vikingTON

Behave: when Oakley's fit we'll be fine. It was less than a month ago that the consensus (wrongly) was to hand out new contracts all round to reward our unbeaten run - we can't have it both ways. That said, any experiment of Tyler French dictating possession from central midfield needs to be launched into the sea with no follow-up investigation.

That wouldn't be the same formation at all, unless you're giving Garrity a Muirhead at left back level task.

Hardly surprising given that Oakley was born in 1995, while Tam Cowan lives permanently trapped in 1974.

I was referring to relevant clubs to our current target only.

Perfect set of results for us and limits the impact of Tuesday's defeat - a game in hand back over everyone below us apart from Airdrie.

That's probably for the best, seeing as literally two games after the club's best run of form in a Paisley lifetime, we're already back to you and others bumping your gums about fringe players not getting enough opportunities - when they either fail to do enough with the ones that they had; or in O'Boy's case have zero experience of adult competitive football.

I haven't seen this good delivery on any reliable basis and if pace alone was required then we wouldn't have seen Quitongo's poor performance last night. People keep claiming that there's only much you can do in ten minute cameos - well you can make it impossible to be overlooked by turning a game and having an impact. Bearne hasn't done even remotely enough despite the cherry-picking that we've reverted back to just like before our 16 game unbeaten run. You don't have the jersey - you need to take your chance and claim it. I've read this same script with McGrattan 'strangely' not getting a game last season - although I note that fixation and stat updates have been quietly ditched from the forum. Perhaps it's a case of these players not actually being good enough to merit a starting place based on the manager's judgment?

If a player's not performing well enough in training and/or game time then he shouldn't be playing, whether we gave him a two year deal in the summer or not.

Muirhead is a striker. He is a different type of striker to Oakley but the idea that we can just pigeonhole our players into these unique little roles in the team is nonsense. Muirhead chipped in fine earlier the season and is not doing so currently; I fail to see what some Ally Roy ringer would have automatically contributed instead.

Mullen pulled off a good save in either half. All the other times we tried to pass through Dundee United's press, O'Connor misplaced a fairly basic pass or French shelled the ball to nobody. Dundee United weren't sitting back while we played long ball - to play passing football against that side you need to take care of the ball better. We couldn't use Mullen to pass the ball through either because of injury and the two holding midfielders (who were fine otherwise) don't have the dynamism to avoid being tracked easily either. There were no easy passes on. The real problem is that whej you either choose or are forced to feed off scraps, you need to actually challenge the first and second balls effectively. We've stopped doing that and it's not just due to the absence of Oakley. Quitongo and Muirhead were lucky if they won 20-80;of their contests but others like Blues and Crawford have been 40-60 in the past two games as well. That's the difference between winning possession and pressure in the opposition half and an 'aimless punt that doesn't work', right there. We were better than Saturday and even the extra couple of days before the cup game (and before the next league match too) will hopefully be beneficial.

We didn't have a rhythm before that either and could be playing now and still wouldn't have scored. Perhaps if French spent less of the first half complaining to the referee and more time dealing with basic defensive tasks and passing the ball to a team mate, we might have had a different result. The fixation with refereeing decisions was a distraction from the actual issues.

When the system works properly, we don't rely on Oakley as a target man. We also get the ball back from pressing and winning second balls* in dangerous situations on a regular basis. The bigger issue today was that the four players behind Muirhead didn't press effectively at all. Garrity was the most effective of the four on the ball, whereas McGrattan was both anonymous in possession and a headless chicken off it until he got a bad hit and came off. Blues and Crawford looked a yard off the pace too, which at least in their cases could be seen as the impact of the fixture list. You can't have both game plans completely fail and expect to get anything from the game, but there's no decisive reason why that plan shouldn't still work in Oakley's absence. * Not just a midfield issue: we lost too many 50-50s and second balls in every area of the park in the first hour, including at the first goal. It was just a write-off performance all round.

The referee could have been the second coming of Pierluigi Collina and we still wouldn't have won today. Far too many players underperformed from the first minute, French and McGrattan shut down our right game side all by themselves.

Don't make adult tickets cheap - just hand out free child ticket vouchers like sweeties at every school in the area and get them to guilt-trip their guardians to take them along at full price. We should be making greater allowances for low income/unemployed/concessions given both economic reality and the community ownership aspect. We could also make a pitch to 'new Scots' being settled in the area in droves, instead of having them latch on to that piggery in the East end of Glasgow which seems to be the default option. That should be reflected in season ticket options though (discount and installment packages) rather than a walk-up price IMO. That won't suit every person's situation of course, but we're still running a business here and not a charity. The best way to secure a growing and sustainable fanbase is to incentivise the habit of getting a season ticket. We've made good progress on that since the takeover but are still years behind most other clubs at this level.

We already have a significant number of players contracted until 2025. Oakley and Crawford to be re-signed, sure, if we can, but who else simply must be tied down right now? What you're railing against is a straw man outcome that we won't be facing, short of an unforseen financial implosion. There is a huge difference between being a good player to retain at second tier football next season, and a good player to have in the top flight. There is also a budget to spend and no point in building a bloated squad where players won't be getting game time because we made sentimental decisions in March that we regret by November.

Well you actually did by stating that the next thing to do was to extend player contracts, not 'looking at our options and then deciding on selected contract extensions' instead.

As we don't actually know what division we'll be in next season, handing out new contracts for all but our most important and prime age players would be unwise from a club perspective. We could go up in the play-offs and regret not giving ourselves more room to meet that higher challenge.

Boyd had the work rate of an Imrie style, slightly defensive minded wide player and always gave 100%. His second touch was a tackle though and his end product - with a sole exception of one home game I didn't go to - completely gubbins. Don't wish him any ill-will at all but it was never going to work out.

That's not the strategic goals I'd assume - those are the distinct points under each strategy (which are also unmeasurable waffle in places - welcome to any organisation). The bit above reads as more of a statement of purpose which 'key stakeholders' have been given an 'opportunity to shape'. Hopefully they did a better job of doing it than getting the players to create a word pyramid of aspirational buzzwords using Blu-tak and paper, or a circular yes and ho thought strategy.

A benefit compared to what alternative schedule exactly? All this seems to be you slithering further and further away from the description of Inverness being a 'huge' league game among all the other huge league games we'll have this season i.e. every, single one. God knows how you get to sleep at night with this non-stop excitement.

We're not playing two games in three days. Inverness at home is clearly not a 'huge' game unless every single one of our next 13 league games is also 'huge'. Which renders the term completely meaningless.

Tuesday-Monday is the only relevant factor, we would be playing a league game on the Saturday before regardless.

By that definition, every league game is 'huge' between now and the end of the season. Which makes the description completely meaningless then. Back in the real world, there's a clear difference between the level of focus, preparation and mental drain that taking down the current league leaders at home would demand, as opposed to a completely run of the mill league match where we have a chance to stick a fork in things in the second half - though only if we perform well of course.

In what bizarre, alternative universe is Inverness a 'huge league match'? The scheduled time is not the end of the world for me personally but it will clearly impact many others, as well as the club through hospitality and external businesses. The bigger issue that should be getting raised is the BBC/SFA ripping the pish with their scheduling on grounds of principle. Scottish Cup ties are drawn to be played on the weekend of X/Y Z month. A Monday night at 7:45 is quite simply not the weekend of anything. It's not Sky throwing their weight around to make it happen either here - the BBC's contribution to Scottish football is relatively small change which should not award them the right to set a gubbins timeslot that is patently not suitable for any other party involved in the event. The BBC have of course routinely forced seaside league diddy outfits like 'Clyde' to traipse out at their beck and call in previous rounds. The much more prestigious and high profile Quarter Final stage is an ideal moment for both The Famous and Hearts to openly criticise this nonsense.

Why should we compromise either our promotion prospects or cup prospects, when the SPFL let Dundee United and other outfits move their games based on convenience alone?