blueheaven

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Everything posted by blueheaven

  1. Saints 1 Livingston 0 Goal: Kimpioka Card: McGowan
  2. I thought Benji was excellent last night. Not just the pace, but his touch and the way he was linking up with DJ in particular. He seems to have really grown since his first couple of games and with that ability to win one-on-one races against defenders and produce a good finish when he gets through on goal, am I getting carried away to suggest he could actually become a regular goalscorer for us? Maybe I'm forgetting someone, but I don't think we've had an attacking player capable of running past defenders like that since O'Halloran was at his peak.
  3. Big improvement. I think you could really see how using fewer defenders meant we were less crowded along our own 18-yard line and we were actually able to move the ball forwards, especially with Kimpioka's running up top. That starting XI was only one player different from the one I suggested I wanted us to go with at the start of this thread, although the formation was different. I'm not convinced Matt Smith is suited to playing wide right but can see why there would have been a desire to fit him in somehow. Think Sprangler's ability to put in a tackle and play a simple pass makes such a big difference to our overall play. We're better at holding onto possession when he's on the pitch, which frees up our other midfielders to play their game and get forward, and our defence stay protected without needing an extra man in there. Surely he has to keep his place for the foreseeable? Shout out for DJ who I felt had probably his best game for us and was linking up really well with Kimpioka. I've been really unconvinced by him so far but I think you could really see he was in a more comfortable role last night and should never, ever have been used as a lone striker. I do think our evening was helped quite a lot by Aberdeen being awful and having their home fans on their backs every time they took a second touch of the ball - but you take what you can get. I think it's really important that Levein keeps the same starting XI for the Livingston game, to send the message that if you play well and win you're rewarded with keeping your place. Please, please, please no more needless tweaking of the team. Give these players a chance.
  4. I agree that this is probably how their thinking went but personally, given the options that narrowed it down to, I would have changed some of the boxes.
  5. And let's not forget who our first choice was (shudder). It's not even as if we had someone brilliant lined up before we went for Levein. It all really makes me wonder what on earth has happened to our once-enviable manager selection process. Was there even a process this time?
  6. I know it's stating the obvious but these next two game are absolutely gigantic for us now. If we lose tonight and then go a goal down against Livingston, I can see there being some serious unrest in the stands at that game. It'll put us deep in a slump while Livingston and Ross County are in the ascendancy. If that happens I really struggle to see Levein and Kirk being able to turn it round and get the fans back onside. They seriously need to go for it tonight and demonstrate they're willing and able to come up with a different, more effective plan. If it's still a defensive plan then so be it but it absolutely needs to be something that can actually start getting us results.
  7. 100% this. What this club has needed ever since the Davidson reign went sour is a major confidence boost. Someone who can come in and excite the fans and lift the players and talk us up. I believe Macca understood that and really wanted to do that but just didn't know how, and he was the completely wrong appointment too. What Levein has done is shrink the whole club even further back into its shell. There's just no one who is of the mindset that the club should be kicking on a level and doing better, and trying to drive us forward like Coyle, McInnes, Lomas and Wright all did. Levein has two entire seasons left on his contract after this one. Even if we stay up, what are his ambitions for those two years? Just keeping us up with 0-0 draws every week from now until he retires? Is that seriously what success looks like?
  8. Aberdeen 2 Saints 0 Goal: Duk Card: Phillips
  9. I'm narrowing it down to a straight race between Rudy Giuliani and John Grisham.
  10. Posted this on the St Mirren thread but I'd like to see us go with something like this: ___________________Mitov Keltjens __McGowan Gordon__Robinson _________Sprangler___Phillips Kimpioka___M. Smith____May ___________________Clark For the most part that puts everyone in their natural positions and we lose the failing wing-back system in favour of a simple flat back four. Sprangler sits back and protects the defence and can be almost like the third centre-back if needed. Challenge Phillips to cover more ground and go box-to-box. Matt Smith in a more attacking role. Kimpioka wide right to use his pace as an out-and-out winger. And bring back May, who must surely feel like he has a point to prove, to drift in off the left flank and support Clark. That said, I think Levein will probably go with something more like this: ___________________Mitov __________Gordon Considine Robinson Keltjens ______Phillips Carey_______ Gallacher ____________M. Smith___Kucheriavyi ___________________Clark
  11. The thing is, Bair wasn't good enough but he's now starting every week for Motherwell. Costelloe wasn't good enough and yet he's starting every week for Dundee. Is it really the players being not good enough that's the problem, or have we just become really, really bad at coaching, developing and getting the best out of footballers? This used to be a club where players would come and resurrect their careers. Often fairly limited players could come here and become vital parts of a more successful group, because we had managers who were able to create settled squads that were greater than the sum of their parts. Now it just feels like a club that players need to escape from for their own good.
  12. Exactly. I mean, Drey Wright was openly questioning some of it on co-commentary during the St Mirren game. One example was him talking about how Stevie May should be starting up front with Clark because the two of them did so well together last season.
  13. I've commented with my opinions and observations, which is all any of us can do and is the whole point of the forum. I'm not claiming any of it to be some sort of inside information and I've made it pretty clear that all I'm doing is giving my view. If you want to disagree with that view then go for it, but I don't see anything wrong in what I've posted.
  14. I think this is a huge part of the problem. He doesn't appear to rate his squad: we can sense that as fans, so you can bet the players will sense it. What will that be doing for the confidence levels in the dressing room? What will it be doing for the relationship between the players and the manager? He needs to be talking his players up, boosting their confidence and getting the best out of them, not chopping and changing every week and setting them up to defend at all costs because he doesn't have any belief in their abilities to do anything more than that.
  15. When Levein was appointed I mentioned on here that I thought his interview was weird. He didn't express any excitement about getting the job, he didn't say anything about his ambitions for the club or what it had achieved in its very recent history or what it could do in the future. In fact he didn't say anything about St Johnstone at all. He basically just said Geoff asked him to take the job, so he took it. Looking back on that I think it really highlighted what Levein's mindset is. He undoubtedly sees us as a decent option for himself to manage in the Premiership again but he doesn't see St Johnstone as a club to get excited about. His attitude actually reminds me of Billy Stark, who didn't understand the fans' ambitions and just saw us as a small club who should be content/grateful to be where we were. Guys like Derek McInnes and Owen Coyle might have lacked experience but they had a hunger and a drive and they were excited to have been given the opportunity to manage here and wanted to snatch that opportunity with both hands. Can anyone honestly say the same thing about Craig Levein? I'm not even sure that Craig Levein would particularly care if Craig Levein got sacked.
  16. I honestly don't think the squad is all that bad. Of course it's imbalanced and we lack width and the defence needs an overhaul (which I expect would happen this summer regardless of this season's performances). Of course the quality isn't what it was a few years ago but I really don't think it would take all that much to have this squad fairly comfortably mid-table (and let's not forget that just a couple of weeks ago we were about 15 minutes from being in the top 6). The players just need the right structure, and a bit of a confidence boost, and some license to knock the ball about a bit and try to enjoy their football. I think in players like Mitov, Keltjens, Sprangler, Phillips, Matt Smith, Carey, May and Clark there's the essence of a reasonably decent team there that could comfortably give us something to build on. But to me the manager is just making error after error in how he does things. The players' mindset is all wrong and instead of having it drilled into them to be aggressive and fearless and have a go at their opponents, they're having it drilled into them to be scared (which is exactly what Callum Davidson did, too). One thing that the last couple of years has shown us is that you really don't have to be particularly good to stay in this league. We were absolutely rotten for two whole seasons under Davidson and yet we still didn't go down. If we actually get relegated with what we have it'll be entirely on Levein and Kirk and there's no way they should be allowed to survive that happening.
  17. Agree with this. I actually think our system is giving our defenders too much to do. The wing-backs are being asked to perform attacking roles they're not cut out for, and it leaves us exposed in the areas traditionally covered by full-backs. And playing three central defenders means we have just three players concentrating fully on being defenders instead of four. For Wednesday I think Levein needs to completely scrap this approach, give everyone a clean slate and go back to basics. A back four with Keltjens at right-back, Robinson at left-back and whichever two of Gordon, McGowan and Considine are deemed to work best in the middle. I'd be tempted to give Kimpioka a go at right wing as he has pace, has an element of unpredictability and could do some damage, with Keltjens sitting behind him to protect him. Sprangler sitting in front of the defence. Matt Smith getting further forward. Phillips with a box-to-box role. Stevie May coming in from the left to support Nicky Clark up front. Basically a 4-5-1 but it becomes a 4-3-3 when we're on the attack. I feel Carey could do with a rest and I assume Sidibeh will also be given a break in midweek. ___________________Mitov Keltjens __McGowan Gordon__Robinson _________Sprangler___Phillips Kimpioka___M. Smith____May ___________________Clark
  18. Yep: Wright and McInnes both fantastic managers, both known for playing defensive football at times, but both also able to do it effectively and intelligently so that it brings out the best in their players and produces results. The downgrade we've made by going from managers like McInnes and Wright to guys like Davidson, MacLean and the supposedly safe and experienced Levein is absolutely gigantic. We could have been sitting here right now with either one of those two as our manager if only the club hadn't made such a huge screw-up of every single one of its recent managerial decisions.
  19. I'm not sure what your point is here. At least five of Levein's games have been against teams in the bottom five too (three games against Motherwell, two against Ross County, one against Hibs, one against Livi, one against Aberdeen). The only real difference is the cup games. Macca's spell included our League Cup group games, while Levein's included getting put out of the Scottish Cup by Airdrie.
  20. Just for a quick comparison between Macca and Levein. Macca was in charge for 19 games. Won 4, drew 6, lost 9. Levein has been in charge for 18 games. Won 4, drew 5, lost 9. So for all the "steadied the ship" stuff around Levein, it could now be argued Macca had the better record after a similar period of time. It took him 19 games to lose 9 times. Levein has done it in 18.
  21. Tell you what: we're really seeing how much better a manager Tommy Wright was than Craig Levein. Wright would have tried all of this stuff. He would have found the system that best suits the players, he would have made changes during games to address things that were going wrong, and if we had a bad run of results he'd have pulled us out of it and turned it around. I don't think Levein is capable of doing any of that.
  22. Presumably a retractable roof would cost even more?
  23. Giving Levein a three-year contract was just the latest in a long line of laughably bad decisions made by the club ever since Tommy Wright left. Whoever was brought in to replace Macca (himself a ridiculously bad appointment) should have been told they have until the end of the season to keep us up and prove they're the right person for the job. Then the long-term contract could start being discussed. The single biggest problem this team has had for years is an inability to score goals. So what do Saints do? They go out and head-hunt the one guy more famed than anyone else in Scottish football for his negative approach. I've always said I don't care how we play as long as we're successful. If parking the bus gets us 1-0 wins every week and pulls us up the table then I'm delighted with that. But when being defensive makes absolutely no difference to results and we still end up losing every week anyway, surely it's time to chuck that plan out the window and accept that it's not going to work? In my years of supporting Saints we've finished third in the country twice, and on both occasions it was done by playing aggressive, attacking football. It's a complete myth that a team of Saints' size needs to be scared of every other team in the league, but the culture of fear instilled by Davidson, unbroken by MacLean's best efforts and continued with gusto by Levein has absolutely destroyed any confidence our players ever had in their ability to actually have a go at teams. We're just a complete shell of the St Johnstone we once were and it's bloody heartbreaking to watch. I'm very rarely in favour of sacking managers after such a short amount of time. I wasn't particularly on board with sacking John Connolly so quickly and I also felt Macca could perhaps have got a bit more time, given the circumstances he was working under. But in my opinion both Levein and Kirk should be removed from their positions immediately. Sadly, I don't think there's any chance of that happening any time soon.
  24. Why was Keltjens dropped yesterday? Why was Gallacher at right wing-back? Why are we even persisting with a wing-back system in the first place when we don't have any wing-backs in our squad? Why are inferior players being picked ahead of Sprangler and May? Why did we waste our precious budget on signing an unneeded player like Connor Smith? Why do we keep signing strikers for a system that seems entirely designed to keep the ball away from them? Why does Max keep being brought onto the pitch in situations he's completely unequipped to make any impact in? Why did we send Kane and Brown out on loan when they'd probably have had roles to play in the team right now? Why have we put a Highland League manager in charge of training? Why did we give Levein a three-year contract when he'd done nothing to earn it? Why have we made three absolutely rotten managerial appointments on the trot? Why couldn't we have just asked Tommy Wright to stay so that everything would have been OK and none of this f**king nightmare would have happened? Absolutely sick of the whole lot of them and I've never, ever felt more disillusioned with this half-arsed mess of a club than I do right now. I can only pray that the prospective new owners were watching very closely and that their first point of business will be to replace Levein and Kirk as an urgent priority.
  25. Why even bother making the roof retractable? Just have a permanent roof over the stadium and you completely eradicate any issues caused by rainfall, snow, frost etc. Believe there are a few grounds in Scandinavia like this.