Chicken_Soup

Despite being a disappointment, French is safely out of the running for worst signing having at least contributed consistently to our winning run. Steven Boyd has that honour wrapped up and Jamie McDonald would be easily ahead of French too, he’s suffered from a combination of bad form, lack of sustained fitness and possibly just an overall lack of remaining ability for this level. Giving Harkness a free pass on the assumption we haven’t paid his wages since the injury, which is a total guess. Honourable mentions for goal of the season are Garrity’s volley against Airdrie, Muirhead’s second against Ayr and Muirhead’s tap in against QP at cappielow.

At least that ends the contest for Mentallest Post of the Year. Saves everyone a lot of hassle.

I’d have been happier with Power leaving the studs in a bit more often and committing professional fouls to stop attacks, rather than letting opponents run past him so easily when he’s our deepest midfielder.

There’s enough to criticise without plainly lying to bolster your claim. As bad as a dive, that.

Quitongo was our only outball during his time on the park and should’ve won us a penalty. Nobody was good enough tonight but that’s a terrible take.

There’s a lot I agree with regarding ruthlessness in squad building, but binning Garrity at the end of this season would be madness. He’s a young, low earner on a sharp upward trajectory whose strengths are not replicated anywhere in our squad and will be incredibly difficult to find externally, certainly not without significant cost. He’s already contributing goals and assists at championship level and with Mcgrattan presumably moving aside he should be challenged to move up the pecking order, not out the door.

On French I may be in a very small minority but I think he’s been a good, if unspectacular, championship level right back for us over the season. I realise it’s irrelevant as we can’t even come close to affording his wages, so he’ll be off anyway. While he’s not been on the level of Grimshaw or Brandon, he’s certainly a significant improvement on the likes of Pignatiello, Ledger, Hynes, Jacobs and the assortment of midfielders and centre backs we’ve featured there recently. He gets a lot of criticism but I’d be pleasantly surprised if right back is a position we’re able to upgrade on going into next season.

I wasn’t at the Airdrie game so I’m maybe not sharing the strength of feeling after such a bad performance, but I don’t want this squad ripped apart. We’re looking likely to finish roughly where most expected us to, with some ups and downs along the way. I’d rather we keep the core of this group together and try to add more quality/depth than bin an excessive amount of starters who are decent championship players, and take the gamble that we can upgrade those on the wages we offer. We’ll already have a high enough turnover as many leave who are too old, injury prone, out of favour or moving to better things.

What are you basing this on? Muirhead works incredibly hard off the ball. He was hitting both bylines on Saturday and executed a great saving slide tackle in his own box to cover Waters. In our system those three players between midfield and attack have to cover more ground than anybody else. There’s a reason Imrie trusts him in that role, a manager who has publicly criticised and dropped players from that position for not running, pressing and/or tracking. He even cited it as a reason for Lyon’s failure to succeed at the club. Muirhead also tends to play 90 minutes despite his opposite winger being substituted and with other wide options on the bench. This just wouldn’t be the case if what you’re saying was true.

I suspect most people are well aware of the reason Muirhead doesn’t take part in interviews. Hopefully the poster who mentioned this was speaking from ignorance rather than malice, but it’s reflective of the extra mile people go to criticise him. He’s had spells of great form and poor form this season but his return is outstanding. He’s now on 16 goals this season, the majority of which has been played on the wing, and hit double figures last year as well. I remember that Mezut Ozil regularly posted the highest distance covered in matches for Arsenal, but was criticised for laziness due to his slow and languid style. Muirhead is slow but is definitely not lazy and suffers from the same problem of perception. At Firhill for example, the abuse he got was venomous from some, and if Imrie has used this to motivate him I’m all for it. He also scored a great goal that day. He’s been played at centre forward (not his best position) too often this season due to our lack of resources/poor squad building. A consistent set piece threat in such a tight division is a huge factor and the fact Imrie is such a huge fan of his suggests we’ll do what we can to keep him. He can throw his own faeces into the cowshed while singing the sash for all I care, if he’s delivering 15 goals a season. Those numbers are irreplaceable for us and if does go, many of our fans will be facing up to the reality of what they’ve wished for.