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My tuppence worth - too long? Don't read. I'm as frustrated with the current situation as everyone else on here seems to be but I don't think there's an easy answer. We don't have endless funds to plough into the team and I saw in the global sports salary analysis that our first team are on an average wage of less than £1k per week. It's hardly rock star stuff. Notably, Motherwell (who pumped us on Tuesday) and Hamilton are the only two teams in the top flight with lower wages. Given the state of attendances, not just this season but also during our recent "glory" years, we can't afford to go and splash the cash to "invest for the future" as a few people seem to be suggesting. Our average gate this season so far is higher than 2 years ago and only 500 less than when we'd just won the Scottish Cup and were on the way to a fourth place finish and another European spot. This is likely down to the fact that we have relatively successful Hearts, Hibs, TFOE, TFOD and Aberdeen teams visiting regularly again but that has the counter-effect of reducing our chances of competing, given their relative means. I don't feel that Tommy has helped himself this season with some of his outbursts in the media and the constant links to NI and The Rangers but I'm not sure that there really is a better man out there for the job. Yes, changing the manager can sometimes get you a bit of a bump in results but when we got rid of Totten for McClelland it was a spectacular failure that we took years to come back from. Similarly, dumping Sandy Clark for Billy Stark set us up for 3 years of painful football before Owen then Del brought us back to the top flight. Careful what you wish for. In terms of the Browns, who else has put themselves forward to back Saints over the last 30 years? Who wants to invest in a club that can only drum up 4.5k fans when they're having the best run in their history? They've kept us stable, not put the club at risk and have generally looked out for what's best for St Johnstone. There's little thanks for what Geoff and Steve have done but given where we are I don't really see too much to complain about. They have stuck steadfastly to keeping the club solvent, like you would a business. Do we want to model ourselves on Dundee, Dunfermline, Airdrie, Motherwell, Livingston, Gretna who tried to speculate to accumulate before crashing and burning in spectacular fashion? I love Saints. I've been going to games for over 30 years and had a season ticket for most of that time (except when I was a poor student in Edinburgh and even then I made at least 10 games a season). Yes, I want our results to improve. I agree that our football has been poor over the last few months. But I am still proud to be a Saintee and put faith in the guys who have brought us so much success over the last few years.

Very much in agreement with the above two posts (but surprised that we pay higher average wages than Motherwell!). Also in agreement with Radford's earlier post that it's disappointing to see how eager some people seem to be to get rid of our most successful ever manager. As far as I'm concerned Tommy Wright has more than enough credit in the bank to be considered deserving of every possible opportunity to turn things round. I've said this on here before, but every time we've gone through a bad patch under TW, he's managed to bring us out the other side of it and bring us more success. Changing the manager should be an absolute, final, last resort. I do worry, though, that even if we stay up (and I think we will), we're in for a very difficult summer. If we finish in a lowly position Steve Brown won't take that as a kick up the arse for failing to build during our successful years; he'll see it as vindication for the decision to always budget for a poor finish. And if we struggled to attract players when we were doing well and able to offer European football, I can only imagine how hard it's going to be if we've just finished around 9th or 10th. Calling for a clear-out of the older players is fine, but could actually make things much worse if we're not able to replace them with new younger players who are up to playing at a similar level. Whatever happens, I personally think the club needs to take a serious look at both its player recruitment policy and its strategy (does one even exist?) for attracting fans through the gates.

I am on the same wavelength as you with this. A couple of things I would note. Saints have always had a small support recently and in these days of cash shortages for families there is not much incentive to spend your spare money going to football. That said SB has tried hard to make saints an affordable club to go and watch with the family deals etc but doubt it would change that dramatically even if entrance was slashed for adults. the aim for saints has always been to survive in the premier league and we have achieved that over the years yes this season we are in free fall but survival is still in our hands so I suppose we are on course to achieve that again at this point in time. The one thing recently I would say is SB showed as being a little over arrogant in his recent interview by saying he listens to other board members but does what he thinks anyway that in its self is not a great attitude as others may have ideas to make things a little better. His father saved saints from oblivion that is a fact and I remember meetings years ago when he came in for the same flack as SB is now regarding money when he famously flashed is cheque book showing that he had personally paid for the Alan Moore signing (I think it was him but I’m old). I think we all need to calm down a bit some of us old guard remember when things were much worse than this.

It’s easy to follow your team when things are going your way, not such a treat when things are not...so all I will say... this is the time for us all to get off our backsides and get behind our team! It’s bad enough they way we are treated by the majority of the media/ other sides/ referees, so the last thing we need is our own fans treating us the same! So Saints are a ‘diddy’ team?! But their OUR ‘diddy’ team!! Let’s get behind them COYS

I might be stupid and slightly naive but The Browns have been great owners for our club. I don't think we have to be ever thankful but they stood up and helped out when maybe no-one else was prepared to. Its a shame that no other big business family from Perthshire has showed much interest in St Johnstone. The likes of Brian Souttar or the whisky companies when they were more family owned I hoped would have stepped forward. Having a pop at The Brown family is completely unfair. My opinion only.

Exactly, we need the fans more than ever. A big turnout v Ross County at the end of the month is what we need. Roar the lads on for 90 plus. We must get out of this mess together.

Walking around a supermarket today in london hearing sweet Caroline playing on the tanoy i love saints no matter what as Wendy saints said this is the time to get behind the club tommy and the players and show our support

Credit to Caulker for talking openly about his struggles at every club he's been at but he's not without risk, especially if they're throwing decent money at him. 18 months is a long time to pay big money if he doesn't turn his career around. He's likely to have ability and could be a real asset for them but I'm not sure that we would want to take the risk on signing him and potentially end up with him on the books in the Championship (as Dundee may well find).

He was backed this year with the signings of Scougall and MOH. McMillan as well.

I don’t get the clamour on here and elsewhere wanting Dave McKay back. He has a long way to go to prove himself as a Premiership level manager ( and before anyone says it I know the Championship may be looming). Has everyone conveniently airbrushed out of their memories the managerial reign of John Connolly, a club legend as a player but a disaster as a manager, who had previously done ok with Queen of the South. I would rather leave my memories of Dave as a club legend intact and if and when Tommy leaves let the board make the appropriate appointment. Let us remember the board under the Browns have a pretty decent record of management appointments. In my view the only real failures have been as mentioned John Connolly and Billy Stark. The present management team may well have had its time but personally I think there is still something there, see this season out and yes with some investment from the Browns in the summer the good times can continue

Hard not to agree with this. I know this argument has been done to death but it still rankles me that if you go back to the summer of 2014 we did nothing to build on the momentum, excitement and goodwill generated by the Cup win. We let go of key players (Cregg, Hasselbaink) who the manager apparently thought he'd be able to replace, then ended up not being able to sign anyone - and we had all that nonsense with claiming we were trying to sign David Goodwillie only to go back on it and say he was never a target. Looking back, I'd say that was the start of the increasingly regular public spats between TW and SB. On top of that, criminally, was the complete inability to target the potential new fans from the Cup final and the open-top bus parade and get season ticket info to them quickly. I know the club's approach is to treat survival as the number one priority, but there have been big opportunities to kick on and grow the support and attract better players and right now it feels like those opportunities were allowed to simply slip away. In fact I'm not convinced that Steve Brown would even acknowledge that those opportunities existed - his attitude just seems so backward and old fashioned at times. I remain confident we'll stay up this season, but after a season like this one attracting good players and attracting more supporters is only going to get harder.

McMillan's due back in the next week or so. If Tommy is after a player who would guarantee you goals then Anthony Stokes is the obvious solution. He creates a whole host of other problems due to his attitude and lack of discipline though. Can only agree with the general tone of the last page or so. We're lucky to have Tommy as a manager, lucky to have the benefit of Steve's financial prudence (even if he does push it a bit far sometimes) and that duo should be given as much opportunity to get us out of this slump as possible. With regards to attracting new players - I think releasing a large number of players in the summer would open our budget up some what and make it slightly easier to sign players. As things stand, our squad for next season looks like; Zander Clark Richard Foster Aaron Comrie Jason Kerr Joe Shaughnessy Liam Gordon Brian Easton David Wotherspoon Stefan Scougall Liam Craig Kyle McClean Chris Kane David McMillan 13 players signed up with 14/15 (M. Hurst, Mannus, Watson, Anderson, Tanser, Millar, Alston, Davidson, Willock, Williams, G. Hurst, Hendry, Maclean, Johnstone and possibly McCann) either out of contract or with loans expiring. If we get rid of a majority of those guys, some wont need to be replaced like for like because younger players have stepped in or because they're surplus to requirements now. If Tommy is given the same budget (or even slightly less) he will be able to spread it between fewer players and theoretically replace the old heads with younger players of similar quality with higher wages per player to attract them here. I suppose it depends how deep Tommy wants to cut but there's certainly plenty of opportunity for an overhaul this summer. We certainly don't need a squad of 28 players, all but one with top team experience at Saints. A lot of the players listed above will be among our highest earners too. I'd like to see Tommy use his contacts in France to bring in one or two players. Habran looked good and has signed for a top flight club in Belgium, so that seems like it could be a fruitful market. If we are finishing 8th/9th/10th or worse then I don't see why we shouldn't take a couple of calculated gambles on something a bit different to try and move ourselves back up the table.

That was 3 seasons ago. We went on to finish 4th in the league 3 seasons in a row. Dundee can only dream of finishing 4th. There must be a reason Caulker wasn't offered anything in England. This seasons problems have absolutely zero to do with signing Brian Graham 3 seasons ago.

Wonder if the balloons had "Congratulations on passing your driving test" printed on them.

I think having Dave McKay back at the club would be a real plus but to talk or do it now is knee jerk. Alec is as has been mentioned, very respected as a youth coach. Be grateful, we could have Graham Murty as our youth coach ! Then there is the discussion on how good Callum is. Well his involvement under Strachanin the national team is a fantastic endorsement. We have the right people around us. We just need to get out of this mess.

That’s the way to go. First team playing crap sack the under 20s manager.

Tommy has earned the right to get out of this stale period (the very first in his reign), but I'd like to see him show a ruthless side with the players that are no longer adding what they once did. Macca is well and truly done at this level. He's a legend, but his time has come. I'd rather have Kane, Johnstone, McMillan, Hendry or Hurst in the team now, even if all they can bring is some fire and energy. Ando still has something to offer the club, but others should be shown the same patience he has been shown in recent months. Kerr and Gordon will make the odd mistake, but it's not as if they are being asked to replace the 2014 partnership of Ando and Wright. Forster is a liability in my opinion. Comrie deserves the chance of a solid run ahead of him. Millar needs to be in the starting XI until we find another player that likes taking the ball into feet and trying to play possession football. Scougall must also be given a central role behind a front man/men. I'm sure Wright would argue it leaves us without height in the middle of the park, but with a bigger option in the middle alongside them in the form of Davidson or Willock and the likelihood of better football when in possession I'd take the risk. I actually believe we will need a major reshaping of the squad for next season, with a fair few of the old guard moving on, but I'd hope that in the meantime we can motivate them to repay what the club has given them.

I think the gloves are off now and if anyone doesn't think we could slip out the league they are smoking exotic herb. We have lost our identity - closing down teams with our energy and wearing them down- teams use to hate playing us - "St.Johnstone ? bunch of Fermers who squeeze the life out of the game .." ( listen to Levien when Hearts drew us in the cup). We need to get back to that and sadly a few of the old guard need to be on the bench for the foreseeable future and be used as squad players when injuries and suspensions bite and they will.

I think it might be the game that gives us our confidence back.

No, you'll be thinking of Jonny Williams, was at Crystal Palace but not sure where he is now.

Just had a £50 fine for parking in the home bargains car park in coatbridg. Hit a pothole on the way there £115. Most expensive cup tie ever.