn't get a game for the team who were relegated last season.

I think Tilson is bang average but considering how lacking we are in depth, as it stands I'd keep him. I'd rather he was a bench option, but at least he is an option. For me, if we assume that Wotherspoon is a done deal, the other changes we need to make are... In - Striker, right footed experienced player who can play as a central defender or central midfielder (the fabled 'Butcher Type') Out - Denham Then beyond that it would be some like for like changes if players were to leave.

I know some of the Forfar players through work; both in terms of attitude and ability, he's been a big disappointment. There's been a few players who have gone on loan there from us over the years who have failed to impress because of attitude, but I think that's more a generational problem than a Utd one.