SpoonTon

McAlister was far better at right back than any performance he's put in at midfield and should stay there at the expense of Tumilty until we find better. One of our better performers yesterday without being great. I just wish JJ would do the obvious by playing 2 wingers put wide in O'Connell and Kiltie and play Dallas in his natural position of centre forward. Tisder in behind and the back 4 as it was yesterday with the possible omission of either centre half for Kilday. Then take it from there.

 

Anything I've heard from Killie fans suggests that Kiltie is pretty much hopeless as a winger, and should always be played as the number 10 (and there was little evidence yesterday to suggest that he's any good on the wing). Dallas had a couple of goes as the centre forward yesterday but struggled to make anything stick. I think I'd rather have him on the bench (or maybe he'd do better with Kiltie behind him). O'Connell looked good, but as a pacy player coming off the bench he's always going to have an advantage. I'm not sure the solution is straight forward. 

McAlister grew into the game and by the end I was happy with the thought of him continuing there ahead of Tumilty. I thought he helped keep the defensive unit relatively tight - he's more aware of what's going on around him than Tumilty.

Has anyone figured out the formation...?

4-2-3-1, as VT said earlier. McHugh and Dallas have switched places a couple of times. Kiltie has stayed on the left with Telfer playing in advance of Dykes and Millar. It's a mess. Too lightweight, not very good at moving the ball about, and too many defensive gaps. I'm really not sure how we're level at this point.

Buchanan has broken out the Ryan Harding impersonation again as well.

Not many defenders in the team today.

I'm confused.

In the today's instalment of "Talking s***e With JJ" in the Tele, he claims, amongst other nonsensical waffle, that the "budget was clearly overspent in the summer" (my emphasis), which raises some serious questions.

For one, the squad McKinnon assembled wasn't the biggest or particularly loaded with players who would be on huge wages; secondly, Warren Hawke is on record in the tribunal verdict suggesting that McKinnon not only nobbled the Rudden deal, but maybe others too, which tells us that there was scope for McKinnon to add another couple of players.

If the budget was "clearly overspent in the summer" (as opposed to a change in priorities when Johansson came in which i'd previously taken the cost-cutting, squad-trimming to mean), why was that allowed to happen and why was there moves being made to add even more players? Or is the implication that some porkies were being told to the panel?

I'd suggest that the likely explanation is that Johansson is talking s***e as usual, but regardless, the fact that he's being allowed to keep doing so on a regular basis is completely and utterly unacceptable.

I imagine Millar, McAlister, and Johnstone were brought in on fairly hefty wages. I think certainly higher than what was the norm under Duffy. I certainly remember McKinnon taking about going for a smaller, higher quality squad - for all we know players like Telfer and McKeown were given big deals as part of that well. Part of the early season enthusiasm was down to McKinnon's apparently more ambitious signing policy than Duffy's bargain basement shopping.

I agree that it doesn't all quite add up (although perhaps the Rudden deal was not going to cost anything). And we didn't get the impression that we were overspending (but maybe that was McKinnon's issue with us that he thought would come out at some point). In any case it doesn't look good for us in terms of organisation, planning, and ambition.

JJ just needs to get on with this though. He can't really win in these interviews. He comes off as disingenuous when talking up a player like Dykes, and deflective when talking about budgets. He needs to focus on the task at hand and getting us as good a finish as possible this season.