CallumPar

Who’s taking one for the team? No restrictions for life events, so if someone gets married on the pitch at half time, we can all go to the game! Alternatively, we could have one of those divorce parties the club advertised before… anybody willing to take one for the team?

Had confirmation from Killie that they’re not honouring tickets or streams purchased for Saturday for the rearranged game, since there was over 45 minutes played.

Connolly’s been a bit of a bombscare today. Maybe we should replace him with Reliable Ross Graham?

Is Todd playing on the right wing, with Dow left wing and Wighton in behind McCann? Kennedy would be a better option than any of those 3 players in any of those 3 roles. He had a good game last week, scored a goal and got 2 assists. Then gets dropped and Yogi opts for Todd and Wighton both playing out of position and the invisible man on the left instead of him. Has to have a knock or something. Good goal from Wighton. Dow did well getting back up and keeping the ball alive, rather than just stating down for the free kick.

If it wasn’t a dive, he wouldn’t have put thrown arms in the air then screamed for a penalty, would he? If a player did that for any other club you’d be calling it a dive.

Embarrassing from the referee. Almost as embarrassing as the dive. Killie a bunch of cheats, not surprised there.

Bizarre selection. Must be 4-3-1-2, but Kennedy should be starting ahead of Dow in that role behind the strikers and I’d probably play Pybus in that midfield 3 for his energy. Wighton is usually left on the bench with O’Hara and Todorov getting on the pitch instead, so a bit surprised he’s starting. He is the best striker at the club though, so I’m pleased with that one.

You’re right, losing to the team with the biggest budget in the league would be the most embarrassing thing to happen to us this season.

Given QoS had no centre halves playing on Saturday, I couldn’t understand why this wasn’t the tactic we used. McCann and Todorov won every high ball when they were on the park together and we really should have tried to exploit that, rather than passing it between the defence and keeper at 3-2 down and at 3-3.

Not going to lie, I’m not totally convinced by Yogi at the moment. He said that last week wasn’t good enough from the midfield and wide players, in terms of linking up with McCann. He then went with the exact same midfield and forward options and we went on to create absolutely nothing from open play. Likewise, he has said he dropped Vytas, who has been fairly solid, in favour of Breen simply because Breen is left footed. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t make that much difference. Majority of Breen’s passes were just to Edwards - which is actually easier for a right footed player in that position! Dorrans had a very poor game and should have been taken off. He was causing our defence problems. Likewise, Dow has done absolutely nothing under Yogi, but plays every week. Sticking with MacDonald on the wing is another terrible decision that is costing us points. Even if he’s not playing that well, Dow would be more effective there and we could play a central midfielder in central midfield instead of Dow. MacDonald looks so uncomfortable and is honestly completely useless as a winger. So far, I think Yogi’s all talk. Obviously he’s better than Grant, but his team selection is confusing and doesn’t seem to match his post match or pre match comments. It honestly feels like he has his 11 favourite players and will play them regardless, until he can bring in others. In his defence, he’s getting something out of McCann that AJ, Crawford and Grant couldn’t. Todd had a good game v Ayr as well and up until yesterday, he had Dorrans playing well. We also now have a threat from set pieces, something Grant seemed to neglect. We still can’t defend them though. I know I’ve mentioned it already in this post, but I really don’t get his moaning about lack of support for McCann, then playing the same players/system and expecting different results. It just reminds me of Grant moaning about the 3-5-2 not working, but sticking with it and expecting different results.

To be fair, I was looking at your goals from a Pars perspective, where I’ve watched us make the same defensive mistakes all season and seen everyone all over the place defensively far too many times. Being really sloppy in our own half has been the running theme under Yogi and that’s why I’m pinning the blame on us for the Queens goals. When I watch it back, I might appreciate some of your play better in the lead up to goals, but my memory from the game was certainly that they all involved huge errors in us gifting possession to Queens in our half and/or really poor defensive decision making/positioning. Cracking finish for the second, absolutely. I’m not trying to take anything away from that. But Dorrans (I think it was him) should never be giving the ball away there. He did the same to see us get knocked out the cup too, just a couple of weeks ago. We were so sloppy with the ball in our own half and that’s been happening for 3 weeks in a row now (and earlier in the season under Grant).

Ok, if you want to be ridiculously literal with everything, yes if you score 3 goals, you deserve 3 goals. But I thought my point was quite obvious when I immediately followed the line you’ve focused on, saying that both teams deserved to concede 3 goals. Defensively, both teams were shocking. Majority of Queens’ best attacks came from us stupidly giving the ball away in our own half and playing ourselves into pressure, rather than particularly good attacking play. Likewise, we created nothing at all from open play and QoS deserve to concede for their defending at set pieces and needless fouls. Having said that, Queens’ number 10 had a good game and looked dangerous. But both teams lacked creativity without massive amounts of assistance from the opposition’s defence.

Wow. Stopped reading there. Both teams were genuinely awful today. Neither deserved to score 3 goals, but both deserved to concede 3 and certainly neither team deserved to win. If that was your best league performance then I’m confident we’ll finish ahead of you, as that was 2 of the worst teams I’ve seen all season.

By the way, who’s the guy that scored Queens’ first goal? Loved the way he seemed to decide to pick on the sections of free kids tickets down the front of the Norrie for his celebration. Proper hard man behaviour, gesturing towards primary school kids.

I’d be happy with Wighton and O’Hara. McCann deserves his place just now and looked like our best striker when Todorov and O’Hara were both also on the park. I like what I’ve seen of him in the 2 home games under Yogi. Didn’t have a chance of anything last week though. Can’t deny though that Wighton and O’Hara are better strikers at the moment - McCann is likely to get better though. Wighton seems to have had a falling out with Yogi. It can be the only explanation for his lack of game time. Todorov is awful though. Haven’t seen him look remotely useful for us. McCann definitely deserves to play ahead of him, until Todorov can make himself look useful in a Pars shirt. Also, Rhys Breen had a very poor game today. Hopefully Gaspuitis isn’t out long term. Our midfield didn’t help, by all of them having really poor games, but Breen didn’t look remotely good out there today, which is a shame. New LB is also a must for January - a fit Lewis Martin would be ideal (if he can perform to his previous standards). Lacking creativity in open play against a team with 0 CBs is a huge concern. Our midfield is so bad.

One change - Breen for Vytas… how on earth has everyone else kept their place? We were awful last week, I expected more changes.

Being awful generous to David Hutton and Chris Smith there. Mehmet is bad, don’t get me wrong. But those 2 were really abysmal. I’m probably forgetting others as well. We seem to really struggle with our keepers - maybe it’s a coaching issue?

Dom needs an operation and will be out for several weeks - apparently been playing through the injury (tear in meniscus). Wilson (heel injury) and Cole (dead leg) haven’t trained this week. Yogi’s hopeful Breen will be fit for this weekend.

Wouldn’t surprise me. He seems to be highly rated simply because he’s small and quick. I’m really not sure what else he’s got. I’ve seen him have a few decent runs with the ball at Dunfermline but I’ve never seen him have a shot on target, play a decent pass to a teammate in a good area or hit a cross that finds a team mate. I genuinely don’t believe that our issue is the strikers. Even Lewis McCann has scored goals now. The issue is the service to the strikers and lack of support that the strikers get from wingers/midfielders. I think we’re a worse team with Kennedy in it - and that’s saying something! MacDonald was very poor on Saturday and is never a winger. But Kennedy was still the worst winger in our team on Saturday. I honestly wouldn’t be disappointed at all if he didn’t play for us again. If he does well elsewhere and has a good career, good on him. But I don’t think he seems up for any sort of fight. As soon as anyone is remotely physical with him, he’ll disappear for the rest of the game. He is the opposite of what we need right now.

Agree with this. Having someone in that deep role really removes potential attacking threats. But he’s not the only midfielder incapable of playing in a 2. In fact, I’d argue Wilson is the only player we have that’s suited to playing in a 2 in the middle of the park. If Dom is out long term, I’d be tempted to suggest a midfield diamond/ 4-3-1-2 type system as we would have absolutely no wide players that will provide any threat anyway. But I know Yogi’s big on getting wide players on the ball, so that’s maybe not an option. Starting Kennedy and MacDonald as wide midfielders/wingers again will be like starting 2 men down. We need some sort of link between midfield and attack and I’m not sure we have anyone capable of that role behind the strikers either. Maybe a fit Ryan Dow, but he’s been a shadow of his former self since returning. Could we even try Dorrans in that kind of role? I honestly have no idea. We need to address so many issues in the team and it simply isn’t possible to solve all of our problems in January. Because of the mess of a squad that Grant has left behind, avoiding relegation will be a good outcome this season, it’s as simple as that. Which means results like Saturday can’t happen too many more times. Need to get results against the other bottom half teams.

Apparently fully fit. He was on the bench v Partick in the cup. But, for some unknown reason, neither Grant or Yogi seem interested in playing him. He’s clearly better than any other midfielder we have, so it’s really odd. Continually playing Matty Todd, Dan Pybus and Paul Allan ahead of Wilson is baffling. Unlike a lot of others, I think Dorrans is a good player in our midfield and like him in between defenders and midfield. But I’d also be keen to see Wilson given a shot there at some point.

Why would anyone pay? What sort of wee team would pay all their staff and/or pay all of their bills?

Worth remembering he’s also our keeper coach. Which is perhaps even more concerning than the fact he’s the best keeper we have.

Exaggerating contact and diving are different. I think as well, some players are good at buying fouls. Kennedy really isn’t, but keeps diving anyway. More often than not, Kennedy’s dives seem to happen when defenders/opponents aren’t even particularly close to him, but he makes it look so dramatic. It’s honestly just pathetic. As mentioned above as well, if you’re going to try and buy a foul, there’s a time and place. When you’ve beat your man and have teammates waiting for a cutback is not that time or place. It’s just pathetic. I have criticised the likes of Cardle and Higgy for dives before. But at least they would have tried to do something in that scenario, rather than just jumping in the air and throwing their arms out. There was another point in the first half, when he lost the ball, so went down and curled up into a ball. Hamilton picked it up and charged forward. Kennedy stayed on the ground until his teammates bailed him out and we got the ball, when he got up and ran about again. Truly pathetic. The guy doesn’t care and isn’t up for the fight/battle that we find ourselves in.

Knee injury for Dom. Seeing a specialist on Monday and could be out for the foreseeable future. Major concern. Relegation a real possibility now.