Nelson

For me there’s 3 basic options with Chalmers. a) He just isn’t the player I thought he was last season and maybe showed up well in a team that was playing with a lot of confidence at that point. b) He’s genuinely carrying an injury of some sort and the whole “bruised bone” thing isn’t just an excuse to cover up how poor he’s been for months now. c) He’s already signed a pre-contract elsewhere and has lost interest a bit. Hard to judge from today as Arbroath were hopeless with the game being played out as a training game by the time Chalmers came on. The suggestion he showed his class during that 20 minutes seems pretty debatable. I’d honestly be surprised if we offered him a contract in the Summer, assuming that’s even still an option.

Brown must really not rate Chalmers at all if he’s willing to bring Bryden on to play out wide ahead of him.

Haste ye back gents - best away days in the league.

Baird is a cat with 9 lives. Two games in a row he should have been sent off. Scottish referees are hopeless right enough.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. My spot on the North Terrace is away now, so I think I’d rather go to the stand.

Not sure if I’m reading the email right - is it just ST holders from the stand who have the option of moving to the new stand or all ST holders?

Chalmers isn’t the issue.. The question is whether we should have brought him on for a central midfielder, leaving us playing McKenzie in (being charitable) an unfamiliar position. On the face of it, bringing on Smith was more of a like for like replacement. Chalmers could of course have come on for Bryden or McKenzie later in the game which I’m sure would have been the plan pre-game. Unfortunately the injury to McHugh has forced our hand a bit. But as noted earlier, I saw nothing of McKenzie’s contribution bar the clumsy penalty, so perhaps he played well enough to justify the decision making. Smith hasn’t really developed since breaking into the team and Brown clearly doesn’t rate him, but I think I’d still prefer him to McKenzie next to Dempsey. With a bit of luck Sylla or McHugh will be fit for Tuesday night as neither option is really good enough.

We could have just swapped McHugh for Smith.

Didn’t see anything of the game, but I just can’t see McKenzie having the composure to play midfield. Smith is limited, but I have to think he’d use the ball better.

He was in the bench. I guess Brown really doesn’t rate him if he’d rather got with McKenzie.

Feels like deja vu from last Summer to me. Signing players like McAllister and McKenzie on the basis that they are good squad players who can fill in for the proper quality players we’ll be signing later in the Summer, only to find those proper quality players aren’t coming.

The best April Fools are the ones that absolutely could be true..

Can’t see us needing as much as 44 points to finish 8th. 40/41 ought to be enough. Looks like we’ll be heavily compromised by injuries for the rest of the season unfortunately. Hopefully Raith’s bubble is burst after today and we can sneak something up there.

Amartey and Bryden on for McKenzie and Tomlinson. Doubt it will change much, but they can’t do any worse.

Outstanding bit of defending from Sanders.

Amartey surely has more to offer than Tomlinson.

Anyone know what the plans are for the TV cameras once the new stand is built? The setup for Friday will be a bit problematic in the long term.

I’ve been generally impressed with Brown. The whole Albinson thing is a bit weird and I doubt we’ll ever get the full story. Clarke is an absolute liability so we’re definitely cutting off our noses on that one. But beyond that, Brown is stuck with a squad that is just chronically short of quality in every area of the park, and is now compromised further by injuries. I don’t think Amartey offers much of an answer, but he’s at least due the opportunity to prove the point.

I’m guessing Murphy is still carrying an injury. He was certainly ineffective in the first half. Not sure what to make of Amartey. Bullen and now Brown just don’t seem to fancy him. I can’t say I’ve ever seen that much in him - he surely deserves more game time, but it’s hard to avoid the suspicion that we’re grasping at straws a bit. Looking at the bench, I’m not sure there was much we could have done to change things. There was just a fundamental lack of quality throughout the team.

Honestly not sure what miracles people expect from Brown. The players he had at his disposal today were just woeful. No amount of formation changes can overcome that.

f**k off.

It’s far from the most pressing issue that’s for sure. Each to their own. I personally thought it was a bit tinpot and unprofessional, at a time when we were theoretically still in with a chance of salvaging a point.

Wasn’t the sponsor who announced it though, I presume. And I doubt anyone needed the point made that we were pish.

You can’t defy gravity forever. We had 8/9 players on the park today who simply aren’t close to championship standard. I’d keep Stanger, and while he’s not the player some people seem to think he is, Dowds is probably worth keeping. I don’t think any manager would get too much more from such a poor group of players. Only real criticism was continually playing out from the back through Sanders. An accident waiting to happen. Announcing Amartey as man of the match just felt a bit embarrassing to me. Somerset Boab trying to be a comedian? Doubt it will have gone down well with Brown whoever it was.

Chalmers seemed to do well under Bullen’s enthusiastic dad style of management, but I felt Brown’s focus on structure, discipline and work rate might spell trouble for him. I still think he might do better in a different formation where his lack of defensive ability might matter less. If he is indeed carrying an injury that might also be a mitigation. But it’s hard to see Brown breaking the bank to keep a player who’s barely featured since he arrived.