CallumPar

More than 1500 sold in the away end now. Which is more than the 1300 that Falkirk brought to East End earlier in the season. Good effort from the Pars fans, no doubt be close to selling out the north stand come Saturday.

Credit to Montrose. They played well yesterday and thoroughly deserved their win. The move for the first goal was really good and they could have scored more. Yes, we missed chances too. 2-0 maybe did flatter Montrose, but they did deserve the win and created more chances than I think anyone else has (except maybe Falkirk?) against us this season. Don’t want to be disrespectful and focus on the negatives from a Pars perspective, as you guys genuinely played well. Having said that, I did think we were poor. Don’t know if it was tiredness, due to the midweek game and having such a small squad. Regardless, we lost to the better team and need to pick ourselves up and sort it out next week.

So, to be fair, he’s playing on the right of a back 3 for us. So he obviously gets away with drifting wider in that system. Not seen him in a back 4, so can’t comment on that. He’s good at moving wide when we have the ball, to spread the play and covering for the RWB when defending. Hopefully he continues to do well for us and improves as a player for when he returns to Dundee. Would make it a successful loan move for all parties.

Not sure how interested many of you will be in this, but Sam Fisher has been excellent for us. Started the last 3 games and been rock solid defensively. He’s also good at driving the team forward with the ball. We’ve kept clean sheets in all 3 games as well. Admittedly, not all down to him, our back 3 have all been very good - and we had 5 clean sheets in 8 games before he came into the team. But he has come in and improved an already impressive defence. Physically, he hasn’t lost a single battle. His positioning has been very good and his timing of the challenge has been great. It’s been noticeable that both Edinburgh at the weekend and Clyde midweek wanted to test him early on, then rarely went down his side at all in the second half after he dealt with everything easily. His ability with the ball has been a great asset. He’ll carry the ball forward and, if needs be, put crosses into the box - his cross forced a Fontaine own goal last weekend. Its only league 1, so I’m sure Dundee fans will have their concerns about the legitimacy/relevance of these performances. It’s also a very small sample of games and we haven’t seen how he handles mistakes/poor performances that will inevitably come. But I think you’ve got a very good defender on your hands.

Parry (36), McLean (37), Thicot (35), Gomis (37). Do they really need more old heads? When you add in Peter Grant, who can’t run, I’d argue that their defence was far too old/immobile last night. Gomis’ legs are gone too. It’s just a very imbalanced squad, rather than one lacking experience. I’d guess it’s probably the oldest squad in the league. In comparison, the oldest player at our club is 30 and our manager is around the same age as 4 players that started for Clyde. At 28, Joe Chalmers is the 2nd oldest outfield player at our club. 3rd is Todorov at 26.

1-1? We don’t concede goals away from home, so 0-0 is the only way you’re getting a point. In all seriousness, it’s a massive game at the start of next month. I’d expect both teams to get at least 4 points from their next 2 games. If we can beat you at TFS, we’ll be in control, but any complacency and I’d expect you to take full advantage. Injuries/suspensions concern me, but I think all teams have similar depth issues right now.

He actually looks like Mehmet did for us last season. In fact, Clyde remind me of us last season. Peter Grant Sr was probably watching his sons last night, thinking Danny Lennon was doing a great job.

Looking at Clyde, I can’t see that side staying up. There’s just such a lack of quality. The back 3 were all horrendously slow/immobile. You’d also repeatedly try and play it out from the back, but as soon as they were under any pressure, they’d just punt it anywhere. You just can’t play that way, with players like that. Of course, they’re not helped by Parry looking like a bombscare. He kept coming out and missing several crosses - particularly at corners and long throws and his distribution was horrendous. Kept playing his defenders into trouble, or just giving us the ball. Gomis’ legs have gone. You could see he still has a footballing brain, but he can’t run and struggled to have any influence. Chalmers was outpacing him. Your number 10 looked alright in flashes when running with the ball, but his end product was really poor. Up front, your striker’s first touch was horrendous, so he couldn’t hold it up at all and our defenders didn’t really have to break sweat to deal with him. Obviously, this is just based on one game. That may not reflect the actual abilities of these players. From a Pars perspective, back 3 solid again. Fisher looks fantastic in that back 3. Comrie had a good game at wing back. Chalmers was my man of the match. He’s a totally different player this year. Wighton is genuinely getting better every game just now. We played good stuff at times and we’re unlucky not to score more. Hit the bar from one set piece. Wighton came close twice and McCann had a good chance. Mochrie and Edwards seem to have a really good understanding down the left hand side. Good link up play between the 2 that created space/chances.

Mahon replaced McCann. Ended up with him and Mochrie up front. Their running did cause problems, but it meant no real goal threat, other than Todd from 40 yards…

Just home, cause I didn’t realise the M8 was such a disaster. Clyde were poor. But we played well at times. No idea how we didn’t score from a set piece. Seemed to win so many headers. Also weren’t clinical enough in open play. Wighton was very very good tonight and very unlucky not to score more. Parry made a good save from him and he had another just wide. Matty Todd though. What a boy. Some strike. Took it so well. edit to add - that’s the most card happy ref I’ve seen in a long time. Barely a bad tackle in the game, but he gave so many yellow cards out. No need for that tonight.

Not going to lie, I’ll be disappointed if we aren’t 4 points clear at the top tonight. If we want to win the league, we have to be winning games like this. Our away form has been good, so it’ll be disappointing if we let that slip here. Think we really want to go to Falkirk on the 5th with our 100% away record intact. If I’m being honest, I think we should be better than we’ve shown so far. I’m sure fans of other teams are saying the same about their own team. But if we can go on a good run now, we could build up a decent lead at the top - which could make us a more attractive option for players in January as well.

It took us until 22 mins in the second game of the season (112 minutes overall) to concede 4 goals last season. We’ve conceded 4 goals after 10 league games (900 mins) this season. For comparison, 5th goal was conceded (or scored by Ross Graham) in the 78th minute of that game, so 168th minute overall. After 10 games last season, we’d conceded 15 goals. Incredibly, we’d kept 3 clean sheets in those 10 games. We scored 6 in those 10 games. This year, we’ve scored 15 so far. Lower level or not, it’s some turnaround. Particularly given the squad is mostly the same.

Definitely an own goal. As said above, he played the cross for the goal. Got his first start last week and kept his place today. Looked good both games - kept clean sheets in both and he’s not really put a foot wrong. Looks comfortable on the ball and his defensive positioning/abilities have been fine so far. Playing on the right side of a back 3, with Benedictus in the middle, leading the line/barking instructions. I’d argue he’s not really been tested yet, but both Alloa and Edinburgh have decent attacking records and he’s not given anything away, or ever looked like he’s found it tough in either game. Genuinely strolled through both games so far - hopefully he can keep that up! Enjoyed his goal/assist today too - ran straight over to celebrate with the fans.

Poor game and not a great performance. But we deserved that luck, with the amount of balls we were playing into the box. McCann and Edwards both hit great balls across the 6 yard box not long before that. A decent striker would be turning them in. On the ref, he was just as poor as we should now expect at this level. Missed many really obvious fouls. Got several goal kick/corner decisions horrendously wrong, when there didn’t seem to be a decision to make. I thought it was fair to book Fontaine though, there seemed to be another defender coming across. Could be proved wrong on replay (and probably will be). Not booking Craigen for pulling Todd back for 10 yards was nuts. Missed several late challenges (for both teams) and I thought his game was summed up in the second half. Edinburgh number 23 kicked the ball away and started walking away. Ref then goes straight up to Handling and books him for it? Not even like the other guy ran away, he was still there.

Decent highlights package, thanks for sharing. Regarding comments above, regarding Mehmet’s saves, I do actually agree with McPake - I don’t think he made any saves that you shouldn’t be expecting a keeper to make. Don’t get me wrong, Mehmet played well, as I’ve said already. But, in my opinion, he played well as he didn’t make costly mistakes rather than because he did more than should be expected of a keeper. His only mistake was in the first half, when he almost spilled a cross into his own net! I’m delighted to see the turnaround from Mehmet, who I hoped would never play for us again this time last year.

At the game, I thought Breen won the ball in the challenge anyway and it would have gone behind for a corner? Obviously could be wrong though. Or I could be thinking about a different incident?

Just listened to this. Wonder what’s annoyed him? Certainly doesn’t like the criticism of Wighton. But even before Wighton came up, he was clearly pissed off.

Good first half. Deserved the lead. Second goal was a beauty from Matty. Second half, Alloa made changes and got into the game. Mehmet made some great saves, including a great double save. His quick throw to Edwards set up the attack that we won the throw in from, that led to the goal as well. Good to see Wighton score. He looked hungrier today. Playing in his correct position probably helped with that too. From a Pars perspective, I thought Fisher looked good and Comrie’s a better wing back than MacDonald. Think that’s our best back 5, if we stick with that system. Hamilton being back in the team added a lot to the midfield and thought Chalmers had a good game - cracking cross from him for the first goal! Todorov put in a great shift, held the ball up well and won a lot in the air. The 3-4-2-1 was an interesting set up. Looked good first half, with Mochrie and Todd getting into good areas. Both were quiet second half though. I’d have made more changes, but then we made too many last week so can understand that hesitancy.

I’m not usually a fan of footballers being branded lazy/disinterested. But Wighton’s body language has been awful for a while. He doesn’t fight for anything, he seems to give up if a pass isn’t straight to him. Backs out of every challenge. If he’s carrying an injury, get that injury sorted before he plays again. He’s not going to be an asset to any team, the way he’s been for the last year or so. MacDonald isn’t a great player, in terms of technical ability. But he fights for everything, chases every lost cause and can play some great balls into the box. He’s been useful at points this season and will be useful as the season goes on. In the second half, Wighton gave up on a lot of balls that I think MacDonald would have got on the end of. Bringing Wighton on our wife was just strange. When we switched to 4-3-3/4-2-3-1, we should have brought on at least one of the young wingers we brought in on Friday. McCann and Wighton out wide at the start of the second half, with 2 wingers on the bench, was just stupid. The fact that we then brought one of the young wingers on in the middle of midfield made it worse. He looked lost and that’s when we completely lost the midfield - and ultimately lost the lead. By the way, worth adding that I was impressed with Mahon when he came on. He certainly has something we’ve lacked so far this season. Hopefully the players and McPake learn from yesterday’s poor decisions late on and we don’t see a repeat of that complacency/slack play. At least McPake’s interview was honest. Acknowledged we weren’t good enough and didn’t deserve to win. Prefer that realism after a poor performance, than the rubbish Hughes/Grant would spout.

That was just ridiculous. Not what you’d expect of a team hoping to win the league. First half was horrendous. Only thing worse than either team was the ref. Second half, we started ok. Got a goal from nothing. Then we started playing some good football. Deservedly went 2-0 up. At that point, we should be seeing the game out. McPake then took off Todd, to play a winger, who only signed yesterday, in the middle of the park. Up to that point, Peterhead had been physical and it seemed obvious that wasn’t the game, or position, to play the lad in. We completely lost the midfield at that point. Peterhead get a goal from nothing. Defence seemed to completely switch off and just allow them to get an easy goal. From there, we just fell apart. Defence were all over the place and we basically didn’t have a midfield. Peterhead get a free kick. Was never a free kick, but that doesn’t matter. We have to defend it. In the end, they had 2/3 players queuing up to get that header - which was an excellent header by the way. We got exactly what we deserved. We got complacent, we switched off and threw 2 points away.

Two is the maximum we can get, unless we’re going for guys who have been without a club for (at least) a month. On that basis, I’d accept 2 younger players, that are more ready than the 16/17 year olds we currently have as cover. Even a young winger, to give us another option, would be good. I do think clubs being allowed to make 5 subs and name a 9 man bench is making a difference. Players will be less desperate to leave and clubs will be more reluctant to let them leave, if they’re going to be needed to fill a 9 man bench. You’re only 2 players off having another full 11 on the bench, so bigger clubs will want to ensure they have plenty cover for every position. I think it seems wild that you can now change 50% of your outfield players during a match. Great for bigger clubs, with large squads. Not so great for smaller clubs, with tighter budgets. Most clubs at this level seem to be in a similar position.

Yep. I feel like “it will not be a disaster if we don’t” is kind of his way of preparing us for the inevitable.

Could try and get Josh Falkingham, to talk about when everyone in the Peterhead team wanted to kill him? Always wondered if there was something he had done to instigate things/wind them up. Anyone talking about the cup run in 2007 would be interesting too. Particularly given the poor league form, would be interesting hearing about it from a player’s perspective. The 5-4 Stenny game was obviously a good one. There was a game in 2015-16 when we came from 2 down (I think?) to beat Ayr 3-2 at East End. I’d also say anyone from the Calderwood era/the 2003/04 season would be interesting. Sure there would be loads of memorable games to pick from in that era. Obviously no idea how easy (or not) it will be, to find guests that were involved in games you want to discuss. Just thought I’d throw some suggestions out there.

Yep, if any of those guys that started for Livi are available on loan, any of them would improve our squad. They would, at the very least, add more than adequate cover/competition.

Reserves won 2-1. Fair play to the young lads - I’d have expected our starting 11 to struggle against a team as strong as Livi’s.