Off The Ball: The Midweek Game and a Season Review

As we head into the first of the league breaks while our national side start their World Cup qualification games, it's a good time to look back at the season so far. We've asked the Inside Left correspondents to give us their opinions on their team's performance so far.

We begin though with a look at the game this evening in the First Division when Queen of the South take on Ross County.

Queen of the South vs Ross County
Queen of the South go into their third game in a week when Ross County come to Palmerston Park. Both sides go into tonight's game with good wins under their belt - Queens beat league leaders Dundee, while Ross County got their first win of the season, away against Partick Thistle. Gordon Chisholm will start the game without five first team regulars which is a lot for most teams, but more of an impact for a team with a relatively small squad. The end of the summer transfer window was used by both teams to replenish the squads - Ross County welcome another ex-Aberdeen player to the ranks when keeper Derek Soutar joined former team-mates Dyron Daal and Scott Morrison up in Dingwall while Hearts defender Craig Sives moves south to Dumfries.

Queen of the South vs Ross County
Scottish First Division
Palmerston Park, Dumfries KO 19:45

A Selective Season Review

Andy Kennedy - Aberdeen
The season has not been altogether terrific for the Dons. The opening day defeat to Inverness - their first one ever over the Dons - didn't inspire confidence and our first half performance against Rangers was pretty poor - there were very few chances for our strikers, and we were lucky to come away with a draw. But we got points on the board with wins over Motherwell and St. Mirren and we're still in the League Cup.
Positives: We've got some decent signing over the summer and the end of the transfer window. Gary McDonald and Mark Kerr are showing much promise in midfield, Charlie Mulgrew looks like another good signing and getting Sone Aluko on a transfer deal is not only great news, it's also miracle - a highly rated player coming to Scotland. Jared Hodgkiss on loan from West Brom will give us cover at right-back, but he's only there until January. Perhaps we should have signed Maybury on a longer term deal - he was available and willing. Considine has also signed a new deal which is good news.
Negatives: Low scoring games - we're just not scoring enough goals. OK, we're winning the games, but by the skin o' the teeth; a series of 1:0's against Motherwell, St. Mirren and Ayr is not exactly impressive. A quick glance at our goal scorers tells a story: Mackie, Mulgrew, Maguire and Young - only two of those are recognised strikers. We're also concerned about Tommy Wright: he might be a good player (although we've not seen him play much) but he looks like someone who'll get a lot of cards and suspensions. In goal, Jamie Langfield continues to give us close shaves and we're not sure about Bertrand Bossu just yet - he didn't look to comfortable in the pre-season games in which he's featured and we fear for the worst should anything befall Clangers Langfield in goal.
Overall: Happy enough while we're winning and United are losing.

Douglas Gillman - Dumbarton
I'm not altogether unhappy with our season so far. Apart from the narrow 7:0 defeat  against St. Mirren, we're not doing too badly: three draws, one win and one loss. We're still in the League Cup, albeit on penalties, and with only one defeat in five games (against league leaders Stenhousemuir), seventh place is not too bad. It'd be nice to stop drawing so many games - at the end of the season those dropped points are going to add up. Stevie Murray picked up his third man-of-the-match award after the East Stirling game and he certainly deserves it - his performances up the wing have been good to see. We've got a break now for a week or two, time which gaffer Jim Chapman will no doubt use to somehow get all those players who have arrived over the summer into shape. We've brought in a lot of players, fifteen or something ridiculous like that, and the squad need time to gel. There's two tricky fixtures against Albion Rovers and Cowdenbeath when league action resumes on the 13th, but I've got faith in Jim and the boys to take us to bigger and better things this season.

Elaine Garrow - Deveronvale
What can we say - The Vale are top of the Highland League with nine points from three games, recording some good high scoring league wins over Clach (which is never an easy place to go to), Rothes and Brora Rangers. In the Cup competitions we beat - no, trounced - champions Cove Rangers (Aberdeenshire Cup), as well as Forres and Buckie Thistle in the Challenge Cup. We've got some tough games coming up, starting tonight against Huntly, then Lossiemouth and Nairn County but we're showing good form and we're scoring, so I don't think we'll have too much trouble.  Having Graeme Watt back form his long-term injury is a huge boost, and his return to the starting eleven was made all the better with his cracking goal in the 5:0 win against Brora on Saturday.  So, overall, I'm happy - the Vale are playing nice football, with a  good workrate and plenty of movement and, more importantly, we're creating chances to score, evidenced by our thirteen goals scored in just three games! If we can keep that form going, then we'll be dancing in the streets of Banff come the end of the season.

Inside Left - The Season So Far
The season has been pretty good so far, with the usual mix of controversy (the performance of some of our referees), Cup upsets (Hibs and Hearts), drama (Rangers and Queen of the South in Europe), excitement (the first Old Firm derby) and tragedy (former Motherwell player Jamie Dolan at the age of 39 from a heart-attack). All we're needing now is a good performance from Scotland in their upcoming games as they try and qualify for the World Cup in 2010, and the season couldn't get any better!