Rhys McCabe Hype Train

Usual from Murray, chuck as many forwards on the pitch and hope one of them does something.

How does Scott Brown manage to get on BBC Scotland’s coverage every week, despite having nothing to do with the match being covered?

Touting Watt, Donnelly etc as comparable to Gallagher is verging on laughable, I’m afraid. Donnelly went on trial at Wigan after six months where everything he kicked went in the net, and was never the same again. Watt was in the team for 16 appearances and got a move to Celtic. Nowhere near comparable. Lister and the likes of Keighan Parker get the “cult hero” status, with the former having a great partnership with Prunty that season. Andy Ryan scored a decent amount of goals but again moved on pretty much as soon as he could. Gallagher stuck with the club when we were a bumbling League One outfit and his goals over the last three campaigns fired us to the playoffs, albeit perhaps he wasn’t as prolific as he was last term. So in terms of longevity and contribution he shouldn’t be even mentioned in the same breath as some of the names touted thus far.

Decent number of good prospects on Consilium’s books that are out of contract… hoping that we can perhaps sign one or two to bolster the ranks.

Calum’s a great lad. Hope he hits the ground running for you as he’s shown he can score loads in League One.

A large explosion would certainly improve the Drumgelloch area… would hope the coffee cabin would escape unscathed though.

I know there’s a lot of romanticising about going up, but for me next season will be far more important. With the Navy Blue Pound finally escaping obscurity and Livi replacing Dundee United, next season’s Championship will be a whole lot more open and every club will think they’ll have claims to promotion/play-off places. I think next season again is about consolidation and showing that this season wasn’t just a flash in the pan a-la Arbroath a few years back, and we probably should have a bit of realism as well that we’ve been in League One for ten of the last eleven seasons. If we can escape the relegation playoffs with four to play again, I’ll take that. Still think we’ll go up through the play-offs, but.

Cushdy wee 1-1 draw. Both teams stay where they are and secure Airdrie the play offs, everyone’s happy.

Is Martindale not very deeply entrenched in Livi? He’s basically de-facto chairman in the midsts of all their legal challenges. I can’t see him just chucking it in the summer and they certainly won’t ask him to leave.

Despite his performance last night Kirk Broadfoot got a stay until next week.

Would be funny if Arbroath win this, eh?

Is this a new IPA from a indie small batch microbrewery and tap room, the kind that a well-heeled Thistle fan would frequent?

To be fair if McPake hadn’t instructed the groundsmen to dig holes in the pitch Dunfermline might’ve won the original match that was postponed. So a win on Saturday to all but secure 4th will absolutely be the moral victory.

This is an important point. After a decade in the seaside league with years of false dawns and promises, rhetoric of “getting back to where we should be” and absolute charlatans coming and going at the club, I’m afraid League One was exactly where we should have been. Theres probably a bit of a partisan nature to our support, the elder of whom will have seen us playing in the top division and competing for trophies regularly. We are not that anymore, albeit we are getting there. These things are all cyclical, look at Falkirk and what precipitated their escapade to League One. It’ll all come round again I’m sure.

Is Dougie Imrie still in the “what a job he’s doing down there, by the way…” territory with his media pals or has that died off after this run that they’re on?

How do Raith fans feel about Dabrowski? He was signed to reasonable acclaim at the start of the year and he has pulled off some big saves (remember one against us at Starks earlier in season), but is it fair to say he's been culpable for some big goals too? Looks like he was so slow to move for Frizzell's first and even for McGregor's goal leaves the whole near post are for McGregor to pick his spot... albeit I didn't think Lewis had a finish like that on his left foot in him.

Would’ve bitten arms off if offered Championship safety with 4 matches to play. Absolutely viewing anything else from here as a bonus, but what a season it’s been. Need McCabe tied down sooner rather than later… but the boy on Twitter from Consilium giving it “we’re just getting started” fills me with a bit of confidence that he won’t be offski just yet.

That was a good laugh, eh? Apart from a wee 5 minute spell after Raith scored I didn’t really feel in danger. Seen it all before from Murray, chuck as many forwards on as he can and hope one of them does something. I guess that’s where our 3/5 at the back nullifies it ever so slightly. Thought our full XI were all class tonight. Dictated the play really well, didn’t get flustered when Raith did decide to press. Mental that Murray has done more for us this season than he ever did for us in League One.

Appreciative of the praise and all that, but… Replacing Arbroath with a sadly resurgent Falkirk only makes this league more competitive which is fantastic from the outside looking in, but as a team with a budget on the lower scale of the division it definitely has me worried that next season will be a whole lot harder than this term. The saving grace is that taking Dundee Utd out and swapping them with Livi (who really appear to be in a bit of a nadir, relatively speaking) might even it out a little. A lot will hinge on keeping McCabe & Fordyce, too. With the pair of them, we have a known quantity but who are learning all the time and only want to get better. If we lose them this summer, which is a real possibility if Hibs, Aberdeen, St Johnstone make managerial moves, we’re back to managerial roulette. Our board have form for picking the right manager (appointed Murray & McCabe since the start of their regime) but the names available this time out don’t exactly inspire confidence, and what are the chances of picking a quality rookie second time round?

Hope the Ayr players watch out for the big, bad Morton hammerthrowers.

8th place, certainly in my mind at least, was always the goal this season. I would assume we’d perhaps even have budgeted on that. Some of the young Airdrie twitter crowd had us down for the promotion play-offs 3 minutes after Josh Rae saved the winning penalty at NDP last season, and I thought they were bonkers, so there we are.

We have by far the hardest run in of all the teams chasing 4th, albeit after yesterday’s results I probably think it’s a straight shootout between us and Dunfermline now so this week really could define our season. Win on Tuesday and we’re in pole position. Win again on Saturday and I’ll finally allow myself to believe we can do it. Against Arbroath & Morton, we’ve seen another evolution of McCabe-ball. I think we’ll end up keeping the shape as it’s paid dividends. Some of the passing play yesterday was a joy, too - fast and progressive. I do think McCabe and Todorov dovetail really well together despite being similar, and they both put a power of work in. Fingers crossed we see the same game. That said, we can’t count on Easton, Smith, Rudden et al having another stinker against us. It’s going to be a very tough Tuesday in Kirkcaldy against a Raith side who may well see this as last chance saloon in the title race and who have absolutely no doubt have a point to prove against us. It has all the making of a great game but no doubt the weather will have something to say about it. I can’t wait.