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The team have pretty much done that.

The club, we'll see what league one football does to us.

Teams don't perform just because people turn up. However teams that spend money, are generally more successful and in turn more people turn up. Football, for all it being tribal is dictated by success. And success is generally related to wages paid and money spent.

What we've witnessed as a club is purely down to lack of investment in the first team. No scouting system, spending money on a youth set-up instead of first team players, wasting money on paying employees who aren't with the club the list goes on. All of these contribute to why we are so poor, and why people will stop bothering to go to games.

If we throw money at the team in January, which we should but won't. We narrow the pitch, and realise the most effective way for us to play football is putting the ball directly into dangerous areas for the opposition, whilst pressuring that area to force the opposition to start making the mistakes. We might start getting results.

I have little faith in us getting near the playoff place. I expect the most movement we'll see in January is Ross narrowing the pitch, "to make us harder to beat", despite us needing the major investment that the first team has been starved of over recent years, in favour of 'promoting our own'.
There isn't enough, technical ability, tactical guile, or even work-rate amongst our current team to get us to suddenly start picking up points.
 

Didn't the chief engineer of the Titanic once say 'she can't sink' and in sheer desperation stayed with the boat until it went under. I'd love to be able to share the optimism that we won't go down but without a single win and a couple of draws all season I don't see anything so far to give me any optimism that we won't go anywhere but down, and it hurts to say it

If we're not picking up points performances haven't improved. Simple as that.

For all Rae being shite he done more with the squad than what Ross has.

Jack Baird didn't lose us this game. There's was still 10 men on the pitch with a half to play, in which our complete lack of tactical awareness and mental strength has been exploited. But Baird absolutely deserves to get absolutely slaughtered for his sending off.  
 
 
 

This lunatic idea that dropping down a division was aired when we were in the top league. An absolute disaster of an idea on every count as we're in a shit position as it stands. Dropping down again would see us disappear from any sort of competitive standard for Years to come. No thanks, staying up is a must.

You only have to look at how the colt teams did in the Irn Bru cup against League 1 and 2 teams this season to see that throwing most of our eggs in the youth development basket might not improve results much. Please can we hire some scouts to find us decent players in their mid-20s?

Watching the replay, what are Naismith and the right mid doing? Absolutely awful positioning.

Please explain why?
The youth academy has produced zero transfer fees for players, other than McGinn who was out of contract and forced his move. We are outlaying money that is bringing no financial gain back to the club. A key element to any decent youth system is making money out of players, ideally with minimal outlay.
The youth academy has produced zero players who stand out at Championship level in my eyes. What we have is a lot of carbon copy players, who lack any realy technical ability, tactical nous or physical stats, that make them stand out over a course of games.
Is the youth squad not toiling in the under 20's league as well?
The youth academy has added nothing in real terms to the club, other than a self congratuarly pat on the back for bringing through our young players who play football the 'right way'. When all evidence shows, that they are all mainly incapable of being competitive, and mainly aiding the team in getting results.
Since we decided that our youth products were the way forward, we have slipped down the leagues. With investment being withdrawn, as we apparently have youth players ready to step up. When we never have.
We should be looking to attact players from other systems, let someone else do all the work then reap the rewards. What does our youth academy offer compared to other teams, why would a young player sign for us instead of someone else? Are we selling players on, are our players making headlines? No, quite simply our youth 'academy' set-up is a bit of a joke.
We should be looking outwith Scotland instead of relying on a tiny pool of players in the West of Scotland; who it appears we can't even scout fully  to attempt to cherry pick the best.
The sooner we overhaul or bin the current set-up the better. It could be decent but it's far from it.
 

The joys of attempting to be financially prudent in the game of football...

They really don't. We have to hope we can overhaul the entire squad in January.
 
As going down will cripple the club and support. Imagine the standard of dross we'll be looking to sign when we are relegated... I really don't fancy us pinning hopes on a youth academy that lets be frank isn't any good.

Sums up all of our 'youth' products. Technically not good enough, physically behind and mentally fragile.
Far too much focus and hope has been spent on playing football the 'right way', which has only produced a handful of players who fail to standout in an awful Championship side, was there not a hope we could one day field an entire team of our youth players? 
The sooner we rip up the half arsed approached we have to developing youth products the better. I'd rather see every penny spent on scouting.
 

How can you say it wasn't a gamble? Jack Ross has no experience of full time management ever, his only experience in this league was taking a part time team down. It was the absolute definition of a gamble.
The issue is we don't have a few weeks, a months more performances like Tuesday and today and we could be 10 points adrift at the bottom of the league.
We needed a fire fighter, someone who could come in and kick arses and get it changed quickly. I'm sure Jack has a 'philosophy' and that and he might even be a good manager one day. If he had a full summer and a pre season he might even have been a success with us.
To give him - indeed to give any rookie - the job when we were bottom of the league in October was madness. Got to feel for him, he's been given an absolute hospital pass and it could finish his managerial career.
You're right though, it's not his fault, you can't expect a rookie like him to turn it around quickly, and you also can't blame him for accepting the appointment. It's the fault of those who appointed the rookie.

The joys of attempting to be financially prudent in the game of football...

Sounds like we should just go 4-4-2 and bypass the midfield all together. Force Dumbarton into making a mistake rather than us showing any quality. 

The music on St. Mirren radio is absolute fücking pish

I'm definitely more in the uninspired camp.

I really hope I'm wrong but I don't see much differing in his approach than the last two managers. Hopefully his work with the players association might help us with players and agents, other than demanding higher bonuses and going to the press regarding it.

Otherwise who he brings in as assistant will play a big part. I'd be very wary if Goodwin is involved in the set up again.

Sectarian abuse is absolutely embarrassing. How pathetic. A lot of our fans were more angry about the fact that we didn't lose yesterday than the fact we didn't win.
Also, if somebody says to you "I've paid mah money, ah can say whit ah want" you are almost certainly in the presence of a dickhead. 

We have an identity St. Mirren, a 'style' of football doesn't improve that. The only thing that matters is results, even if comes from short passing or long balls, a win is a win.

Name any club in the world that can boast having a home grown squad? It just doesn't happen. Our scouting range for youth players probably doesn't extend out of Scotland, teams with a world wide scouting network can even achieve promotion of a team of their players. The youth set up should have little input from any manager. There should be a youth development manager who oversees the youth groups, with each youth group coach allowed certain freedoms when it comes to tactical set up.

Imagine letting someone like Tommy Craig have any influence on a long term youth set up...

If people want the youth set up to be the main thing we should throw money at it. Cut the first team budget as much as possible and cross our fingers that we sell any youth player for decent money on a regular basis.

Some of these ideas are fantasy material.

The club and fans will not except anything other than short term success. Betting on a program that would potentially reward us after 6 years just doesn't work at this level. We can't afford to potentially waste that capital on something that's more likely to fail.

The youth set up, needs to be run as a separate entity to the first team. With the primarily focus on selling players. If a couple make first team appearances that's a bonus. But the only success is from income from transfers. Which can then be used to increase youth scouting and sign better players for the first team.

The idea of a footballing identity just doesn't make sense for a club our size. We rely on being able to sign any player who's cheap that's better than what we have then build a tactic that suits the group. We don't have the resources to pick and choose who we can sign because they don't fit our system. The same with managers.

People need to accept our limitations of our club. But there is quite a few things we can definitely improve in.

The supporters group is full of f**king mouth breathing mutants. 

If his coaching ability is what it was, he's a dead cert to get approached by us when we look for a new manager...

He would be an awful appointment. We never be looking at someone who was stripped of their coaches responsibilities during one of our worst seasons.

Passion doesn't make a good player or manager.

Stephen Mallan plays like someone 5 stone overweight.

Poor finishing cost us that, coupled with extremely naive moments at the back.

I feel sorry for the fans that feel the need to rush to the front and shout abuse at Rae.

My first live game since the cup game against Livingston.

I watched the game online at the weekend and we looked alright going forward we just need to stop gifting goals through awful individual play.

I'm looking forward to a quiet forum as we romp to a 4-0 victory with everything clicking into place. With only former Rangers players scoring just to annoy everyone.