SpoonTon

I'm not sure Bearne ever really fit in with any system Imrie wanted to play. I wondered from early on if playing off Oakley in a front two would've been more to his style, but very possibly just a guy who has some talent but not the all round game. His misses last week against Brechin looked significant - like some flashing beacon that it wasn't working out for either party.

I'm sure it was said this week that his hamstring wasn't being risked in the cup but he was expected to be fit and ready for the start of the league season.

I've already addressed that point and I honestly think you're missing the point I'm making here. And I have no interesting in exchanging insults, so I'll leave it at that.

It does at least seem like the remaining players we're looking for is an focal point of the attack and a physical presence in midfield. And if we're making two more signings then that's the two who could most help shape a team out of the squad. Getting the right players in, who can actually make the difference, will be difficult though. And we need the approach to be far more effective and purposeful than this has been. I mean, we've clearly not gelled yet and Imrie could very much argue for patience but I'm not seeing the signs of progress or potential as of yet.

It's not nonsense. It's what happened. Of course the pass is on, Moffat had the positional advantage but wasn't sharp enough. But in case you've missed the tone of my posts, it's not a pass I'd want Broadfoot to make. It's too high risk for our level of ability in a match like that. Broadfoot is one of a number of players who have made similar passes in similar situations. That's more than a player making an error of judgement - that's a consequence of instruction. We've just done it again as I write this.

We could be 4-0 down because all St Johnstone need to do is wait for us to give the ball away and then spring the counter. I know a new team needs time to gel and adjust to the style of football, but this is far too easy. We either need to be much better at playing like this or work on something else. Big call for Imrie to make.

That's on Imrie if that's the instruction, and it very much seems to be.

Moffat is as much to blame as Broadfoot. The St Johnstone player is just much sharper to the ball. Broadfoot could have mitigated that risk a bit by playing the ball to Moffat's other foot, but that's not where he asked for the pass and Moffat really can't be beaten to the ball there if that's how we want to play football - but that's the inherent risk there. If you want your centre back to step up and play balls into feet then you're inviting counter attack if you get it wrong.

Problem with trying to pass the ball through the middle is that if you give the ball away or fail to take in the pass then you give away a dangerous counter attack opportunity. You need to be very good on the ball to play like that.

I felt like the lineup on Tuesday was a bit of an experimental one given the level of opponent. I was actually impressed enough by Lyall, but I can't see that working with him on his own in the deeper midfield role against Championship level opposition. It was a kind of Billy Gilmour type role, and I don't know if that's what Imrie had in mind for him, but Blues and Moffat (with 2 fairly detached wingers) doesn't seem like the balance to support that (unless you're very, very good). I think the key to playing a bit more football through the team is to have at least one good player on the ball in a wider position, so that we don't always have to play through dangerous areas of the pitch. My impression is that we can only play 2 or 3 of the 5 midfielders we had starting on Tuesday.

The behaviour of the wee boys was embarrassing. And anyone trying to defend them are embarrassing themselves as well. They have a completely lack of awareness of what is and isn't acceptable. Maybe not surprising given how young some of them are but the club can't afford to have them running about behaving the way they were.

Not Davies at fault for the third goal. That's completely on Broadfoot trying to hand off his man to Davies so that he could follow the player Davies was tracking. No wonder he was subbed after doing that - shocking from a player of his experience. Maybe if you're way out wide you can try that, but not in there - he hands him the shooting opportunity and tries to leave Davies on the hook for it. Add the penalty he gave away, as well as some other pieces of defending, and it really doesn't look good for Broadfoot. I don't want to single him out, because it was awful pretty much all round, but he's had a nightmare yesterday.

It's early days and never worth panicking over early League Cup results (even given how disappointing it is and how important cup runs can be to the club). I remember a very lame 2-0 defeat to Clyde a couple of years ago. I would also say that I'm surprised at the balance of the team at the moment. You'd think that you'd want Gillespie to support Wilson in midfield (you'd also think we would've wanted to sign a replacement for Power in there). And the lack of a figurehead in attack is also evident. It's early days and tough to say at this point, but it does feel like the balance isn't quite there.

We should maybe just accept that Dick Campbell has Dougie in his pocket. In all seriousness, 2-0 at HT suggests more than just an issue with an individual player. It's early days in bedding in the majority of a new team, which can take time, but this is the type of match that you'd have hoped would've been ideal for that.

I can see now that it was the B team of SJK, SJK Akatemia (Academy), who play in the second tier that he was playing for today.