The OS says "the game against the Saints presents Powell’s men with a higher quality of opposition." Maybe, but not by much. If they were English they would struggle to get out of Div Two, In fact their average gates last season were less than 4500, about the same as the average for Div Two. By the way, when did they stop being "The Buddies"? Our storeman came from Paisley and always called them that. I never heard "The Saints". I have only heard of one of their players, Gary Teale. He has given us problems in the past, but that was about twenty years ago! The OS said that CP "protected" Wiggins on Wednesday because of the pitch, so he might make an appearance in this one. Even if not, it sounds as if he is not too far off. I hope the lads get a good run-out and no knocks. CP's envisaged First XI has been clear to see and it looks like Pigott is the man in possession up front, at least until we sign someone.
As far as I know, Eddie, St. Mirren are still "The Buddies", Partick Thistle are still "The Jags", Ayr United are "The Honest Men", Dunfermline are "The Pars".Ayr's nickname is from Burns- "Auld Ayr, whom ne'er a town surpasses, For honest men and bonnie lasses".
Anyone have a line up? From the above i can gather Jacko and Hollands are in the middle, Green wide right and Kermit upfront
This season, instead of jumbling the players in both halves as in previous pre-seasons, CP has played his "preferred" XI in one half (first half against Welling and St Mirren and second half against Gibraltar). Like Pigott, Richard Wood has always featured in it so we must be serious about possibly signing him. Not a priority position to be strengthened in my opinion, but if a good player drops in your lap on a free I suppose you have to consider it. Today we even went to the extent of playing 3-5-2 to accommodate Wood alongside Morrison and Dervite. Maybe CP still has some doubts about Dervite's reliability or about Cort's ongoing fitness, though I thought they both looked great during our fine end to the season. First half: Hamer, Dervite. Morrison, Wood, Wiggins, Solly, Hughes, Jackson, Pritchard, Pigott, Kermorgant Playing 3-5-2 solves the problem that we have no proper LM and were playing Pritchard at RM, not his best position. But CP would be a brave man to make it his basic formation when the real stuff starts. Second half: Button, Wilson, Fox, Cort, Dervite, Gower(c), Hollands, Stephens, Green, Cook, Kermorgant Harriott did not feature at all today. Good to see Wiggins back.
I will be pleased if we beat Oxford Utd in the League Cup by the same score, because that is the sort of standard we are talking about despite the ridiculous "Premier" tag. I reckon if Charlton played in the Scottish Premier we would finish only behind Celtic, and maybe not even them. But it seems we were comfortable, no injuries reported (yet), clean sheet and most of the squad given an outing including some youngsters, so a job well done. I see Swindon have sacked their new manager. Sackings started before a ball is kicked these days. I forecast a record percentage of managers gone before the season ends. Let's hope we hang on to ours.
Because he played in the U21's for Nigeria I guess we will be giving him an extra week holiday.... we did with Jordan Cousins when he was away with England a few summers ago.
