Against The Machine

It sounds like the trialist is Kareem Isiaka, who was unused on Wednesday. That defensive line-up is startlingly uninspiring. There's still plenty time to go, but you're looking at a guaranteed starter coming in to make that seem respectable. Obviously there will be wheels spinning in the background, but I've no idea who that'll be, and I'm increasingly unnerved.

Yikes.

Or Scott Brown at the back? Slim pickings.

Folks, we've got a highlight reel! As always, totally impossible to tell anything from that, but at least there's something new to speculate about.

He was being linked with Partick Thistle earlier in the week.

Yup. It's a small sample size, but that one-striker-who-only-touches-the-ball-five-times isn't a habit I'd care to take into a second season.

You know half way through the season you get a really brutal game and people say "this is like a friendly"? This is that friendly.

Cheers. Early (for me, anyway) impressions are that Scott Brown will very quickly become a fans favourite, Ross Millen is going to get rinsed by several of this division's wingers, and we're going to spend large parts of the season wasting Ethan Ross out wide to accommodate Dylan Easton, and it might well be worth it. Having seen them now come down to the front of the stand for a warm up, I don't recognise either trialist.

Was Scott Brown wearing the armband on Saturday too, or are they sharing it around waiting for a captain to emerge?

I see all these Scottish exports who went to Hartlepool are at a training camp in Portugal this week, enjoying blazing sunshine. Sometimes you've just got to say... aye, fair enough.

Is that not almost entirely because we played two home games (including a derby) in front of 500?

Ben Williamson was at the Rovers for a fair chunk of last season and was mostly... *shrug* He's fairly versatile, McGlynn used him in a number of roles across the midfield, and then at the very end of the season he got a couple of games up front and scored a double away at Accies. Constantly shifting positions almost certainly didn't help him, but I don't think he ever really performed well enough in any single position to justify a first team place.

Connor Brennan has signed for Stenhousemuir this summer after being at East Kilbride.

Personally I prefer an eleven man system, but I suppose we've got to get used to a new manager with his own ways of working now...

Bit of Twitter chat that Euan Murray is another one going to Hartlepool. Paul Hartley really depleting an already slim market for clubs like us!