ascender

And relax! Very tidy finish! What a great header back for him - so precise in terms of pace and accuracy.

Entertaining stuff and at least we're in front now.

He was and has been good when he’s been fit and playing, but can we rely on him staying fit? Tilman had a shocker, but is it any surprise given how poor the central midfield was that he struggled to get in to the game today? We have signed some good players, but the core of the squad is still the same bunch of serial underachievers. Signing Raskin and Cantwell is a good start, but we really need to carry on the rebuild in the summer. Nothing’s really changed this season has it? I still think the same players should leave as I did six months ago. Roofe and Helander are too injury prone. Kamara is a shadow of his former self. Lundstram blows hot and cold. Barisic and Tav are really poor defensively. Morelos is his usual frustrating self. Kent surely isn’t worth the money he’s looking for. Sakala is so erratic and frustrating, but also impetuous and unpredictable. Worth keeping as a sub? I think Goldson and Davies are starting to look much more solid together. Add a decent keeper and some full backs who are better defensively, along with Raskin in front of the CBs and we should have a much stronger spine.

The other option is to start with them on the understanding they won’t last for 90. The way Celtic play, they’re likely to tire as the game goes on, so I’d be starting with my strongest 11 for the first 45-60 minutes or like today, it could be too late by the time you do bring them on. It’s just so predictable the way some of our team will play in games like this…it’s the hope that gets you.

Taking off Morelos at half time would have made sense, but when he did, it was a strange move to make. Kamara and Lundstram were beyond awful though.

Finally in Raskin we seem to have a high energy midfielder who will contest every ball and even the second ball. We’ve lacked that sort of midfielder for years.

Unbelievable. Morelos has been as good as playing with a man down and as for Kamara and Lundstram? Kamara looks so far off it, but combined with Lundstram, that pair epitomise the whole “pass it side to side all day long” problem we’ve had for years. can’t believe he didn’t change anything at half time.

Cantwell & Raskin both look like the sort of creative players we've been missing for years, so its great to see them both getting minutes. We still seem to be losing really soft goals due to individual errors which come against the run of play. It's like we lose concentration as a team and the other team seize the initiative and before you know it they've scored. I'd still be happy to see the back of our two first choice keepers, full-backs and maybe a CB or two. Anyway, am glad that's over. Let's just forget about it and move on.

I'm guessing we haven't just accepted their first offer which is why it's taken a while to resolve. Presumably Beale feels it's worth paying now to get the player in and established in the first team, so that's great. The board are backing him too. Not sure what the negative is, especially if he contributes in the league and cups?

That's good news about Raskin, definitely good to get some players in now and settled rather than waiting until the summer and we still have a lot to play for. Is there anything in the chat about Nisbet or is it just speculative stuff?

Starting to sound a lot more promising....

OK, so I should have added... changing the keeper around game to game 🤣

McLaughlin was bad last night wasn't he? Although he did have a couple of saves where I honestly wouldn't know if McGregor would have stopped them given his form this season. Its weird because he's usually commanding and good on crosses, but there's clearly big issues in our backline just now - no confidence; communication is poor & I'm sure changing the keeper doesn't help. Surely McCrorie deserves a start against St Johnstone?

I was only half joking when I said I wanted an entire new backline. Before the second Killie goal, they played a high ball up to their striker who was on the edge of our box. We had 6 or 7 players back, in a perfect line and the Killie striker won the header. I think there was another ball in to the box we failed to clear and then they scored from the continuation of that move. It's been like this for so long now that I really wonder what the coaching teams look at week to week. Between that and our failure to cover for our full backs when they're attacking, or our full backs being caught out by balls inside them or over the top, its exhausting to watch.

Alfie for me... although I really thought he was going to end up getting sent off given how he was niggling away at that lot in the first half. He makes such a difference to how we play and was looking much more like his old self last night.

How can we still be so shambolic and low on confidence after putting a very good run of results together?

If it was football manager, I’m not sure how many of our starting 11 wouldn’t be on the transfer list before the full time whistle.

Can NOBODY in our back line head a f*cking ball anymore? When that move started a lone Killie player won a header when we had a row of 7 or so players. And then one or two more chances to clear where we can’t just head a ball clear?

Good goal and Sakala involved again.

The whole team just looks dysfunctional. No protection from the midfield for our defence and it seems nobody can head a ball away.

I’ve changed my mind, can we just get rid of our whole back four and all our keepers in the summer please?

Barisic is a bit like Morelos in that no matter how well he's been playing, you know there's going to be a costly error or a period of below-par performances just around the corner. I'd still like to see us start next season with two new fullbacks. Why do we seem to have such indecision in our back line whenever the ball comes in to our box? Every single game we end up with a few scrappy games of pinball in our box where the ball could end up anywhere. Re Barisic and/or McGregor, round about the 15th minute, a ball came back to Barisic's area and the pass to make 99 times out of 100 was to play it back to McGregor which he chose not to do and instead tried to play a long ball forward. I just thought that was a bit telling of where we are at the moment.

I didn't know that. All I'd seen online was that their fans wanted rid of him, our fans thought he was useless, presumably based on what their fans said. And so the circle goes round and round... I did read an article by an actual English journalist yesterday and they reckoned he'd be a great signing for us.

If Cantwell is interested, I'd rather we bring him in now assuming it's not silly money. If he's not involved at Norwich, they'll want him off the wage bill and will be resigned to him leaving in the summer anyway. There's going to be a reasonable turnover of playing staff in the summer so it would help if we started that rebuild now and had some players bedded-in by pre-season.

I can see both sides of the Lundstram debate - I think he's just been inconsistent this season, but so has the rest of the team, so it's hard to judge anybody really. Also makes it even more hard to judge those new signings who have been trying to bed-in and are doing so with a misfiring team around them.