TopCat

Robinson targeted top six and Europe when he was appointed, that's what he said in his initial interview. To be honest, i'd bite your hand off for 10th now. The regression from the day of his appointment to now has been remarkable. So yes, i'll be optimistic and have us in 10th too. Killie 11th St Johnstone 12th

The last time we played Edinburgh City was also in the last game of the group stage of the league cup, in July 2016. On that day goals from Shankland, Walsh and Baird got us a 3-0 win to get us 9 points out of 12, but due to an earlier defeat it wasn't enough to get us through and out we went. The manager had been appointed during the season before, but he hadn't exactly inspired confidence in his tenure and failure to get out the league cup group was another big blot on the copy book. The poor form continued into the ensuing league campaign, and just six games into it he was fired. Funny old game, isn't it?

Never seen the game, but my word these stats make for grim reading: Two shots on target against a team of teenagers from the Lowland League? Huge improvement needed, quickly.

I suppose it's a sign of where we are, that on the eve of a game against a depleted part time league 1 team with a 29 year old player-manager, I'm not at all confident we are going to win. I mean we should win, and we probably will, but i won't be the least bit surprised if we don't. It goes without saying that anything that is not three points all but puts out the cup, and would really put a big cherry on top of Robinson's poor start as St Mirren manager. There is a slim chance we could go through with eight points if we drew, won the penalty shout out and then beat Edinburgh. But it's unlikely, especially with our poor goal difference. It's a big game for the club, need to get the best available on the pitch and go all out for a much needed win: Urminsky Strain-Shaughnessy-Dunne-Tanser Erhahon-O'Hara Henderson-Kiltie-Grieve Ayunga 1-1 (St Mirren to win 3-2 on pens)

Brophy's had issues with his fitness long before he joined us, he was injured at Kilmarnock before he came. Infact the only season in his career where has made more than 30 league appearances was last season, so that injury hit campaign was actually the least injured he's ever been over a full term. Quite remarkable for a 26 year old really. Are these continual fitness issues for three separate clubs suddenly going to resolve themselves? Maybe, hopefully. It's certainly more likely that he will continue to miss several games a season due to injury., he's already missed the first one. Is either one of Ayunga, Main or Grieve capable of scoring 10+ goals next season? They'll need to be. Without Ronan and McGrath's goals from midfield we need someone capable of hitting the net on a regular basis and staying fit. I'm not sure we have someone like that in the squad to be honest. If i had to bet on our top scorer next season i'd go for Kiltie.

Their last six results: Cowdenbeath 0-1 v Albion Rovers Bonnyrigg Rose 3-0 Cowdenbeath Cowdenbeath 0-1 Bonnyrigg Rose East Fife 3-0 Cowdenbeath (friendly) Cowdenbeath 0-3 Airdrie Arbroath 3-0 Cowdenbeath Six games against fellow part time teams, zero goals scored, 14 conceded 😄 We will win this game...

My word.. the thought is enough. Panic not, we will win this game and it is surely just a question of by how much. The Airdire and Edinburgh City games i am not so confident about..

Yeah i'd say a 3-0 win is a par score here, but we really should be winning by more. I can't see Arbroath not getting at least four points from their games against Edinburgh City and Airdrie, and if they do we can no longer win the group. To get through we will surely need nine points and a best runner up slot. With that in mind, goal difference may be important as there is likely to be a few second placed teams with 9 points. This game is the ideal chance to run up a score and get the goal difference that may be needed. By all accounts Cowdenbeath are expected to struggle in the lowland league next season.

Yeh we did, both of them got released by Rangers (lol). With Reid it's obvious he has no interest at being at the club beyond next summer and he will certainly not be signing another deal with us. We either let him go now and accept a deal that we can tailor to what we believe is best for the club long term, or let him go for a development fee next summer, where we will have much less control. There's no third option. I can't see him getting many minutes this season, so him leaving now is not going to have a great impact on the first team. He will be below O'Hara, Baccus and Erhahon and probably Flynn too for the centre midfield position. So yeah, i'd be inclined to take the money and the add ons now as opposed to going down the development fee route.

I'd expect our under 23's team to win this game. Cowdenbeath finished bottom of League 2 last year and got rinsed 4-0 on aggregate by Bonnyrigg in the playoff, and it seems like they've lost alot of their best players since. Airdrie beat them 3-0 on Saturday and we should be doing at least the same. With that in mind, i hope Robinson rings the changes from Saturday and gets some of the youngsters on from the start. He's been vocal about giving youth a chance, this is the game to do it: Urminsky Strain-Shaughnessy-Dunne-Tanser Reid-Erhahon Henderson-Kiltie-Offord Jamieson 0-6

Yeah good deal and glad he's extended for another year. Let's hope we don't see him playing wide left again.

I don't think it's unreasonable to say we should not be losing at home to part time teams. It has happened before, but it doesn't happen often, it tends to occur when the club is at a real low point. The last time we plunged such depths was a 0-1 loss against Dumbarton in 2017 when we were in the midst of a relegation battle in the second tier. The result and performance on Saturday was a return to those dark days. Don't see anyone realistically saying he should be sacked now - that would be ridiculous. However his record since arriving in February has been atrocious. 14 games, nine defeats, two draws, three wins. Two of those wins came against Mark McGhee's joke Dundee team. Given how terrible our end of season form was under him, he really needs to get a good start this season. That would be getting us out the league cup group (ideally as a seed) and getting three or four wins on the board from the opening set of 11 fixtures. If he fails to do either of those then his position will rightly come under threat. The league cup situation is out of our hands now, nine points might not be enough to get us through - it wasn't in 2017 - we will simply need to win our remaining three games and hope results elsewhere go our way. If we play in the league like we did on Saturday we will just lose every week, like we mostly have since he arrived. He's been backed in the window and he's been backed early, I don't remember us before having six new signings announced by this stage in the season before. Isn't he on record saying there might be one more, budget dependent? There's not going to be a huge amount of new arrivals, the vast majority of our summer business started the game on Saturday, and i thought all five of them played terribly. Since you brought up Jim Goodwin, we hadn't lost in any of the previous nine league cup group stage matches under him, up till Saturday. He never lost once in eight games against non full time opposition. And that lump it long to Ayunga - who didn't win a header all day - strategy we employed on Saturday was some of the most turgid football i've ever seen at St Mirren Park. Our only chances of note were headers from crosses into the box, we offered nothing else at all. It was a truly terrible watch.

We were a shambles tbh. We played a strange 4-3-3 formation which didn't really work at all. None of the five new signings that started played well and we got what we deserved, which was a defeat. Arbroath obviously have players who aren't as good as ours, and a much lower budget. The difference was they're a well coached and well drilled side. We certainly aren't and we haven't been since Robinson arrived.

None of those figures are correct.

Not sure where that is coming from, but it isn't true. We lost one home game in all competitions between July and February last season to teams outside the top three, so certainly not 'losing at home most weeks' On that performance on Saturday, it was down there with the worst i've ever seen from St Mirren. It was an important game and we were at home to a part time club with some of their team on holiday. We can't score and we can't keep a clean sheet. Simply good enough and things need to change and they need to change quickly.

Yes, why has no one moved this to the correct forum? 😅 We will surely win the game, a few of Arbroath's players are still on holiday apparently. It's a very kind draw and really four wins out of four in this group is what we should be aiming for.

Under six weeks till our first competitive game of the season, and we will welcome the best part time team in Scotland to Paisley. How many new signings will be making their debut here? A win against the team seeded second in the group will put us in the driving place for top spot, qualification to the next round and well on the road to Hampden. 2-0 O'Hara '12 Greive '84 Attendance 3,015

Spot on, these are very important games for the football club. We have two chances to win a cup every year, and this is one of them. We must - and i'm sure we will - take them seriously and we need to make sure we win the group.

Great draw, us and four part time teams. Anything that is not top of the group is unthinkable. We should be home to Arbroath and Edinburgh City and away to Cowden and Airdrie.

You imagine or you know? What are the figures? The club must have them, why aren't they being published? The figure we need is the extra ticketing revenue. Then we take away the additional stewarding / vandalism costs and the lost ticket revenue from home fans in the south stand for those games. Then we can weigh that figure against the less tangible effects of pissing off and displacing several of our fans and the sporting disadvantage of having opposition fans behind both goals in a home game.

Nah it's certainly more than a few dozen. Anyway, let's hope for transparency. The results of the survey should be published in full and then along with an explanation of why the decision to continue to give them two stands has been made. Not sure what we need a survey for right enough. Surely a simple yes or no question would suffice...? It's clear what is happening is the club knows that the majority of fans want the OF to have one stand only. However, the board and the chairman want to continue to give them two. There's now gerrymandering and spin going on before they inevitably announce the unpopular decision. My guess is we will get a mealy mouthed statement in the next few weeks along the lines of: ' The results of the survey were mixed and we appreciate that some fans have strong feelings about this. However, due to the current financial climate the board has decided to continue to offer Rangers and Celtic two stands for the coming season' Hope i'm wrong!

Anecdotal i know, but i can count on one hand the amount of St Mirren fans i've spoken to in person and/or online who support giving them two stands. Just need to look at this thread or any of the other various platforms to see that the vast majority who are active on social media are against it. Why don't we put it to a SMISA vote, and then publish the results? That's surely the most democratic and transparent way. I think we know the answer to why they won't do that, because it will show overwhelming support for cutting them back to one stand ( i guess at least 80/20) and that would go against the wishes of those running the club. FWIW i'm not that bothered about the one or two stand thing, there's clearly arguments for and against and i don't have strong feelings either way. It's very clear a lot of very loyal fans do though.

I think it's clear this is going to end up with them continuing to have two stands. Despite us being fan owned and the majority of the fans not wanting this. It will be interesting to read the statement from the club regarding it..

I see Callum Hendry scored again for the Saintees last night, he's been excellent for them since coming back from his loan at Killie. He's 24 and out of contract in the summer, definitely one i think we should be offering a deal too.

I would 100% take him back if he's fit. Was one of County's best players last year and is proven at this level. He's versatile so a good asset to have in the squad.