Team for 2018-19

Menga went off injured too, 3 players injured in that game on grass and Gerrard bleeting about having to play on plastic again.

Miller might be fit to play though, would rather have him and Hardie up front.

You know I'm beginning to wonder if Miller will play again. Out for months and injured first game back. He doesn't even figure on the bench.
Interesting that Tiffoney got a wee bit game time tonight. He is a wee grafter.

Jack Hamilton and Henk van Schaik have today both moved out on-loan until the end of the season.

Jack will join Championship side Alloa Athletic whilst Henk moves to Dumbarton in League One.

WHAT?????

Yeah; we’re struggling for goals so let’s loan out one of the top scorers in the reserves who has already proven he can at least play in the first team & is a regular sub as well & we’re still strong defensively albeit tending to concede 1 more than we score, so let’s loan out 2 defenders, especially after letting a 3rd defender leave completely,  1 of which has been a fairly regular sub & bring in another defender on loan to provide cover for Gal-Hal-Lit in case of injury or suspension.

I haven’t questioned the current management team’s decisions as much as I used to question Hoppy’s back at the start of his time here but there has been no need to do so; but these loan moves appear to me to leave us weakened at the back & up front, so I simply don’t get it.

Okay we are sitting pretty in 7th but 6th is looking further away than ever & 8th & 9th are getting closer. Bearing in mind that we only play our half of the league after the split we need to be at maintaining the gap to the bottom 3; we look safe now but if 1 or 2 of them have a run in the next 11 games like we had at the start & we have a run like they did.... it doesn’t bear thinking about.

And while we are not playing badly we have lost 4 games on the bounce (inc the friendly) all by the odd goal & haven’t won since demolishing 10-man Hearts so currently the results aren’t good & there are 1 or 2 tough games ahead.

Losing by the odd goal in three consecutive competitive matches is frustrating rather than worrying.  If we were playing badly I would be concerned but we're not. I'd say Aberdeen looked a better team than us and deserved their win even though on a good day we could have sneaked a draw.  We had several good days like that in the first half of the season. Lately, particularly against Hearts and St Johnstone, fortune hasn't favoured us. Most of the teams we're battling against have better resources than we do and have been in this division for years.  We depend on hard work and a wee rub of the green.  It's the latter that has been missing recently.
In saying all that, football can be a funny old game and I share some of your concerns regarding recent management decisions,
Bertie, so I am very glad we built up the point gap we have.  
No pressure on Sunday though.  We aren't expected to get anything.

I'm expecting us to get something.

Holt will have something up his sleeve, either a new striker coming in or Menga and Raffa both fit to play but keeping it quiet till the last minute.

I'm not sure how much first team action Jack will actually get at Alloa particularly seeing as how they've just taken a young celtic striker until the end of the season as well.

Maybe the fact that Jack has played in the SPL and handled himself well will stand him in good stead.

Looks like Jack got just the last for 18 minutes for Alloa once they were already 2-nil down; HVS played the whole game and did pretty well by accounts.

That's not what I read.

 2 hours ago, FifeSons said:
How did big Henk look?


Average to bombscarish, but it's really hard to judge him when slap heid has him parterning a full back in the centre of defence.

Negatives? I thought the big Dutchman looked clumsy and was awkward tackling. I thought the game passed our midfield by - Hutton will get the usual criticism from some but he wasnt any worse than Thomson or Forbes. Bobby Barr wasn't involved enough.

Not sure how much he'll benefit from this loan deal, Dumbarton fans saying they're going down to LTwo and their defence is all over the place playing players out of position.

Two signings today Hakeem Odofin a defender in from Northampton & Lyndon Dykes in from QotS but he goes back to them on loan.

The signing of Hakeem Odofin is useful if Halket goes but Gallagher & Lithgow stay.... I can hear it now... It’s magic you know; Gallagher - Hakeem - Lithgow

Maybe explains why McMillan went out on loan, Odoffin plays the same position as him so it will give him more chance to get some games playing RB/RWB and get used to the team so we've got that bit of continuity for next season. Whilst also getting McMillan game time at Partick.

Wasn't that thrilled by Dykes signing when it was rumoured a few days ago, but the more I read about him the more excited I am about us signing him, several bigger Scottish Premiership teams than us were after him too, so great bit of business getting in and offering him a deal right now to get us in ahead of them.

Cadden away to Ayr on loan

Whew! So it's still Gallagher, Halkett, Lithgow till the end of the season then.

orco wrote:Whew! So it's still Gallagher, Halkett, Lithgow till the end of the season then.

Yep, along with Pittman & Byrne in midfield, and Ryan Hardie up front.

Looks like the transfer business in Jan was more to do with next season rather than boosting us for this season, although managing to keep all our key players is a fantastic bit of work.
Also good to see we're looking ahead to next season, not having to make a lot of changes to the squad all at the one time, all these Jan signings and the ones being put on loan to get game time will be well bedded in and ready to get going when the new season starts.

Great seeing us being proactive and not reactive, thinking ahead of the game.

Well done LF, you’ve managed to keep your optimism high.

Totally agree on your views re keeping our best players & good to see some forward thinking, but I’m not yet impressed by the new guys & would rather have kept the two Jacks & Cadden here.