It had to start some time.

Short of Dundee away it could not have been a harder opening day fixture. I find it very hard to be optomistic with this one. I'm not reading anything into the Challenge Cup games as they were against two very different teams. However a win is a win and will not have harmed the team's morale.

Difficult to suggest how we will line up as we may have a couple of the new signings available who were absent on Saturday. I believe Caiffa and Nano are awaiting international clearance. My bet if its through in time, is that they make the bench. I also believe that Martini has been signed as GK no. 2 so if the real deal arrives and is fit, he may start. Depends if he trains enough with the squad.

After this weekends showing i wasnt so confident as i was when i saw the fixtures announced!! However it should be on paper a routine home win, and hopefully kick start some momentum. No disresept to Liv, but their recent record at McDiarmid is shite, and although their now a largely unknown quantity, i see a routine win.

Hopefully Del will have learned a few things from late, sort out the bloody defence and reduce the long balls to Holmes being two! With a new left back with something to prove hopefully the defence should be tighter, but MacLean does seem a bit dodgy and will have to play although low on confidence.

prediction 3-1 (bound to concede)

Saintees fans- any news on the new left back??

Slightly disrespectful;

06/07 Beat you twice at MDP
05/06 We were playing with the big boys

To be fair, my snidey remark aside, we have very little history of playing at MDP but I would challenge anyone to say anything other than honours even!!

1-1 both teams scoring early on.

.....and that wisdom is based on what...?

If we are going on history for predictions, what was the results the year before did we not cuff you everytime we played you

New season, new manager, new players anything is up for grabs thats not to say it might be a home win, but FFS get a reality check, eh

Now that all the friendlies are out of the way we can get on with the 1st game of the season.

Would rather not have had this game 1st TBH, too many unknown factors with Livvy.

Livvy look decent defensively so could be a goalfest. 5-2 anyone?

How does that work?

whooooooosh

looking forward to this. hope we go for a 4-3-3 formation and get right into them.

for me.

mclean
irvine ruti mccaffrey (hopefully someone new)
hardie millar craig
samuel holmes jackson

don't know what to expect of livi but surely they can't be any worse than the times i seen them last year.

Livi had an awful time at McDiarmid last year, shipping ten goals. I'm sure they will be better this time. The problem for us is that we are brutal at the back just now. We are alright going forward, but it really does concern me that we could concede at any moment without any real attacking prowess needing to be shown by our opposition.

I'd like us to line up (taking into account injuries)

McLean
Irvine, Ruti, McCaffrey, (new player or Sheerin)
Swankie, Hardie, Millar, Craig
MacDonald, Samuel

first time in a while i've actually been even vaguely looking forward to a trip to McD

Still so disheartened after the defeat and four hour journey home from Dingwall that I don't even want to think about the weekend. If I have to watch McLean play one more game... Main will surely be back for this one?

I will be at a wedding. Thank f**k.

Interesting. Are Saintees fans deliberately playing this one down or do I detect an air of pessimism?

You'll be getting all the young ones excited, steady on!!

Any pessimism has naff all to do with the threat of Livingston and far more to do with our own weaknesses. It wouldn't matter who we were playing this weekend, our own problems still offer far more of a threat than anything else. As (Blame it on) Beatson says, we concede cheap goals that teams don't need to work for. We have, IMO, close to the strongest group of individual players in the league but we are still trying to find out how to get the best out of them as a team. McInnes' notion of having no fringe or backup players was good in theory but it means he has a dilemma as he has twenty players who all have a case for starting each match, although injuries will make his choice slightly easier this weekend.

has any one called innes scored against us recently?

If not then it was a dream that he scored against us either 1st in the game or the only goal of the game,

watch this post!

anyone know where you can get 1st goalscrorer at a bookies for a 1st division game? lol

I wouldn't have thought that Livi would inspire pessimism. Unless you are a Livi fan that is!!

However you encourage me with your talk of conceding cheap goals. Griffiths has started this season where he left off and will be a thorn in the sides of any defence. Speaking of defence, I will be very pissed off if we concede 5 like we did last time in Perth. I can't realistically expect anything other than a home win but I do expect a much closer game than some of the pish we offered up last season.

That's a bit unfair. I for one am a little uneasy about the idea of playing Livi on the first day. I have no idea how they will fair this season.

It is difficult to assess how good Livi will be - the last time we played them they were utter garbage and I barely recognised any players, so they must be better now.

As (Raging) Radford states - we do have good options across the team, particularly going forward. If James is fit, I'd put him straight in ahead of McCaffrey simply for his organisational skills. He is likely to motivate those around him at the back - no matter what SaintSam thinks of it!

From what ive seen so far (albeit it being pre season) We look fitter than we have ever been, look really solid at the back, and I have seen a dramatic improvement in average players like Fox and Hamill


Bring on Saturday

i'll have to misr this one going to the emirates cup and TBH am glad still think we will win if swankie craig and samuel start but dont think the game will be good and am predicting 1-0 win and swankie or millar to score

Press in Norway is reporting that Odd Grenland might now be prepared to sell Kononen after signing a new full back. We'll have to up our offer though.

Booked the train from Aberdeen, canny wait!! Goalfest indeed, I've got a feeling 2-2 or 3-3 is on the cards!!

I was hoping that by saying they were decent we would score 5 again. We may need 3 to get a win.

The officials for the match are as follows:-

Iain Brines (Referee)
John Bicknell (Linesman)
Morag Pirie (Linesma... woman)

I'll be back with my pre-match thoughts (world-exclusive) later in the week.

Which has apparently, according to some folk on our forums, been the case for about the last 10 years.

Not intended as a dig at you Raddo!

3-3 equates to a Goalfest does it no - tho...?

I'm not at all confident. But I'll be there as usual, ready to have my annual pre-season bonfire of optimism pissed on until the eager, hopeful flames are nought but a smoking, stinking pile of despair.

And all for the entirely reasonable sum of £18. Cannae beat it.

I don't want to see Holmes play just because when he's on the field everyone's inclined to hoof the ball forward aimlessly. Watching football like that makes me want to vomit up my soul. By all means, stick him on for 20 mins at the end if we're out of ideas, but he's got to be a last resort.

And Maclean? A professional footballer? Christ.

Main (PLEASE)

SOMEONE WITH TALENT
James
Rutkiewicz
Irvine

Swankie
Craig
Hardie
Millar

Peaso
Jacko

Don't be ridiculous, McInnes has only had two months to find a left back. How can you expect him to bring one to the club in such a short space of time? Honestly, some of our fans are so unrealistic.

Conceded. It's the drugs talking. They make me far too optimistic, as you will no doubt see from the tone of my posts.

Apologies to Derek for expecting anything at all.

as a saints fan am gonna have to go for 2-0 livi. cant see us doing anything this season if mclean is in the sticks

I'm with you. I fear a pumping is on the cards. Cue doomsday predictions and McInnes must go. At leats Dundee will lose their first game.

I'm looking forward to this game for 2 reasons, firstly i've liked the way we've played pre season, passing has been good, defence looks good, keepers made a few great saves and Cuenca our new signing looks shit hot, David Fernandez type player. secondly i'm looking forward to see how we play against one of the best teams in this league so i can get a good idea of how we'll fare this season.
I don't know if it's because we're rid of Flynn at last but for the 1st time in 4 years i'm looking forward to a season and can't wait for this game.

Great to see the Saints time-honoured traditional of giving players a chance remains alive and kicking. Euan McLean written off after one competitive game, where he cost us... err... no goals! In any case, Main should be fit for Saturday.

Maybe if his second name was Cuthbert and he was from Perth he'd get on better.

I have plenty of worries about our long term prospects this season but we have an incredible home record over the past three years and are playing a side we beat 5-2 just over 100 days ago. In that time we've improved our midfield and have more options in attack as well. We have on glaring problem area at left back (and it is a joke McInnes has filled it) but that shouldn't overshadow the positive strides the manager has made with other areas of the team. We'll probably struggle to keep a clean sheet on Saturday but we should be positive about the team's ability to score goals as well. There is no contest between the teams in midfield, even allowing for Cuenca being a good player.

St. Johnstone 1-2 Livingston 25/11/2006
St. Johnstone 1-2 Livingston 31/03/2007

With a couple of minor blips

And two more on top of that but that is it in three years. Three teams have won at McD in the league in those three years and on one of the occasions it needed us to miss two penalties in the same match!

Im going to go wild here and give Euan McLean a few more games to get himself going. He surely can't be that bad? Although he has only come off his line about twice in the three games i have seen, at least he is a decent shot stopper. Maybe Alan will be back anyway.

Hopefully our loan star will come soon so we can get Liam Craig out on the left of midfield.

We've a different team from last season so don\'t go on the fact we were pish then to how we\'ll play now







How do you know what our midfield are like, Hamills been great in pre season and was injured all last season so didn\'t play, McParland also looks to be a good player, as mentioned Quenca is going to be quality for us this season, everyone in midfield has had great passing movement going forward, very crisp passing and fast on the break with Sparky up front. It will be a test to see if we can play like that against you but i think we can.

I cant see past a draw, 0-0, we have a habit of starting the new season poorly

I'll eat my hat if it is 0-0. There's just no chance that it could happen, with the defence leaking goals for fun and our attack actually quite good.

It'll probably happen now.

nae chance of 0-0 given saints have a good attack and midfield and for us sparky and cuenca are just...meraviglioso!

Don't worry Radford - no Goalkepeer is good enough for Saints fans unless his name is Alan Main. People forget that Main was honking with a capital HONK when he joined Saints. People also forget he sold at least 6 or 7 goals last season. Yet he can do no wrong. Granted the guy was a great keeper, and is still a very good keeper, but he is not 'the saviour' that people think he is.

This kid McLean has just signed for us, has yet to play in front of the same back 4 twice, has not been at serious fault for any of the goals and yet he is the anti-christ already. Even when Alan McGregor played for Saints the fans hated him - even after 7 clean sheet in a row.

I think people forget how shite the standard of football is in our league. Who do the Saints fans expect we are going to attract? Ask youself if you would take any of the other goalkeepers in our league? Or even half the keepers playing in the SPL? You just need to stick by a goalkeeper, back him and help his confidence grow. If he gets a run of games and is confident he will become consistent. In this league thats about as much as you can ask.

On the other hand, you could yell abuse at the guy 20 minutes into his first game and destroy all the confidence he ever had. That will work.

Are you talking about the fans or the manager now?

I obviously agree than Main's boots are massive but I think Cuthbert casts just as much of a shadow, the difference being he's done very little to justify it, except being born in Perth. I'm equally as puzzled as to just what McLean has done so wrong? He's looked nervous and maybe not quite ready to be a number one over a whole season but he's not exactly been throwing them in the net like other 'keepers we've had recently (Halliwell and McGovern).

I'm not sure I completely accept that. I think most fans are as exasperated by Main as they are in awe of him. I find myself feeling a bit of both toward the guy. He's a St Johnstone legend. Of that there's no argument. But he's becoming increasingly erratic and eccentric.

He's always been a character, but lately it's starting to become more and more overt. His constant mugging to the crowd endears him to the youngsters, but it's getting bizarre. Personally, I think he might be mentally ill.


People will do that regardless of the rights and wrongs of it. There's no stopping balding, middle-aged, existentially unhappy men taking all of their frustrations from the previous week out on some poor scapegoat at a football match. It's the one period of the week where these corpulent, waddling tragedies are let off the leash and don't have to justify their wildly irrational behavior to the wife or the boss or to anything at all except their own bitter and twisted psyches. For 90 minutes, their id defeats their ego, and God help the hapless youngster who becomes the focus of the collective bitterness.

We're a horrible lot.

Trust me, I'm utterly insane myself.

I can see that!

I'm a bit off the pace with the old LB situation. Are we looking at anybody coming in before Saturday?


I have reservations about this game which is compounded by the fact i will be quaffing champers and eating cake at Lands of Loyal instead of munching on a pie in the East Stand.

Radford answer me a question, why do you feel the need to slate Kevin Cuthbert or even mention his name in this??

The poor guy was only making a living at saints and guys like yourself think you can come on here and rip him up, he doesnt even play for us anymore get over it!!

As for McLean yeah he is very shaky at the moment but when he pulls on the saints jersey he gets my backing, as Cuthbert found out, Alan Main's gloves are very difficult to fill. But he is young so lets get behind the guy.

I fancy us to win 3-1 on Saturday, Swankie, Jackson and Holmes
Livi have fastly improved and I anticipate a very hard game but I think our firepower will see us good at home.

PA this morning says Del was pulling out all the stops last night to secure a long term target. If he's focusing on that, I'd speculate a loan deal is no longer an option (unless this long term target is loan) so it'll either be a new player or one of the regulars. Only thing is the paper suggests the player is foreign (my money would still be on Kononen) so I guess clearance will probably hinder his chances of featuring.


I'm not ripping KC in as much as ripping his loyal band of followers who gave Alan Main stick at matches last season and actively chanted for Cuthbert to be playing! I have nothing against Kevin Cuthbert and thought Queen of the South should have signed him ahead of Halliwell but the fact remains that he wasn't a world beater yet a section of the Saints support (because he was local) thought he should play every week and that he was immune from criticism. Even now there are comments we should have released Main and kept KC. The same will happen with Mooner in time. Of course it'd be nice to see guys from Perth in the team but that in itself shouldn't be enough for them to get a game.

I brought KC up though because I think part of the reason McLean is getting so much stick is because some Saints fans are bitter about KC not being here.