ds10

To be fair, Livingston were much better than I thought they would be and appeared really up for the game. The outplayed us in almost every department. And were definitely first to all the lose balls. The 4-2-3-1 formation really didn't work very well, and when we had the ball we were painfully slow in getting it forward. Nothing like enough movement in forward areas, we were extremely weak in that area last night. Also pretty weak on set pieces. Overall 2-3 players and a lot of hard work short of having a team challenging for promotion.

Based on the 90 mins at Alloa, I think we will struggle to make the play offs this season. I think we would need at least another 2-3 good quality additions to the squad to have a decent chance. 1. Dundee United 2. Inverness CT 3. Falkirk 4. Greenock Morton 5. Dunfermline Athletic 6. St Mirren 7. Queen of the South 8. Dumbarton 9. Livingston 10. Brechin City

I think they have already bribed us to avoid that, by bringing their glamorous side to face us in a friendly..........

Doubt it would be a loan, looks like he was released at the end of last season. And being not good enough to get into the team 5th from the bottom of League 2 means he probably fits the bill in terms of standard. But is he better than what we've already got?

Wow! Have you written you letter to Santa already?

In the real world, I think ambition is a luxury St Mirren can't afford (and certainly don't intend to)

Could have been one or two more of the list of players leaving, I think. As you say a big job for Rae, but at least he's well prepared. Interviewer “How far along are you, in terms of your plans for next season?” Alex Rae “Eh…I’ve got to be honest with you it’s relatively slow at the moment” Fills me full of confidence for next season! Roll on August, can't really be much worse than this year.

Although there has been some improvement under Rae, it is minimal to say the least. We have climbed a whole 1 place in the league since then, leapfrogging the mighty Dumbarton. We currently sit above three teams in the league who are all part time. Given the facilities we have, it would really be hard to be doing any worse. It's been a disaster of a season, for which Murray must take most of the blame. However Rae has had a transfer window and has been in charge of the team for more games than Murray but the team are hardly flying. To sum up I'd say Rae's done an average job to date, no better or worse than could reasonably be expected. Can he lift the performance of the team to challenge for promotion next year? I'd say the jury's still out, but there's been precious little so far to indicate that it's likely.

"Rae of hope"?? more like Rae of Pish. Get rid of the lot of them I say.

Hmm...Hope his situation is resolved one way or the other ASAP. Last years debacle at the same stage of the season did significant damage to the club. And now this latest speculation/set of offers seems ideally timed once again to cause maximum disruption to the club. Would it not be sensible to conduct this sort of business outwith the transfer windows at least?

Given how things were put across at the AGM I imagine he's been told, this is the budget use it how you see fit. If you want an assistant, it will have to come out of the budget you've been given. So it will probably be Rae's choice I imagine.

Just how is it that the club can decide who's getting the job before an interview has even taken place? It's no wonder thay have such an appalling track record at making appointments. Its amazing really just when I think you've heard everything, another story comes out that I struggle to believe. If there was ever a proposal to make a film about the demise of St. Mirren it will be rejected out of hand as no-one would be able to believe that a group of guys could make such an utter mess of every single decision that's put in front of them.

Still a 'Rae of hope' then that this nightmare scenario can still be avoided........ The way things have been going it wouldn't surprise me though.

Bookies have stopped taking bets.....seems to be a done deal. Out of the frying pan.............

Although he reportedly isn't interested in taking over full time, I can't really see the Board looking any further than Alex Miller at least for the remainder of this season. He's experienced, having worked at the highest level in coaching management, has been successful at Saints in the past and has offered to work for free (previously at least). I'm sure with a bit of arm twisting and a bit of PR nonsense about looking for other suitable candidates in the meantime, they will manage to persuade him to stay until May. After that if we stay up who knows.........

Surely that's the point of a job interview. You can't admonish the board completely in this case, it is their job to pick the right person for the job. And in this case they clearly didn't. I can't see much sign that Murray has got anything right since he started, from making Alan Gow his first signing onwards. Any hiring decision is always going to be a gamble. And any idiot could see that Murray had the kind of track record that would make him a candidate for the job. It was surely the Board's role to look beyond that by interviewing him and making use of their contacts to discern whether he was really the right person for the post. Obviously they appear to have got it very badly wrong. Or are the board simply supposed to stick a pin blindly in a list of names and hope for the best?

I see the prodigiously talented Mr Drury has now signed for Gainsborough Trinity, currently 15th in the National League North, the 6th tier of English football, just below Bradford Park Avenue but an impressive 2 places above FC United of Manchester. Mind you given the opportunity I'm sure Gainsborough Trinity would give Alloa Athletic a run for their money, which is a step ahead of anything we've achieved this season. Think this should really be in Other Football but this was the only thread I could find about Drury.

To be fair I'm sure it would have been Murray's decision. I expect Gilmour would have said to Murray "Either we bring Miller in as your assistant or you're sacked. You choose" Still don't completely understand the reasoning for making Spalding the scapegoat here, when he is really being sacked for Murrays failings. Having said that it was obvious something needed to be done and it's possible this may work out. Mind you it's been apparent things weren't going to work out since Spalding was appointed in June.

For those who can't read on the Herald... The Graham Spiers interview: St Mirren manager Ian Murray “Get f*****g Shankland on!” a St Mirren fan hollered angrily at Ian Murray on Sunday afternoon as his team fought desperately – and admirably – to get on level terms with Rangers. The sharp language must have been familiar to Murray, a man not short on incoming advice in recent months. The 34 year old admits he is in at the deep end at St Mirren, a club with fans not missing an attitude or two, and nursing a residual grievance at its relegation from the old SPL last season. Currently seventh in the Ladbrokes Championship, it has been a slow start by Murray and his team, and he confesses to his early failings along the way. “I’ve made mistakes, and there were maybe things that I underestimated at the start,” said Murray, reflecting on his opening, testy five months at the club. “The job is far bigger than is sometimes perceived. It is a fantastic club with a fantastic fan-base, but the job is a huge challenge. “The club had been relegated. There had been a large turnover of players. There have been budget cuts. I’m not complaining, because it’s a great job, but it’s maybe only now that I’m getting to grips with it. At the start, maybe I had my eye off the ball on a number of things.” Well, this is interesting – a football manager happily piping up on where he has gone wrong. You don’t hear this every day. But Murray is quite open about the fact that, in his opening weeks in his new job this summer, he didn’t quite appreciate the new environment he was in. “It had been a bit of a culture-shock for me,” he says. “I went from being Dumbarton manager, where I saw my players two nights a week at Toryglen, to seeing my players every day here, and sometimes eight or nine days on the trot. “It was a totally different environment to me. It’s not an excuse, but I think people maybe forget how big a change it represented for me. It’s maybe only now that I feel more in control. I think you’ve seen that in the last three or four weeks in our games.” Pressed on this further, Murray admits that St Mirren’s sluggish start to this 2015-16 campaign was down to his own pre-conceived ideas which he foisted upon his new players. Were he to go back to August, he says, he might do things a little differently. “At first maybe I tried too much in terms of formations and strategies. In this league sometimes it’s just about blood and guts, about doing the right things: in terms of tempo, in terms of pressing opponents, doing the right things in the right areas of the park. For instance, I’ve learned now to ask my full-backs, first and foremost, to be defenders. Never mind trying to get them to play like wingers, or whatever. “All I’m saying is, maybe I was asking too much of my players. I changed things around a lot and it wasn’t working, it wasn’t good for us. At Dumbarton every point was a prisoner. When I first came to St Mirren maybe I chopped and changed things too much. “If I’ve made mistakes, I’ve tried to recognise them and rectify them. We had a poor start to the season, which is why we are now trying to play catch-up. But I think in recent games, in terms of performance, there has been a resurgence. Mark Warburton made some complimentary comments about the way we tried to play against Rangers on Sunday.” No-one could accuse Murray of not trying to prepare himself properly as a manager. Even back in 2010, when he was 29 and still a player with Hibs, he took a coaching on on the side with Coldstream of the East of Scotland league, in order to get a taste of a career he was planning ahead of him. When he then got his first job with Dumbarton, and made a success of that, he seemed a man capable of controlling his own destiny. Alex Smith, a veteran of Scottish football managers, has long held the view that a young manager should start on a low rung, reasonably out of the spotlight, so that he can “make his mistakes and learn from them away from the media glare”. “Coldstream was just a chance that came my way,” says Murray. “I wanted to get the experience, and it was a level that I felt comfortable with. It gave me a chance to look at things, cope with difficult situations, just really dip my toe in the water. I was still playing for Hibs. “I know what Alex Smith means. When I was at Dumbarton there was no real great coverage of my work, beyond a very local level. If I made a mistake there, maybe some fans would pick up on it, but no-one else nationally. So you could make a mistake and be forgiven for it. “Coming to St Mirren, as I say, is a different ball-game. Much bigger and tougher. But I do believe that now we are making progress.” The pressure is on Murray. The St Mirren fans, quite rightly, expect to be in contention for promotion, which is not apparent in the Championship table at the moment. Murray is very clear about the onus on him, and the flak he has taken from sections of supporters this season. “This is a tough league,” he says. “You’ve basically got eight full-time clubs gunning for four places at the end of the season. So four are going to miss out, plus you take it as a given that Rangers will probably win the league. So we’ve got to try to make sure we get into one of three remaining play-off positions. “I don’t mind criticism. You expect that. You’re never going to have 4000 or 5000 happy faces all the time. The fans will always have sharp opinions. “But if you are going to go with decisions, then make them your decisions. If you are to fall by the sword, then at least do it your way. Yes, there is pressure and expectation at St Mirren. You just handle that. You wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Feel duty bound to point out that as a result of last week spectacular backs-to-the-wall performance in the draw against Hibs, Ian Murray has now dropped from the uncomfortable position of favourite to 3rd place behind a certain Danny Lennon. Mark Burchill has also leapfrogged the current St Mirren boss to 2nd place in the current list.

Good luck to Cheesy at Dunfermline. Have to say I'm quite surprised they could meet his apparent 20K a week wage demands............ Crowds must be up in League One.....

I see Motherwell have parted company with Baraclough after only managing a draw away to Morton over 90 mins. I wonder what they would have done had they lost at home to Dumbarton, Falkirk and Raith? Ladbrokes are now making Murray the favorite ‘Next Championship Manager to Leave’, quoting him as a Top Bet.......

While I agree with your opinion, for me this isn't the real issue. It's more or less an argument for scrapping the forum - people posting a bunch of opinions when they are not 'qualified' to do so. Of course that happens; that's the whole point of the forum. With a few notable exceptions, the vast majority of people who read and post on this forum are doing so because they care about Saints. If a lot of them are not happy, then I think the club should be paying attention and doing something about it. They are after all the target market for the club. In my opinion the days of blind loyalty are a thing of the past. Saints exist is a market place where there are a lot of other competing forms of entertainment, looking to secure peoples money and attention. Saints need to pay attention to customer service and if a lot of customers are unhappy they will eventually move on to other things. If they want to expand their fan base in the long term and improve the club this area is going to be increasingly important. I can't see a good argument for the media controlling anything, let alone people's opinions but I would have thought that the opinions of the suuporters would be a far more valuable resource for the club than the opinions of so called experts like Craig Burley, Hugh Keevins etc.

Admittedly you can't please all of the people all of the time, and results will obviously have a major impact but improving the relationship with the fans would certainly improve the chances of more fans staying around. I think that this is likely to become increasingly important as time goes on and there are more altenatives out there. Also I think it will be crucial to expanding the fan base, which should be a significant target for the club I would assume.

I'm not sure how there is any panic button pressing, I simply said the current state of the club is not acceptable.