Julian Banjos

Heaton as well though.... The manager's area of expertise on the pitch, £75K and a 3 year deal? I assumed the defence would be built around him but he's going to be in the reserves. The game at Rugby Park, Kpekawa was signed just hours before, said himself he wasn't anywhere near fit yet, there he was, into the team ahead of Heaton.

Doubt it. We don't have another keeper and Aberdeen signed Tomas Cerny last week to take Rogers' place.

Twitter rumour that one of the summer signings will be leaving too this week. Given, he's had very little game time and is behind Ross Stewart in the pecking order (even though RS being allowed to go) you'd guess it would be Cody Cooke....

Nabi has indeed signed for Dundee now. 6 month deal.

Young squad now (especially if G.Mac and A.Eck move on): Samson - 34 P. McGinn - 27 Coulson - 20 Baird - 22 Kpekawa - 22 Willock - 21 S. McGinn - 29 Magennis - 19 Mullen - 23 Smith - 22 Stewart - 21 ------ Rogers - 24 Heaton - 21 Flynn - 29 Kellerman - 20 King - 22 Erhahon - 17 Cooke - 25

Poor draw but good thing to get through. If we hadn't we'd have had a free weekend after the game at Ibrox. With the new manager and a few new players we want the competitive games to keep coming. Hamilton are the only Premiership team who missed out and will be kicking their heels.

Given Stubbs' history it's a surprise we haven't brought in a young player from Everton yet. They're probably holding on to see if they get can get them out to the English Championship or League 1. Might be last minute deals at the end of the transfer window.

Worth remembering that Buddievision went some way to filling the media void clubs face when outside the top league. This season, by the end of each weekend, we'll have HD highlights of all our league games on BBC and there's the SPFL YouTube channel as well.

I think this cup format is excellent too. It did throw up that ridiculous situation last year though: was it Ian Cathro's last game at Hearts? A dead rubber game which culminated in a penalty shoot-out! Stevie Clarke said, given how early in the season we're playing, 5 subs instead of 3 would be a helpful tweak for the group stages. We might see that next year.

.. so undefeated, 3 clean sheets, 8 goals at home and safely through. In the next round we'll play one of the following: Old Firm, Hibs, Aberdeen, Ayr, Dunfermline, St Johnstone, ICT / Livi

Yes, make that 5!

4 ex-St Mirren players in the Dumbarton team and a first start for Rory Loy: Adam, Perry, Dowie, C Barr, Dyer; Hutton, Carswell; Paton, Forbes, Barr; Loy.

Interesting that with Baird, Kpekawa and Heaton starting on Tuesday, it's the guy we splashed the cash on that drops to the bench...

....which is completely unprofessional. A St Mirren employee posting something ambiguous which has caused a shitstorm to the detriment of the club. He has done himself no favours in this.

Adam has not said that he's not injured!

I'd go further than saying #teameck is a cringe, I think it's really poor (from Div I presume). That stuff was posted after the manager stated to the press that AE was injured, so he's basically being publicly undermined by a prominent supporter. That feed has a pretty wide reach..... not good for us as a club. Stubbs attempted to put the issue to bed yesterday but now he'll probably have to deal with it again. Don't get it at all.

JR said we'd need more physicality in the Premiership. Dare I say it, I think Willock would be his kind of signing. On top of that, a good sign that we've seemingly persuaded him to come to us rather than return to St Johnstone.

Magennis has really gone out of his way to tell porkies there then hasn't he? Not just lying about liking Stubbs but also how good training is and how team spirit is developing. Perhaps he also lives in that imaginary world of yours where Gary MacKenzie had to be "escorted off the premises"? Was it Kyle that huckled Gary out onto Greenhill Road last Tuesday?

Kyle not one one of them then? Here's what he said today: "I think it was always going to be tough but the manager has come in and he has been brilliant. He has got a good team spirit going, training has been good, so I don’t see why we can’t go and do well like last year." https://www.stmirren.com/news/club/all-news/2026-kyle-magennis

Some amount a nonsense being talked on here from the usual suspects. Given the candidates, Stubbs was the best possible appointment for St Mirren. Look at his CV: Captain of Bolton at 22, England B international, Celtic's record signing, numerous trophies, Champions League experience, played 5 seasons in the English Premiership. Worked for and learned from Bruce Rioch, Tommy Burns, Wim Jansen, Martin O'Neill, Walter Smith, David Moyes and Mick McCarthy, to name a few. He started on the road to management because he was handpicked, at the age of 36, by David Moyes to coach their young players. Don't forget either that Stubbs was diagnosed with cancer twice; the second time he thought it was gone then they found a tumour at the bottom of his spine during a routine scan. Chemotherapy and an operation followed. His kids were 2 and 4 at the time. He came back from that to play nearly 200 games for Everton. This is a strong and determined character. As for getting the sack from Rotherham, Derek McInnes and Steve Clarke suffered similar fates and are doing okay now... Who really thinks, if they were a member of our board, that a teacher from Northern Ireland, Jim McIntyre or Gary Caldwell would be better options? What Stubbs has done so far with us..... obviously his first problem is that he's not Jack Ross and there's nothing he can do about that. The "marquee signings" chat was a mistake. No doubt. I think he was on a wee bit of a high being back in football and after a decent performance against Killie. What's happened with G. Mac and Eck, it doesn't look great from the outside but nobody knows what's happened there (though waiting for billyg to make something up again) Regarding Eck, Stubbs signed him for Hibs so he knew what he was getting with that player. Given Eckersley's age and injury history I think it's safe to say Coulson is a better option. As for signings, they will come. Call me mad, and I know that a whole 13 days have now passed since his first game in charge, but I remain optimistic we'll be a success under Stubbsy.

Adil Nabi, one of Saturday's trialists, played a friendly for Dundee earlier in pre-season and is back training with them again today. McCann is having a very good look at him. Might be playing against us in the first game of the season!

Dundee struggling after 3 went off injured yesterday. Their main map up front, Moussa, "heard a crack" before he was subbed early in the game and replaced by a teenager. Like us, they're really short up front. https://sport.bt.com/video/mccann-rues-dundee-injuries-on-disappointing-day-91364284977816

What's frustrating is that we've lost our position of being several weeks ahead of the competition in our preparations for this season. We sealed promotion on 14th April and it wasn't until 5 weeks later the season officially ended with the Livi-Thistle play-off. The same week the Jack Ross cavalcade began.... All planning was ripped up and we weren't even back to square one because, after Stubbs came in on June 12th, he had to quickly assess everyone at the club before considering recruitment. If JR was still the manager then I think the squad would be pretty much settled by now, but that's football. The upheaval of the managerial change has meant we're much further behind with the squad than we would like to be. Fortunately, there's still the best part of 6 weeks until the transfer window closes.

Heard today some comparisions with Tommy Craig signings like Callum Ball and James Marwood. The fact is though, putting the trialists to one side, most of the players involved today (11 out of 15) were Jack Ross signings or came through the Academy. We're still a long way away from having Alan Stubbs' team. The Stokes and Johnson deals falling through has obviously put us on the backfoot in terms of recruitment. Also, I think we need to get Heaton - Kpekawa playing together in central defence ASAP.

McShane an interesting inclusion. After hearing he was free to leave then missing from Friday's squad, I thought maybe that was the end of him at SMFC.