Slipmat

You called it!

Bartley will be satisfied. We've kept a clean sheet for 45 mins.

Kelty 1 Stirling 0. Annan move up to 8th in the live table, Stirling down to 9th.

Annan 2 Cove 0

Annan winning.

He'd get my vote for POTY despite only having played in half a dozen league games! When he picked up his injury we were comfortably top 4 and had just knocked Partick out of the Challenge Cup. Then Ferguson stepped into the Mimnaugh role and has barely missed a match. That's worked out well, didn't it?

The reserves completed their league programme today, and it looking at their final playing record it would appear that the home form vs away form issue isn't exclusive to the first team: Queen of the South Reserves 8 1 0 3 7 9 2 1 1 9 9 -2 10

You may be onto something here. In English football, in my youth the club with the reputation for being hardest to beat on their own ground was said to be Millwall who went through 2 consecutive league seasons unbeaten at home in the mid-60s, and then on a further occasion in the very early 70s. This included a 59 game unbeaten run. Obviously this was probably helped by the, ahem, "boisterous" reputation of Millwall fans giving the (old) Den a most unwelcoming and threatening atmosphere. There's certainly none of that at Palmerston where we only tend to grumble and tut-tut at our own players, aside from the odd occasion when an opposing player gets away with a horror tackle or gamesmanship. Now I'm not suggesting for one moment that Queens fans go all Millwall and start ripping up seats and throwing them at the dozen or so Cove fans who make the trip to Dumfries in order to create something approaching an intimidating atmosphere , but the current shitshow on the pitch gives us very little to shout about meaning that the old "the supporters are our twelfth man" cliche certainly doesn't apply at Palmerston. ETA: not having a pop at our fans, it's just that the on-field product doesn't exactly stir the emotions.

I hope our incoming one man board of director has deep pockets so that Bartley, Doherty, Hutchinson and McKechnie can all be "released". Grant Murray too, if he is contracted for next year. Does anyone know if there is a minimum number of directors requirement in order for the club to be SFA/SFL compliant? At the painfully slow rate that we're going at in terms of assembling a new board, I fear that some of the current board members will still be around next season to make up the numbers.

Just had a look to see how Hutchinson has been getting on at Eastbourne. He started the first four games after his arrival and failed to score. Next three games he came off the bench and failed to score. The last four games he hasn't even been used as a sub.

Met Office predicting wind gusts of 45mph. Cue lots of hope(ful/less) long balls up to Mumbongo instead of keeping it on the deck.

Motherwell also avoided relegation through league restructuring in 1986 and again in 2003 when Falkirk were denied promotion due to Ochilview falling way short of SPL ground requirements and the construction of Falkirk Stadium still a year off from being completed.

We'll have to wait and see what design Brechin come up with.

While some teams can start a match fired up, our gang jog onto the pitch looking for all the world like damp tinder. The manager spends the rest of the match rubbing two sticks together in the hope of creating a spark. And usually fails.

That'll be the same youngsters that scored 5 goals at Kilmarnock in the reserve league this afternoon.

Kelty should be fine. Five consecutive defeats looks poor, but they have been against the top 5 teams in the table. I would certainly expect them to start picking up points agains over the next 4 or 5 fixtures. Stirling are unpredictable, but do have the easiest run in on paper. It all comes down to how they perform in the head-to-heads against the other 3. Queens are in a shocking state, the three most winnable games are all at Palmerston which given our horrific home form mean we probably won't win any of them. Annan's form isn't quite as impressive as I'd imagined, it's as much a case of the other 3 clubs sliding towards them as them stringing a series of wins together. However, they do look capable of getting results where maybe a couple of months ago they would have been stick-ons to get beaten. As bad as they are, I wouldn't be surprised if Edinburgh throw a spanner in the works by getting something from their matches against one of the above. So, I'll go with 6th Kelty, 7th Stirling, 8th Annan, 9th QOS.

I see what you did there.

I'm starting to wonder when exactly the BOD reached their decision to collectively walk away en masse. It's extremely unlikely that they would only have first considered and discussed this option and made their minds up over the weekend prior to the AGM. Looking in from the outside there seems to have been no attempt made to identify successors, nor to replace a failing manager who, let's face it, should have been dismissed in October/November if the season was to be rescued and a top-four / secure mid-table place secured. We're now at the stage where if they were to sack Bartley, any incoming manager would have maybe 3 or 4 matches at most to turn things around given that the recruitment and installation of a new manager usually takes 3-4 weeks, so it's far too late to do anything about Bartley now. The whole situation reeks of them having washed their hands of the club in the autumn / early winter period, and the longer they have let a shambolic situation continue the less attractive the club are becoming to new investors, or potential managers for that matter. This season has gravitated from a position of optimism, to one of disappointment, then frustration, and now downright worry, but still they appear to be sitting on their hands doing nothing except counting down the days until they depart. For example, what is the contingency plan if, say in six weeks or so, no new board is in place Allowing the club to potentially slide down two divisions in three seasons and not replacing dud manager(s) is a clear dereliction of duty to both shareholders and fans. And yet they have the nerve to call themselves "fans" too... Just had to get that off my chest.

Yet he has said on several occasions that football management is a 24/7 job. Perhaps this is evidence that Bartley is living in a parallel dimension where there are more than 24 hours in a day which allows him to spend 24 hours managing Queens, an additional 4 hours doing media work, and time to squeeze in some sleep all in the same day. Other features of this dimension that differ to the one the rest of us live in are that Queens play well against the teams above us, single goal defeats are good results, Mumbongo has the potential to be one of the best strikers in Scotland and Bartley is a good manager who knows what he is doing.

I know we've discussed how in-house interviews aren't going to be tough on the manager, but it makes me wonder what the point of doing them at all is when we have to wait for nearly 3 minutes into a 5 minute interview before the interviewer actually asks him a question. Edit to add that my first question after conceding 4 goals wouldn't be "should we be taking more shots" but "do you think we were punished for playing such a high defensive line?".

So did I.

Unfortunately for us it's Bartley who is making a high percentage of those errors.

The one thing that was in our favour - goal difference - has tonight taken a thumping thanks to Bartley's insistance on persisting with that high line that gifted Falkirk chance after chance. An absolute tactical shitshow. I get the feeling Brydon was holding back a lot of criticism of Bartley's tactics in his interview at half time. The only reason I can guess at for Bartley not having exited yet is because the car booked to drive him away has square wheels and the doors keep falling off.

The first half hour we looked like rabbits in the headlights on the verge of shipping a bucketful of goals, MacIver's miss then reversed the momentum for a good half hour when we actually looked like the better team. Once again Bartley's tactics brought about our downfall though. Rather than go with a back 7 as predicted he went with no defence at all and a midfield 9. Why on earth have the backline playing on the edge of the halfway line? Sheer stupidity and negligence. Even Brydon said as much at half time! McKay totally at fault for the second goal. I'll be happy if he never dons Queens socks again. Despite the scoreline I actually thought Connelly, Logan, Todd and McClelland played well. Stone couldn't be faulted for any of the goals. Good luck to Falkirk next season. Too good for this division, and if you keep this squad together must be in with a shout for top four in the Championship next season. You've suffered for too long.

Only one change from last week. Reilly had to be dropped after committing the cardinal sin of scoring a goal.