Dunfermline away.

[Woodstock Jag]

14 hours ago, jaggy said:

I’m in no way defending Archibald, but how many of the top 6  side were inherited by previous managers?

Doolan, Elliott, Lindsay, Welsh, Bannigan, Lawless, Scully. With Erskine having left then returned.

Which considering the typical turnover of any team over the course over four years is “quite a lot”, I’d say.

In that time Archie basically replaced (starting eleven recruitment wise) Fox with Cerny (decent), O’Donnell with Dumbuya (sigh...), Taylor-Sinclair with Booth (shrug), Balatoni with Keown (solid enough), himself with Devine (boak), Paul Paton with Osman (solid enough I guess), Forbes with Fraser (flop), Craigan with Edwards (*shrug*), and Son of Joe with... Ade Azeez?

Safe to say our improvement in the Premiership was in a very big way down to the improvement of players already at the club. Cerny aside I don’t think we can attribute much of it to Archibald’s recruitment.

[potty trained]

1 hour ago, Woodstock Jag said:

Doolan, Elliott, Lindsay, Welsh, Bannigan, Lawless, Scully. With Erskine having left then returned.

Which considering the typical turnover of any team over the course over four years is “quite a lot”, I’d say.

In that time Archie basically replaced (starting eleven recruitment wise) Fox with Cerny (decent), O’Donnell with Dumbuya (sigh...), Taylor-Sinclair with Booth (shrug), Balatoni with Keown (solid enough), himself with Devine (boak), Paul Paton with Osman (solid enough I guess), Forbes with Fraser (flop), Craigan with Edwards (*shrug*), and Son of Joe with... Ade Azeez?

Safe to say our improvement in the Premiership was in a very big way down to the improvement of players already at the club. Cerny aside I don’t think we can attribute much of it to Archibald’s recruitment.

Absolute rubbish. 

[MonehJags]

All you need to do is compare the fortunes of us and Kilmarnock. Steve Clarke has near enough won more games in a year than Archie did in 5. Kilmarnock were going nowhere fast but he has instilled a winning mentality. His side have already beat aberdeen and celtic this year, we can boast 2 points against the old firm in 5 year, when celtic and rangers were arguably shite

[potty trained]

On reflection, im still trying to work out what that formation was. 5 at the back. Fine, I get that and agree with why we did it. 

But, we then set up with two defensive midfielders. Ok, really cautious! That 8 players behind the ball who aren't going to be involved in a counter attack. Unless Elliott and Penrice were the counter attackers? I saw very little evidence of that. In fact I don't think both went up the park at the same time, once, during the game to stretch Dunfermline. If Elliott went up, Keown shuffled across to right back. If Penrice went up, McGinty shuffled over to left back. Nothing new, a tactic Archie had used before, but against far better opposition. 

When you play 3 at the back, more often than not, one of them is a ball player, an Irons or a Patterson. We don't have that. So to start every move, Banzo and Slater had to drop into the three to pick up the ball. Exactly the same tactic we use in a back 4. So straight away we were using a similar style, but eliminitating one forward passing option, because a jersey was being used in a back 3. Added to that, I have never seen us want to get the ball the fck away from our goals so quickly. Practically every clearance was a hoof. And the majority were miss hit. High into the sky, coming down 20 yards up the park.

To a degree it worked. In no small part due to the fact that Dunfermline are absolute manure! 11 or 12 corners we gave them. Did one find a Pars player? I don't think any did. 

 

Where I got pissed off was In front of Banzo and Slater. We weren't playing 3 across the front. Spittal was too deep. He was the link up man. But it wasn't a 5212 because and this is where I get really ****** off. Storey provided absolutely no support for Doolan. Nothing!!! He sat on that fckin touchline playing his usual game in a 4231. My mate described him as a loan wolf. It sums Storey up perfectly. I'd love to know what he was doing out there. What was the game plan. He should have been central. Elliott and Penrice overlapping in tandem with Doolan, Spittal and Storey as their targets. It happened once in the first half. That was it. Elliott overlapped onto a through ball from Spittal. He put in a front post cross but no one attacked the space. 

 

We sat and played the ball across a back 5 all night. Dunfermline never closed us down. So why not sacrifice a defender for Erskine at half time and play the ball across a back four, but with an extra option in front of you. We were more interested in battling our own deficiencies, then attacking Dunfermlines. Ironically, Erskine came on and was shite.

 

[potty trained]

2 minutes ago, MonehJags said:

All you need to do is compare the fortunes of us and Kilmarnock. Steve Clarke has near enough won more games in a year than Archie did in 5. Kilmarnock were going nowhere fast but he has instilled a winning mentality. His side have already beat aberdeen and celtic this year, we can boast 2 points against the old firm in 5 year, when celtic and rangers were arguably shite

Mate you need to move on and stop comparing us to better teams in a higher league. We're a Championship team again. Suck it up. 

[dl1971]

10 minutes ago, potty trained said:

On reflection, im still trying to work out what that formation was. 5 at the back. Fine, I get that and agree with why we did it. 

But, we then set up with two defensive midfielders. Ok, really cautious! That 8 players behind the ball who aren't going to be involved in a counter attack. Unless Elliott and Penrice were the counter attackers? I saw very little evidence of that. In fact I don't think both went up the park at the same time, once, during the game to stretch Dunfermline. If Elliott went up, Keown shuffled across to right back. If Penrice went up, McGinty shuffled over to left back. Nothing new, a tactic Archie had used before, but against far better opposition. 

When you play 3 at the back, more often than not, one of them is a ball player, an Irons or a Patterson. We don't have that. So to start every move, Banzo and Slater had to drop into the three to pick up the ball. Exactly the same tactic we use in a back 4. So straight away we were using a similar style, but eliminitating one forward passing option, because a jersey was being used in a back 3. Added to that, I have never seen us want to get the ball the fck away from our goals so quickly. Practically every clearance was a hoof. And the majority were miss hit. High into the sky, coming down 20 yards up the park.

To a degree it worked. In no small part due to the fact that Dunfermline are absolute manure! 11 or 12 corners we gave them. Did one find a Pars player? I don't think any did. 

 

Where I got pissed off was In front of Banzo and Slater. We weren't playing 3 across the front. Spittal was too deep. He was the link up man. But it wasn't a 5212 because and this is where I get really ****** off. Storey provided absolutely no support for Doolan. Nothing!!! He sat on that fckin touchline playing his usual game in a 4231. My mate described him as a loan wolf. It sums Storey up perfectly. I'd love to know what he was doing out there. What was the game plan. He should have been central. Elliott and Penrice overlapping in tandem with Doolan, Spittal and Storey as their targets. It happened once in the first half. That was it. Elliott overlapped onto a through ball from Spittal. He put in a front post cross but no one attacked the space. 

 

We sat and played the ball across a back 5 all night. Dunfermline never closed us down. So why not sacrifice a defender for Erskine at half time and play the ball across a back four, but with an extra option in front of you. We were more interested in battling our own deficiencies, then attacking Dunfermlines. Ironically, Erskine came on and was shite.

 

Spot on. 

[MonehJags]

13 minutes ago, potty trained said:

Mate you need to move on and stop comparing us to better teams in a higher league. We're a Championship team again. Suck it up. 

If Mr Clarke hadnt been appointed they might have been a championship team.

Our persistence with Archie has got us where we are.

[potty trained]

26 minutes ago, MonehJags said:

If Mr Clarke hadnt been appointed they might have been a championship team.

Our persistence with Archie has got us where we are.

So be it. That's life. We've stuck with him. So maybe some of our fans should stop acting like spoiled children and calling for him to be sacked if we lose a game. Then fckin disappear when we win one. It's not a good look. 

[Yellow & Redneck]

3 minutes ago, potty trained said:

So be it. That's life. We've stuck with him. So maybe some of our fans should stop acting like spoiled children and calling for him to be sacked if we lose a game. Then fckin disappear when we win one. It's not a good look. 

Most fans who saw this coming have been calling for his head for over a year. Not because he just lost "a game."

[Woodstock Jag]

1 hour ago, potty trained said:

Absolute rubbish. 

It really isn’t.

I am willing to credit Archie for developing players like Lindsay, getting the best out of Elliott, bringing in some solid and quality players in the first couple of seasons of the Premier.

But very few of his “quality signings” were actually in the top six team. That’s not a criticism; it’s just a fact. The Higginbothams, Taylors, Buabens... they’d been and gone. He signed some decent like for like replacements from the promotion team. But they weren’t players that made us especially more top six quality than that which they replaced.

[potty trained]

1 minute ago, Yellow & Redneck said:

Most fans who saw this coming have been calling for his head for over a year. Not because he just lost "a game."

I didn't say they were calling for him to be sacked "because" we lost a game.

[potty trained]

3 minutes ago, Woodstock Jag said:

It really isn’t.

I am willing to credit Archie for developing players like Lindsay, getting the best out of Elliott, bringing in some solid and quality players in the first couple of seasons of the Premier.

But very few of his “quality signings” were actually in the top six team. That’s not a criticism; it’s just a fact. The Higginbothams, Taylors, Buabens... they’d been and gone. He signed some decent like for like replacements from the promotion team. But they weren’t players that made us especially more top six quality than that which they replaced.

"Safe to say our improvement in the Premiership was in a very big way down to the improvement of players already at the club. Cerny aside I don’t think we can attribute much of it to Archibald’s recruitment."

"Doolan, Elliott, Lindsay, Welsh, Bannigan, Lawless, Scully. With Erskine having left then returned"

 

 

so, if it wasn't down to the recruitment. Was it down to lawless and his massive goal haul of 3? Maybe Banzo and his total appearances of zero? Maybe it's down to Scully?

 

 

 

 

[Woodstock Jag]

4 minutes ago, potty trained said:

"Safe to say our improvement in the Premiership was in a very big way down to the improvement of players already at the club. Cerny aside I don’t think we can attribute much of it to Archibald’s recruitment."

"Doolan, Elliott, Lindsay, Welsh, Bannigan, Lawless, Scully. With Erskine having left then returned"

so, if it wasn't down to the recruitment. Was it down to lawless and his massive goal haul of 3? Maybe Banzo and his total appearances of zero? Maybe it's down to Scully?

Or, you know, Doolan, Erskine, Lindsay, Welsh and Elliott all having excellent seasons and Lawless being good with assists? It’s not like I haven’t acknowledged Cerny was a stand-out and credited Archie for signing him?

Beyond that, though, and possibly a solid 2/3 of a season from Osman, though, the players Archie *recruited* didn’t do a job above and beyond what our promoted side was capable of. His success was in development and finding players that didn’t disrupt the team’s existing system, with which they were all familiar.

Archie’s success was not based on building a team. It was based on filling gaps and working with what he had.

Those are admirable qualities in a manager and it got us to a good place. But let’s not pretend those skills have served him well for 18 months.

[potty trained]

20 minutes ago, Woodstock Jag said:

Or, you know, Doolan, Erskine, Lindsay, Welsh and Elliott all having excellent seasons and Lawless being good with assists? It’s not like I haven’t acknowledged Cerny was a stand-out and credited Archie for signing him?

Beyond that, though, and possibly a solid 2/3 of a season from Osman, though, the players Archie *recruited* didn’t do a job above and beyond what our promoted side was capable of. His success was in development and finding players that didn’t disrupt the team’s existing system, with which they were all familiar.

Archie’s success was not based on building a team. It was based on filling gaps and working with what he had.

Those are admirable qualities in a manager and it got us to a good place. But let’s not pretend those skills have served him well for 18 months.

You tell me how many assists Lawless had that season. Because 3 league goals for an attacking midfielder/winger is a stinking return.

You don't think Keown in his first season where we finished top 6 was a step up from Muirhead?

You think the fans got it wrong naming Barton Player of the Year?

Can you tell me how you define "building a team" and how it differs from working with what you have and filling the gaps?

 

[Pinhead]

Archie can sign some occasional decent players but seems to turn them crap, he can also sign some amount of crap as well. His inability to find an actualy striker is bizzare in the extreme, along with being unable to arrange a defence with himself and his assistant being a defender.

[gianlucatoni]

13 hours ago, partickthedog said:

The fans might have saved some hard earned cash on petrol money by taking the more direct route over the Kincardine Bridge.

True! 

[Woodstock Jag]

2 hours ago, potty trained said:

You tell me how many assists Lawless had that season. Because 3 league goals for an attacking midfielder/winger is a stinking return.

You don't think Keown in his first season where we finished top 6 was a step up from Muirhead?

You think the fans got it wrong naming Barton Player of the Year?

Can you tell me how you define "building a team" and how it differs from working with what you have and filling the gaps?

 

I don’t think Keown was a significant improvement on Aaron Muirhead, no. Probably on balance a bit better in his first season, but then he *was* only a loan signing at that stage and not a permanent fixture.

I do think the fans got it wrong about Barton yes. That year I rated both Cerny and Doolan ahead of him quite comfortably for POTY. [ETA and to state the obvious Liam was also better]

By “building a team” mean assembling a starting XI where there aren’t already 7-8 guaranteed names on the team sheet at the relevant level you’re playing at. Bottom line is Archie never really faced that until the injuries really hit home start of last season.

Ian McCall had it day one. McNamara pretty much had it (and took quite a while to get the hang of it, but got there). Archibald had to properly do it this summer and failed badly.

No recognised RB. Journeymen who aren’t eligible and haven’t played in months. A certifiably pish keeper. An AWOL nutter. An obscure defensive midfield carthorse. Safe to say the arse has fallen out of Archie’s capacity to strategically build a squad, if indeed he ever had that knack.

Slater seems to be a solid enough signing though I guess. And one of the attacking rejects we’ve signed might come good some time, maybe, if they’re not stuck on the physio table... really doesn’t off-set the dross making up the numbers though.

Edited September 30, 2018 by Woodstock Jag

[CotterJag]

17 hours ago, jlsarmy said:

Agree with the majority of your post , except with the part you understood how we set up, playing a defensive set up at this level is an absolute nonsense with plenty of attacking options on the bench, there was 2 results today away from home where Ayr beat Morton 5-1 and County beat Dundee Utd 5-1 , do you think their philosophy was let’s sit in and see if we can sneak a point .

Archibald is undoubtedly the problem for this philosophy and because of his negativity it’s now manifesting it’s way through the players , Club and supporters .

Time is up for Archie 

 

It's clear to me that we are 'at this level', and therefor I think playing on the break away from home is an acceptable way to start any game in this league. You're talking as if we're Barcelona and should be setting up to blow teams apart home or away.

Most teams don't set up to go head to head with all out attack against each other either, to try and win 4-3 or whatever.

The expectation and assumption from Thistle would have been that Dunfermline would be more attacking. When it was obvious they weren't interested in that, we should have changed our formation. In my eyes, that is the mistake from Archie and not the initial set up.

Haven't seen Ayr or Ross County but guess they set up similar to us, scored early and then took advantage as the home team had to come out and try and score. Fair play if I'm wrong and they both came out with 3 strikers and won 5-1. That would be impressive but surprising. 

[Jag]

7 hours ago, potty trained said:

On reflection, im still trying to work out what that formation was. 5 at the back. Fine, I get that and agree with why we did it. 

But, we then set up with two defensive midfielders. Ok, really cautious! That 8 players behind the ball who aren't going to be involved in a counter attack. Unless Elliott and Penrice were the counter attackers? I saw very little evidence of that. In fact I don't think both went up the park at the same time, once, during the game to stretch Dunfermline. If Elliott went up, Keown shuffled across to right back. If Penrice went up, McGinty shuffled over to left back. Nothing new, a tactic Archie had used before, but against far better opposition. 

When you play 3 at the back, more often than not, one of them is a ball player, an Irons or a Patterson. We don't have that. So to start every move, Banzo and Slater had to drop into the three to pick up the ball. Exactly the same tactic we use in a back 4. So straight away we were using a similar style, but eliminitating one forward passing option, because a jersey was being used in a back 3. Added to that, I have never seen us want to get the ball the fck away from our goals so quickly. Practically every clearance was a hoof. And the majority were miss hit. High into the sky, coming down 20 yards up the park.

To a degree it worked. In no small part due to the fact that Dunfermline are absolute manure! 11 or 12 corners we gave them. Did one find a Pars player? I don't think any did. 

 

Where I got pissed off was In front of Banzo and Slater. We weren't playing 3 across the front. Spittal was too deep. He was the link up man. But it wasn't a 5212 because and this is where I get really ****** off. Storey provided absolutely no support for Doolan. Nothing!!! He sat on that fckin touchline playing his usual game in a 4231. My mate described him as a loan wolf. It sums Storey up perfectly. I'd love to know what he was doing out there. What was the game plan. He should have been central. Elliott and Penrice overlapping in tandem with Doolan, Spittal and Storey as their targets. It happened once in the first half. That was it. Elliott overlapped onto a through ball from Spittal. He put in a front post cross but no one attacked the space. 

 

We sat and played the ball across a back 5 all night. Dunfermline never closed us down. So why not sacrifice a defender for Erskine at half time and play the ball across a back four, but with an extra option in front of you. We were more interested in battling our own deficiencies, then attacking Dunfermlines. Ironically, Erskine came on and was shite.

 

Can't say I disagree with any of that.

Many teams play with a lone striker and three in behind. Four at the back suits this formation and this is the way we have lined up in the vast majority of games over the last six years. However, over the last couple of seasons, when faced with a team that uses two out and out strikers, Archie has had a tendancy to play three at the back. This has been in a 3-5-2 or 3-5-1-1 formation. However, apart from the last half hour at Stranraer, I can't remember him doing it at all this season. 

Apart from not really understanding why he chose this game to change formation, I spent most of the first half trying to work out what we were meant to be doing. At times Storey was behind Penrice, he certainly wasn't supporting Doolan.  As you rightly point out, we had to turn the ball back the way most of the time as there was no option to go forward.

I saw it as a 3-6-1 or 5-4-1 when we lost the ball. It certainly wasn't anything I've seen us play before anyway. It was totally negative.

Whatever it was, it failed miserably. The most annoying thing is, had we played our usual formation, and taken the game to a poor Dunfermilne team, I'm positive we would have beaten them.

Archibald is in danger of losing his job. He has lost the support of the majority of fans and he is not doing himself any favours with the way he is setting the team up to play. 

[jlsarmy]

47 minutes ago, CotterJag said:

It's clear to me that we are 'at this level', and therefor I think playing on the break away from home is an acceptable way to start any game in this league. You're talking as if we're Barcelona and should be setting up to blow teams apart home or away.

Most teams don't set up to go head to head with all out attack against each other either, to try and win 4-3 or whatever.

The expectation and assumption from Thistle would have been that Dunfermline would be more attacking. When it was obvious they weren't interested in that, we should have changed our formation. In my eyes, that is the mistake from Archie and not the initial set up.

Haven't seen Ayr or Ross County but guess they set up similar to us, scored early and then took advantage as the home team had to come out and try and score. Fair play if I'm wrong and they both came out with 3 strikers and won 5-1. That would be impressive but surprising. 

Probably didn’t phrase it properly, the level that we’re playing at just now is basically a league where there isn’t a lot of difference between the teams , there should be nothing to be afraid of in terms of trying to get a result .

The way Archie sets up the team makes it almost impossible to sneak a result , if my opinion if you want to sit in and hit teams on the break you’ve got to have 4 or 5 players bursting a gut to get forward on the counterattack, usually all we’ve got is an isolated Kris Doolan .

Without a doubt these safety first tactics are coming from Archibald, are you seriously telling me we should have been afraid of what damage Dunfermline could do to us , if we’ve to believe the spin coming from Firhill about promotion is that the way to go about it ?

[javeajag]

If only we had the resources of a Livingston or a Hamilton or a St Johnstone ....oh wait 

[One t in Scotland]

16 minutes ago, javeajag said:

If only we had the resources of a Livingston or a Hamilton or a St Johnstone ....oh wait 

I know they're a Mickey Mouse club but Livingston have already beaten Hibs and Rangers and drawn at Tynecastle whilst gathering 14 points. If PTFC had stayed up we'd be sitting on 2 points and bleating about a 'tough start'.

[dl1971]

13 minutes ago, One t in Scotland said:

I know they're a Mickey Mouse club but Livingston have already beaten Hibs and Rangers and drawn at Tynecastle whilst gathering 14 points. If PTFC had stayed up we'd be sitting on 2 points and bleating about a 'tough start'.

Fair point. Makes our play off defeat a little easier to understand? The disaster was not avoiding it in the first place. Gary Holt could be the new Stevie Clarke....

[CotterJag]

2 hours ago, jlsarmy said:

Probably didn’t phrase it properly, the level that we’re playing at just now is basically a league where there isn’t a lot of difference between the teams , there should be nothing to be afraid of in terms of trying to get a result .

The way Archie sets up the team makes it almost impossible to sneak a result , if my opinion if you want to sit in and hit teams on the break you’ve got to have 4 or 5 players bursting a gut to get forward on the counterattack, usually all we’ve got is an isolated Kris Doolan .

Without a doubt these safety first tactics are coming from Archibald, are you seriously telling me we should have been afraid of what damage Dunfermline could do to us , if we’ve to believe the spin coming from Firhill about promotion is that the way to go about it ?

I'm not sure if we have other teams watched on the evidence from Friday tbh. If Dunfermline always set up like that at home, then we should have started differently. If they played like that because they were playing us, then we should have changed quickly.

It took me around 15 minutes to think we should be attacking more as there was little threat from them with their defensive set up.

Kris Doolan did look isolated and both teams sat with 5 + 4 across the back so there was no opportunity for anyone to burst forward. I'm not convinced that Penrice and Elliot had it in them to burst forward in any case and they looked out of it.

The tactics on the night were poor and no, we shouldn't have been afraid of what Dunfermline could do to us, as they were absolute mince.

There are too many things wrong to mention, but someone at Firhill, be it the manager on the night or a 'scout' at another game, should have made sure we didn't play against them in that way for 90 minutes.

[partickthedog]

2 hours ago, Jag said:

Can't say I disagree with any of that.

Many teams play with a lone striker and three in behind. Four at the back suits this formation and this is the way we have lined up in the vast majority of games over the last six years. However, over the last couple of seasons, when faced with a team that uses two out and out strikers, Archie has had a tendancy to play three at the back. This has been in a 3-5-2 or 3-5-1-1 formation. However, apart from the last half hour at Stranraer, I can't remember him doing it at all this season. 

Apart from not really understanding why he chose this game to change formation, I spent most of the first half trying to work out what we were meant to be doing. At times Storey was behind Penrice, he certainly wasn't supporting Doolan.  As you rightly point out, we had to turn the ball back the way most of the time as there was no option to go forward.

I saw it as a 3-6-1 or 5-4-1 when we lost the ball. It certainly wasn't anything I've seen us play before anyway. It was totally negative.

Whatever it was, it failed miserably. The most annoying thing is, had we played our usual formation, and taken the game to a poor Dunfermilne team, I'm positive we would have beaten them.

Archibald is in danger of losing his job. He has lost the support of the majority of fans and he is not doing himself any favours with the way he is setting the team up to play. 

To reinforce your point about the strangeness of the change in formation, Christie Elliott and James Penrice were much more effective as an attacking threat when they were full backs in a 4 against Queen of the South than they were as wingbacks in a 5 against Dunfermline.  Against QoS Elliott was combining effectively with Spittal on the right, and Penrice was doing the same with Storey on the left, leading to a much better quality of delivery into the box than we have had all season. As PT has pointed out, this was no doubt partly because Erskine was moving central and wide defenders around to create more space. If Erskine was not fit to start, then Spittal could have filled that role with Mutombo going wide. As far as I could see Tam Scobbie was a player wasted in defence who was not contributing to the attack either.