Livi v St Midden

Thing is he didn’t have to come up with same old tired cliches, he could actually have done what he has done this week & take responsibility, why has it taken 15 games to self reflect when us amateurs have all seen the flaws in the team selection & the flaws in the tactics (high balls to small players never works & long balls to immobile players doesn’t work either).

The team has been punching above it’s weight for a few years now, it just may have caught up with them. I also keep saying that we may have a larger squad but the players that have come in (especially for this season) are not as good as the players who were already here or have left. Quantity never trumps quality.

Yeah we've got 2 more games against teams we can get wins against, we've already beaten both of them this season, then it's a tricky run, with Accies sandwiched in between Celtic, Killie, Aberdeen & Hibs. We really need to be winning against Utd at home, St Johnstone away, and Accies away, because it's highly doubtful we'll get any points from those other 4 games.  The St Johnstone game wont be easy either, but still winnable, Accies away is usually a difficult game for us too, but with them being so poor this season and rooted to the bottom we MUST win that game. However we've already blown a home game against them, thankfully for us Templeton wont be playing.

All of which will depend on us having our striker position sorted out, JET just doesn't give us the energy to play the way we're doing, so either get Tiffs and/or Poplatnik in, or change the way we're attacking and get Mullin & Forrest on the wings putting balls into our attacking mids and JET inside the box. Hoofing long balls up to JET is a complete waste of time.

Interesting too that both our wins against Utd & St Johnstone were with Tiffoney up front, and then we played the betfred cup games and dropped him for JET, and haven't won a league game since.

I am a bit more subjective about the game now than I was last night. It was disappointment that I felt.

I know these players can be better than that because I've seen them better than that. We seem to be organising the team round JET in the mistaken belief that he can do what Dykes did.

Nothing clicked for us yesterday and the tin lid was put on it when we lost yet again through a deflected goal. What worries me is that these things tend to happen to a team flirting with relegation. I've seen it so often. Nae breaks.

After 10 minutes I could see that a classic it was not with both teams punting long cleared balls. Neither goalkeeper had much to do. By the hour mark I was sorely tempted to walk away and save myself the grief of watching. I stayed through loyalty.

When Pittman is having a bad day you know it's not going to end well. To me he epitomises the work ethic in the team - something that was not obvious yesterday.

It does make you wonder if all is not well behind the scenes. I was taken aback to hear Holt talk about leaving. See if we had Lithgow, Keaghan and Tiffoney in that team yesterday I think things might have panned out differently. Instead we had JET for whom it is not happening, Brown who looks as if he'd rather not be here and Lawson who seems to be regularly shoed in to random postions.

Finally, I am beginning to think they are missing the crowd. We are not known for turning up in vast numbers but we are a mainly supporting bunch unlike fans of some other teams who growl the minute they don't like something. I'm thinking here of Dunfermline and Rangers. Celtic may be affected in a similar way. However I can't see us back in the stadium this side if Easter so they better get used to it.

I hope Holt doesn't walk away I like him as a manager. He fronts the club well and I can see the players wanting to do well for him. Let's hope we are having a sticky spell and that it all starts to click for us soon. The alternative is too painful to think about.

Robinson said the same thing at Motherwell after being in a slump, prob out of frustration, hopefully Holt finds the solution, but if he doesn't then the problem is as much with him and his player selection and tactics as it is the players. As you said Orco, we've seen these players winning games and playing better, so we know they are capable of more.

Something needs to change quickly and we need to start winning games, I don’t care how they do it and long as they do it.

You’re more objective now Orco, if you were subjective you would still be saying things based on an emotional response rather than cold hard facts.

Can’t disagree with you, I too generally like Holt as boss, but he does need to also make an objective assessment of the situation. Sometimes you just need to do the simple things well, then once you have got that in place you can start trying the fancy stuff.

There is still plenty of time to sort things out because there are a handful of teams who are not firing on all cylinders; Ross are also in a lull if not free fall just now & Accies, like us, can’t buy win. The trends are worrying but let’s be honest, a club with our support base should really be lower half of the second tier to top half of the third tier; remember the days when we were just happy to have a club to support? We could only dream of life in the top half of the third tier but we climbed back to the top half of the second tier. Then fell back to the third tier before reaching the promised land & surpassing everyone’s (and I do mean everyone’s) expectations.

We don’t want to be relegated but we have been through worse & there is still time to sort it out; so this is a rallying call to the fans... don’t stop believing & to the players & management team... go back to basics, keep it simple & outwork the opposition the way you have been doing in the last 3 or 4 seasons, we will end up where we deserve to be & wherever that is we (the supporters) will be right there with you.