SpoonTon

The problem is that players like Crawford signed for us when they were lacking for other options. I'd rather have a core of players that we know what we're going to get from and add to that. If we're talking about players like Broadfoot, Garrity, McGrattan, Waters, Gillespie, O'Connor, Blues, and Quitongo. Then there's a good argument (to greater and lesser degrees) in all cases that we should let then go and look to see who else we could bring in. With Muirhead, Crawford, Oakley, and Strapp it's more difficult. If we could have kept those 4 plus Blues and O'Connor, then we would have a decent core and be a right back away from a pretty good starting 11. That's something strong enough to build on. Lose those 6 and then Imrie could be tempted to hold onto Broadfoot, Waters, and Quitongo or jump on other early options to try to get something of a core together before the League Cup starts. Let's face it, we'll lose players because our rivals with slightly more spending power see these players as a better option than others available - not a guarantee that the other clubs are making the best decisions but it's a sign of the difficulty of our position. I don't like the idea of try to put together the majority of a decent core of players in June.

As it stands for the new season: _____________Mullen New____Baird____New_____New _________Wilson___New New_________New_________New _____________Davies Subs: Murdoch, Bearne, O'Boy, King I expect at least a few will re-sign, but with nothing decided yet and a few linked with moves it could be an interesting summer ahead.

I don't think it's a surprise that players like Crawford, Oakley, and Muirhead are being linked with other clubs from the point of view that we know that Dougie would want to keep them and none of them signed extensions to their contracts at any point. We've shown in the last year or two that we're happy to get players signed on for the following season. Looks like we could have big turnover for next season. I don't think that's particularly great news. There can be disagreement over how valuable each of those players are, but we know that none of them are awful.

Through the League Cup games into the start of the season, Crawford looked like he was taking his game to the next level. Adding more goals and assists to his game would make him a player who might be able to step up a level. He didn't really keep that up, though. He reverted to being a player who you'd be happy to have in the team every week without ever really going to threaten PotY awards or anything like that. Maybe more of a loss for us than a gain for them, because I'm not sure if he improves their starting 11 but we might struggle to find a replacement. He plays a huge amount of minutes with very little in the way of injuries, and despite not pushing his game on to the next level he never really has a particularly bad game. We'd miss his energy, fitness and consistency. You know the minimum level your going to get with him, and that's hard to replace.

The "Team Ton" thing for under 12s looks like a great idea.

I think O'Connor has the potential to be our best centre half. In some respects he has the best attributes for the role. But there are also parts of his game that let him down. One being his erratic distribution (we were much better with Broadfoot, or Ambrose last season, in the team in that respect), the other being that he just switches off in the box occasionally. It's frustrating because there's every chance we could let him go and really regret it, but I understand if Imrie isn't convinced.

It's not a dive by Muirhead. Napier might think there's not enough contact to warrant the penalty, but the defender is caught wrong side and puts his hands on his back. Obviously he doesn't give everything to stay on his feet for as long as he can, but there's a big difference between that and a dive. The push on his back makes him lose his balance and he's hitting the deck either way. The reaction is silly - he's done that far too many times this season. It's not going to get you anything. He needs to stop that. I still hope he signs next season; for his faults, he's still a good player at this level. Napier is highly spoken of as a GP down here, and apparently is a nice guy, but he's a really poor referee. It's clear, though, that the standard of refereeing at the moment is terrible. It's a problem that goes pretty deep.

Jai as well.

I mean that he's been firmly behind Broadfoot in the pecking order (and French at right back for that matter). Is Imrie going to be keen on renewing his deal if he can't get in the team as it is, or is O'Connor going to be keen to stay if he hasn't been starting? If Imrie doesn't have faith in O'Connor to renew his partnership with Baird at the back at this point in the season, does that mean he knows he's not keeping him/he's not staying? It was idle speculation, really, but I couldn't be bothered writing the rest of that out at the time.

Is O'Connor leaving this summer?

Steven Boyd slinking away in February maybe could maybe save him from being worst signing, but he would be good competition for French. Wilson, Mullen, Oakley, Strapp. Not totally sure of the order but those 4 coming into the team transformed us from being relegation favourites, and injuries among them stopped us from being final playoff spot favourites.

All in all our biggest problem is that we lack the quality in depth to cover for injuries and dips in form. That's pretty much impossible to solve with our budget, and shows how tough a jog Dougie has in getting every signing right. French not really working out and Boyd and Bearne failing to add real attacking options were probably our biggest failings last year. Mullen: Good goalkeeper. Happy he's signed up for another season. MacDonald: Decent backup. I'm not sure what the best approach to backup 'keeper will be next season. French: Dundee fans were hoping that a few months with us would get him up to speed for the Premiership. We haven't seen that player. We may as well spin the wheel and hope for better in the summer. Waters: Solid enough defensively, nowhere near as good as Strapp. Strapp: Quality player. Really hope we have a chance of re-signing him. Broadfoot: Ropey start and end to the season. You can see the quality but I wouldn't like to see him to try push it at this level into his 40s. O'Connor: Not his best season but there's a good defender in there. Broadfoot's better distribution of the ball has kept him out of the team. Baird: Decent for the most part. Looks tired at this point of the season. Wilson: Excellent middle part of the season, between injuries. He's like having an extra player in the middle when he's fit. Gillespie: He was excellent in the first half of last season, and looked almost back at his best in a handful of games a while ago, but looks like he's struggling to keep up at this level. Power: Class player at times, but just off the pace at other. He's handed away the first goal in 2 of our last 3 matches and that's been a theme at times this season. I don't think we can afford to take the risk on him for another season when he's only really given us a dozen or so good performances. He'd be a good squad player if we could afford a bigger squad. Blues: He supplements what other players do very well, but struggles to be a driving force himself. But we know what he offers and he's played over 80 games for us in the last two seasons. He's a bit of the opposite of Power in that respect, and I don't think we can afford to let him go. Crawford: Good player, form has tailed off. McGrattan: I just don't think it's working for him under Imrie. He'll be away no matter what, anyway. Bearne: There's a player in there, but maybe not a player for Imrie. Garrity: Talented player, capable of good stuff, but also lacking in match understanding at times (like when he played a ball back to the centre of our defence at head height last night or when he was too late to close down and let a player just ghost past him on Tuesday night). Not really sure what to think. Quitongo: We all know Jai's strengths. If he was fully fit I'd keep him. Muirhead: His form, like others, has tailed off recently, but we'd desperately struggle to replace what he brings to the squad. Oakley: We'll be very lucky to hold onto him. If we can do this for next season then I'd be delighted: _________Mullen New__Baird__O'Connor__Strapp ________Wilson__New Muirhead_Crawford_New ____________Oakley Bearne, Davies, Blues, Murdoch, King, (3 or 4 other options). I think the squad building will be a much bigger struggle than this, though.

On Jai. Dougie has made it clear that he's not fully fit, and struggling to get back to full fitness. I think it's fair to question whether his fitness issues have been too much of an issue this season, but despite being disappointing in parts last night he should have been given a penalty and he played a part in the goal. He also helped a bit on Tuesday night when he came on (which really could've been a similar result to last night given how easily we gave away chances).

Power's error at the first goal is such a basic one for a player of his experience. He tries to hand his player off to someone who already had someone to mark, and that second delay allowed Doherty to get away from him and score the goal. So frustrating to have experienced players making errors like that. Broadfoot at the 3rd and Baird at the 4th as well. Such avoidable goals from individual errors. We look spent, though. We have to remember that when fully fit we went on such a long unbeaten run. We've gone from Strapp at left back to French trying to cover at left back (and he's not even very good at right back), and some of our better players look out on their feet trying to carry the load recently. Poor ends to the season isn't down to some sort of curse, it's a reality of what can happen with small squads and a lack of quality depth.

The penalty one was a stonewaller. The dive he gets slight contact on the arm and goes down expecting more. Crawford did that earlier in the game, and his was probably even more of a dive but he realised that on the way down and got up very quickly. Jai was disappointing overall tonight. It's frustrating because there's more in there, but it feels like a missed opportunity for him tonight.