Jamie_Beatson

I'm not casting any judgement on the rights and wrongs of it, I'm just pointing out the reasons why it isn't treated as such a big deal. What happened to Wimbledon FC was obviously a travesty and I think that's an opinion that is widespread amongst fans of all clubs in England. Was there the same feeling about Meadowbank at the time up here?

I guess the reason no-one cares is a) it happened almost 30 years ago so a vast number of modern day fans have no idea of the background to it (I'm 37 and I have no memory of all this happening), b) they have been Livingston FC far longer now than they were ever Meadowbank Thistle and c) ultimately they were a very small club with a very small fanbase who were on the point of going out of business when the move occurred.

It's funny how Davidson identifies the fact that he's continually given Carey game time in an article talking about Wotherspoon's limited opportunities. I wouldn't have an issue if Carey was actually playing well when he's had these (numerous) chances - but he simply hasn't.

My example was from a Motherwell game a few years back where it actually was a free for all but they only let us sit in one tiny section of a 5000 seater stand so as such we had to sit in shit, partially restricted view seats down the front even though there were literally thousands empty. Its just such a pointless exercise.

There was a guy in the Shed still topless, twirling his shirt round his head when it went in. Delicious.

Clancy is a bad referee, and the fact he’s taking Premiership games is why VAR won’t work - 9/10 times you’ve got someone worse than him manning the screen. Fotheringham not being booked for his tackle on Montgomery is wild when you see it back - I don’t think it is red but you’ve seen challenges like that result in red cards before. And what about that incident when the guy just straight up shoved Mitchell off the park and into the ad boards? No foul and Mitchell is forced to stay off the park until the ball is in play again. Just hopeless.

Having just seen the Vassell red, it’s a completely innocuous incident. Nobody in the stadium thinks there’s anything amiss, none of the players want a harsher sanction. The VAR is sticking his oar in where it isn’t needed. Cabraja is perfectly entitled to attack that ball with his head but ultimately he creates all the force in that challenge because he’s the one moving at speed. Vassell is trying to control the ball and tries to pull out of it when the opponent arrives at speed. The level of contact is minimal. Get on with the game FFS.

It’s hard to judge because I can’t imagine an outfield player ever finding himself in that body position and being tackled in that way anywhere else on the park. May somehow manages to win the ball pretty cleanly then obviously goes into him on the follow through, but does anyone make a tackle like that at that angle if it’s in the middle of the park? Probably not. It would 100% be wrong to bail that idiot in goal out in any event.

Interested in your fuller thoughts on yesterday Radford. I assume you’ll be on the same page as me in that we are just not getting close to the best out of our team by being so utterly defensively minded. United are a poor team. They lack a real cutting edge - indeed in two games against us this calendar year I don’t think they’ve really got behind our defensive line properly or created any terribly clear cut chances over both games. But we’ve conceded in both games from shots from outside the box because, inevitably, if you let your opponents have loads of possession and loads of shots from range eventually one will find the target. Saints have the players to play a far more attacking game. Indeed we seem to have taken that tack, bizarrely, against Rangers and Celtic twice each since the World Cup break when we’ve gone out and tried to play a bit of football and get forward rather than simply defending our six yard box. Why we’ve chosen to do that against the top two in the league then be completely passive against United and Aberdeen - who were on a miserable run when they comfortably beat us recently - is a complete mystery. You've now got good combinations up front and in centre midfield. We have options in the wide areas. For the love of god, let’s use them. Win next week and we’re very much in the top six conversation given our run in to the split. But we have to actually go out and win games to do that. The player choices worry me though. Carey being brought on to close the game out and we immediately concede. He then tries to set up a chance deep in injury time when the ball needed taken to the corner. His decision making is poor and it immediately weakens us defensively when he comes on. Yet he is always ahead of Wotherspoon - who for me is a superior player in every department - when we turn to the bench. The judgement of the manager is still very much in question.

The worst of it is that he is, in every way, better than Carey. Indeed, he’s far more defensively sound than Carey so he should suit Davidson down to the ground. Why he’s parked on the bench while Carey gets minutes constantly is beyond me.

Nothing about our approach to this game (and the last one against United) made any real sense. They’re clearly there to be got at, they’re dreadful at the back and struggle to create good chances. So why sit in and surrender possession for vast stretches of the game. When we did get the ball down and move it we looked dangerous. Surely it’s better to go out and try to kill the game off than let your opponents keep moving the ball around and launch set pieces into your box until one of them finally does something. Luckily United are a mess. That winner is immediately one of my all time favourite Saints goals. Just pure comedy.

Motherwell a few years back (the one where Brian Graham scored a last minute winner) was a ridiculous one. We arrived five minutes before kick off and walked in to the usual away end - a stand that holds about 5000 people with about 350 Saints fans in attendance. The central block in the lower tier was almost completely full, only the front two rows had any seats left, so we went to the back and sat to the left of the aisle. Stewards came and told us if we weren’t allowed to sit there and we’d be thrown out if we remained in the wrong side of the aisle. We were moved to seats in the second row, with a terrible view obscured by the crossbar of the nearest goal. All while 4500 seats in that very stand sat empty.

In the latest instalment of Scottish clubs making things harder for fans than is absolutely necessary, United have been releasing tickets for this in blocks of about 40 tickets at a time. The last block made available sold out after 5pm today. No new tickets have been released, even though there are still several hundred in the block they’ve been selling from left. Hopefully they’ll reopen it tomorrow morning but it seems a bit of a nonsense to have no tickets on sale the night before the game when they are available. As for the game, this is a big one for all concerned. Win and we’re well clear of 12th. Lose and we’re right back in it. We need a total turnaround from the last game against United, where we were completely passive and inevitably lost. That said, for all the ball they had United created very, very little. Id go for: Matthews Brown Gordon Mitchell Montgomery Wrighr MacPherson Phillips Wotherspoon May Clark If Clark isn’t fit then I’d imagine we’ll see Hallberg playing off May?

Gretna we’re obviously a bit of an anomaly given the money being fired about, but even around then lower league sides making it through deep into the competition wasn’t unusual at all. In 2008 we were a penalty shoot out away from a St Johnstone v Queen of the South final, and that was with Aberdeen losing to Queens (4th in the league) in the semi and Saints (3rd) going out after penalties to (Old, still financially doping) Rangers, who only missed out on the league title on the last day of the season. Saints actually led that semi in extra time. Then in 2015 you had a fairly pish Falkirk team in the final as well. No reason at all to think - and especially given how the draw is - that a lower league team won’t be in this year’s final.

Inverness, Ayr and either Falkirk or Darvel are in the next round.. there’s a huge opportunity for a semi final at least for a Championship side here. So yes, utterly disrespectful.

Ridiculous finish there

I thought the new rules said if you’re supporting your weight on the ground and it hits your arm it isn’t a handball - but Soucek hasn’t even arrived on the deck yet, he’s basically made a diving save there. Meanwhile penalties are given left, right and centre when the ball deflects on to an arm from a couple of feet away. Crazy.

Avoid the restricted view if you at all can. The actual view of the park is only fractionally restricted by a metal bar - but the stewards stand at the front of the entrances/exits and block huge parts of the park, then get all upset if you point out dozens of people can’t see past them…

It was me that played St Mikes and said I liked it. I was hardly claiming it should be on the PGA tour but it was good for a winter knock. Nothing wrong with trying places you’ve never played before. Imagine getting that aggressive about folk having a nice time to themselves playing a sport they enjoy. Those two holes pictured at Drumoig are superb, looking forward to getting back there in the next few weeks for the first time in a few years. It is a cracking course and last time I was there it was dead. Played my home track today for the second time this year. Last week I couldn’t hit my driver anywhere but off the toe and went round in 93. Went for a lesson earlier this week which helped no end. No surprise I went round in 80 today… Fucking raging though on the 13th. Absolutely flushed a driver right out of the middle and watched it bounce exactly where I’d aimed and run out quite far. As I walked up I saw a dog legging it off into the out of bounds on the left. Couldn’t find my ball at all. Tuned out the fucking dog had nicked it and ran back to its owner with it. Had to just guess where it had landed.

The stats suggested he never had an assist - though I'm sure there were several where he'd basically created an attack from nowhere and put a decent ball into the box that then resulted in a goal, just not directly from the cross. He was good the first time round and is hitting his stride again now.

Extended highlights and analysis of St Johnstone v Celtic there - 20 full minutes, but apparently not enough time to even show St Johnstone's goal in the lengthy analysis section or indeed anything else Saints did during the game?

Just over a year ago we played Celtic at home in that ridiculous game where there only about 400 fans allowed in. I think we lost 2-1. That day we were a disgrace, just absolutely abject and scored from nowhere on one of our very few forays forward. We may have lost more heavily today but I was pleased with our approach and on another day the scoreline is far closer. At the end of the day Celtic have scored four goals from four shots on target. We probably put the ball into the Celtic box far more than we have in any game in the last five years. I would observe that today did highlight the issue of a Celtic loanee being a main fixture in your defence - in that we had to bring in a guy who has barely played all season at left back up against Jota, and its maybe unsurprising we lose a couple of goals down that side. That said, the way he spins in behind is so difficult to deal with. Felt we tried to get the ball down and play pretty well, and once again Dan Phillips was excellent. Rarely wasted the ball, strong and composed. We need to be talking new contract for him if we at all can and looking to build round him for next season. Thought Brown looked decent in a position that definitely suits him, with good performances from Wright and McLennan as well. That's our pre-split games against the Old Firm gone now - we need to produce at a good level for the next half dozen games and we can get ourselves right out of any talk of relegation.

Just avoid a pumping and injuries plz.

Absolutely agree with this. Phillips and MacPherson have to start every game they’re available now and if it continues to work we need to build round that. Hallberg works far better in that advanced role than anywhere else and it all has a nice balance to it. Why it’s taken so long to realise some of this is beyond me.

I thought Dundee United were a reasonable looking team who lacked a real cutting edge when they beat us last month. They had orders of magnitude more about them than Motherwell did last night. Aberdeen are surely too far ahead and have too many good players to be dragged into even a fight for the playoff spot. There's too many teams below them who will do well to get past 35 points. Aberdeen probably only need two wins and two draws to be safe, which they'll get easily. Especially if we have to travel to Pittodrie again. Fairly crap set of fixtures for the bottom four this weekend - if any of them manage a win that'll be massive. Hopefully none do, giving Saints a free hit at Celtic on the Sunday.