Radford 72

Scott McCulloch. Great to see a player not afraid to give a bit of banter back! Hope the bloke in front of you took it in good spirits!

Good point!

Highlights here.

You said earlier he'd be fired up for this game but was that not the problem against Clyde? Their players were giving him verbals about playing for Celtic (who they knocked out of the Cup) and he reacted. He let himself and the club down against Clyde and we can't afford a similar scenario on Wednesday. IMO there is two guys in the squad (McLaren and Sheridan) who deserve to start ahead of him. Possible but I think we could focus on good deliver at set pieces and Hardie just getting forward to support when he can. Pace will probably hurt them more. What I would say is Owen needs to be prepared to haul Jason off if he's not gonna track back and work hard; we need to defend from the front.

Do they not like cross balls! Hope United haven't just pissed them off!

Wonder who Rangers will play? In the last round he didn't start any players that didn't feature in their matches either side of the cup tie so it will probably be a strong side.

Shame the game is being a bit overshadowed by the managerial situation but hopefully the Pars will name someone else tomorrow and we can focus on this. Huge decisions for Coyle to make. Peaso will work his socks off, is a better finisher and is the man in possession of the jersey but Jason is Jason, our best player and the one guy who feel could do them real damage. Lawson uses the ball intelligently but let himself get would up against Clyde because of his Celtic connections. McLaren needs a bit of faith shown in him and with Shez you are guaranteed to get someone who won't freeze and would be a good influence on those around him. I'd go dogs of war in the centre of midfield with Sheridan and Mensing, with Hardie and Sheerin in the wide areas. Feel sorry for Peaso but Jason has to start in attack IMO. Halliwell Lawrie - Anderson - McManus - Stanic Hardie - Mensing - Sheridan - Sheerin Scotland - Milne Subbies: Cuthbert, Lawson, McLaren, MacDonald, Jackson.

I can't believe anyone can find the time to starting picking faults with players after yesterday! The whole team played well. Our players have limitations, they are not world beaters, hence why they are playing at this level. We have to accept Martin Hardie doesn't have a great first touch, Willie McLaren isn't going to push guys off the ball but they bring other things to the team. Hardie won some great headers yesterday and played a great pass to Peaso for the second... so what if every now and again his attempted first touch lands in Almondbank!

Much more like it from Saints today as we maintained our good home record with an impressive performance against a Thistle team who also played well in the second half. McLaren and MacDonald started for us instead of Lawson and Scotland and we took control straight away, McLaren nearly opening the scoring after MacDonald had forced an error from the Thistle defence. The opening goal as (another) beauty from Sheerin he cracked a volley from outside the box low past Kenny Arthur. Sheerin then hit the angle of bar and post as Saints looked for a second. Thistle were struggling to get out of their own half but did Roberts did force Halliwell into a great save in their only attack of note. Thistle looked a lot more dangerous in the second period and some of the one touch stuff between Donnelly, Young and Roberts was threatening although McManus and Anderson were superb again for us, in fact the whole back four was. Our second goal was a superb volley from Peaso after he was played in on the right side of the box. Thistle forced Halliwell to make a good low save then Jimmy Gibson blasted over after neat build up from Young and Donnelly. Andy Jackson should've sealed the points but knocked just wide after being played in. The game was played at a pretty high pace and I for one really enjoyed it. Both teams tried to play good football and Thistle showed, at times, why they've done so well but we were near enough top gear today and looked impressive. Chris Boyle wasn't as bad as I expected. He gave a lot against Thistle but then contrived to book Sheerin and McManus for their only fouls of the game! Thistle fans probably weren't impressed by him. Mention to Scott McCulloch too for indulging in a bit of banter. He comes over to take a throw and is met with the "you fat b'stard" taunts. One guy is standing up laying into him so McCulloch just looks at him, points and then laughs before rubbing his head, taking the piss out of the guy who was bald! Great to see!

Choices aplenty again! I'm going to pick Steven Anderson (I only ever seem to pick him or Sheerin) who I thought was outstanding again.

Saints 2-2 Partick Thistle Big Mad Mental Martin Hardie 3,300

I hated Dallas but at least, while he may have wanted to be centre of attention, he wasn't totally incompotent. This new batch are woeful. All new referees should have to be vetoed by Willie Young, the true great referee this country has produced.

That utter goon Chris Boyle that sent Stevo off against Raith is the ref. What do we have to do for a decent referee? Craig Mackay and now Chris Boyle twice already this season. Stuart Dougal is doing the cup tie. Hopefully he'll pull a hamstring as John Underhill is the fourth official! The standard of refereeing really is at an all-time low.

Agreed. If this had been a month ago then I think there would have been a case for starting Jacko but I've seen Peaso play 90 mins against Thistle and Dundee since then and am convinced he's ready for action. Hopefully Jacko will get his chance off the bench.

You are usually good with these predictions Muzz so that gives me hope!

How important is this game now? Questions have to be asked of the bottle of Saints sides over the past few years and this current group need to start delivering. 1 win in the last 5 matches is not good enough. Being top of the league, they'll no doubt have a large vocal support and their players will love the big surface. Hopefully only be Rutkiewicz, James, Scotland and Lawson out. Coyle's options are limited to playing either Sheridan or McLaren in place of Lawson. I think he'll go with McLaren as we'll be looking to win the match... Halliwell Lawrie - McManus - Anderson - Stanic Hardie - Mensing - Sheerin - McLaren Milne - MacDonald Subbies: Cuthbert, Sheridan, Jackson, Dyer, Coyle.

It would have been easier to accept him missing the chance if he'd at least had an effort on goal with it. The pitch was sticky and slow so trying to take it round the 'keeper was always the wrong option IMO. He almost had too long to think about it.

I wonder if he'll maybe start McLaren next week and go with the same midfield that played Thistle off the park at Firhill? Fair play to the Clyde fans if they were happy with their side but whilst it's easy to look on top when you are five against three in midfield, they hardly troubled Halliwell and despite having a man less, we were the side stringing passes together, although none of our best chances really came from those segments of play. Going back to the formation, I think Lawrie and Stanic have improved steadily in their new roles and yesterday held their line really well. I'm not too worried about them at full-back. I think the one main advantage of 3-5-2 is it covers us not having a natural right midfielder.

Mensing can't play centre-back as he has one terrible mistake a game and it would be punished so unless we bring Jim Weir back or move Andy Lawrie, we don't have the personnel to play 3-5-2 at the moment. I think when KJ is fit, we might revert to that system as McLaren is more suited to play through the middle than out wide. I really like Sheerin on the left of a midfield four, he makes very intelligent runs but he can do ok in a midfield three.

Will these still be there when we go to Airdrie in three weeks time? As for yesterday, I think the buck has to stop with Owen and the players. Sure the ref wasn't great, a few of their players weren't exactly displaying great sportsmanship but some of our guys got dragged into a battle when they should have walked away and focused on passing the ball around like we've done in the past two games. Lawson, I assume was guilty through his lack of complaining, is a disgrace and could have seen red for his stamp on O'Donnell when he was booked. No point in scoring five one week if you are going to miss three chances like we did yesterday through Hardie, Milne and Scotland. Got a horrible feeling we will lose next week and go six points behind Thistle then obviously miss a week so could be left well behind the leaders. Not got a good feeling at all.

Steven Anderson for me.

Clyde 2-1 Saints Milne 1,450

Halliwell Lawrie - McManus - Ando - Stanic Hardie - Mensing - Lawson - Sheerin Milne - Scotland Subbies: Cuthbert, Sheridan, McLaren, MacDonald, Jackson.

Difficult to remember. I'll check this seasons but the one that springs immediately to mind is maybe Cuthbert vs St Mirren last December. Like Broon says, Lawson's performance usually would've been enough to make him a certain winner. Edited to add... Quickly checked and Cuthbert received 36 votes out of 37 in that St Mirren match.

Game is now Wed 22nd November as Ross C are in Challenge Cup final! Here to help!