Waspie

The team played well on Saturday and if the starting 11 are all fit this week they should play again. Scougall to come on for longer as he returns to fitness. As for Wales, he did well at Stirling and his mazy run for the chance he just missed was superb. Would be daft to drop him after that IMO, give him a few more games and the goals should come. I see Steven played and scored in the friendly against Stenny too so he should be back and that's another great option from the bench. But if possible we should be going for continuity this weekend.

Much better balance to the team today and a good performance. On his return Roy once again linked things up very well and while Coulson was in and out of it he did brilliant work for the opener. PJ looked a bit uncertain for one corner in first half but otherwise very solid and seemed to settle the whole defence. Hetherington and Roberts got through a lot of work in the middle too. Was nice to see Buchanan get his goal as he worked hard as well. Only thing you could fault them for was not killing the game much earlier, it should have been done by half-time. Wales will be kicking himself for his miss but the work he did to set himself up for that was a sign of what he can do. Hopefully once he gets a goal plenty more will follow. Been saying it all season but there is no excuse for our poor performances so far given we have plenty of really good L1 players. We've dropped so many points to teams who don't have that quality. Manager needs to stick with roughly what he had today and fit Scougall and Donnelly in as they reach fitness. Easily good enough for the play-offs if he keeps it simple.

Great listen as ever. I'd challenge the narrative that everything was going well before Falkirk though as the midfield and attack were similary disjointed against Kelty. Roy clearly made a big difference in linking things up against Edinburgh City and Montrose and with Rodden coming in for him against Kelty we just didn't have that. Steven was the most effective of the three against Kelty - a three that didn't really work as a combination - and for me one of Rodden or Wales had to drop out against Falkirk. That was the right call. Should Virtanen have come in obviously a different question. Felt a bit sorry for him though after not playing much, being handed a tough assignment then hooked early. Ogayi also missed two corners early against Kelty. They didn't take advantage but Falkirk did. So tempting as it might be to say that all was looking up before Falkirk, don't think it's quite accurate. What is very clear again from recent weeks is the importance of a creative influence to link midfield and attack. Donnelly or Roy (Scougall could do it too if we used him in a bit more of an advanced role) obvious options but we have Kev sat on the bench there, he would have been a really good alternative when the three we had against Kelty were struggling a bit. And of course all of that doesn't really matter if we're handing out gifts at the other end, absolutely crucial we tighten up. Agree that a back four would help, however unlikely, and we need PJ back. One other thing, can't just excuse last week by saying Falkirk are a good team and we were always likely to get nothing. Losing there is one thing but the manner of the defeat is another.

Have to say that was my first impression of Roberts for Alloa in the Kev Cawley testimonial, a lot of running about but not great in possession. Perhaps harsh when he was against superb ball players like Holmes, McCord (and Gaz Fleming pinging the ball about too) but the contrast was pretty striking that day. He does bring loads of energy and has had some fine games driving from midfield but that's balanced out by the rest. I suppose if he was better on the ball to go with the energy he'd have been playing for better teams. Don't think he starts if we're injury free. The previous two encounters against Stirling were very poor matches but Stirling deserved to win on the basis that they were well organised and made the most of what they had, unlike Alloa. Two victories for Darren Young. Was really disappointing that Stirling looked like they wanted it more in both games too. I'm not surprised that they've dropped off a bit of late as the squad still doesn't look great on paper, but being well organised and spirited will still be enough to keep them up comfortably. As for Alloa, our performance at Falkirk was abysmal and we didn't actually play all that well in the win against Kelty either. Have to hope some of the more creative options are available this weekend as there were signs of some progress in the two games before Kelty. Say this every week but there are enough good players there to make a really decent League One side if used effectively. We've shown we can win games even without using them particularly effectively too but that also depends on the keeper and defence not giving away gifts - which has been happening pretty regularly. So all in all, another classic in prospect

Fair comment I'd say, we were dreadful. There have been a few grim performances this season but we were particularly poor on Saturday and Falkirk should certainly have scored more than 3. In truth Falkirk didn't have to do much to win that match, the first 2 goals were absolute gifts. If this is indeed the case then Rice must support most of the teams we've played this season. It's quite a new ground but looks nice from the train! Good pubs in Dunbar too, well worth leaving the car on this occasion. And if turns out that Brian Rice is a Dunbar fan as well you can drown your sorrows afterwards before getting the train home.

Lots of these things were issues last season but we had enough good players - and a few spells where the team was fairly settled - that we got away with it. We certainly lost a couple of good players in the summer but the high turnover was a bit of a disaster as the manager is so fond of tinkering that settling in so many new men was even harder than it needed to be. There are questions over many of those players but they've hardly been helped in their efforts to settle in. And even if the squad overall isn't as strong as it was, there are still more than enough good players there to make a decent part-time League One side. Better than most (arguably all) of the other part-time teams in the league. Suspect you're right that little will change anytime soon. Think we'll probably pick up points too for the simple reason that there are very able players there (we won last week not playing well and without our best players for example). But as things stand it will be a struggle, anyone half decent (and some less than that) will beat us, and it will be an ongoing decline. In the short term, can only hope PJ is back for the derby next week. Scougall and Roy would also make a big difference.

Alloa's struggles are nothing to do with Hetherington and everything to do with the manager. I had no optimism at all going into this match which is rare for a league game. Falkirk are clearly a tidy team this season and to have any chance against them you need to be well organised and not give away presents. We haven't been setup properly all season and we gift goals every week. Poor Ogayi has been an accident waiting to happen and Falkirk had clearly watched last week and landed early corners on top of him. He duly made a mess of them and we didn't get away with it as we had in other games. It was inevitable that this would happen sooner rather than later though. Those errors killed us but the whole team were a disjointed mess. Game was over pretty early without Falkirk needing to do too much to get into a commanding lead. 3-0 flattered Alloa. We are missing some key creative men at the moment but the players that are available are capable of so much better. It's actually hard to make a squad with lots of decent part time footballers consistently so poor. Fair play to Falkirk, won that without ever needing to step it up and had their feet up in the second half. Unlikely to get many afternoons as easy as that all season.

Ogayi is certainly an interesting one as he seems to provoke rather extreme opinions - from 'competition winner' to 'sign him up long term'. The truth is probably somewhere in between. He's done better than I feared too but while he didn't have much to do on Saturday, he came for and missed two corners entirely, fluffed a clearance, and parried a shot straight back to a Kelty player. We got away with those. Been questionable on some of the goals he's conceded too. At the same time, he's pulled out some good stops and had no big howlers. But I'm still generally relieved if we make it through 90 minutes unscathed! Which to be fair is true of a few of the other summer defensive signings as well.

To be fair it's true that the club wasn't in a great state when Mike Mulraney first came in. Tom Hendrie and Terry Christie had been really well backed and the club probably over extended themselves at that time. Christie says in his book they were really cutting back by the end of his reign and that clearly continued when you see the players Hendrie had in his second spell compared to the first. Think it was well documented that MM sorted the debt from that era when he came in before turning his attention to the ground. The club has been absolutely transformed since then with some incredible times on the park. Regarding Saturday my main hope would be that it will be a confidence boost more than anything else as it wasn't a particularly good performance. As soon as Scougall and Donnelly are fit - properly fit - they go straight back in. Add those two and manage to keep Roy playing like he did in his two games (and with Steven also getting better) and we have very good creative options. Hopefully Wales will start to find his feet too. I don't know what the timescale is for PJ but hopefully we'll have him back soon too and he should go back in as well.

He went into the back three and Taggs ended up shifting to LCB where Debayo had been. I thought he did fine, won a few headers and made a few clearances - general Morgyn Neill stuff! I didn't see the incident LeodhasXD mentions.

I'll be fascinated to see what he has to say as we didn't as play as well as we did against Edinburgh and Montrose! You could see how much Ally Roy added in those games in finding space and knitting things together, in his absence today it was back to the rather disjointed stuff, although Taylor Steven did his best to assume that role and deserved his goal. He has been improving steadily with games and hopefully there are more goals to come from him. We ultimately didn't have to be great to win but the team worked away and encouraging they were able to recover from going behind after a defensive error. Responded well to that setback. Rodden always works hard and it was a nice finish from him. Game could have gone either way at 1-1 and thankfully it was Alloa who got themselves ahead. Taggs would probably say himself that he didn't have his best day defensively but it was a decisive penalty. I'm surprised Kelty fans are questioning the award as it looked like a very simple decision for the ref after a bad touch from the defender. We'll see again in the highlights anyway. Hopefully a real confidence booster for the team and it pulls us into the pack. We'll need to be better if we're to win regularly but there are a few creative players to come back who should make a difference. Well done Wasps .

He upped the stakes by using "exceptional" to describe our first defeat against Montrose since about 1905, I can't let it go after that .

Already looking forward to hearing what the manager has to say about this one after describing Alloa as "first class" against Edinburgh City and "exceptional" against Montrose. Hopefully more superlatives to come at the weekend and ideally three points this time as well. To be fair the performances certainly were better in the last two games, albeit perhaps not quite at the level the manager suggested, and if we continue to go with a settled enough team and players in their natural positions then we'll win games. The defending against Montrose wasn't good enough but we looked a far more cohesive team going forward and that was without Scougall and Donnelly. If we ever managed to get it all together there would be a really good team in there. Anyway, this would certainly be a good place to start winning as to only get 2 points from the other part-time sides in the first quarter wasn't near good enough.

On a point of order you are missing some pretty obvious examples which undermine the suggestion that part-time sides "don't generally get promoted" in the last decade. Dumbarton were an established part-time Championship side for several years in that time period. Alloa had 6 seasons there over two spells. Cowdenbeath also stayed up a couple of times before their implosion. That implosion - and that of Brechin - was down to poor management rather than as a direct result of being in the Championship. Add in Arbroath at the moment and there are several examples in recent times of part-time sides going up and staying up. Clubs have to adopt whichever model best suits their needs and a hybrid model which would allow you to get really good pt players who don't to go ft might well be ideal, but it ultimately goes beyond just pt and ft. Alloa in that last decade were paying good part-time wages (still are pretty competitive I think) but also had a good reputation as a very well run, successful, part-time club with good mangers and where players would be well looked after, it was an attractive option for the best part-time players. Lots of that is still in place but we have lost key aspects of it under Barry Ferguson and Brian Rice. With a slightly reduced status and reputation we are no longer attracting the best part-time players. You need a good model obviously but having the right people in charge of the football side is absolutely fundamental. I firmly believe QoS should have been capable of signing better players than they did in the summer, the recruitment looked extremely suspect at the time. I have only watched 1 game in full but the way you were set up against Alloa was bizarre too. All that falls on the manager I'm afraid rather than the model by which the club is run. Other than Falkirk and Accies the standard so far has been very poor indeed and to lose 6 games from 9 with a ft setup is pretty incredible. That poor standard means QoS should still be capable of getting into the promotion play-offs this season - and as a young manager Bartley can argue he is still finding his feet and learning from mistakes - but the performance so far looks to be down to poor use of budget and playing squad rather than a fundamental issue with the model off the park.

Would echo what Kevchenko and AlloaAdam said, it was better than most of our performances and having some decent movement in attack and something like a settled team behind that for a wee spell has made a difference. The defending for both goals was grim though and I'd also favour a more compact back four. Ogayi didn't inspire confidence from crosses either and not sure that's helping the defence, although he did cope with everything else well enough. We were worth a point without doubt but can't begrudge Montrose a long overdue win over against us. A good win for them too given they didn't play particularly well. I do believe we'll start to pick up points as there are too many decent players in the squad for us not to, and the league really isn't very good either. 8 points from the first quarter - and 2 points from the other part-time sides - is really abysmal stuff.

Posted something on your match thread against Cove suggesting he could well be a decent addition. He's comfortable on the ball, not afraid to get stuck in and has a good shot on him from distance. Only thing I'd say from his time with Alloa is that he could have been more assertive but as a young player that should come, and to be fair there were certainly signs he was taking on more responsibility as the season went on.

Alloa certainly did play better last week and the new attackers did make a difference. They should improve further with games and if you then consider what further difference a fit Donnelly and Scougall could make then there would be genuine reasons for optimism. At the same time, we were playing a team who had 1 draw and 10 defeats from 11 competitive games and yet they could well have won the game - we were wide open at times - and while Brian Rice thought Alloa's performance was "first class", the Edinburgh City board considered a draw at the Recs as the final straw and promptly sacked their manager. Montrose seem to be going well and hard to see them getting a better opportunity to finally beat us.

They weren't skint at that point, the aforementioned ex ICT and County players weren't cheap. It was a really good Clach team though and as a few posters have said the atmosphere at the games was really good with a hardcore of fans singing in the old wineshed. Obviously Clach ended up in administration again a few seasons after that and have run a tighter ship ever since.

Maybury was perhaps a little unfortunate in the end. City seemed to be very unlucky not to beat Cove - coming close to going 3-1 up before losing a late equaliser, and while Alloa were the better side on Saturday, City might still have won that game. Back to back wins and his situation would have been looking much brighter. He's probably a good example of a manager who should have tried to jump when his stock was high. He did a really terrific job coming in during the season and then getting City up through the play-offs. His budget last season was obviously a bit better than many expected but he used it well and had the team overachieving for much of the season, despite tricky circumstances around the club. Shame for him he didn't get a move then. Things are clearly still not ideal off the park and budget probably smaller and some key men away, it was always going to be a lot tougher and no real surprise it's been a struggle, although I'm sure City fans will say they should still have been doing better than they are. Overall though seemed (from a distance) to be a manager who used his budget well, fostered a good team spirit and improved players, all within a rather challenging situation. Will be interesting to see what he does next.

Was only keeping half an eye on this but was that Murray Miller who came on for Stirling? I thought he had potential when he was on loan with us last season. Needed to be a bit more assertive probably but decent on the ball, physical when required and had a good shot on him too. Plenty good attributes to work on, would be a decent addition I think.

He wasn't a stand-out at Alloa. He actually came with some very poor reviews from fans of previous clubs and struggled in his first season, although fans had sympathy for him given he had Barry Ferguson shouting at him every week for the first half of the season. He had a mixed start to last season but then had a very good couple of months or so where he excelled in particular in getting well placed crosses into the box, although he was still a bit suspect defensively. After that he spent a fair bit of time at LCB where he did ok and being injured. Has some strong attributes but you signed a work in progress rather than a stand-out. Based on the two games against us QoS and Cove looked like two of the weakest full-time sides I can recall. But other than Falkirk and Accies this league looks really poor. Despite your poor start the play-offs will probably still be very achievable without a massive improvement.

The new attackers certainly brought far better movement and link up play than anything we've seen so far and made for a much improved performance (although a long way from "first class" as the manager suggested). The new faces should get better with more games and there is also potential to get even more out of them if we can get the likes of Scougall, Donnelly, Cawley etc fit and on the same wavelength as the attackers. For all that it's still a poor result. Edinburgh looked very brittle yet might well have won the game. It was a very poor goal to concede from the defence (thought Ogayi might have done better there too but will need to see the highlights) and there were other chances. For all it was an improvement on last week there is still an awful lot to work on if we're going to win games consistently.

Rodden's work rate and attitude are terrific but agree that in most cases he is really suited to cameo roles late on when games have opened up and there is loads of space and little structure. Or the rare occasions when you play a team and those conditions exist at the start of a game (hi QoS ). As a starter this level is invariably bit of a challenge for him. As printer said, our strikers this season have struggled with holding the ball up and with their movement. Not helped by us never getting the best out of the creative players behind them to be fair and in that respect the issues at the club go way deeper than just being short of good strikers. But the forwards haven't been good enough and another couple of options are very welcome. Hopefully they can give us a wee boost ahead of what is a big game today.

Could see why you might think that given our display but in truth Alloa have several really good creative players. More I'd suggest than any other part-time team in the league. One of those wasn't available at the weekend and another on the bench would probably have started had he been 100%. Another couple were left out. Even when we do have them all fit we struggle to make the most of their talents though. It's actually hard IMO to make a team with as many very capable players for this level as poor as we've been this season. I don't think Rice will be in any bother regardless of the result against Edinburgh, we all know Alloa don't sack managers unless things are really desperate. He can make an argument too that he's doing ok overall since he came in. I would hope (and expect really) we will improve for the simple reason above that there are too many good players for us to continue to be so bad. That pulled us into the play-offs last season, even when we weren't as good as we might have been. The squad is a bit weaker now after some mixed summer recruitment but there are still enough good players there for us to be up having a crack at 4th. Personally I have found the Alloa team of the last 18 months months or so a hard watch. The football isn't good. I don't even mean I want the possession football we were spoiled with for a few seasons or a team that wins most weeks, I'd just like there to be some kind of coherent football. Can take pleasure too in a limited side working hard and showing spirit to grind out results or go down fighting. We don't do that either. The team lacks identity and watching feels like a chore in a way that wasn't the case even with far weaker Alloa sides. Given there are plenty of good footballers and characters there that's hard to explain. I don't expect a managerial change anytime soon and I'll always support the team regardless, but also looking forward to hopefully better days in the long term.

An away point isn't a disaster but it wasn't a good performance. We didn't play particularly well against Cove but the hope was that the win would be a confidence boost and the performance at Hamilton, even in defeat, suggested we might well be making progress. This felt like a step back, second half in particular. 1 point from the 3 part-time sides played so far is worrying. Ogayi certainly had his best game. Don't think he saved any you wouldn't expect your keeper to stop - and he probably should have done better at the goal - but he was solid and can't argue with that. Hopefully he can build on that with PJ apparently still a few weeks away. Some other ok individual performances but now 11 competitive games in and still very little evidence of a cohesive team.