CALDERON

f**k sake man, that's a huge blow.

Sign a fucking centr...... That's me telt, braw.

Really encouraged after that closing 20 minutes on Friday, Murray got the changes absolutely bang on. Also happy to see the shithousery from Hamilton which is even funnier on second watch. Well worth a booking. I turned to my dad at the time and said hopefully that changes the mood around the place, and it did exactly that. The first 25 minutes of the second half showed how fragile the confidence was around the place, was a weird atmosphere. Encouraging to see the momentum swing in that way, and all down to proactive actions on the pitch. Even that first corner of the second half just sparked some noise and energy thst was missing, and the volume in the South Stand from then on was superb. Theres a reason why so many teams change ends at kick off. That "Come on you Raith" chant 5 mins before kick off sounded massive. Certainly can't accuse this team of being too nice, which is a complaint I've had in the past. Absolutely massive period coming up though. The reaction to the win at Tannadice in the following games was obviously far from good enough, hopefully we can kick on a bit more this time. My niggling gut feeling has always been that Utd will end up with enough in the tank to win it, but even if that's the case it's important to push them as far as possible, and be there if they do slip up.

After the first goal, a smoke bomb was inches away from hitting a photographer. I'm all for having a singing section, but I'd rather these guys just didn't come to Starks Park if that's how they carry on. I've no problem at all with pyro in principle, but we've had multiple instances now of them being thrown towards fans, staff and now players. That isn't good enough.

Lovely stuff.

Fucking wild scenes. Still buzzing after that. Harsh on Utd, but fair play to Murray the subs were bang on. That tackle on the goalie from Hamilton changed things for me. The South Stand was as flat as I've seen in that 2nd half, however that seemed to spark us into life.

You simply cannot defend as badly as we do, and hope to be in a title race.

I really hope I'm proved wrong, but dropping Hamilton seems very strange.

I'd be incredibly dissapointed if we end up not having brought a centre back in, but still found budget to bring in Turner, to be honest.

Pleasantly surprised its heading towards a sell out, given that being 4 points behind probably falls below even the most pessimistic fans worst expectations given where we were. It's absolute must win if we are to be considered as being any sort of title contenders.

Nah.

Yeah, along with Danny Handling and Steven Simmons. Not great for PTSD.

What a terrible shame.

Currently watching Kevin Mchattie play centre half, so it could be worse I guess.

I work on Harlaw Road, not a chance that pitch would have been playable on Wed night - ground was rock solid when I left at 6 ish.

Easily Arbroath, and probably Dunfermline. Which would be a real, real shame.

You'd have to say it's probably over already. For Dundee Utd to be 4 points clear, having dropped points 3 times in 7 weeks says it all about our form.

That rumour has been going around every transfer window for about 7 years.

Fair play to Airdrie, fantastic again tonight and absolutely dominated the game.

Airdrie, again, were absolutely miles better than us tonight. Its fairly obvious we were in a false position. To be 5 points clear at Xmas was very, very generous. There had been some fairly clear warning signs throughout the season that the form wasnt sustainable playing the way we were. I do agree that we weren't "that" good to start with. However, the implosion since then has been fairly remarkable. The management shown since the game at Tannadice has been incredibly naive. The way we fall out of games and lose any momentum or cohesion as the game goes on is absolutely staggering. I know that we still have the loan window to go, but losing O'Reilly, not replacing him, and bringing in another midfielder we don't need (and who looks frankly miles off it) is about as a bad as we could have possible hoped in terms of January business. Theres more to it than simply blaming the defence, but that defence tonight was probably the worst I've seen this season - and that's our first choice. Its important not to overact and all that - but 5 defeats on the bounce is awful form at the best of times - and the sheer lack of game management and intelligence seen in the past month is pretty terrifying - genuinely reminiscent of Locke's tenure. It's very, very difficult to see where the next win is coming from.

He's playing the "actual defenders" tbf

We simply cannot end the loan window period with 2 attacking players in and a defender out being the extent of our business. That defending, again, was absolutely shambolic.

That's absolutely fucking disgusting defending.

Is there a chance Watson could mend?

This is largely fair to be honest. I don't think our performances have regressed that much. We have stopped scoring goals late on to hide various deficiencies in how we defend. The concern is how we address that, as we can't look to any point this season where we won games comfortably or by more than 1 goal. Its a top heavy squad in favour of attackers, but we don't score enough goals when on top for that to balance out.