Slipmat

I wonder if McKechnie will be loaned out in January? He seems to have fallen way down the pecking order and doesn't look like getting any game soon. If he does go out on loan, hopefully it's to a L2 club and not to the usual suspects down Gretna or Dalbeattie way.

I know you're not asking me, but I'd fully expect that McKenna would go to RWB and Dave McKay to come back in at CB. Whatever the line-up you can guarantee McKenna will be there somewhere .

I think you'll struggle to find anyone who knows. He doesn't seem to have played more than five games at any of the clubs he's been with (and there have been at least 12 of them - that must be a record for a 23 year old!) with the possible exceptions of East Kilbride and Carlisle City. Even at Petershill he only made 2 starts before being released. I'm amazed that he got a contract with Queens until June to be honest given that he struggled to get games at both Dalbeattie and Mid Annandale in the past couple of seasons. We're fairly rattling through the goalkeepers this season... Currie, Pietsch, Cowie, Ritchie, Fox and now Henderson all on the teamsheet at some stage I think. Pietsch may have been at the tail end of last season, I can't remember offhand and can't be arsed checking.

So, neither reserve keeper is eligible for Saturday's game but Fox leaves two days before the match by mutual consent.

Aye, my idea of personal abuse is if someone is being subjected to it on grounds of their skin colour, sexual orientation, physicality or a some similar characteristic, not that they just happen not to be the best of footballers. What irks me the most about the apology (if that's what it is) is that his initial complaint of constant negativity has been tweaked to being one of personal abuse, and given the recent allegations about Gibson's own off-the-park behaviour he's hardly in a position to appoint himself as some kind of moral authority on what is and isn't appropriate language or behaviour at this particular moment in time.

Fans may moan and shout criticism at players or the team as a whole, but... personal abuse? Week in week out? Really?! I must be sitting in the wrong stand... Somebody grab that shovel off Wullie quickly before he digs himself into an even deeper hole.

Just watched the highlights back and I have absolutely no idea what Gibson is complaining about. The atmosphere generated by the 900 odd souls who bothered to turn up (and I didn't) seemed both noisy and supportive from the outset. I suspect he has been busily checking social media and forums (yet again) during the week on the back of the Alloa farce, hasn't liked what he has read, and couldn't resist having a dig back. If he can't take criticism he should really leave twitter etc well alone and close his ears to the crowd until he grows a thicker skin.

First things first get Fox in for Currie.

As do I. Which makes me wonder why we have sent Muir out on loan to Gretna. I've only seen glimpses of him, but from what I have seen he's looked perfectly capable of filling the RWB role. Certainly no worse than McKenna, and no less experienced than Lewis Gibson who I'm not convinced we will get the best out of if played as a wing back as opposed to an out-and-out forward thinking winger.

I've wondered where he was in a few of the games where he's been playing.

It's a peculiarity of our board that they seem to have a very parochial attitude when it comes to appointing managers. Whenever a manager leaves either by choice or through being sacked it seems to be the board's automatic gut reaction is to look to promote someone from within the present coaching set-up, or re-appoint a previous dud and look no further. To me, it seems to be unbelievably stupid to replace an out-going failing manager/coaching team with someone who has been part of that very failing team. The board are also notoriously slow in acting. Naysmith, for example was only sacked by the time we had been confirmed as being in the relegation play-offs, AJ had us in a situation that was obvious to a blind man that we weren't going to get out of, yet in both of those examples it took an absolute eternity for the board to take action. I would have thought that the board's target for this season would have been top 4 at the minimum. Even if we win our next three games (haha, yes, I know!) it's unlikely we would be in a play-off position at the halfway point in which case they would have plenty of justification for giving Wullie his jotters. I hope that they do, but with the recent history outlined above I have a great fear that they would make Murray interim manager for an indefinite period while they dithered around waiting for applications to arrive instead of pro-actively seeking out the right man. And given the quality of available men out there they would probably end up appointing a no-mark like Danny Lennon. ETA - ...and Hewitson is NOT the sort of man who would want to compensate another club for poaching their manager.

League games Wilson has started: won 4 drawn 3 lost 1 League games Wilson hasn't started: won 1 drawn 1 lost 4 Edited to cover up dodgy arithmetical calculations.

I'm not having this's. Mod's?

Got to be the Prince-of-the-Premier Pedestrian Plodder Stephen Simmons for me.

Calm doon man! I'm no fan of the board, but you're starting to sound like you'd rather that Fermer Rae had sold his shares to that mob of asset-strippers who were a front for the serial football-club-liquidator Stephen Vaughan than have Hewitson near the club.

I'm starting to wonder what the likes of McKechnie, Quitongo, McMahon and Muir have to do to actually get into the team. None of them have looked out of place on the odd occasion that they have played but no matter how badly we play their appearances are now as rare as hens teeth. Will Ruth ever get a run of games where he can get a chance to show what he can do for more than the last 15 minutes? Does the manager simply not rate these guys? If so, why were they all amongst the first of his summer (re-)signings? What was the point in signing Irving if he's only role is to sit on the bench? I felt a bit sorry for Bange today. It was a strange decision to pair him up with Reilly given that the two of them have been on the pitch together for probably less than 10 minutes in total prior to today's game, and it showed as neither really appeared to know what the other was doing. Bange probably won't get another start before he heads back to Blackpool now.

Woeful is the only word I can muster up to describe that performance today. We may have looked better in the second half, but only when the result was a foregone conclusion, Falkirk took their foot off the gas and McGlynn decided to "rest" some of starting XI for the last half hour. The majority of fans on here have been advocating for Wullie to play, but not in central midfield ffs! The excuse will no doubt be rolled out that 2 (or 3) of our first pick CMs are out with injuries, but with a squad of 28 players surely we have better options than to start the manager playing out of position? I'm not complaining about the effort put in by Reilly and McKenna, but these two players seem to be the first two names on the teamsheet in every game and I am totally baffled as to why. Wullie tore Greenacres a new one on twitter for suggesting that he has his favourites, but it's starting to look like there may be a grain or two of truth in that as some guys just aren't getting a sniff of action, either that or he just doesn't have faith in a worryingly large number of the squad he has assembled. Falkirk were very good in the first half and 4-0 wouldn't have been an unfair half-time scoreline. Burrell gave our defence no end of problems and we just couldn't get to grips with him. Best forward I've seen this season.

Men against boys stuff, this. I'll be amazed if we register a shot on target before the game ends.

You mean we actually train ? From what I've seen over the past few seasons I'd been assuming that we were going into matches and just improvising, a bit like having a jam session, and then if something clicks we try doing it again the following week.

Now I'm not for one minute suggesting our use of personnel is predictable, but... Reilly and Paton will be our starting forwards. If Bange is to appear it will only be for the last 10 minutes after we have launched into full-on desperation mode, chasing a win/point which is well beyond our reach by that time. Ditto Lewis Gibson. McGrory may start but will be subbed off if he does, if he doesn't start he will be brought on for 20 mins/half an hour. On no account will he be allowed the full 90. Murray will be on the pitch far longer than he should be. Wullie G should feature but won't. We will go into the game with one formation but this will be changed on at least two occasions as the match progresses. We will leave the ground happy with a point even though it leaves us even more firmly anchored into a mid-table void.

Just watched Wullie's interview with Sandra where he jokes that he will likely be wearing the same outfit again next week. I would much prefer it if he was wearing a playing kit. Is it just me that's found it frustrating that in each of his last two post-match interviews the interviewers have enquired about the fitness of certain players but have dodged the elephant in the room and not asked what Wullie's injury is and if and when he plans on selecting himself again?

I take it Wullie is still "injured"?

Maybe it's just my perception, but it seems like he's developed a bit of a siege mentality of late.

This. Personally, despite my previous post illustrating that our club has form regarding board interference in team selection, I tend to believe that Wullie is maybe carrying a niggling injury given that he hasn't even named himself on the bench in the last few games, especially given our current lack of fit defenders. Unfortunately the OS injury updates which were a welcome feature of the early days of WG's tenure (ie last season) have dried up, and the management team seem to have stopped doing post match video interviews. New ones today from Dan and Toddy but sadly no comments from WG. A simple statement from WG along the lines of "I'm carrying an injury" or "it's my decision not to pick myself" would easily end speculation. ETA - Gibson interview online 5 minutes after I posted this lol! Looks like he was riding a unicycle at the time

The chairman and directors did exactly this from the 1950s to the mid 90s. Nearly every single manager through the door during that period from George Farm to Willie McLean to Frank McGarvey to Ally McLeod are on record confirming this. No reason to believe it would never happen again or that it isn't indeed happening just now.