1320Lichtie

Yeah don’t think there were anywhere near that many Arbroath fans there like but tbh the 881 seemed high so can understand why you’re saying that, barely anyone in home end it was weird.

I think 920 is good for what it was, let’s be honest it was always just going to be a laugh and a kick about and a game of walking football. It was not much of a spectacle. It was more than I expected I had a horrible feeling that after the way we’ve been going recently it would’ve affected the crowd big time. I think the timing of this is not great and if we do one for Ricky I really hope it’s during the pre season we were very lucky the weather was ok. There was more at that game yesterday than Cove had on Saturday, only 881 there and there was atleast 2/300 Arbroath fans Saturday too Asking people to give up their whole weekend to go to the football is a big ask too a lot of people simply cannot do that they have other commitments and things to do so respect to all the players who done that for Bobby and for all the fans who turned up too. People could’ve easily sat in and watched the Manchester derby or saved themselves some money for the October holidays whilst money is so tight just now.

Stewart was in a moon boot yesterday We will get beat by Dundee on Saturday and more than likely get beat by QP the following Friday if things do not change drastically and quick. There looks like a top 5 and bottom 5 once again this year, the problem is we are too easy to play against just now so against the better teams I think we will really struggle to pick up points. Against the teams in and around us on our day we can beat them but we have not had enough of them. I really did think after Morton we had something but Saturday past brought me back down to earth with a bang. We have good football players but we are not a team and are seriously lacking in attacking areas of the park. Like big time, genuinely so far short of where we need to be upfront and in wide areas. I would agree with your team when fit but I would have Allan in over Hilson. Allan took a lot of stick after Saturday but everyone was terrible, it’s a team game. He still tried to get on the ball and make something happen, nobody else did Bobby aside. Tait did at the start of the game too but he lost the ball so many times (one resulting in a one on one for them) I think it affected him and he just completely fell out of the game Bitsindou needs to play even if he was to be having a terrible game he’s still a physical presence in there and will win his fair share just due to his size. He won a few headers in the middle of the park on Saturday and it was like some sort of surreal out of body experience watching us actually win an aerial battle in the middle of the park. I would like to know what the script is with ToB and Scott Stewart too. They’re both so important and big players for us but we have absolutely no idea what is up with them or when we can expect to see them back.

Hope so. Still angry about that yesterday, stayed in Aberdeen and went to Kevin Bridges and was having a great time and about 3/4 of the way through I started getting random bouts of depression thinking about that 90 minutes

He was the only positive for me. Would have him in over Jacobs without question

Actually tried my absolute best to forget about that performance, that was as bad as it’s been this season and saying that after how shite we’ve been this year speaks volumes. Holy f**k So so so very easy to play against and showed up the unbalanced mess our squad is Do we actually look at other teams before we play them? Cove were so much more physical than we were we looked like a team of wee boys. Understand ToB and Stewart were out, two of our bigger players but we started with big Bitsindou (one of the only positives of the day) and McKenna on the bench. A joke. Out wide we have ONE good attacking wide man in the entire squad. ONE. I’d take both of Cove wide players every day of the week and they are not even anything special they are just ok but most importantly they have PACE. f**k me we are so one paced it’s scary. Bobby has a turn of pace and can beat a man one on one but anything into space and Johnstone their right back had him. Gold wide right, guy is just not a winger he can do a job there but when we are as short as we are in attacking areas having him as one of the 3 forward players doesn’t work. He started there. Paterson didn’t make yesterdays squad but he would have never been near the park anyway and Fosu and Corfe are our other options there…. Fucking hell that’s grim. I realise Scotty Stewart is out injured but the lack of good options out in wide areas is a joke Middle of the park, fucking hell Jacobs was poor yesterday. We got run right over the top of. Taits worst game by a mile, Allan very poor too. But putting myself into these guys shoes it must be fucking murder. Getting the ball and looking up with absolutely f**k all on to pass too. Gold and Linn were marked tightly by Logan and Johnstone, both the fullbacks had them for pace too so anything in behind wasn’t working. And then Hilson on his Todd up against two man mountains, both good young players on loan from the Prem. Nothing fancy just bread n butter big centre halves. There was absolutely f**k all on anytime our midfield had the ball At the back they clearly targeted Oakley and Hancock. I kind of felt like Oakley had the cigars out and expected an easy game. First half he was terrible it would’ve been a wake up call for him. Had a shocker and was so passive, he obviously got told at half time he was much more aggressive second half. Hancock was poor too, Cove launched balls at they 2 and Dunne and Longstaff won and were first to everything Little and Hamilton I kind of feel sorry for they were both so exposed. Gaston made a mess of the second but again I’m not blaming him too much he’s far too busy That was quite possibly the worst performance I’ve seen from us in years!!!! They didn’t even have to do anything to beat us comfortably, so easy to play against and exposed badly. Run right over the top of and made to look so unfit, slow and small Embarrassing stuff and this is our lot until January (ToB and Stewart are massive misses yes) we are an unbalanced squad who struggles to score goals or threaten teams in any meaningful way, massively lacking in strikers and attacking players in general and we are a soft touch on top of that. 5 goals in 8 games!!!!! 2 of which were penalties. 1 scrambled over the line. 1 the luckiest goal you’ll ever see….. ONE GOAL FROM OPEN PLAY IN 720 MINUTES OF FOOTBALL. Dick and Pink spent the summer looking at random players from all over the planet and South London and we’ve got about 4/5 guys in the squad who are in attacking areas and are practically a total waste of time as they’ll make no real impact at this level. DC has made a monumental mess of this summers window but even then we shouldn’t be this bad. His decisions in regards to team selections week to week and his subs are only adding to the incohesive unsettled mess we are in at the moment

The first part applicable to Muirhead too but Hilson has had an unbelievable amount of game time let’s be honest and he’s missed some extremely memorable sitters too Agree with the rest though I can see what you mean in regards to Isiaka, you actually watch his highlight reel from Charlton 18s and some unreal finishes there and now Hilson looks like he’s going to be main man up top and given a run I also hope he can start to do what he seemed to do (not actually looked at his record) at Forfar End of day if team gets results nobody is arsed about any of this so fingers crossed we start to do that

Over the last 3 seasons they’ve funnily enough played the exact same amount of league games (including play offs) and their records are Robbie Muirhead - 8 goals in 56 games - a goal every 7 games Dale Hilson - 4 goals in 56 games - a goal every 14 games So yeah this is where we are at and why some of us have been saying what we’ve been saying. Hilson does contribute to the team but he has very much struggled with putting the ball in the net, he actually seems scared of shooting never mind scoring. But I am praying this changes he works so hard and deserves it

Match preview says it hopes we have ToB, Little and McKenna fit but obviously won’t have any real idea until the team line comes out. I really dunno how to feel, I think Bobby should play more now we’ve not signed a striker. He’s a goal threat other than him kind of relying on McKenna or Hilson. Maybe Bitsindou will take the shackles off Allan and Tait a bit more and they’ll be able to get forward and chip in Interestingly this is our first ever competitive meeting with Cove which seems pretty wild

I would take Robbie Muirhead and Quitongo… and again it’s not about a 20 goal a season hot shot I’d be extremely happy with someone who just looked like they could play centre forward and score a couple of goals between now and January 14 weeks of Hilson, Shanks and Isiaka is making me feel very uneasy. Midfield is going to have to step up I think Hilson should be given a run uptop as the main man in the 9. He’s not really had that here, cmon Hilly SOS

Our 3 strikers are Hilson who has made scoring goals look like the hardest thing to do on the planet over the past 2.5 years (hopefully this changes I would love that to happen for him) Young Shanks who’s shown promise but I don’t think he’s up to this level (which is understandable he’s only played a season in the Highland League and he’s a young lad), he got released from a Premiership youth team at 18 and Isiaka who’s 21 and been in the second division in Iceland. Hadn’t played a proper game for a year before last week A teenager from a Premiership youth team would be very welcome in my honest opinion I can see why some people disagree however it does seem desperate especially from the outside but i think we are pretty desperate If we don’t then Hilson it’s all on you mate

For what it’s worth Ian Campbell said in his courier article they were still looking to add to the squad after the Bitsindou signing so they clearly are trying and having a good think about it Mate that’s what we’ve done with 3/4 of our permanent signings already. Isiaka / Corfe and Fosu. Things have been pretty desperate especially the striking situation. It could only be until January too

But we were already going to be signing a loan striker…..? It would just be a much cheaper option. And when you look at the lack of options we have there (and you have there too by the sound of it) then taking a punt on a loan is definitely something I think we should be doing. We have nothing to lose, if Hilson hadn’t looked really good these last couple weeks we would be doomed

Yes but it was also me who said that I’d much rather go for loans from Premiership teams such as the guy Offord Alloa signed from St Mirren because the worst loan we’ve had from a Premiership team in recent years was probably Josh Campbell, Pigniatello or Ben Stirling who were all actually reasonably good and like I said at that time the league is full of guys like them. You can’t take anything you say seriously because you don’t actually have any opinions, you just agree with whatever happens and what the Status Quo seems to look like and defend it as vigorously as possible

See the thing is….. he’s not the fkn manager!!! It’s not what he’s paid to do. Surely, surely, surely you’d agree that if we were planning on getting a loan striker in (which we were) then we’d be better off taking a gamble on a loan striker for 6 months to see how he gets on we’ve got absolutely nothing to lose by trying that Dunno if anything will happen now however there’s only 4 hours left