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St Johnstone (away)


elevenone
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3 hours ago, dunmorejag said:

This. Started with the same team as last week and the same situation at half time - what a surprise.

I can't understand how folk believe we should start a game playing narrow, particularly against St Johnstone of all teams, plus sacrifice midfield into the bargain.  That's not to say I'm that happy with Spittal's or Lawless's contributions as wide players, more so as I feel our lack of pace across midfield is hurting.  Playing two up  from the start with no speed of penetration thru midfield would be crazy.

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15 minutes ago, lady-isobel-barnett said:

I can't understand how folk believe we should start a game playing narrow, particularly against St Johnstone of all teams, plus sacrifice midfield into the bargain.  That's not to say I'm that happy with Spittal's or Lawless's contributions as wide players, more so as I feel our lack of pace across midfield is hurting.  Playing two up  from the start with no speed of penetration thru midfield would be crazy.

but do you not agree that spittal should have gone and not lawless 

i thought lawless was one of our better players today

our strength imo is with players  doolan lawless and erskine

and with sammon up front 

as i have previously posted we missed a trick in the january window by not going for a quality midfielder

ross county game on friday is massive for both clubs

 

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1 hour ago, watties wallies said:

but do you not agree that spittal should have gone and not lawless 

i thought lawless was one of our better players today

Maybe Wee Stevie to use the vernacular had  less left in the tank? But really on the face of it I'm struggling to disagree with you tho' it's understandable that of the two Lawless would tire first. 

Not unrelated but I didn't pick up on the Booth injury and thought at first that bringing McGinn on was to move Christie into wide midfield. That could've been effective as we'd have kept up the energy levels and not lost any width. More to the point even tho' Elliott wasn't having one of his better games, the way the lad can change positions during a match with relative ease is most admirable.

Edited by lady-isobel-barnett
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My atheism has certainly been brought into question this season. It looks like Archie is introducing a new religion into our culture. for some inexplicable reason on a Saturday or Archie's "Sabbath" as it may in the future be known, around the time of three in the afternoon, I have an uncontrollable urge to have a silent prayer to a supreme being up until recently I had rejected. The purpose for God or divine deity  to look favourably on the old Harry Rags and bare his or her countenance and blessing upon. If this could be developed and sold to Americas bible belt we might be on to a winner. "get closer to god. Follow Thistle"..............       

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7 minutes ago, elevenone said:

Pencil in 17th and 20th as that’s our play off dates. The BBC website have us confirmed to play tbc on those dates.  They must know something we dont.

Think it is because we are in 11th.As I said in an earlier post lets hope they have to change it and it's not because we are 12th. 

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I think that partly the reason we were so flat yesterday was that St. Johnstone are very well organised. Every time we went out wide and they had appropriate cover and our plan to get overlaps with Booth/Lawless or Spittal/Elliott were lacking.

However, that must mean that there are gaps elsewhere that we just didn't find because we're very one-dimensional. There was a lot of space in the middle, but very rarely anyone in that hole looking for a pass. St. Johnstone looked as though they had an extra man than us yesterday. Always first to the second ball and more dangerous in attack - whereas we always looked outnumbered and struggling to find any space. I'm not sure if this is down to being less well-organised and drilled as a team, or having players that just can't read the game as well, or a bit of both. 

The effort and determination showed versus Hamilton seemed to drop a level yesterday. It was still good from many players but, at this stage of the season, I want to see them leave everything out there.

3 points is a must against Ross County. Let's get everyone we know along to give them the lift they need.

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Thought we put in a shift today against a compact opposition who don’t gift goal scoring opportunities.  But why, oh why, do we shift the ball wide every bloody time? It does my head in. Just for fun couldn’t we try a ball to feet or through ball to someone running into the box. Who knows what might happen? It’d surprise our opposition for sure as  we are grindingly predictable.

Was it Doolan defending at the corner when the St J guy got an unexpected cross in that lead to the header and goal? Unlucky if so, bundling the ball out isn’t his strongest point. Wish big Christie had have been pushing the guy (and ball) someway into next week. 

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Think Archie got the team selection wrong here. I would have brought Osman back in. SJ Johnstone are a big side and we were outmuscled in the midfield area. 

The goal we gave away is yet another example of poor defending. Doolan may be a forward but he has to do better when trying to block the cross.  There seems to be confusion between Woods and Cargill to who each is picking up who and that leaves Shaughnessy free to header home. 

Going to be a big turnover of players at the end of the season no matter what league we are in. 

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A point was a decent return yesterday. We were a couple of minutes away from defeat, surprisingly I had now doubt that Connor would convert the penalty.

A win on Friday would (hopefully) see us finish at least 11th.

As a Jags fan , I do not know what hurts the most, the hope or the despair!

Edited by Big Dan
Forgot days ony last 24hrs!
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I have no time for the guy, but I thought the control and cross for their goal by Liam Craig was the best bit of skill in the entire match. 

Nice of him to even things up later, as I think it was him who needlessly brought Ryan Edwards down for the pen.

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2 hours ago, Alan Murray said:

The goal we gave away is yet another example of poor defending. Doolan may be a forward but he has to do better when trying to block the cross.  There seems to be confusion between Woods and Cargill to who each is picking up who and that leaves Shaughnessy free to header home. 

Haven't seen any re-run of the goal and not really disagreeing with your points. Did tho' feel by far the greatest error was allowing Craig the cross in the first place. Just because a ball looks likely to go out of play shouldn't mean switching off until it does. 

Given that St Johnstone had to rely on us allowing them a totally avoidable goal they would hardly have deserved 3 pts, so I don't feel like we stole a point.  Also since scoring first goal is normally so all important in this fixture we can take a crumb of comfort in bucking the trend. I just hope that getting the draw so late helps boost the confidence within the team. The nerves seem so fragile throughout the squad that we'll struggle to win any game without more composure. 

Edited by lady-isobel-barnett
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2 hours ago, spandau said:

I have no time for the guy, but I thought the control and cross for their goal by Liam Craig was the best bit of skill in the entire match. 

Nice of him to even things up later, as I think it was him who needlessly brought Ryan Edwards down for the pen.

Have to grudgingly agree with your first sentence. I did remark upon it at the time through gritted teeth.

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Lessons learned from yesterday and their impact on team selection v Ross County:

1) Agreed that Lawless was more effective than Spittal. The only reason for preferring Spittal is the possibility that he might score or at least create a scoring opportunity from attacking free kicks. As he was not given the chance to take any, that rather negated the argument for his inclusion.

2) Injecting extra running power for the final third through Edwards has worked for us. However, we need more running power from the start.  Edwards is super fit and can run the whole game. Why not start with him, and then Storey can supply the extra pace towards the end. He must be desperate to get on to the pitch. Also County may be expecting and prepared for Edwards being sprung later into the game.

3) Sammon is great to bring on (extra power again), but I would prefer not to start with him, in case we then over-use the ball to him. So I would keep Doolan in place.

Net result is

Cerny, Elliott, Keown, Cargill, Booth, MCarthy, Woods, Lawless, Edwards, Erskine, Doolan (4-2-3-1). Likely changes early second half Sammon and Storey for Lawless and Woods/McCarthy, with Edwards dropping back slightly. That leaves Archie one further change up his sleeve with which to surprise us all.

PS. Cargill was better than Keown yesterday. Maybe there is an argument for Barton replacing Keown. That would certainly improve our ability to pass the ball through the midfield, though of course Barton tends to function better as sweeper rather than as one of two centre backs.

 

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Happy with a point yesterday and thought we were well worth it on our second half showing and it keeps us on course for a tenth place finish.

 A few weeks ago I thought tenth was out of our reach, but our form and attitude has certainly picked up and over the next 3 games I reckon taking 7 pts would see us home.

No offence to the lad,  but I'm not sure Blair Spittal is the type of player we need in the team right now and I think Edwards has to start the remaining games.

My other concern yesterday was that Woods and Elliot didn't seem to be on the same wave length at times. Hope it was just a bad day at the office

for them and they can gel a bit better in the games ahead.  

Let's get along to Firhill in numbers on Friday and I'm the sure the lads will return a positive result.

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Watching Sportscene last night and comparing our game to the others confirmed my thought that we play much too slowly in midfield when in possession.  I can't remember us playing Edwards and Storey - our two speediest players - at the same time on the same side of the park.  I know that Storey has near zero passing skills, but Edwards can get into gaps quickly and that might encourage Storey to actually pass the ball to someone he can see moving into gaps in front of him.  So maybe a 5 man midfield of McCarthy, Woods, Erskine, Storey and Edwards might add much needed guile and speed.  County looked really slow in defence on Saturday - especially the tall, lumbering central defender, so increased speed and quick passing should reap rewards on Friday

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39 minutes ago, eljaggo said:

Watching Sportscene last night and comparing our game to the others confirmed my thought that we play much too slowly in midfield when in possession.  I can't remember us playing Edwards and Storey - our two speediest players - at the same time on the same side of the park.  I know that Storey has near zero passing skills, but Edwards can get into gaps quickly and that might encourage Storey to actually pass the ball to someone he can see moving into gaps in front of him.  So maybe a 5 man midfield of McCarthy, Woods, Erskine, Storey and Edwards might add much needed guile and speed.  County looked really slow in defence on Saturday - especially the tall, lumbering central defender, so increased speed and quick passing should reap rewards on Friday

Unless you're thinking is to play one from McCarthy, Woods or Erskine in the other wide position are you not really suggesting we play the system (or variation of the system) we've traditionally played since before promotion? That's either a 4-2-3-1 or at a stretch a 4-1-4-1.  Whatever I think you've identified the flaw in our current game. Not so much how we're set up but the lack of speed of movement within the formation.

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