Team v Hamilton

[rosythpar]

One game at a time but a much better performance yesterday. Lawless giving us that bit of creativity we have been needing.

The young trio had a good game yesterday and McCann deserved a goal for his performance,just needed to pick a corner.

 

[kelty_par]

1 hour ago, rosythpar said:

One game at a time but a much better performance yesterday. Lawless giving us that bit of creativity we have been needing.

The young trio had a good game yesterday and McCann deserved a goal for his performance,just needed to pick a corner.

 

Agree on the young 3, I’ve been critical of them but thought they were all very good yesterday. We need to play the front 3 again the way we did, 3 in the middle worked well and helped protect the defence well. Hope for one or 2 to come in this week and build on yesterday. Can’t get too carried away we are still bottom but if we can play like how we did yesterday every game I think we’ll be fine

[Grant]

13 hours ago, GG Riva said:

D'you think we'd have won if Yogi had made 5 or 6 changes from last week, Grant? I don't. Those who were dropped would have felt they'd been made scapegoats and it would have created disharmony in the squad since there were no stars in Greenock. By playing virtually the same team, he gave them the chance to help make up for that disastrous result.

We haven't a big, or good enough squad to ring 5 or 6 changes. 

 

If Breen, Dorrans, Connolly and Todorov/O'Hara (and providing they were are fit) had started instead of Donaldson, Martin, Todd and McCann I think we would have had just as good a chance. I don't beleive it was some masterstroke of man management that got the win, I think playing the players in a shape far more suited to there abilities was far, far, far more important. And it's something people have been saying for weeks. 

 

You talk about disharmony, what are the subs and reserves thinking? They're so far out of the reckoning Yogi won't pick them even after we've been scudded by five. 

[Grant]

19 hours ago, Raymie said:

It was very similar to the formation that Liverpool use, I thought?  

The three midfielders essentially held their positions and provided the protection for the back four or at times, back two. Dow and Lawless would come inside allowing Comrie and Edwards to get forward and support. If I recall correctly, our best chances came from the full backs getting deep into Hamilton’s half ? Both had very good games and Edward’s cross that led to the goal was quality 

Agreed, its not a shock that Edwards and Comrie had there best games in a while in a shape that gave them some protection going back, but just as importantly gave them someone to play and interact with going forward? So often over the past few weeks you'd have Edwards receiving the ball at about the half way line with no one in front of him to play one twos with, potentially overlap etc. 

I've been critical of Edwards weight of pass in the past, but he has a fantastic cross in his locker (Raith away earlier in the season), it's a crying shame that there's been a few players hung out to dry with the shape, and the jobs we've asked them to do this season. 

[GG Riva]

Just now, Grant said:

We haven't a big, or good enough squad to ring 5 or 6 changes. 

 

If Breen, Dorrans, Connolly and Todorov/O'Hara (and providing they were are fit) had started instead of Donaldson, Martin, Todd and McCann I think we would have had just as good a chance. I don't beleive it was some masterstroke of man management that got the win, I think playing the players in a shape far more suited to there abilities was far, far, far more important. And it's something people have been saying for weeks. 

 

You talk about disharmony, what are the subs and reserves thinking? They're so far out of the reckoning Yogi won't pick them even after we've been scudded by five. 

True, players on the bench will accept they're not going to get a game when the team is playing well, but could reasonably expected to play after last week's result. I'm guessing Yogi told the squad he was giving these players a chance to make up for the previous week. Had this produced another heavy defeat, I reckon he would have had to make changes this week, weak bench or not. As it is, we'll probably only see the enforced change with Connolly away.

[Piracy]

10 minutes ago, GG Riva said:

True, players on the bench will accept they're not going to get a game when the team is playing well, but could reasonably expected to play after last week's result. I'm guessing Yogi told the squad he was giving these players a chance to make up for the previous week. Had this produced another heavy defeat, I reckon he would have had to make changes this week, weak bench or not. As it is, we'll probably only see the enforced change with Connolly away.

Every club in the world has players on the bench and they're bound to be disappointed. Managers and coaches will always play what players they reckon is their best placed chance of getting a result in a game. They obviously all don't get it right, but that their job. I reckon Yogi has time to pull us out of this relegation situation. I'm not overly enamoured with some of his decisions and the recent abysmal performances but right now he and the team will be getting my full support. 

[kelty_par]

Thought Donaldson was solid Saturday, much better than the Morton game 

[GG Riva]

10 minutes ago, kelty_par said:

Thought Donaldson was solid Saturday, much better than the Morton game 

That might be because he was more comfortable playing alongside Connolly. We'll find out soon enough.

[Yorkie]

Having only watched the highlights we did look a bit better. At last we were attacking with pace and the speed of passing was much improved.  Was impressed by Lawless.  

[kelty_par]

47 minutes ago, GG Riva said:

That might be because he was more comfortable playing alongside Connolly. We'll find out soon enough.

I think so too, Martin isn’t a natural centre back and breen is a bombscare imo. Definitely a replacement needed for Saturday

[parsforlife]

6 hours ago, GG Riva said:

That might be because he was more comfortable playing alongside Connolly. We'll find out soon enough.

I think it’s more to do with him being rusty last week,  he was mistiming headers etc. 

[Digs]

On 17/01/2022 at 09:27, GG Riva said:

That might be because he was more comfortable playing alongside Connolly. We'll find out soon enough.

I don't buy into that. As a centre back your focus is winning your headers, getting your blocks in, and keeping the shape and line of the back four. If the boy next to you isn't doing what he's supposed to, you get them told. If you're not comfortable doing that, or need the boy next to you to hold your hand in doing so, you're not much of a centre half. 

I think it was more just about having trained with the squad for a week and getting rid of some ring-rust. He looked pretty solid on Saturday and hopefully will take over the leadership gap left by Connolly until we get another experienced centre half in.

[GG Riva]

9 hours ago, Digs said:

I don't buy into that. As a centre back your focus is winning your headers, getting your blocks in, and keeping the shape and line of the back four. If the boy next to you isn't doing what he's supposed to, you get them told. If you're not comfortable doing that, or need the boy next to you to hold your hand in doing so, you're not much of a centre half. 

I think it was more just about having trained with the squad for a week and getting rid of some ring-rust. He looked pretty solid on Saturday and hopefully will take over the leadership gap left by Connolly until we get another experienced centre half in.

I don't disagree with anything you've said above, Digs, but let me take you back a few seasons to when we had a solid central pairing of Ashcroft and Morris. The following season Morris went to Dingwall and we brought in Danny Devine. Ashcroft was never the same player.

How would you explain that?

[Digs]

18 hours ago, GG Riva said:

I don't disagree with anything you've said above, Digs, but let me take you back a few seasons to when we had a solid central pairing of Ashcroft and Morris. The following season Morris went to Dingwall and we brought in Danny Devine. Ashcroft was never the same player.

How would you explain that?

If the player next to him is murder, he's hardly going to excel week in week out on his own in the centre of defence is he? He also had a drastic drop in his own form, so it wasn't all down to Devine. Putting a players individual performance down to the boy he's playing beside is passing the buck. Centre backs take control and lead, they need to dominate. They don't wait on their partner to tell them what to do. 

[Secure Par]

5 hours ago, Digs said:

If the player next to him is murder, he's hardly going to excel week in week out on his own in the centre of defence is he? He also had a drastic drop in his own form, so it wasn't all down to Devine. Putting a players individual performance down to the boy he's playing beside is passing the buck. Centre backs take control and lead, they need to dominate. They don't wait on their partner to tell them what to do. 

Totally agree Digs. Correct me as I could be wrong but with Connally in there it looked as though the other CB was relying on him during the game. If we had 2 x CB’s like Connally we would be a lot better…. It’s all about talking along the back and midfield.