vs Alloa 20/4

[AndyMac]

Excellent result.

This may not have been the most successful of seasons, but it has certainly been interesting, a real white knuckle, vomit inducing roller coaster ride, that combines excitement, fear, anger and despair in equal measures.

Today was a massive win for the club. Alloa are a good team. All credit to Gary Caldwell and the team for getting the 3 points

 

 

 

 

[Jaggernaut]

No update from my brother when I woke up this morning, then I started reading this thread. Read that we lost a goal, and then really feared the worst.

But the thread got better and better!

 

[Alan Murray]

9 hours ago, KemoAvdiu said:

You would take Ian Flannigan in a team that would - presumably - be looking to push for promotion? Christ. Shall we see what Tommy Stewart is up to as well?

Were you at the game? 

Don't think Flannigan will be at alloa next season. 

[allyo]

7 hours ago, jlsarmy said:

8 of the team who started today were already here before Caldwell arrived.     Fact 

And that team was pretty crap in the first half. We only got better when two of the new signings came on.

To be honest, Caldwell baffles me. At Christmas I'd have punted him. Then, with everyone talking about how the January window was virtually impossible to deal in, particularly for a club staring relegation in the face, he made some really important signings, which have massively improved our results. He seemed to get a formation working, with Fitzpatrick and Cardle making a huge difference. But then he chops and changes, and as you say, we're back with a starting 11 not too disimilar to the start of the season. And playing like it too.

Yesterday was ulitimately a great and very important result, and there have been many since the start of the year. Caldwell's now won almost as many games as he's lost (I make it 9 to 11) which isn't too bad considering he took on a thoroughly demoralised team and many of his defeats came early on. I'm just hoping he can drag us through to safety because right now that's really all that matters.

 

[KemoAvdiu]

36 minutes ago, Alan Murray said:

Were you at the game? 

Don't think Flannigan will be at alloa next season. 

Yup, and I’ve seen Flannigan in every game against us this year. He was one of the most gutless players to have played for us in the last few decades, and nothing I’ve seen from him this season has suggested he’s found any guts since he played for us. I’m up for resigning him, and maybe Will Snowden and Mark McChrystal, just for a laugh though. 

 

[dl1971]

7 hours ago, jlsarmy said:

8 of the team who started today were already here before Caldwell arrived.     Fact 

From that perspective he has improved the players he inherited? Also only 6 of the inherited players played the second half when we can all agree we were much better.

[Dark Passenger]

12 hours ago, sandy said:

If we survive relegation, it will largely down to Skippy not Caldwell IMO.

Imagine disliking Caldwell to such a degree that you're incapable of giving him credit for one of the best signings in a decade...

[Dark Passenger]

14 hours ago, Winter of '63 said:

I always thought Scott MacDonald was an obnoxious wee nyaff when he played for the opposition...now I have seen him for Thistle, I was able to confirm that he is. He didn't play particularly well but scored a good free kick, beating the fat-boy Alloa Keeper who showed  that he was not only slow at taking bye kicks. It was a crucial goal for Thistle but MacDonald's reaction to go to taunt the small band of Alloa Fans rather that celebrate with his own supporters was the most pathetic thing I have ever seen from a Thistle player.

I've read some amount of sh*te on the forum - contributed my fair share, too - but this is comfortably the worst take ever committed to the site.

If McDonald's celebration sent you into a spittle-flecked rage then I'm genuinely surprised you survived the heart attacks brought on every time Mark Roberts scored against Airdrie.

That small band of Alloa fans abused McDonald for 90 minutes. At one point they referred to our manager as a "sad f*nian b*st*rd". GIRFUT.

Edited April 21, 2019 by Dark Passenger

[Fearchar]

13 hours ago, Auld Jag said:

Good crowd of just over 3500. They gave great support to the team.

Perhaps we have a lot of fair-weather fans - literally! The halftime draw prize of over £600, if I heard aright, was astonishing. If money like that continues to go into youth development, it should hold promise for the future. Was that a hint (earlier in this thread) from McCall about his part in starting the youth setup?

[sandy]

1 hour ago, Dark Passenger said:

Imagine disliking Caldwell to such a degree that you're incapable of giving him credit for one of the best signings in a decade...

I can’t imagine, Skippy is brilliant. I’ll also give credit for moving the dugouts and taking us lower in the league.

[ARu-Strathbungo]

58 minutes ago, Dark Passenger said:

I've read some amount of sh*te on the forum - contributed my fair share, too - but this is comfortably the worst take ever committed to the site.

If McDonald's celebration sent you into a spittle-flecked rage then I'm genuinely surprised you survived the heart attacks brought on every time Mark Roberts scored against Airdrie.

That small band of Alloa fans abused McDonald for 90 minutes. At one point they referred to our manager as a "sad f*nian b*st*rd". GIRFUT.

I read in Saturdays  program that Skippy [or his manager at the time] knocked back a move to RFC before moving from Motherwell to sellik in the 2007 season. Maybe this is the reason for the invective hyperbole coming from some of the writers on the forum?

 

[BowenBoys]

In the second half, Alloa had a free kick near our penalty area. While Sneddon was trying to line up our wall, an Alloa player stood in front of him, obscuring his view. I've not seen this done before. A useful tactic. Not a bad idea for the attacking team to line up a wall in front of the keeper then disperse once the whistle is blown.

[Winter of '63]

1 hour ago, Dark Passenger said:

I've read some amount of sh*te on the forum - contributed my fair share, too - but this is comfortably the worst take ever committed to the site.

If McDonald's celebration sent you into a spittle-flecked rage then I'm genuinely surprised you survived the heart attacks brought on every time Mark Roberts scored against Airdrie.

That small band of Alloa fans abused McDonald for 90 minutes. At one point they referred to our manager as a "sad f*nian b*st*rd". GIRFUT.

This seems like a spittle-flecked rage. McDonald must be used to being abused by opposition supporters - it happened every time he played against Thistle. He is playing  and scoring for us now.

He had just scored what might be the most crucial goal of our season and I was surprised to see him running towards from where I was in the JHS  looked an almost empty Stand - there was in fact a baying horde of 220 Alloa fans. Scoring a goal is the best GIRUY there is...why not celebrate with your own fans first?

No idea what the relevance of Mark Roberts and Airdrie is...and don't care.

The sectarian nonsense used to be confined almost exclusively to two clubs and can't imagine why fans of other clubs want to join in...I remember Thistle fans booing these songs 50 years ago when nobody else cared... football brings out some strange behaviour in people...myself included.

 

[jlsarmy]

2 hours ago, dl1971 said:

From that perspective he has improved the players he inherited? Also only 6 of the inherited players played the second half when we can all agree we were much better.

Not so sure about that , think a lot of our problems we’ve had this season are more down to Gary Caldwell’ s perspective of how football should be played , he doesn’t generally play an expansive game which includes wingers or the creative player who might not retain the ball but has got the ability to unlock a packed defence .

Give him his due yesterday, he changed it at halftime with creative players in Harkins and Cardle coming on to win the game for us .

Most supporters looking at the starting team sheet yesterday must have been concerned at the defensive line up in a “ must win game “

If we had started with a more attacking line up yesterday and played on the front foot from the off , we win that game 2 or 3 nil  in my opinion 

Sincerely hope we go for it in the remaining games .

[lady-isobel-barnett]

5 minutes ago, jlsarmy said:

Not so sure about that , think a lot of our problems we’ve had this season are more down to Gary Caldwell’ s perspective of how football should be played , he doesn’t generally play an expansive game which includes wingers or the creative player who might not retain the ball but has got the ability to unlock a packed defence .

Give him his due yesterday, he changed it at halftime with creative players in Harkins and Cardle coming on to win the game for us .

Most supporters looking at the starting team sheet yesterday must have been concerned at the defensive line up in a “ must win game “

If we had started with a more attacking line up yesterday and played on the front foot from the off , we win that game 2 or 3 nil  in my opinion 

Sincerely hope we go for it in the remaining games .

Agree with everything there. Yesterday's narrow win all hinged on the half time changes of shape and personnel. If I say we got lucky that the two subs that came on hit the ground running so to speak, it sounds faint praise of Caldwell, I don't really mean it to sound that way as he's to be credited with making the change in the first place.  Just feel that if we continue to play two up we need to find more ways of supply than the threaded ball through the middle and the occasional cross from a wingback.

[laukat]

The starting formation and team selection yesterday was very strange. It looked to me like we were playing 4-4-2 with the 4 in the middle being a diamond. The middle was were the problem was. If you going to play a 4 of any sort having Elliot wide when you have fitzpatrick and cardle available makes no sense. Having Slater play defensinve midfielder rather than Gordon was daft and Spittal was always too narrow to play the left sided role to any effect.

It was a pleasant surprise to see us make subs at halftime. Cardle's goal really turns the game around as we really needed to score early to unsettle the Alloa defence. Harkins had his dancing feet on and some of his dribbles were excellent. More importantly he played as the defensive midfielderwhich allowed Slater to get close to Flannigan who in the first hald had all the space and time needed to control the tempo of the game. Slater did really well against Flannigan and began to dominate the physical battles pushing us further up the park.

McGinty was to my mind the best player in a Thistle jersey. First half he took responsibity when others hid. Second half he dominated the aerial battles when Alloa started going route one to try and get up the park. McDonald is such a clever player and natural leader that if we do bin Caldwell we could do worse than giving him a try as manager.

I have no idea what people see in Spittal and how on earth he got player of the year. His attempts at tackling and competing in the air were half hearted, his delivery from corners and dead balls was not good. His positioning was also poor but in part that was down to the weird first half formation. If Spittal is to play he needs to play central as an attacking midfielder but I think we have better options in that position.

All game we looked extremely vunerable under corners. Whilst Hazard has his faults he does look more commanding at crosses and corners. Sneddon did have some decent saves second half but I would much prefer Hazard back for the last few games.

[Hankey]

3 hours ago, Dark Passenger said:

Imagine disliking Caldwell to such a degree that you're incapable of giving him credit for one of the best signings in a decade...

The fact we won is getting right under the sad ******** skin again. Theres an element of folk at Thistle right now who would never admit it, but are hoping we get beat every week so they can come on here and twitter to gloat about how right they were about Caldwell and they told you so.

Oh and by the way, I slaughtered the McDonald signing, it came across as pure desperation to me, but that signing has been one of our best in years and to not give the manager any credit for it is beyond petty, but I'm not surprised with these *****. 

Edited April 21, 2019 by Hankey

[ARu-Strathbungo]

3 minutes ago, laukat said:

The starting formation and team selection yesterday was very strange. It looked to me like we were playing 4-4-2 with the 4 in the middle being a diamond. The middle was were the problem was. If you going to play a 4 of any sort having Elliot wide when you have fitzpatrick and cardle available makes no sense. Having Slater play defensinve midfielder rather than Gordon was daft and Spittal was always too narrow to play the left sided role to any effect.

It was a pleasant surprise to see us make subs at halftime. Cardle's goal really turns the game around as we really needed to score early to unsettle the Alloa defence. Harkins had his dancing feet on and some of his dribbles were excellent. More importantly he played as the defensive midfielderwhich allowed Slater to get close to Flannigan who in the first hald had all the space and time needed to control the tempo of the game. Slater did really well against Flannigan and began to dominate the physical battles pushing us further up the park.

McGinty was to my mind the best player in a Thistle jersey. First half he took responsibity when others hid. Second half he dominated the aerial battles when Alloa started going route one to try and get up the park. McDonald is such a clever player and natural leader that if we do bin Caldwell we could do worse than giving him a try as manager.

I have no idea what people see in Spittal and how on earth he got player of the year. His attempts at tackling and competing in the air were half hearted, his delivery from corners and dead balls was not good. His positioning was also poor but in part that was down to the weird first half formation. If Spittal is to play he needs to play central as an attacking midfielder but I think we have better options in that position.

All game we looked extremely vunerable under corners. Whilst Hazard has his faults he does look more commanding at crosses and corners. Sneddon did have some decent saves second half but I would much prefer Hazard back for the last few games.

Agree with all of this.   

Had Doolan put away the half-chance on 4 minutes we would, IMO,  have snuffed out much of the Alloa forward play and kept their fans utterly quiet.

Regarding Spittal, I get the feeling he is being played out of his favoured position, and / or is being asked to do a job on the pitch he is uncomfortable with?

I hope against Ayr on Tuesday we play the same group of player that finished yesterday's game, play Harkins for the first half [make sure Harkins knows he only has 45 minutes to play] and use Bannigan for the second 45. Hopefully between those two playmakers we can frustrate Ayr by keeping possession in Ayr's half.  What was obvious in yesterdays game is the fact if we give away too many corners or set-pieces around the goal area, we cannot defend as good as we should.

[CotterJag]

11 minutes ago, Hankey said:

The fact we won is getting right under the sad ******** skin again. Theres an element of folk at Thistle right now who would never admit it, but are hoping we get beat every week so they can come on here and twitter to gloat about how right they were about Caldwell and they told you so.

A funny bunch but probably no different to the average support of any team.

Considering the shambles Caldwell inherited, he's done well to get rid of the dross and sign some good players. All in only one window.

Most won't argue about McDonald but until yesterday, I felt like the only one who thought Harkins was a good player.

The way people talk about how we miss Bannigan also confuses me.  The guy is suspended because he's off the pace and runs around kicking people for no reason.

Not too different from Harkins, except that Harkins makes telling passes into the last third and does a good job of blocking opposition passes into our last third.

I admire fan loyalty but not at the expense of the truth.

[Garscube Road End]

1 minute ago, Hankey said:

You've run out of ideas so are having a go at me for using profanity, and anyway if I go through your posts, can find you doing the exact same. Whether I swear or not you're a thick confused ****, just stating the truth.  You spend all your time online making digs at Caldwell and when you're challenged on it, you do a 180 turn and pretend to be happy for him, insincere af.  Too ******* bad if you don't like being called on it. I'm repeating myself now talking to a moron and away to enjoy the sun. 

Go and find where I use profanity. You must have sat on one your Easter eggs to be so upset.

[KemoAvdiu]

34 minutes ago, Hankey said:

Just stating the obvious. Day after day you and others make your wee snide digs about Caldwell and then suddenly give the impression you're glad he got a good result. Comes across  as phony as **** and then when you get challenged on it you act like you are being picked on. Boo hoo ya ******* plum.

Isn’t it possible to think Caldwell isn’t the man for the job but also be delighted that we won? 

Anyway, try and relax. We all remember our first beers. 

[Guest]

18 hours ago, Auld Jag said:

Glad you enjoyed the hospitality and we eventually got the right result. Not sure where you normally go but if you are in the John Lambie stand, come and say hello. I am always in the same spot just behind the goals.

Will do AJ. Usually wedge the kids into JL and then go to JHS but will stop by next time I'm in.

[Guest]

18 hours ago, sandy said:

Good 3 points today, but...

a) Caldwell got his formation wrong in first half and was too slow to see that

b) McGinty played like he had confidence, taking the ball forward to them 

c) I shuddered when Harkins came on as first sub, but he did have some good touches

d) let’s keep playing Sneddon as his confidence is growing 

e) Skippy is not a wee nyaff, he showed more commitment to win than most of our players; and was eloquent in the MoTM bit after. He has intelligence and will make a good manager one day.

 

So we stutter up to second bottom, probably still requiring 4 from 6 points in the Ayr double header. 

If we survive relegation, it will largely down to Skippy not Caldwell IMO.

 

Haha, you promised not to post tonight. Epic fail as the kids say

Agree with all esp the skippy bit

[Guest]

17 hours ago, Gnome on the Bing said:

I was worried at half-time, but fair play to Caldwell: he made the correct changes, and they were bold changes at that. Alloa were offering nothing in an offensive sense towards the end of the first-half. They were playing so deep that McGinty was having to charge up the field to create an overload situation, but as much as Sean's efforts were laudable, by bringing on Harkins we gained a 'quarter-back' with more creative ability. It was an obvious change but one that required a bit of bottle, as alongside the introduction of Cardle -- who was excellent -- it turned us into a very attacking side. As a consequence we played some excellent stuff in the second half and could easily have scored a couple more. My only quibble is that we lacked a bit of composure at times. Upon taking the lead we could have done with putting our foot on the ball and slowing things down. But hey - we needed those three points and Caldwell got us there in the end.

Best point in your post is composure. This has been sadly lacking in way too many players all season  possibly comes from being part of a relegated club. Along with confidence can be best harnessed by winning games and not being scared of losing. That's been a main problem all season since Caldwell arrived. We've been in relegation dog fight all of this time with no space for error. That's gotta affect players form.

[sandy]

19 minutes ago, Thistleberight said:

Haha, you promised not to post tonight. Epic fail as the kids say

Agree with all esp the skippy bit

Oh, my bad