Thistle took the opportunity to launch yet another new marketing slogan today - coming less than a year, let's not forget, than the Real Scottish Football initiative they pushed over the summer.

Partick Thistle: 100% Football, 100% Passion, it proclaims.

Really? Because today we were playing at barely 50%. And perhaps if the board spent more time finding investment and giving McCall a playing squad deeper than just 17 names, and less thinking up ever-more ridiculously stupid ways to promote the club, we'd not be in the mess we're in.

The January sales continue at Firhill and it's becoming increasingly apparent that everything must go.

Latest to be told he can leave is veteran hitman Mark Roberts.

Now, Marko's never been the most prolific of forwards, but he's been a reliable and faithful servant to the Jags since being signed during the reign of the Great Satan himself a few years back.

He's weighed in with more than a few crucial goals here and there during his spell at Firhill. And god knows what we need at the moment is goals.

Worrying reading at the weekend from the Herald.

In case you missed it, Ian McCall revealed the club's financial position is far more precarious than was previously thought, even by the doomsayers around these parts.

Well, what can I say?

In front of a pathetically small crowd - and one largely populated by the right kind of Jag, too - we succumbed, as we always did, to a side with a lethal edge in front of goal.

From the fine, fine folk at the Glaswegian website, which is producing far more video interviewing players and staff at the club than Thistle's official website manages...

Could be an interesting month ahead.

Juniors hitman Kris Doolan's joined us on an 18-month deal. Chris Turner and Ryan McStay have been told they can go - and indeed, Turner's been released on a free after displaying nothing during his spell at Firhill (and far less than he displayed on his mobile phone...)

Despite coming in at 5'10", Doolan's reportedly decent in the air, which is a godsend at the moment given the diminutive nature of the Firhill strike force. But with both Gray and Lennon's loan deals set to expire this month - and hopefully neither being kept on - someone who can compliment Bucky Buchananananan and provide a bit of a threat in the box is more than welcome.

But there's other strengthening work required - and that could prove more problematic.

Ok, I'll be honest off the bat. I never got to the game.

My track record with the derby matches has been pretty shonky since I moved back up north - unlike Thistle's, which has been pretty damn spectacular.

We've now avoided defeat, or enjoyed a comfortable gubbing of the Broadwood Big Issue sellers, for seven games on the spin - two whole years of lording it over them.

But I've not seen us win at Broadwood. Never. I've either not been able to make it (which is invariably when we win) or we've been spanked like Max Mosley after a particularly enjoyable evening of grown up entertainment.

Christmas and New Year, thanks to a variety of water-based problems (not enough, then far too much) have temporarily rendered me homeless and blogless, and with a bedroom carpet resembling the Firhill pitch of a few years ago.

So I can only apologise. Although, after the last few weeks, I'm sure you can guess the general tone of the posts that got away.

Painfully, my old man was up for the holidays and came to see his first game since the summer, the diabolically bad performance against Ross County on the 27th.

Merry Christmas, eh?

Not good enough, McCall. Sort it out.

Now, given my day job, I don't like to point fingers at other newspaper websites.

But I read this piece on the Times' website today and my blood boiled hot enough to melt permafrost.

As the window approaches, the transfer talk around Thistle has started in earnest. Top of the list, apparently, is the mighty Jonny Tuffey - now Northern Ireland international goalkeeper Jonny Tuffey, of course - who is being linked with moves to Hearts, Hibs and Swansea in today's tabs.