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Ross County 23.2.19


westertonjagfan
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i think we should all get a grip on here  we are all thistle supporters and whether or not we are at games or not we are all entitled to contribute to this forum

BELATED JUST IN :   imo ross county will win this league

that second half performance 2 nil down they upped their game and blew us away

however our first half performance imo was great

first to every ball, quick passing, movement on and off the ball, closing down ross county players, and scoring 2 goals

second half that first goal killed us stone dead.  our commitment, our physical effort, our passing all of it went out the window

imo we lost it in midfield, we have no one that will dig in physically and win the ball  back

fitzpatrick hardly got a sniff of the ball in that second half

we could all see the confidence in our players evaporate in that second half

second to every ball, hoofing it up the park 

big game coming up on tuesday night at dumfy

with saunders back i would push penrice into midfield and  bench harkins

today was a wake up  call hopefully we can learn from this

onwards and upwards :thumbsup2:

 

 

 

 

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13 minutes ago, dl1971 said:

Ah your first post for a while. Maybe you should support Livi? 

Why would I support Livi ? , because I questioned Gary Caldwell’s judgement to let an experienced player in Chris Erskine to leave our Club .

Watching today’s game , I saw Gary Harkins blowing out his arse after 60 mins , in my opinion good player that he was , his legs have gone and his best days are behind him , yet we offer him an 18 month contract  , we had no midfield players to come on today and it became a patchwork team as Bannigan went off as well 

I didn’t get carried away by recent results , wins against East Fife , Stranraer in the Cup aren’t really going to define our season .

Surely you must be a little bit concerned that we’re still bottom of the league and it’s nearly March?

 

 

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1 hour ago, NotAFan said:

You're right. Never nice singling players out for blame. However, he's not a Thistle player, he's a 6'5 internationalist who's on a four year deal at Celtic. We should expect better. A few on here were quick to single out Sneddon v Morton. 

Take your point but like Sneddon he's still very young for a 1st team goalie. Having no experienced goalie in our squad is imo a weakness. Also not one midfielder on our bench  today was far from ideal as well. That's purely an observation and not a criticism.

Feel today (as did last week) showed that Harkins is too often a luxury player and having a 17 year old doing much of his running for him is far from clever.

Like everyone else pissed off but will give Caldwell the benefit of the doubt. Quite a few unforseens conspired to make things difficult in the 2nd half. 

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Just now, jlsarmy said:

Why would I support Livi ? , because I questioned Gary Caldwell’s judgement to let an experienced player in Chris Erskine to leave our Club .

Watching today’s game , I saw Gary Harkins blowing out his arse after 60 mins , in my opinion good player that he was , his legs have gone and his best days are behind him , yet we offer him an 18 month contract  , we had no midfield players to come on today and it became a patchwork team as Bannigan went off as well 

I didn’t get carried away by recent results , wins against East Fife , Stranraer in the Cup aren’t really going to define our season .

Surely you must be a little bit concerned that we’re still bottom of the league and it’s nearly March?

 

 

We are running out of Games and the next few arew very tough - which we will struggle to pick up points on - Danger is Falikirk & Alloa do and we get detached - its DeJavu from last Season we keep thinking we are going to kick in - but we keep bobbing about the bottom - very worrying  

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I think the second half showed a naïve Thistle team, and one that should have at least have the forethought to expect the team at the top of the league to come out for the second 45 minutes giving a '10 tenths' effort after what was for them a very poor first half. That RC first goal was scored after one minute, and after that, confidence evaporated and decision making within the team seemed disappear.

I think our goalkeeper needs to watch that game again and get some pointers as when you come from a cross ball, you don't do it half heartedly, he had a poor, poor game. Gary Harkins had a good first half, but in the second when RC upped the pace and he tired, he was made to look slow.

Disappointing that RC managed to score a front post flick on from a corner, we need to be able to defend that kind of set piece.

We needed to play well against a good team, and we did that for the first 45 minutes, but what happened in the second??? 

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Some thoughts after today, feel free to disagree.

Hazard- Hasn't done anything to convince me he is a better option than our own young keeper. His kicking is good but he is far too soft and nervous in his box, third goal a disaster.

Harkins- 18 month deal? Absolute madness. A luxury player if ever there was one, and we certainly can't afford one given our present predicament. 

Doolan (queue inevitable tears)- A man down for the vast majority of this season. If he wasn't a club legend/been here a long time there would be a meltdown over the amount of game time he has had. There must be something behind the scenes with Coluibaly (punitive appearance fee clause??) because he would be a better option. Hopefully McDonald is ready to go from the start from now on.

Penrice- Weak link in the side. Would be better in midfield, even then I'm not convinced he would be any good.

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At half time it looked as if we had turned the corner and on the way up. But after the second half it looks like not a lot has changed. Our defence looked like they hadn't met each other in the second half. Tuesday is another big game. Defeat and it looks like we are back to the Thistle before January.  Lets forget talk of getting into the top 4. Sadly Success is now not suffering a double relegation.

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2 hours ago, partickthedog said:

Would not want to single out young Hazard for blame but at one point (I think at 2-1 but not certain) he had a poor punch at a ball he should have caught and that seemed to evidence our collapse of confidence and in turn gave County great encouragement.

Remember that Ptd. Hazard flapped at a cross ball and then fell flat on his face. Don't know how County didn't score from it.

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As far as I am concerned for the 76mins that Harkins was on park we played with 10 men at best. His only contribution was giving the ball away consistently. We were 2-0 up at HT despite him playing. Rest of team had to work harder due to being effectively a man down. Was shocked when he reappeared after break and he was left on to play for another half hour while rest of midfield began to tire from the exertion of forced extra work. Plus think Harkins was directly responsible for third goal...his man he was supposed to be marking and he made no attempt. Why did Caldwell not hook him earlier, possibly instead of Dools when McDonald came on. 

And last week in Alloa Harkins wasn't much better. Wouldn't have him back in starting line up any time soon.

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32 minutes ago, jlsarmy said:

Why would I support Livi ? , because I questioned Gary Caldwell’s judgement to let an experienced player in Chris Erskine to leave our Club .

Watching today’s game , I saw Gary Harkins blowing out his arse after 60 mins , in my opinion good player that he was , his legs have gone and his best days are behind him , yet we offer him an 18 month contract  , we had no midfield players to come on today and it became a patchwork team as Bannigan went off as well 

I didn’t get carried away by recent results , wins against East Fife , Stranraer in the Cup aren’t really going to define our season .

Surely you must be a little bit concerned that we’re still bottom of the league and it’s nearly March?

 

 

I'm concerned but hopeful. As long as people balance support and critiscm fairly. One sided stuff anathema to me. 

 

 

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11 minutes ago, David Brent said:

Some thoughts after today, feel free to disagree.

Hazard- Hasn't done anything to convince me he is a better option than our own young keeper. His kicking is good but he is far too soft and nervous in his box, third goal a disaster.

Harkins- 18 month deal? Absolute madness. A luxury player if ever there was one, and we certainly can't afford one given our present predicament. 

Doolan (queue inevitable tears)- A man down for the vast majority of this season. If he wasn't a club legend/been here a long time there would be a meltdown over the amount of game time he has had. There must be something behind the scenes with Coluibaly (punitive appearance fee clause??) because he would be a better option. Hopefully McDonald is ready to go from the start from now on.

Penrice- Weak link in the side. Would be better in midfield, even then I'm not convinced he would be any good.

Agree with most of your reply , Doolan is contributing unfortunately not scoring enough goals but his set up for Spittal last week and his shot today which was saved by the keeper which Aiden scored from prove that 

I don’t think Scott Macdonald can play as a lone striker watching him today but think that McDonald and Doolan are intelligent enough to form a partnership up front  .

Coulibaye needs to get a chance so fans can form  a proper opinion of him , it’s all guess work re his fitness and whether he can get back to the level he was at a couple of years ago.

 

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Like everyone at the game, I couldn't belive the change in the second half.  Harkins was as bad today as he was good against Alloa - a lot of that is down to the extra pace of the RC midfield compared to that of Alloa.  But it was not just Harkins who tired, all of the midfield made many mistakes under the speed of the RC midfield, and these are what caused the goals,

Ross County were the best team I have seem this year, and so maybe we should not be too despondent at today's result.  Confidence evaporated after their first goal, and suddenly passes that were made forward in the first half were made accross the pitch or backward in the second half.

The most worrying thing about the performance for me was the very evident lack of fitness throughout the team, and the fact that too many of the squad are past their prime and rely a lot on experience.  Against a good, quick team like Ross County that is not enough.

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14 minutes ago, eljaggo said:

Like everyone at the game, I couldn't belive the change in the second half.  Harkins was as bad today as he was good against Alloa - a lot of that is down to the extra pace of the RC midfield compared to that of Alloa.  But it was not just Harkins who tired, all of the midfield made many mistakes under the speed of the RC midfield, and these are what caused the goals,

Ross County were the best team I have seem this year, and so maybe we should not be too despondent at today's result.  Confidence evaporated after their first goal, and suddenly passes that were made forward in the first half were made accross the pitch or backward in the second half.

The most worrying thing about the performance for me was the very evident lack of fitness throughout the team, and the fact that too many of the squad are past their prime and rely a lot on experience.  Against a good, quick team like Ross County that is not enough.

Our WHOLE midfield was awful second half. Harkins I agree worst offender, but Slater non existent, banjo sideways passing I'm afraid and spittal had a mare. Perfect storm ergo we got beat.

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9 minutes ago, eljaggo said:

Like everyone at the game, I couldn't belive the change in the second half.  Harkins was as bad today as he was good against Alloa - a lot of that is down to the extra pace of the RC midfield compared to that of Alloa.  But it was not just Harkins who tired, all of the midfield made many mistakes under the speed of the RC midfield, and these are what caused the goals,

Ross County were the best team I have seem this year, and so maybe we should not be too despondent at today's result.  Confidence evaporated after their first goal, and suddenly passes that were made forward in the first half were made accross the pitch or backward in the second half.

The most worrying thing about the performance for me was the very evident lack of fitness throughout the team, and the fact that too many of the squad are past their prime and rely a lot on experience.  Against a good, quick team like Ross County that is not enough.

Agree with all your post..Our recent wins v. Stranraer..East Fife..and Alloa. Were wins but convincing   not..Our only big one was away at Inverness..Tuesday night v Dunfermline is massive.  

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20 minutes ago, jlsarmy said:

Agree with most of your reply , Doolan is contributing unfortunately not scoring enough goals but his set up for Spittal last week and his shot today which was saved by the keeper which Aiden scored from prove that 

I don’t think Scott Macdonald can play as a lone striker watching him today but think that McDonald and Doolan are intelligent enough to form a partnership up front  .

Coulibaye needs to get a chance so fans can form  a proper opinion of him , it’s all guess work re his fitness and whether he can get back to the level he was at a couple of years ago.

And I agree with your post up until the references to Coulibaly as he's clearly got fitness issues. I think we all saw how stretched our team was today covering for one player

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1 minute ago, lady-isobel-barnett said:

And I agree with your post up until the references to Coulibaly as he's clearly got fitness issues. I think we all saw how stretched our team was today covering for one player

LIB , I’m sure I’ve read posts that you’ve watched him in reserve games re fitness so I’ll take your judgement on that , though I’ve no idea how a 24 yr old can’t get fit in 4 - 6 weeks if not match fit 

There is no point in putting Coulibaly on the bench as he’s getting no minutes on the park to affect the game , after the fanfare in getting Coulibaly to the Club this has turned into a bizarre scenario.

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Maybe a bit of reality setting back in.

Prior till January we’d been crap for 18 months under 2 managers playing multiple players.

Yes we went on a 7 game unbeaten run, but as I stated a few weeks ago were still in the crap, and yes we still are.

The performances and results under both Archie and Caldwell till New Year have put us so deeply in trouble that even after a decent run one defeat is going to put us back in it. This is how it will be till May as I don’t believe our fate (or Falkirk or Alloa) will be decided till the end.

Forget promotion forget play offs or even being safe all that matters is staying up (and winning Scottish Cup)

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At half time I genuinely thought we'd turned the corner and was thinking about how high we could go this season. At the end we are back in bottom after one of the worst halfs of football I've ever witnessed from a Jags team. We are now in a fight for survival. In a total state of shock. Credit to County when they were gifted a goal at the start of the second half they went for the jugular. 

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26 minutes ago, jlsarmy said:

LIB , I’m sure I’ve read posts that you’ve watched him in reserve games re fitness so I’ll take your judgement on that , though I’ve no idea how a 24 yr old can’t get fit in 4 - 6 weeks if not match fit 

There is no point in putting Coulibaly on the bench as he’s getting no minutes on the park to affect the game , after the fanfare in getting Coulibaly to the Club this has turned into a bizarre scenario.

Gotta agree there. I suppose every week there's three outfield players that remain unused on the bench. Guess the question you're asking is why Coulibaly is always one of the three. Dunno.

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