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The Relegation Battle


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2 minutes ago, North Terrace Gazza said:

Most bookies still have us as favourites to finish bottom, despite our recent good form and having a game in hand. Also they seem to think it's a 3 horse race as Raith are 10/1 to finish bottom.

It's the easy thing to do to pick yourselves and us as most likely to go down.  It's understandable logic, even if it does stick in the throat a bit.

The media do it too at the start of the season, we've had it for 5 years now, written off before you even put a team on the park.

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Incredible scenes if both Ayr & St. Mirren end up outside the bottom two.

I've been saying for ages that Dumbarton will be fine as they're always liable to pull off an unexpected win and have too much quality in attack, but it looks like that can be added to the long list of things I've been wrong about this season. After they stuck with Aitken and had an improvement post-Bonnyrigg it looked an inspired decision and they seemed to be in little danger of being dragged back in, but that late collapse v Ayr and now Ayr & St. Mirren both putting runs together means their occasional wins might not be enough. Are any of you concerned that sticking with Aitken was the wrong decision after all?

Fans of every club are looking at their fixture list and engaging in doom and gloom about it - St. Mirren having all of the top four in their last five games, Raith only having two home games left while having the worst away record in the division, QoS looking in danger of another collapse - it can't go wrong for all of you.

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1 hour ago, Dunning1874 said:

Are any of you concerned that sticking with Aitken was the wrong decision after all?

Yes.

Notice you don't mention Dunfermline, but I don't think they can be complacent either.  I do think they'll be safe though, as are QoS, imo.

The bottom 2 will be 2 out of Raith, St Mirren, Ayr & Dumbarton. Which two, I'm not even going to try to guess. I just hope it's not Sons.

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2 hours ago, Dunning1874 said:

Incredible scenes if both Ayr & St. Mirren end up outside the bottom two.

I've been saying for ages that Dumbarton will be fine as they're always liable to pull off an unexpected win and have too much quality in attack, but it looks like that can be added to the long list of things I've been wrong about this season. After they stuck with Aitken and had an improvement post-Bonnyrigg it looked an inspired decision and they seemed to be in little danger of being dragged back in, but that late collapse v Ayr and now Ayr & St. Mirren both putting runs together means their occasional wins might not be enough. Are any of you concerned that sticking with Aitken was the wrong decision after all?

Fans of every club are looking at their fixture list and engaging in doom and gloom about it - St. Mirren having all of the top four in their last five games, Raith only having two home games left while having the worst away record in the division, QoS looking in danger of another collapse - it can't go wrong for all of you.

If there is such a thing as negative momentum then we sure have it right now.  Not only that, but we don't carry much good fortune either; last week we drew at Easter Road only to find that the three bottom teams all won on the same afternoon - when did that last happen in ANY division ?  Every feckin' result is going the wrong way - Dunfermline lose at home to Ayr then win at Greenock, what looked like a dire Raith side two weeks back take the next 4 points from a possible six, and so on...To cap it all, young Danny Harvie who has been a standout at left-back all season misses out yesterday with himself and young McRorie both on Scotland U-19 duty.....cue Ayr's winner following a cock-up by our left-back on the day. 

However, what will sink us is isn't bad luck but our habit of losing shit goals from any conceivable situation, added to a really threadbare squad.  We are effectively without a strike force this weekend so anything we can get from Morton will be an unexpected bonus.  Paradoxically, this season we have played some of the best football I've seen from us  since we arrived in the Championship, but it's now all about who has the cojones and whilst I'd love to be proved wrong we are beginning to wilt at just the wrong time.  None of this I ascribe to Stevie Aitken, by the way.

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3 hours ago, Dunning1874 said:

Incredible scenes if both Ayr & St. Mirren end up outside the bottom two.

I've been saying for ages that Dumbarton will be fine as they're always liable to pull off an unexpected win and have too much quality in attack, but it looks like that can be added to the long list of things I've been wrong about this season. After they stuck with Aitken and had an improvement post-Bonnyrigg it looked an inspired decision and they seemed to be in little danger of being dragged back in, but that late collapse v Ayr and now Ayr & St. Mirren both putting runs together means their occasional wins might not be enough. Are any of you concerned that sticking with Aitken was the wrong decision after all?

Fans of every club are looking at their fixture list and engaging in doom and gloom about it - St. Mirren having all of the top four in their last five games, Raith only having two home games left while having the worst away record in the division, QoS looking in danger of another collapse - it can't go wrong for all of you.

Keeping Aitken was the right decision in my opinion for a couple of reasons. The first and most important being that after that Bonnyrigg result the players stood up for the gaffer and made it very clear they were still behind him. Everyone was able to start a fresh, so to speak, at that point and draw a line under everyhing that had happened so far this season. We looked a different team after that and Aitken got the chance to freshen things up in January and recruited well. The second reason is I don't believe we had a lot of money to pay off Aitken and his staff and then go and recruit someone good enough to see us over the line. Looking for a gaffer in the position we were in at that stage was entirely different to when we appointed Murray, we were still very much on track for staying up albeit weren't playing well so we didn't have the opportunity to take such a risk. Out of work gaffers at the moment seem to be utter shite, so we would probably have had to go and find someone already managing another club which I'm not sure we had the cash for, or could've found the cash and then struggled on next season to make up the shortfall. So, we could've potentially got rid of Stevie and still gone down, with a worse gaffer in place and been looking at a League 1 rebuild job that could go anywhere. By keeping Aitken we didn't have that cost or headache and gave him his chance to turn it round, with everyone now fully aware that a better standard was the only acceptable outcome. 

Even if we go down I'd be inclined to keep him. He has his faults, but he's not a bad gaffer and he knows how to do well in League 1 (I'd argue some of his signings have been more suited to that level).

If there's one thing he's good at it's getting a reaction from his players after a really poor result. Hopefully that shines through again next week, which would be unfortunate for you but glorious for us.

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1 minute ago, The Moonster said:

If there's one thing he's good at it's getting a reaction from his players after a really poor result. Hopefully that shines through again next week, which would be unfortunate for you but glorious for us.

Cheers, hard to disagree with much of what you've said there. On that last point, I wouldn't be surprised - knowing what Dumbarton are like you'll probably take 7-9 points from us, Falkirk & Dundee Utd and 0 from St. Mirren, QoS & Dunfermline.

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1 minute ago, Dunning1874 said:

Cheers, hard to disagree with much of what you've said there. On that last point, I wouldn't be surprised - knowing what Dumbarton are like you'll probably take 7-9 points from us, Falkirk & Dundee Utd and 0 from St. Mirren, QoS & Dunfermline.

I reckon 9 points would do us, gonna be tighter than a nuns chuff though.

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5 hours ago, The Moonster said:

Keeping Aitken was the right decision in my opinion for a couple of reasons.

For anyone watching the recent Falkirk v Dumbarton game and not having knowledge who was Stevie Aitken or Ian Durrant, wouldve thought Stevie Aitken was Ian Durrant as he was barking all the instructions throughout.

I predicted St Mirren will finish at least 9th way back, Im not so sure now and the cup loss as well as cramming games in now wont help......I'm sure there will be a few more twist and turns but to overturn 4pts in 7 games is gonna be hard going.

The pars run in doesnt look clever either, 3pts yesterday may have saved them from bottom tho

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Two more wins for us and we're back from our holiday - not sure who'll be replacing us though. Everything is pretty tight in the Championship anyone from 5th to 10th is still pretty likely to go down. Reckon we might even see Raith and Dumbarton down - whoever is 9th has a hard fight against either East Fife, Alloa or Brechin (possibly Airdrie but we've hammered then five times this season no one could find them hard to beat :D). Alloa are a good side and East Fife have been strong against us all season, can't really see Brechin challenging for it though. Take your pick of East Fife or Alloa though, either way it'll be tough.

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6 hours ago, Piracy said:

Do not even think about a huge club like the Pars getting involved at the arse end of the table. Leave that to the wee clubs.

What league were you playing in last season? How did you end up down there? Oh and you've been at the "arse of the table" all year long this season. The mighty Pars eh?

26 minutes ago, ATLIS said:

Two more wins for us and we're back from our holiday - not sure who'll be replacing us though. Everything is pretty tight in the Championship anyone from 5th to 10th is still pretty likely to go down. Reckon we might even see Raith and Dumbarton down - whoever is 9th has a hard fight against either East Fife, Alloa or Brechin (possibly Airdrie but we've hammered then five times this season no one could find them hard to beat :D). Alloa are a good side and East Fife have been strong against us all season, can't really see Brechin challenging for it though. Take your pick of East Fife or Alloa though, either way it'll be tough.

I'm sure everyone will be delighted Livingston are getting promoted. The one thing the championship has lacked in recent years is away days to the Tony Macaroni stadium.

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