Valentino Bolognese

Mitov to me has Manus-esqe qualities. Looks solid enough at crosses, great reaction shot-stopper, intense focus, acceptable beard. Zander only ticked one of those boxes for me. Anyway I'm just about drunk enough to be very confident about tomorrow. 0-0

But with o/side there are the lines that can be drawn to make it a VAR and not ref decision. I don't believe such lines exist for over the goal-line calls? Not disagreeing that the rules are that a ball over line decision is VAR only, I don't know enough about the implementation to say one way or the other. I'd be interested in what cameras etc they use to decide that though, especially if as you say they have the final decision and not the ref.

AFAIK that's the second kid injured just at McDairmid in the last couple of seasons (Celtic gamelast year). Also the debate about the disallowed goal. Maybe I've missed something obvious here but all the focus has been on whether it was a foul which resulted in the ball going over the line. From where I was sitting it looked like the ball had crossed the line in the keeper's hands before the supposed foul, and I assumed that's what the check was for. Of course having VAR instead of goal-line technology means it still comes down to someone's interpretation.

I think what this thread demonstrates is that the average fan sentiment towards clubs resembles, on average, a crudely rendered cock and balls viewed side-on with the bigot teams being everyone's right testicle, perhaps with a local rival as an additional swelling. Left ball smaller, being the club one supports. I'm not bothered or surprised that we form part of the shaft.

Think you might be right about C Smith and Max, but can't see a situation where neither M Smith or either of the two new strikers play, particularly Sidibeh. I think it's more likely we'll see Keltjens into Sprangler's holding position. Mitov McGowan - Gordon - Robinson - Gallacher M. Smith - Keltjens - Phillips Clark - +1 - Carey Not so sure he won't stick with Considine at LCB and Robinson at LFB, depends what you could consider less risky. Might depend on the opposition of course. But can easily see a situation where one of or possibly both midfielders are dropped to make way for the golden boys as I tend to agree that's next year's plan. I'd rather he wasn't trying to work out next year's team in the midst of a relegation fight though. Without giving Callum Davidson too much credit for his moaning, I think this year again we're seeing our garbage pitch cost us points. Being optimistic here, but while accpeting our basic passing has been absolutely honking lately I think the home surface has forced a type of play that the team and manager really don't want to play. It's an absolute disgrace of a pitch and not even in a way that gives us any advantage. IMO we do tend to play a wee bit better away from home on better (grass) surfaces. Its's small margins though, we're still pish.

Struggling to think of a worse game live or not. Even the 38or so minutes the ball was in play most of that it was 30 foot in the air. That's why I'm struggling to be too down on the (saints) players tbh.

Not a lot to add really. We were poor but I'm struggling to blame the players, or even the manager, entirely. Hard to know what you can do when it seems you're playing a team whose entire philosophy seems to be sign players that are as big as possible that can shitfest a game and just keep the ball in the air so the opposition can't win second balls. It's like under-16s pish where all the big lads make up the teams. First to admit we didn't help ourselves as we didn't seem to have the quality on that surface today to play with the ball on the ground. Thank f**k we've hardly any games in the next month.

Sidibeh is a genuine worry, unless it's just ultra caution (which would be fair). Even if he's fine and it was just, say, exhaustion, I'd be shitting it going back into a game. Hope it's nothing serious / underlying. As for the game agree with everyone else. Same team and same approach as Aberdeen. Any other opposition manager I'd be worried that it's far to predictable and set up against it, but Davey will twist himself in knots overthinking it. Should be an absolute stroll for Saints. 0-0

Don't knock it till you've tried it Tam

Also the outside of the foot through ball from DJ. Great technique and vision. As I said upthread I've been reasonable impressed with him in an underperforming team, more so than others seem to have been. Not sure if he has massive improvement in him but he might, and it seems he's out of favour at Charlton and not sure he'll be offered a contract by them. I'd not be upset if we gave him a year if he's affordable.

I'll be honest, I've quite liked DJ when I've seen him other than he looks slow. Suspect he was maybe unfit when he joined though, looks a lot leaner now.

I actually think it's more a 4-3-1-2 type of thing with Clark sitting a bit deeper. He's not above moving Clarke to midfield either. Not sure I'll be 'watching' or 'rubbernecking' this one but that lineup gives me the tiniest glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, we might try to score a goal. It's the hope etc etc

Oddly enough when Smith (M) joined I'm fairly sure I remember him getting fairly stuck into tackles, but he seems much softer now. Same with Dan Phillips but that's possibly a good thing. Although he still picks up a card a game. Can we please, please play a back 4 tomorrow for the love of god. If nothting else just to see us getting beat in a slightly different way.

For the record, this includes the Stevie May bit.

Thing is though, he doesn't. Much like our manager. Win lose or draw, nobody is getting sacked and fans on both sides are probably past caring given the way our respective seasons have panned out. No real sense of jeopardy. We're at the stage where we're looking at other team's results before our own.