Dibbles old paperboy

Opportunity missed tonight, ahead of playing Celtic away and some other tough pre-split games it would have been good to make up another 2 points on Ross County and maintain the lead we had over Hamilton and Ross County. I do think Goodwin's substitutions are costing us. Did no one tell Goodwin the other scores tonight?

Posting this with the hope that in 15 minutes I have egg on my face. Jim brings on Andreu and Morais from a bench that also has McAlister (great game at the weekend), Mullen...does Jim really want to win the game or not? Andreu! Morias! Durmus off!

BBC said Hartley was lucky to avoid a booking on two occasions. 13 fouls from them and 1 booking, 9 fouls by us and 6 players booked including Famewo and Hladky for timewasting while Obika was making his way off the pitch - how much time can you waste when another player hasn't left the field in a substitution?!

Morais misses a good chance and could have played Foley in for a certain goal to finish the game.

Andreu plays as if he is an Accie on a covert operation to miss as many sitters in a St Mirren shirt as possible (eg last week's penalty kick missed by a mile)

Not long until Morais is brought on!

Given our inability to string a few wins together (ala Killie or St Johnstone) I doubt Hearts or Accies fans will be overly worried about us disappearing out of sight before or during the split!

My post would suggest that I reckon Goodwin will stick with his favourites ahead of Mullen. I don't see Morais as being an improvement on Mullen - probably pretty similar.

Looking to the bench to see how we can change things. What odds on Goodwin bringing on Andreu, Morais etc and leaving Danny Mulllen on the bench? I don't think Mullen is a brilliant striker but he did get some important goals last season and he puts himself about and either has a decent game or a poor one with no in-between - no worse than Morais and Andreu. Going by BBC's website coverage we aren't looking too clever at the back again. Hodson has looked ropey since re-signing, Waters having a torrid time tonight and another mistake from our centre-halfs to give away the penalty and opening goal. Maybe Jack Baird and Paul McGinn were worth hanging on to?

Reporting Scotland covered a San Francisco girls' team about to do heading in training for the first time and then covered Rangers' game tomorrow night and said tomorrow night we'll look forward to Celtic's game the following evening. No mention of a premiership game this evening!

Motherwell have also hit the post in the 2nd half and had a few shouts for penalties (further clumsiness from Lee Hodson)

We signed Wank Broadfoot on a 2 year deal when he was almost 35 - wasn't a huge shock he got an injury and took ages to recover - 8 games played in half a season. We gave Gary MacKenzie a contract extension after he missed most of last season through injury. Played in 5 league games last season and has so far managed 10 this season. Last season Lee Hodson missed half the season through injury - who do we sign to replace Paul McGinn who was fit enough to play 35 league games last season? Out injured in his first start for us this season!

Some managers do turn down offers from bigger clubs and more cash so that they can develop themselves and get more experience with the club they are with before seeking a move to a higher level, e.g Jim Goodwin at Alloa turned down the chance to speak to us when Jack Ross left and he knocked back Dundee a year later. Derek McInnes also ruled himself out of the running of a few bigger, better paid jobs to stay at Aberdeen.

Quite disrespectful of Jack 'SMTID' Ross to broadcast his discussions with St Mirren about Paul McGinn before a deal has been concluded... here's hoping Paul does a Goody, talks to Hibs and then decides to stick with the Buddies and Jack is left looking a little less gallus.

Andreu on for Paul McGinn - interesting substitution when we are 1-0 up away from home against 10 men.

Lewis has been a Celtic player for almost 18 months. The only time he started every game during that time was when he was loaned back to St Mirren FC in the Championship. He's heading for being a third of the way through his Celtic contract now. He started a decent number of games for Sunderland but had mixed reviews there. If Celtic have most of Forrest, Hayes, Sinclair, Johnston, Shved all fit then Lewis doesn't even make the bench. He's started a grand total of 6 Celtic games. Since Lennon and Hibs didn't part company on the best of terms we might have a better chance of landing Lewis, but if clubs like Aberdeen or Killie were also in for him I would guess they would be seen as a more attractive option than us. Last year when Brendan Rogers was still around you could see the logic of staying and fighting for his place and then going to a big club like Sunderland. A year further on we might not look like such a backward step when most weeks he isn't in the Celtic starting XI or on the bench. If he goes on loan, Celtic might want to see what he can do at Scottish premiership level week in week out up until the summer when he'll be halfway through his contract.

Are you looking for a St Mirren-related present for Christmas? This Saturday (23rd November) at Oakshaw Trinity Church's Christmas Coffee Morning and Sale (10am - 12 noon) there will be a mini-auction during which 2 signed footballs from St Mirren FC will be up for auction. The first ball is a signed matchday ball used in the game against Celtic on 3rd April 2019 (and has been signed by players in last year's team like Popescu, Dreyer etc) and comes in a presentation case. The second ball has the St Mirren club crest on some of the panels and has been signed by this season's squad. We can't accept online bids from social media sites so please come along and bid in person if you are interested. The mini-auction will be held around 11.30am at Oakshaw Trinity Church, 6 School Wynd, Paisley, PA1 2DB. Photos of the two autographed footballs have been posted on the St Mirren Supporters and St Mirren Fans pages on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10162877868496337&set=pcb.10162877877281337&type=3&theater&ifg=1

Murray's second full season season at Dumbarton should have been looked at by the SMFC board. They even got hammered by a Cowdenbeath side who finished bottom that year.

Wonder how many goals we'd get from Fergie's attack, attack, attack philosophy matched with our current group of strikers?

That was the point I was making; i.e. if he was fully fit why did he only play 5 or 6 games in half a season and in 2 or 3 of them he looked as if his legs had gone well before the end of the game. This season he has played 1 whole 90 minutes (almost) and we're midway through November. Would love to see Kyle do well for us - even if he got his confidence and fitness back and played for 60 minutes, 25 league games a season he could make a big difference. So far he hasn't looked as if he has been fit since the summer or confident.

What facts would that be? He was pain free and fully fit when he was on loan with us before the summer and yet how many 90 minutes did he play for us then. (Answer... 5 or 6 full 90 minutes in half a season!) He was clearly struggling by the end of the season again in the double-header against Dundee United and a couple of games a week towards the end of the split and extra time in the play off final second leg (just checked he was subbed before extra time due to looking well and truly goosed)... and he only started playing 90 minutes after Dreyer got injured with a handful of games left! Given that this season he has had 1 game where he played for 87 minutes (Livingston) I would say the jury must be out on whether he is past all his historic injury problems.

Strange then that when Oran "had no input into planning for the season ahead" (GLS) that we began our pre-season preparations with games in Belfast and against the very side who GLS said it was an open secret from April than Oran would be rejoining - likewise our linking up with a team in Northern Ireland. Strange also that 10 days before Oran was sacked Oran and GLS gave interviews to STV discussing the season ahead and quashing speculation that Oran would return to part-time football with Coleraine. None of Oran's priority targets were made competitive offers by the club, but GLS landed his own top target... Kyle McAllister. I think it is a lot more likely that Oran and GLS had a rammy about this season's budget and Oran feeling that the board weren't going to back him in the summer window to bring in Popescu and others and disagreeing on signing targets for the season ahead. After the rammy the working relationship had broken down and a parting of the ways became inevitable. In the final 3 months of last season we began to look like a mid-table team form-wise and in terms of results. Oran had raised expectations that if we built on that finish we could be in or around the top 6 this season. Fitzpatrick and GLS also spent much of the close season talking about the top 4 or 6 being our aim this season. With the budget being reduced and Oran being over-ruled / not backed on summer signings he perhaps thought we risked another season of battling to avoid relegation again. I think Oran felt that if the board were going to keep setting an aim of top 4 or top 6 while season tickets were being sold that to reduce the budget behind the scenes and ignore his signing targets was a recipe for us being relegated and had that happened people may have thought he had been lucky to beat the drop last summer and had been found out this season.

Baird has scored 50% of Morton's goals in the last 3 games! St Mirren have conceded 8 goals in their last 3 games.

Popescu we said we tried to sign. So, out of the 12 league games so far this season in how many games so far would you say that Kyle McAllister has played well, or even managed to look fully fit?

I can't think of many games when McAllister was playing under Goodwin where he has looked decent... maybe in the final 2/3rds of the season he'll get fit and find some form.