captainkev

Glass is an odd one. He's contributed when he's played this season, but has once again completely dropped off the radar and there's been no injuries mentioned. It seems a loss in faith/confidence has been a recurring trend under previous managers, both for us and wherever he's been out on loan. I think it's time to let him move on. As for Meekison and Mochrie, I'd be inclined to give them both a bit longer, probably another year to try break through. Mochrie has had glowing reports from his loan spells but has never managed to replicate that sort of form for us. Meekison has flashes where he looks really impressive, but they're always fairly brief and insubstantial. It's hard to ignore the fact that even allowing for some rotten luck with injuries, Meekison's best run of form for us came way back in the final weeks of Mickey Mellon's tenure.

That's if the games can be played as Dundee have stopped Dens turning into a swamp at the first a bit of drizzle. Big if.

Miller Thompson aside, we were total dugshite tonight.

I'm fairly sure that McNamara didn't have the sell-on bonus at the point. That came with the contract extension he signed around March/April 2014 no?

There was a line that McNamara frequently used in interviews ahead of matches, particularly during the 2013/14 season, that has always stuck with me. He used to say words to the effect of: 'We don't worry about what the opposition are going to do; we're going to go out there and play our game.' At the time you could write that off as a soundbite intended to demonstrate his confidence in the team, especially in the promising talent. However, in hindsight I heavily suspect that really was as complicated as McNamara's tactics or gameplan actually was. You never got the sense that we had done the homework on combatting opposition teams that the likes of Derek McInnes and, most obviously, Tommy Wright did to us. Whether to put it down more to hubris or laziness on his part is what I'm less sure on. McNamara still deserves credit for recognising Robertson's potential, making the effort to convince him to sign for us and then trusting him with the left-back spot from the get-go. It's probably been forgettin by most, but we had Graham Carey on trial with us during the 2013/2014 pre-season with an eye on him playing left-back instead. McNamara saw enough in even a handful of friendlies to pass on the safer option in the experience Carey would have brought to stick with Robertson instead. Given the amazing success Robertson's had in his career since us that seems like an easy and obvious choice now. At the time though that was ballsy move by McNamara, one that I really doubt his predecessor would have made.

Maybe I'm being too generous, but Jordie Briels wasn't too bad as far as I remember. My memory is that the problem with him was he was permanently injured.

I'm not a huge fan of Tilson either, but in fairness to him I thought he put in his best performance for us yet by far on his last start up at Inverness. Granted it was a night where no-one else in our team was close to their best, but Tilson made at least a couple of crucial interventions to keep us from falling behind. Hopefully we get that version of him again tomorrow.

The memory of Brown turning up at Hampden only a few days after this was taken and absolutely strolling it in the League Cup final against us does somewhat taint any amusement I might take from that photo sadly.

Nicky Clark as well. On the odd occasion Mellon wasn't shoe-horning all three strikers into the starting line-up, it was nearly always Clark who dropped to the bench to make way for McNulty.

It's perhaps taken him slightly longer than I expected, but it seems he's on his way now...

Tbf, that's not saying much. You'll give away a penalty at Ibrox if you so much as step on a Sevco player's shadow in the penalty box.

Aye, even accounting for the deflection on the cross Ridgers seemed to take an age to go down for a cross that was well within his reach and there wasn't too much pace on it. Also, another reason to be grateful for no VAR in the championship late there...

Never in doubt...

Quite a big if.

I've noticed quite a few pitches like that this season when we've been playing...

This might be an even worse spectacle than the Queen's Park match a few weeks back. Only ICT look like they might possibly score tonight. The most succinct way to sum up our overall performance is to admit that Jordan Tillson is probably our best performer so far. Referee was in far from a great position to see the penalty shout. However, it's hard to hold it against him if he has just guessed that Tony Watt going down in the penalty box wasn't a foul.

It's really not much better in the league above, and those clowns are armed with VAR too.

Moult probably needs a rest, for his own sake as much as the team's. Moult from the first two or three months of the season would have buried that great chance in the 2nd half. Let Watt take the striker's position next week. If he can't put in good back to back performances after a pleasing showing tonight then he never will for us. Exactly the type of performance needed after the drudgery of last week. That said, we're still a bit wasteful. We were battering Thistle first half and really should have been more comfortable by half-time.

Grim as tonight was, for me it still fell way short of the blood-boiling nadirs of the Birighitti St. Johnstone winner, or either of the two post-split Tannadice performances from last season.

Not only did I watch that depressing fare, but I did it after work this evening, having recorded the game and avoided finding out the result. So first of all: f**k right off United. Grimshaw looks exactly what he is: somebody asked to do a job and play out of his preffered position to help out the team far longer than he ever wanted to. I think he said in his interview upon signing that he considered himself a midfielder above all. As others have said, he's far from our biggest problem currently. If nothing else, he's at least part of adefensive unit that, in the league, remains encouragingly solid. The real concern is that we looked worryingly blunt against a team who've been chucking goals in all season; despite only being a few weeks out from winning games 5 or 6-0 ourselves. Watt's always an easy target at this point, but Mochrie was far more positive off the bench than Watt had been for the hour or so before. Moult's form has nosedived, no point dancing around it. Middleton, though he put in some good deliveries into the box tonight, is still overall failing to contribute enough in matches. Our increasing dependence on a young player like Fotheringham to make something happen is increasingly exposed when he has an off-night like tonight. When Docherty's available Sibbald has that security behind him to get more involved further forward. When it's Tillson alongside him he's noticeably more cautious, to the point that it cuts off another much needed option for our attacks. I fear we're only going to fall further away from here while Raith coast to the title in the 2nd half of this season, like St. Mirren did in 2017/18. They are clearly fired up by the prospect of challenging for the league, we are wilting. There's a fine line between being a team that never knows when they're beaten and earns their rewards for always fighting to the end, or alternatively, being a team that rides their luck and frequently needs to scrape last minute winners/equalisers. At this point in the season Raith feel like the former and ourselves the latter.

As much as I'm really pleased for Kai and his current goalscoring form, I'm a little concerned about the fact that recently he seems to be increasingly becoming our main source of goals. Especially with Raith up next week.

To top off a thoroughly miserable afternoon, the BBC reported that Fotheringham's sub at the end of normal time was due to injury too. The Challenge Cup loss last week was mostly shrugged off due to a lack of interest in that competition. But I expect that combined with this cup exit will undermine most of what little goodwill Goodwin has managed to build up with the fans this season. *Sigh*

Well, that's not great...

Hope Southall currently isn't officially associated with Everton, otherwise there could be charges heading his way for bringing the Barclays into disrepute.

I've rewatched the boundary task about 5 times now. I just do not understand it and how the points worked out for it. The graphic they used on screen during the explanation has only made me more confused frankly.