CoveRangers1922

Sadly they pumped us a few weeks back at Balmoral and are likely favourites to take 4th place although it will be tight and likely go to the wire. We're a complete riot at the moment, shipping goals so can't say I'm confident. Probably only Accies, maybe Alloa, that can truly stake a genuine claim in the playoffs. I don't see a L1 side going up.

Sad to see you go down in such a manner. See you lads next season. Some 5 year spell in the Championship, huge achievement in itself and like many have said you're in better shape financially and with all the improvements in and around the ground. Hopefully, and importantly, we both get rid of our existing managers and get back to some proper recruitment. Without it the stay could be much longer than we wish. I feel a fairly substantial turnover of players coming for us both. A few aging that might be swayed elsewhere or might be pushed/moved on. Our first year back in L1 has been truly awful. Falkirk walked it with a side that would match/beat many in tier 2 as they showed against Dundee United, likely won't be that level of side to compete with next season at least.

He's never finished at L1 level, only just turned 31 last month. Wins our bleep test ever year. Granted his peak is behind him but he's still got ability. He's playing with absolute dross under a manager who should be punted to non league.

He's got nothing around him. Was frustration and can be prone to it. He's got quality but the rest of the squad don't know their arse from their elbow

In fairness the players on your bench would walk into nearly every team in this league's starting XI and likely be their better players. We've recruited from a swampy puddle and so it shows on the park.

We're a poor excuse for a team this season, who look inferior against a quality Falkirk side but Sena needs to bury that chance and level things up at 2-2 We've come back into the game slightly but with a defence made of glass we're going to get exposed and give chances away.

It's a mess, recruited 30 players in 2023 alone and due to mis-mananagement, poor recruitment and combined with some injuries we find ourselves with barely 11 players to field. Our bench last week was GK, CB, CB and DCM Burrell, Darge and Kerr all to have late fitness tests ahead of tomorrow with Mitch, Blair and Matty Shiels all confirmed out again. I suspect at least 2 of the former if not all will pull through but I fear for us tomorrow. Ripped Mo apart and the same could happen tomorrow night. Ola could have played a part and perhaps done alright against some teams in the league but as I said before he's a flair player, with very little strength and no defensive qualities. Simply can't afford that with the way our team and tactics are right now. Didn't look overly interested or committed with us. I'm interested to see where he goes after leaving you guys in the summer. In the sporadic minutes he played for us I can't say I was impressed at all. Plenty of players that can play his position in our league that are above him I think; Blair Lyons, Aidan Smith, Josh McPake, Jamie Barjonas, Stefan Scougall, Taylor Steven to name a few. Fyvie and Scully were ahead of him. We should have kept Mark Gallagher and left you with Ola.

Still a chance to avoid 9th, however, the next two games are clearly critical. How poor are Caley compared to last season? Looking at your squad, there should be enough to stay up. Are Gilmour and Longstaff injured? Where's Austin Samuels, thought with his pace he'd be a shoe-in and grab a fair share of goals at that level. Looks like it will be either us or Mo you will face in the semis. IF it's us, our defence is made of glass, somehow even worse than last season. Montrose would likely give you a better game. Likely to be Accies or Alloa to beat to retain Championship status. Accies have shown in spells this season to be a very capable L1 side and will naturally be most likely from L1 to go up.

I wouldn't back us to get many wins/points in the remaining games so you are still in pole position. Collectively this is as poor a Cove side I've seen in many years, it bleeds goals. Fyvie back has improved us but he cant do it all himself. Both our sides, and Alloa, have tricky fixtures remaining and I can see whoever gets 4th limping across the line which isn't ideal going into the playoffs. 2nd to 9th all capable of taking points off each other and I expect that will continue. Poor January transfer windows from both of us. Tough as it is to get players in, we both needed strengthening. To think the side we went up with, 26 games unbeaten to win the league still would have needed significant improvement to survive/level out in the league above. Least you have a competent manager to perform some kind of rebuild. Clearly needs financial backing too which isn't easy to find

Didn't expect anything close to this scoreline even though Falkirk have threatened to score bucket loads several times recently. You'll almost certainly take 4th place back of us next weekend if that's any consolation. I don't see us, Alloa or Mo putting a winning run together to end the season, likely whoever gets 3rd and more so 4th will limp across the line

Imperious right from the start of the season, bossed the league and well deserved Champions. All the best in the Championship lads

Surprised to see Balint dropped but Suman is a strong replacement, it's not our area of weakness or concern. Mitch must be injured but doubt his absence will be too noticeable. Suspect it will be a modified version of 3-5-2. If we have any hope of 4th, then our home games to need to be wins, starting here today.

Evident from this season alone his man management is as good as his recruitment. Our fans are completely despondent with him and want change

Good shout. What our DoF actually does I'm not sure. If he's involved in player recruitment then needs to go based on the feeble attempts of the last season and a half. I started the above as I'm fed up seeing the majority of players we've taken in, as is Hartley evidently. Quite ironic when they are all sanctiined under this return. Nearly all nowhere close to the standard required or quality we've had previously.

Still 6 games to go (all cup finals according to Hartley), but thought it would be interesting to start this topic early, who's going in the summer... I'll start with my opinion.. Hartley - should have been gone before now is the general consensus. Fails to get us top 4 then he can't feel aggreived in any way. 15 months of failure. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vigurs - Most obvious one of the lot, not seen since July 2023 in any capacity whatsoever Stewart - end of loan, back to Ipswich u21 Reynolds - Retire or join BoD Golding - Especially if Hartley remains Gillingham - 1 more year left but candidate to be cut short Jones - 1 year left but he'll be away McGowan - Out of contract in June, will leave us. Maybe retire or find something in L2 Burrell - Likely already PCA'd with a National League club down south Connell - 1 year left but clearly cutting a very frustrated figure and will want first team football And for spice and controversy... Mitch - Could he be tempted up to Peterhead this summer. By my reckoning 9 if not 10 outbound and a manager possibly. Gallagher, Mykyta and Strachan will return from their respective loan spells, so to will Milo and Gaffney but they will be loaned out again in all probability, leaving us with; Balint Suman -- Doyle Kerr Shiels Strachan Darge -- Fyvie Scully Yule Sena Gallagher Mykyta -- *Mitch (maybe) So a squad of 13/14..Many holes to fill

Seen his howler last night from the game against the Spiders on the weekend. That's as bad as it gets unfortunately. He did something similar once for us against Rovers at Stark's Park. Not quite as glaring but cost us an early goal and we got pumped 3-0.

Never easy coming in from Killie granted and with limited first team action in recent months, hard to hit the ground running. Was surprised he showed up at Somerset as like you say you had options at CB already with McGinty, Musonda and Stanger. Likely others that I can't think of right now. Suspect he'll be playing outside Ayrshire next season then.

Ah disappointing. He looked very capable with us, all the attributes you would want from a centre back at Championship level going by what i saw. Hopefully shows his ability in the remaining few games with you. A few clean sheets wouldn't go a miss to pull you away from 9th spot.

I see Sanders got on the scoresheet on Saturday? How's he been with you lads? Must admit I'm a big fan. Easily the best centre back we've ever had and I'm sure there will be interest from many for his signature.

Stunner from O'Hara seals the points for Accies

Euan Henderson just scuffs it into the bottom corner from close range. A loss would be tough to take for us having created so much.

2nd half we've continued with an attacking threat. Burrell with two golden chances. Could be a winner here

Down wind we had our chances but failed to hit target and really give Lyness something to save. Accies looked threatening on the break and should have a pen right on half time, stonewaller. Expect Accies to add to their tally with wind advantage

Shiels out will mean a return to the starting lineup for Jacob Jones if we want to play 3-5-2 / 5-3-2. Unless we switch Doyle to LB and play Darge at RB, with Sena playing as DCM in a possible 4-1-3-2. I just read the pre-match article too. I'm not convinced by; "When we’re on it, we can be really good, and that’s what I hope to see over the seven matches we have left.” A couple of times this season, in small spells, we've looked good; thinking Montrose away when we won 3-0, against Accies at Balmoral, a first half against Annan and Kelty at home but generally we've played the same eye bleeding tactic of lobbing it long from defence to somewhere near Burrell. We'll be gunning for 3 points but my fear is that Accies could inflict similar damage by that of Montrose a couple of weeks back. Accies have pace, natural width, creativity and an inform Akheem Rose, who has 5 in his last 3. A few on our Facebook page have mentioned that the squad is a million miles away from when we won the league and sadly I fully agree. It's felt like a pending train wreck since New Year and it's almost turned out that way. Bookies offering 4/5 for an away win and 15/8 for HT/FT. We're 11/4 to pick up the 3 points. If I had to guess, Falkirk will need to wait another week in order to be crowned Champions.

Transfermarkt says both he and Mitch are out of contract at the end of May. Not sure if that's 100% accurate or not. Fyvie recently got a new deal, deservedly so and thankfully accepted it, but nothing about two of our legacy/"core" players. You'd expect Connor will stay. Whether Mitch stays I'm less sure of. Reynolds must retire, will be 37, saying that Dillon will be touching 41 in May and is signed up for next season. We'll be officially told Vigurs is away on 1st June I'd imagine. Same goes for Dayshonne unless Hartley goes before him. Yeah we would have definitely been heavily in for Kane although the draw to his hometown will have been hard to ignore. Interesting summer ahead for us, feels like a crossroads. Do we commit to signing only FT again. If so, we need a bigger pot of gold or someone else doing the recruitment or do we go true hybrid and start poaching PT guys again. Realistically you need a core of PT players if you are going down hybrid or else it's not worthwhile and logically the PT players would be relatively local.