dunning1874

We only gave him the new contract at the end of February, he'll definitely be part of the squad.

Only listened to Murray's post-match interview today. Stunned at his brass neck. "Our bench at times has been so depleted, options so limited that it feels like I've been tweaking something every game and I don't really want to" You've tweaked nothing in any of the last five absolutely abysmal games! You did everything possible to maintain your obviously shite formation no matter what players were on the park! The two games where we did actually have so many injuries that he had no choice but to change the shape are funnily enough the only two wins in the last 11 games of the season.

Wilson, Ballantyne, Blues and (fitness dependent) Owens are the only keeps for me, assuming there's no chance of any loanees other than Main (the only one out of contract) returning. Grouping some of the players together, my thoughts are: Ballantyne/Comrie - I think you can only justify keeping one of them, and they're not massively dissimilar in that they're both generally competent Championship players who will every so often have a worldy and sometimes have a complete shocker out of nowhere. I don't think Comrie is a bad player, but ultimately Ballantyne at his best is better than Comrie at his best while Comrie's shockers are much more frequent. Delaney - one of the players who's undoubtedly improved under Murray, but I don't think he's improved enough to justify a new deal. The answer to whether we can realistically get an upgrade on him without needing to throw stupid money at a player who might have offers from bigger spenders is yes, so try to do so. Owens - I think he's looked really good and on ability alone I'd have no doubts about keeping him, but there's a question mark about his fitness. With a full pre-season behind him will he be able to handle 90 minutes every week? He's injured just now and maybe that's only a wee knock, but when you're talking about a 22 year old who's already had 18 months out after an ACL injury then sadly you have to ask the question. Wilson - the obvious player to keep and build the team around - in midfield - but sadly I'm sure he'll have interest from elsewhere. It's probably been the case that only his injury record has kept him here in previous seasons when he's good enough to start for most teams in the division, but he's never managed more than 25 league games for us before with how often he gets injured. This season he's stayed fit all the way through, playing 35 league games (the only one he missed was Davies dropping him) with over 40 in all competitions, so that concern about fitness can more easily be disregarded by other clubs. There's every chance he's desperate to go himself as well so he can escape Murray's idiocy and play for a manager who'll actually pick him in midfield. Would be ecstatic to keep him but surprised. Blues - I think he's a very useful player to have at this point. Play him in a system where he can be allowed off the leash to properly go box to box rather than needing to sit deep and you'll see more goals from him, he's scored some crackers lately and he does add more to his game with every passing season, while having a player in a more advanced position who can actually put in a defensive shift is sorely needed. Gillespie - if you're keeping Wilson & Blues (with Robertson under contract as well) then you need to leave some room for upgrades in the middle of the park and I think it's time to say thank you and goodbye here, before he has a season like Crawford this year. When we signed him after he was released by Queen's Park having been a bit part player for them in League 1 I don't think anyone would have guessed he'd be a crucial player for us for 4 seasons, he's been a great servant but he'll be 35 before next season starts and he already struggles to play 90 minutes. He's started every game he's been available for under Murray and I don't think you can go into next season expecting him to play 30+ games never mind start that many, so sign someone who can. MacPherson - another who undoubtedly improved under Murray, but then got injured as he was hitting his stride. If he'd stayed fit and maintained the level of performance he was showing in the few games before getting injured you'd have to give him a deal, at Somerset in particular he was excellent, but while you can't release a player just for being injured for a month it does mean the sample size of games he was actually good in is very small. You'd be giving him a contract on the basis that he could maintain that standard of performance from 3 or 4 really decent games, when for months before that he'd shown nothing to justify a contract. Under Imrie he improved from his abysmal start at the club, but the improvement was still merely to mediocrity and no one would have had him on their keep list in January. Combined with his own fitness track record - he last managed 25 games in a season in 20/21 - I think that small sample size of good games just makes it too risky a signing. You give Wilson contracts despite his injury record because you know for sure that when he's fit he'll be one of your best players, we don't know that with MacPherson and the small good run pre-injury could just be a purple patch. Taylor & Crawford - Murray clearly doesn't fancy Taylor and this was a season too far for Crawford. Both obvious releases. Garrity, Shaw & Moffat - release the lot of them. Moffat & Shaw have both been better under Murray than they were under Imrie but there's still not enough end product from either of them. Amazed to see people in the match thread saying Shaw was alright last night, he was atrocious and it was the epitome of everything wrong with him (though he's obviously blameless for the spell that Murray had him in holding midfield). Skinning a full-back to drive into a dangerous position once in 90 minutes doesn't justify being a passenger outwith that 10 seconds, particularly when the final ball from that extremely dangerous position was predictably terrible anyway. There's not a chance another club at this level is having him. Moffat's definitely better on the right than the left but he still ultimately doesn't deliver enough. I've been a bigger fan of Garrity than a lot of people over the last couple of years but I don't think there's any justification for keeping him at this point. He's been the worst of the three under Murray, since scoring away to Airdrie I don't think he's had a single good performance and you simply can't play that badly for that long and be rewarded with a contract. He was our top scorer last season and is our second top scorer in this one so it's easier to make an end product argument stand up for him than the other two, but it's not enough to justify how poor he's been lately. O'Halloran - when we signed him we all feared we were getting another Niall McGinn and credit where due, he's been much better than that. He's still had more bad games than good though, being very good last night and using his brain where no one else was doesn't cancel out the games where he's appeared and looked totally lost like Arbroath. While you see flashes of the footballing intelligence that had him at a much higher level once which Garrity, Moffat & Shaw simply don't possess, he's not a player who can be starting in the Championship at this point so move on. McKay - does Murray know he exists? Is there any indication of when he'll be fit again? Wouldn't have anything against telling him to come in for pre-season if fit to see if he can earn a contract as cheap cover as he's probably on buttons, but you'd obviously be letting him go as it stands. Main - we've already got one centre forward signed up who's the wrong side of 30, injury prone, sometimes really good at dropping deep to bring players into the game but misses more sitters than he scores and is capable of howling 90 minutes where he looks like he's never seen a football before, we don't need another while Brophy is the better of the two. Obviously I'm being facetious and there's a physical profile with Main that makes him a different option from Brophy in some ways, but I really don't think you can justify having both of them and Main's performances aren't deserving of a contract.

There's no question that we survived that in spite of Murray rather than because of him. Everyone in the ground has been able to see that his team selection has been idiotic for 5 games running, he has steadfastly refused to deviate from his dogma and we've limped to safety with 2 points from the last 5 games, both points coming at home against 10 men. It's our worst season in 5 years while the only managers in the last 20 years with a worse record are Shiels and MacPherson. I'm sure the fact he's under contract means he'll still be here next season as relegation was the only way he was getting the sack, but if his contract was up now there'd be no justification for renewing it. This is not an achievement and the relief that we've made it to eighth shouldn't be turned into a reason to celebrate.

Any update on your prediction that Nathan Shaw would come onto a game this season?

For the fourth game in a row, a centre back for Garrity is an extremely obvious change and Murray will steadfastly refuse to do it.

If we stay up it'll be in spite of this stubborn dickhead. Scandalous management. All his talk about how players couldn't expect to keep their places and he makes one change, fixing none of the glaring problems in the team which are mostly of his making.

Murray talking about how he carries the can for Saturday and will take responsibility is all well and good, but we'll know if he's just saying that or actually means it as soon as the starting XI is announced. Taking responsibility and reflecting on how he's contrived to put us in this position would mean not repeating the same stubborm mistakes, so if he puts out another 4-2-3-1 and/or Wilson is at centre back again then you can dismiss it all as empty words. There are some straws to clutch at here, as our home form under Murray isn't actually that bad with St Johnstone & Partick the only defeats, and shitfesting a draw would be enough to survive. There's little doubt that this team will capitulate if they go behind though, and our continued disasters defending set-pieces don't bode well for a clean sheet.

Murray has made the results worse. That's the inescapable issue.

I'll pay good money to attend the player of the year awards if pelting Murray with rotten fruit and veg is added to the agenda. Starting with 4-2-3-1 was obviously wrong, persisting with it at 1-0 was madness, keeping it up for the full 90 minutes when a change even at 3-0 (2-0 was the latest it should have happened) could still have made the difference in keeping us up was just pigheaded stupidity. Everyone has been saying for weeks that we obviously need to shore up the midfield but he's persisted with his overly attacking nonsense, he's a dogmatic imbecile.

Murray's an absolute charlatan. He can't remain at the club next season no matter what division we're in.

2-0 absolutely flattering us here. This is the Stenhousemuir game all over again, Murray has learned nothing. We're still completely hopeless at defending set-pieces and we still have no midfield to speak of. The defensive mess for both goals, and the other free header from a corner, don't get as far as the sitters we're coughing up for them if we actually had a midfield in the first place to stop them waltzing into positions where they win corners or cut it back for tap ins. If we lose this by four then Ross County finishing above us is entirely realistic and they look like scoring every time they're within 30 yards of the goal. This is an unmitigated shambles.

True, but his points per game record is only 0.02 better than Imrie's this season despite the much better win ratio, because where Imrie was drawing games that we should have won Murray is losing many more games that we should have drawn. It's why he has a worse points per game record than Johansson and the same as McElhone. Imrie assembled a shite squad in the first place and Murray to his credit improved on it in January, but both of them are to blame for where we are.

Surely the whole point of due diligence is that the parties to it go through the whole process then provide an update when it's done? The time period being 60 days means we'll get an update after the 60 days is complete, it would not only be pointless but a breach of trust to provide an update now. If Estrella were to post a public update on the process after 40 of 60 days saying they have X, Y & Z concerns about GMFC or MCT but hope they'll be addressed in the next 20 days, we'd all be rightly angry at their betrayal of confidence in speaking out about what's supposed to be a confidential ongoing process. The exact same would be true of MCT providing an update to their members now, there's no reason to expect an update until it's done.

Player of the season. I do actually think Murray got it wrong at 11 v 10. One of things he's changed that's seen both Moffat & Shaw look better through his time in charge is consistently playing them on their natural side letting them get outside full backs, whereas both of them had far more bad games than good under Imrie with his insistence on inverting them so they could cut inside and shoot, usually very badly. Yesterday both of them were having poor games - primarily because the shape of the team was obviously wrong with the lack of a central midfield making every other part of the team worse as well - so he tried switching Moffat and Shaw over in the first half. Fine, we did get more creative in the first half after the switch then they were chopping and changing in the second half at 11 v 11, but then we spent most of the time at 11 v 10 with Shaw on the right & Moffat on the left. The sheer amount of the ball we had with Queen's Park camped 25 yards out meant they both did put some good deliveries in, but for both of them the bad ones that haven't made it to the highlights outnumbered them and at a time we needed urgency, they both slowed us down so much cutting inside. We needed to move the ball quickly to stretch Queen's Park a bit and draw them out which we couldn't do because both wingers were inverted. It's why we actually got better with Delaney as a winger, we at least had one who could go outside a full back. You can point to the number of chances we created from firing the ball into the box so often as meaning a manager can't really do more as he can't go on the park and score on their behalf, but we were playing 10 men who had accepted that they just had to camp in their box and try to defend what we sent in. It's inevitable that you create some chances when you're given that much of the ball for 35 minutes, I think we'd have had a chance of more and better deliveries with the wingers back on their natural side.