TheBuckfastTriangle

I’m a wee bit surprised at McCabe/Fordyce confirming they’re planning to rest players - I’d expected us to start with a pretty “normal” team and make changes after an hour or so. We’ve blown so hot and cold this season that a heavy-ish defeat could knock us a bit again. We’ve never beaten Edinburgh and they’ve more than had our number this season, but 3 draws is the sum total of our last 9 games vs QoS too, and those are 2 monkeys we can get off our backs going into the playoffs. That said, in the last couple of seasons we’ve ended up heavily reliant on squad players with relatively little game time when it really matters. Dean Ritchie playing vs Cove 2 years back sticks out, Jack McKay scoring in the first leg of that match too. Last season Afolabi scored and assisted in that Montrose game, so getting game time into the guys around the edges is sensible. I’ve a gut feeling Salim has a role to play. For a guy who’s not really played much in the 2 years he’s been with us, he’s been involved in some big moments at key times.

For various reasons I’d have him at CB personally, but he obviously doesn’t see himself there. Defensively, we’ve now conceded as many goals as last season having played 13 fewer games and are frequently putting ourselves in the position where scoring 2 or 3 goals isn’t even enough to get us a point. The midfield isn’t right either. I don’t think Telfer does enough at either end of the park - for me we don’t score more goals or concede fewer because of him - and McCabe isn’t leading the team as well from midfield as well as he did last season from defence. That said, I can’t see it changing now. If 15 points a quarter is what’s needed for the playoffs then we’re currently 5 points behind schedule, and with Alloa playing Edinburgh next week we could either be back in the playoff spots or 5 points adrift. No better time to get the defensive side of it fixed, but far from straightforward from here to get into that top 4.

I'd rather keep waiting than sign filler - we need the players signed to make a contribution. We've got a squad of 16, not including Murray Johnson. It looks like we're going match by match at the minute to buy time until either the right (loan?) players become available or until McCabe's hand is forced by an injury/suspension. We're probably only a couple of bodies short of where we'd want to be to avoid having players signed just to pad out the squad (see Ritchie, Pyott for example) and McCabe clearly doesn't want to go down that road. There's a chance we could have a disaster (say Fordyce and McCabe both injured in the same game or something) but given we've started the season relatively well, and have a fair degree of consistency in the starting 11 anyway I'd rather hold on for a McInroy than rush out for a Caves. On an unrelated note, I see Call Gall is 7 away from 50 Airdrie goals, and 2 off the Prunty/McLaren post-liquidation record - only a matter of time now surely? If he keeps up the current 1 goal a game record in the league he'll have topped them by Halloween!

I was looking to see if Scott McGill was involved (he wasn’t), but I noticed Connor Smith played for Hearts B team in the lowland league this week. It’d be a coup, but a player like him would be ideal for us, and it’d be an utter waste for him to play at that level. Hopefully his brother can have a word in his ear!

Prices bumped by £20, goal posts moved for older fans with concessions going from +65 to +75 (which isn't necessarily dreadful but is snuck in there without further mention) and online purchase only - that'll get folk back! By all means give the option for purchasing online, but surely the priority should be making it as easy as possible for as many people as possible to make the games in the coming months. Zero communication from the board into the bargain. Poor stuff.

Injury wise, it's been a bit of a disaster for us. We've lost 6 of the starting 11 from the first leg of the Cove semi final, and at most levels if you lose more than half your team it's going to be an uphill task. I think Murray has done a really good job since the restart (and especially since the Dumbarton game which sparked this great run), but you got the feeling yesterday that whenever someone went down injured it was just his "next pick" off the bench rather than who was the best positional replacement (Ritchie as a straight CM switch for Carrick, for example, seems more sensible). With that said we're not out of it by any means and things are pretty simple now - we have to win against a bang average Morton side. I didn't think they offered a great deal of threat really, so Currie, Crighton and Fordyce at the back can keep things simple and tight there. Callum Gallagher is in good form and if we make a decent chance or two he can fire us to the win. The key then is freeing up Turner. If the sitting/shielding midfield options (Paton/Kerr/McKay) are out then we have to find some way to do it because we lose so much when he has to sit deep. If we can do that we've got every chance.

Agree with a lot of this Mr N, although I don't actually think we were that bad - and I think a lot of it can be blamed on the two first half injuries - I think 30 seconds before half time the idea would have been to put either Kerr or McKay into midfield to properly replace Paton, but Kerr's own injury stopped that. Barring the scramble in extra time where they hit the bar I can't think of any especially nervous moments. Agree about Murray as well - he was dealt a fairly poor hand with Kerr and Paton both being injured (and no Sabatini on the bench) and adapted us well. Young Walker in what must only be his 7th or 8th senior appearance moving to play centre mid coped very well - credit to Murray for being brave enough to play a relatively untested player over the last few weeks - and his final two subs in Thomson and McKay really came up with the big moments. I saw it mentioned on the match thread that it was a big test for him personally, and if it was he certainly passed. We seem to have a great fighting spirit and while we're capable of playing good stuff we're getting the results even when we don't play all that well. Bring on Morton!

Not sure what the situation is with Crighton, but I'd be happy to see Kerr stay at CB for the next two (even if only to give McKay and Fordyce a rest as they've been more or less ever-present since the restart. I think Kerr does well when he's given time - his range of passing is excellent - but has struggled more when under pressure (which may be the reason for putting him into midfield to see how he copes with less time on the ball to pick a pass). With this in mind I'd be interested to see how he copes with big diddies who'll harass him like McIntosh and Sammon - and if we have to revert to a defence that's only conceded more than 1 goal in one of the last 7 that's not a bad position to be in. I suspect that Paton was signed when it looked like Kerr could be out for the season @airdrieman, but agree he's made a big difference in front of the defence. Agree with this Andy, Connell has been an excellent find - I'd be wrapping him (and anyone else carrying a knock) in cotton wool for the next two games to be honest. The league's away so with the playoffs looking reasonably certain it's a good opportunity to rest the squad up and get minutes into the legs for one or two of the guys who've found themselves on the fringes.

In Murrays shoes I'd be keeping it the same. Having Kerr back is a bonus - if we're needing to shore things up then adding him in as a 3rd central midfielder to sit next to Paton then great, and he's flexible enough that he can be an able replacement for 4 or 5 starters if we get an injury, but we grew into the game against East Fife well and the 2 up top seems to be working well for us. I thought Connell looked sharp when he came on, but prior to the goal I actually thought Ally Roy was having a better game than Gall and I'm sure he'd love to get one over on Thistle, so hopefully all 3 can make an impact at the weekend. It's nice to be in the position of trying to work out who to leave out instead of who "has" to start. Worth noting too that in the 5 games since this wee run started against Dumbarton we've had 3 goals from a substitute compared to 2 in 18 from subs prior to that this season. Some difference.

I felt a few weeks ago that Murray had a big job on his hands to turn the tide following the 3 consecutive defeats after the restart but fair play to both him and the team - they've been very strong since then. I think 4th place is probably the best set of fixtures as its Saturday - Tuesday - Saturday - Tuesday so it's all to play for. The first half was cagey and it looked like neither side wanted to make a mistake but prior to our opener Currie really only had one save to make (and made it well). We looked transformed after the goal and actually played some good stuff rather than the usual Airdrie way of retreating back towards our own goal line, with Connell and Turner both looking excellent for me. On Turner, he's made a huge difference, but credit also to some of those who've been here a bit longer - I thought Leon McCann was a far greater threat going forward than he's been over the last year or so and Fordyce won everything tonight, he never lets the side down.

Good listen as always, would encourage anyone who hasn't yet to give it a shot. Well done on getting this out "on time" as well - with the games coming thick and fast it'd be easy to be a game or two behind, must be a lot of effort going into putting it together.

There'll be a few of our group feeling a lot better after the last 2 games. I was reluctant (and still am!) to say we've turned a corner, but even in terms of confidence the dressing room must be a much different place to a week ago. Roy has found some form, O'Reilly and Thomson have started contributing in terms of assists and at the back Currie has managed a clean sheet and a penalty save in his last two - all of which will do them the world of good. It helps Murray out too as, like @airdrieman has mentioned, there's been long periods where we've not looked too clever in terms of depth and suddenly there's a number of in form options. We were the big winners last night but we really do need to carry it forward over the next few with only 3 points separating 7th and 3rd. Top half before the "split" is going to be extremely tight but with the top half still to play again and Cove to play Falkirk before then it really could be anyone's for the taking - so it really is vital we make the cut. Some momentum from Montrose and Forfar would be great as the East Fife game could well be a "winner takes all" for the top half.

Wholeheartedly agree. With the games coming thick and fast and our lack of structure around Murray it's a difficult situation - it's not like we can bin the manager and appoint his assistant as caretaker! That said we're the only team in the division with 0 points from 9 since the restart, we're all over the shop defensively (you don't tend to win games if you concede 2 and we've done that 8 times in 18 this season) and aren't scoring enough goals. We've also only kept the same starting eleven back-to-back once all season and I'd expect that to continue with Crighton/Turner returning. I've generally backed the manager, I think he's been dealt a difficult hand since the start of last season for various reasons and now looks very isolated with a team that doesn't seem to be his own - but he's got a hell of a job on his hands now. A win tomorrow is a must.

Really pleased with Turner, who I remember being excellent for Stranraer, albeit it's a shame MacDonald's away. It'll be interesting to see how Murray reshuffles, whether it'll be a straightforward switch to RB for Paul McKay, or maybe Kerr to drop into defence next to Crighton and Fordyce moved out to right back. Can only see Turner adding to us middle to front, hopefully he gives us greater balance and attacking threat from the middle of the park.

It's absolutely a sprint from here on. Defence has generally been okay, but we've been lacking middle to front. If we can get Callum Gallagher fit and firing, or even Ally Roy in his pre-season form, it could give us a real chance. With 1st v 3rd and 2nd v 5th this weekend we've got a real opportunity to rein in the teams above us, and being closer to the top with a game in hand will make things look much brighter. All to play for.

I don't know about the Trust either, maybe they're the "missing link", but communication from the board could be far better - when the takeover was completed there was an excellent piece done for the website detailing the structure of the club and how we'd operate, but it's been extremely quiet from them, especially over the last year. The first team has clearly had decent backing, and the league positions have reflected that (they'd suggested steady year on year improvement was their plan and we've spent the vast majority of the last 2 seasons in the playoff spots) but I think the quieter things are the more fans, rightly or wrongly, tend to worry. On the first team management side we've lost Cameron and Miller who were presumably there to support Murray but there's been no comment on how those gaps are being filled. Is this a downsizing of ambition, a temporary thing because of COVID or a rethink at board level? You shouldn't have to be one of the ITK crowd to have some idea of this stuff.

I think the shouts are mainly as an assistant manager to help out Murray, but I was thinking the same thing - a 38 year old defensive midfielder who's completed 90 minutes once in the last year. Good grief.

Scratch teams don't tend to get promoted out of this league (they certainly don't win it) and lurching from one season to the next with a brand new set of personnel doesn't help us build year on year. I've said this before on here but I think the constant turnover has worked against us and if the way to give us more stability is a DoF then I'd be in favour of it. I expect the Ballantynes played a more active role in the football side than our current owners so there was an owner-manager link in their time, and since then we've had a DoF or chief exec (mind him? That was a fucking grim episode) to provide that link. To me, if the manager leaves we want to bring a manager in to build on the work done, not tear it up and start again. Had a wee look back and Jimmy Boyle, Gary Bollan, Kevin McBride and Stevie Findlay all got around 15-20 games into the season they were sacked. That means whoever comes in gets the rest of that season to steady the ship then inevitably punts the majority, signs his own bunch of diddies and gets binned after 15-20 games - and the cycle continues.

Well, last season Murray had us in 3rd place with 14 wins (48 points). In the 6 seasons before that in this division we finished 5th, 7th, 3rd, 5th, 5th and 6th. The season we matched Murrays 3rd place from last year we won 16 games and finished with 52 points, so short of a massive collapse in the last 8 games, Murray was on course to take us to our "best" season in 6 years. It's a low bar, and there's plenty to improve on, but given that those last 7 years I've given above takes in 3 ownership regimes, about 10 different folk picking the team and at least 150 players I'd be inclined to go for playoff level stability at the minute.

I suspect he's still got a job because, objectively, he's done an alright job. We finished 5th in his first (part) season and the message then was that we wanted to improve every year so playoffs was the minimum expectation. We finished 3rd last year and while I don't think we were realistically in the title race towards the end we were in the top 4 all year. This season we've generally been a bit underwhelming but, if the season is to resume, we're a game in hand away from 2nd. Sacking Murray based purely on the results he's had would be ridiculous. That said, I'm aware that I'm sounding like a Murray fanboy. I'm not. The "style" of football has been fairly grim a lot of the time, the middle of the park has never looked right (which as a former central midfielder I'd have expected Murray to rectify) and we don't score enough goals, particularly from non-strikers. Overall I'd keep him, we've chopped and changed far too much on and off the park over the last few years, but a more attack-minded approach and sorting out the middle of the park really are needed.

I think the frustration from my perspective would be that while last seasons signing policy was more or less a full rebuild (Hutton, Crighton, Millar and Carrick being the only regulars kept on) and was seen as generally positive and a platform to build from, this seasons should have been about fine tuning and/or correcting errors. When was the last time we went from the end of one season to the start of the next with the same back 4? We also retained our top two scorers, who both hit double figures. I fully understand the mentality from yourself and @CapitalDiamond that we're not going to sign superstars for peanuts and looking at "outside the box" options is well worth doing despite being inherently riskier, but I think it's left us with zero drive or energy in the middle of the park and as a result Murray doesn't have the type of player(s) needed in the middle of the park. For me, that's because in too many cases the players being offered aren't actually what we need/want. We've got two entirely different recruitment models operating in a squad of 20. Without a much clearer idea of what we actually want it's never going to work. I don't know if that's the fault of Millar as DoF, the McKay link (which as I've said I don't think has helped because there doesn't seem to be an overall "plan") or of Murray not being clear about - or not knowing! - what he wants/needs, but while there's always going to be flops when we make signings, we haven't helped ourselves over the last year.

I'm not sure we're much worse either (lack of goals aside, and Gallagher not being available hasn't helped there), but we're far less balanced and more disjointed, which to me is a result of muddled recruitment. We've lost an absolute ton of experience (Ryan/Hutton/Millar/Wedderburn) and replaced it with U23 jobbers kidding on they're footballers - mainly courtesy of McKay. We must be hundreds of league appearances shorter than we were this time last year, and that contributes to a lack of 'streetwiseness' and consistency. You've asked if Sabatini is worse than Millar - I don't think he's worse technically, but I don't think he actually does much. If he's not an upgrade, why change it? Millar was fine, I'm not rewriting his time with us and pretending he's a world beater, but after building a team essentially from scratch in 2019/20 we were generally in a position (Smith and apparently Ryan aside) to keep whoever we wanted from that squad and improve from a solid enough foundation. We haven't. Again, the recruitment is a cause for concern. Did Murray ask for a certain type of player and not get it? Who actually decides on players coming in? I can't see literally any reason to bring in Jack McKay from the manager or clubs point of view. A relationship with an agent is fine if there's more hits than misses and if it supplements the existing/longer term recruitment - this seems to be the opposite of what we're getting.

Quite aside from Jack McKay (who I assume we've signed because his agency decided he needed a club to the end of the season, rather than because he's here to have any meaningful impact on the first team) our recruitment is a mess. We've got the McKay link which has given us Robert - who they've done nothing but oversell in the press since the minute he got here - and a load of dross. Last year (2019/20) we seemed to have a really clear idea of what we wanted*, I assume with Stuart Millar dealing with all recruitment. The morale in the squad was by all accounts excellent, we had a fairly balanced squad and we gave ourselves a platform to build from. It hasn't happened and we look far more muddled. We seem to have a combination of Millar and the McKay link providing players and a manager who wants to be seen very clearly to be saying he's a head coach not manager. Depressing stuff to have various factions rather than unity and have everyone on the same page. *Not saying we were brilliant by any means, but we had a clear 433, with players in their natural positions and decent cover for each of those positions, particularly from what was effectively a blank slate.

Easy to say with hindsight, but Kerr/McKay in a midfield up against a stodgy Dumbarton always felt suspect to me, not nearly enough movement in there. As @Diamonds are Forever points out, 4 attacking players (at most) is always going to make it difficult to score goals. Our full backs don't tend to spend enough time high enough up the park to provide an extra threat and the midfield certainly lacks a cutting edge. Our best spell under Murray was when Kurtis Roberts filled this role and linked things up/was prepared to go beyond the strikers. Maybe this is the equivalent of Forfar away last year where Murray realised that the mindset had to be more forward thinking - we can only hope. My concern now would be that a "passable" season would still be around the 15 points per round of fixtures and with only 3 from 9 so far, only 4 home games in each of the remaining "thirds" and the last 4 games of this quarter suddenly looking very awkward (Cove and Montrose at home, East Fife and Falkirk away) I'm not sure where those points are coming from. The next 2 league games do seem like important fixtures in terms of our season.