PauloPerth

We still give the ball away carelessly a lot, which I think is on the players more than the manager. I also think being so weak in wide areas limits us massively. If we stay up and want to progress next season, we have to improve upon Robinson, Gallacher, Keltjens and Kucheriavyi (accepting that Smith played wide in the second half). Overall though, we are a better side to watch than we have been over most of the past couple of seasons. There’s been so many matches where we barely created a shot at goal, it was painful, and having that different kind of threat up front has made a big difference.

Great 3 points. Looked like we could cause a problem on the break but by f**k Hibs could play through our midfield at will in that second half and probably could have been out of sight in that spell at 1-1. Great goal by Adama, some boy. And good to see Gallacher pop up with a goal, he’s got himself in some good scoring positions this season so nice to see one go in. At this stage a win is huge, hopefully a boost for the players going into the run in.

I love Sidibeh. He plays football with a ton of enthusiasm and brings an unpredictable chaos to things. He’s got pace, courage and ability. He’s brought excitement to a fairly turgid team.

We’d be an average mid-table side if we had decent full backs. Robinson and Kjeltens’ use of the ball is awful. Wonder if we were always planning on playing the 4-4-2 or if Gordon’s injury forced Levein’s hand?

This is where I am with him as well. He obviously has ability, but he’s never put it together in more than 2 or 3 matches for us. In 2.5 years that, combined with his injury record, mean it’s time to move on. Probably best for his career as well. However, if we end up relegated I wouldn’t be surprised if we offer him a contract. That’s one of the worst things I’ve ever read. A horrendous prospect. Connor Smith already has ground to make up for me after apparently taking the huff for not starting a game. This after doing absolutely f**k all in his previous appearances for us.

Dundee obviously tried to sit deeper and counter, but we negated that tactic and they created very little up until we let them waltz through for the winner. Their midfield is better than ours, but on Saturday I felt ours got the better of it. Gallacher should have done better with his attempted lob over the keeper in the first half and kjetlens had a good strike, yes outside the box, well saved. I’m not going to sit and argue it was a perfect performance, but it was definitely an improvement, with positives and things to build on. Could be wrong, but it’s felt that after every win or good performance Levein has completely changed things around when it didn’t feel necessary. I think he tries to overthink things and be too clever at times.

Don’t think we need to change too much in terms of our attack from Saturday. It felt like the most decent chances we’ve created in a while. We needed the points, but really poor mistakes for the two Dundee goals cost us, other than that it was a decent performance by this season’s standards. It doesn’t need to be ripped up and completely changed. Though it probably will be. I’d take out Gallacher and start Carey, and stick with the same front two. I’m not a fan of Kucheriavyi generally, but I think he did okay against Dundee, one of his better games, so can’t complain when he starts this week. Levein has to earn that commission on him sometime and it’s not going to happen by leaving him on the bench.

Regulations to stop clubs overspending and being run into the ground by short-term owners on an ego trip would be welcome. FFP as it is in England is a joke. I realise Newcastle’s owners obviously aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but putting that aside you have owners who are desperate to spend a fortune to improve the club and it’s playing staff, but are unable to due to FFP rules. Yet you’ve got Chelsea, Man City, Liverpool, Man Utd who are able to go out and spend hundreds of millions on players as their income, built up prior to ffp rules being enforced, is at a far higher level. All it’s done is create even more of a closed shop at the top end of the league. You’d never have had Leicester winning the league if it had been regulated then as it is now. In terms of big money coming into clubs, there’s different extremes of this are there not? Clubs for vanity projects throwing money at players wages for a quick fix of success such as Gretna, Broomhill etc are different from the likes of Wrexham where the whole infrastructure of the club is being developed over a period of time. I think that kind of thing in Scottish football would be great.

Really enjoyed Adama’s performance yesterday. He makes plenty of mistakes but he’s got a lot to his game and is exciting to watch. He set up Gallacher’s chance in the first half with a great leap to flick it on, and laid one on a plate for Clark. His goal was brilliant, think it was as Dens he nearly scored a similar one but was denied by a great save. For those that missed it, here’s his goal from yesterday: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EdL-KyIAw4Q&pp=ygUjcGVsZSBiaWN5Y2xlIGtpY2sgZXNjYXBlIHRvIHZpY3Rvcnk%3D

Keeping Gallacher on in midfield as long as we did when you’re looking for a player to create something and Carey is sitting on the bench was a particular favourite.

No shit.

Felt we deserved something today. Howling mistake by Mitov and we were poor first half though still had 3 good chances. Second half was fairly entertaining. Thought the ref was stinking and gave Dundee everything. But we had our chances. Like to see the disallowed goal again, I think the keeper just fucked it. Ref was never giving us it on the back of that performance.

Our pitch is shite. It’s worse than any field on any of our farms. You’d think it would suit our agricultural style of play, but even that is a challenge on such a furrowed barren wilderness. Hopefully I’ve covered everything there to save our good friends from down the Tay the bother tomorrow afternoon.

You’re way wide of the mark there. Most Saints fans I know enjoy the matches with Dundee and Utd and like beating them, but there really isn’t that much thought about either outwith that. It is funny watching Utd struggle when you know Utd fans who still have their opinion of utd’s standing in Scottish football based on the 1980’s. You’ve obviously forgotten last time Dundee were battling relegation, most Saints fans on here saying they hoped Dundee stayed up. It’s a more interesting fixture than Motherwell, st Mirren, Kilmarnock etc. Aberdeen going down would be a once in a lifetime event, so I’d probably want that to happen, though wouldn’t mind either way, and would just sit back and enjoy the panic from both sets of fans. Plus it would mean it wasn’t us, which I’d be delighted about. I don’t mind when Dundee come back up but strangely enough I’d prefer Utd not to, I’d far prefer Rovers to win it. Like Kyle says, it’s probably because you feel Utd would spend more and have potential to kick on, whereas up until this season, haven’t felt that way about Dundee.

Does your argument that time is irrelevant hold up for every Scottish club though? Queens Park are the obvious example; Won 10 Scottish cups and had a record crowd of 95,000. East Fife have won 4 major honours. Clyde have a record attendance of 52,000 and won the Scottish Cup 3 times. Are they still classed as big clubs? There’s probably not much between them; Dundee were by far the bigger of the two until the 1980’s, since then it’s been United. Who knows, if Utd go a sustained period in the second tier and Dundee build on this season and get their new ground, then Dundee could overtake Utd to once again be the second biggest club in Tayside.

He is. Like a poor man’s Ray Wilkins.

Funny you should say that..

Ali McCann to run the midfield Lionel Ritchie style

Breathing in fresh countryside air > lying in your own pish in a hilltoon multi smacked off your tits

Will you ever see your club win a cup?

Finishing higher 16 consecutive years is a long run between two similarly sized clubs. And if it weren’t for Dundee’s financial doping it might have been longer.

Not sure why Motherwell fans are upset about that article, there’s nothing untrue or critical in it. Bair was terrible for us. He came into a struggling side, started badly and never recovered. I’ve never known a player get so much support for failing so badly. Everyone was desperate for him to do well, but he genuinely looked like he was playing football for the first time. It’s great how he’s turned it around with Motherwell. He’s a young lad in a new country who seems like a decent person, so its good to see how well he’s done. It’s fair to say the attention and expectation were much lower at Motherwell and he benefitted greatly from that. Scoring in his first game got him off to a great start.

This is the reality. It’s easy to think we should be releasing and upgrading everyone, but we’ve got to make a realistic pragmatic decision on who we can improve upon, and if not then might have to keep. We will likely need to keep some players who maybe the consensus about is they’re as guilty of our poor performances as everyone else. The one thing in our favour is we will be freeing up a few decent wages of players who haven’t contributed a great deal; Crawford and MacPherson, and you could probably say May and Kane for this season as well.

You’re probably putting that more politely than we deserve. Other than the last 10 minutes of the first meeting at McD, and the first 10 minutes or so at Dens, Dundee have been the better team by a long way this season. Blind optimism makes me believe it’ll be different this time around, but then reality kicks in and it’s hard to see how, as Dundee just look a better side in midfield and up front than us. Still, there’s always a chance we go ahead and shitfest our way to the points, which I’d be absolutely delighted with right now.

Again, I wouldn’t compare Phillips to those players impact or ability wise, but how do you progress play when the players around you are completely incapable of doing anything with the ball? I regularly see Phillips show great skill to keep the ball in tight areas drawing in 2 or 3 opponents before finding a teammate with space to drive into who invariably does nothing with it. Granted Phillips does give the ball away at times but I think that’s partly because he always wants to find a teammate and possibly holds on to the ball too long looking for a pass. But yes, Saturday past he was poor. Matt Smith I agree on. I have seen very little from him other than very occasional moments of skill. Do Saints fans on here rate Smith on a par with Phillips? That would blow my mind! But all about opinions as they say.