St.Johnstone V St.Mirren - Saturday 6th November

[Cagey]

Callum has to have a word with Rooney ,noising up the St Mirren fans. At the final whistle got involved with goalie(I think) and then went & threw his strip into the crowd. He then got booked. Surprised he didn't keep talking & got himself sent off.

Don't know what the strip to someone in the crowd was about as I didn't think they were allowed to give away is swap strips.

[Cagey]

26 minutes ago, Brian Potter said:

I think we’re seeing the impact that losing Kerr and McCann is having on the rest of the team. 
 

 

That is the main problem. No one in our team has the composure in defence of Kerr.

No one in midfield can win the ball, keep possession & set up play McCann.

[R.B.B:- Adz]

1 hour ago, Cagey said:

Middleton has been poor this season & also looks slow & disinterested.

Can we cut his & Muller's loan short.

Can we also withdraw the contract offer for McCart or hope that Hibs still want him as he has been poor this season. Today he was absolutely honking.

Agree with Middleton and Muller but couldn’t disagree more with your assessment of McCart. He adds bags of value to any settled back 3… Alas, we haven’t had a settled back 3 for a very very long time.

Edited November 6, 2021 by R.B.B:- Adz

[Melbourne Saint]

That was painful. Non football. We're at a crossroads. Our system is known, we need something in midfield and upfront.

Kane is a good player, but we're missing a threat. I won't berate him, or others. His suspension may be a good thing.

I'd lose a few loanees, get max & Gilmour back. 

Eetu upfront. we're playing Iike Accies.

Boring, predictable football. Time for change.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Melbourne Saint

[rik2304]

1 hour ago, Cagey said:

First half tactics were shite,far too negative . Mikey & Booth were never out of their own half. Tanser was never out of our half. We know Tansers weak point is defending & Mikey never pushed him back & never helped out Muller either.

Second half was a wee bit better but we still kept giving ball away & no composure, just punting or heading the ball into the wind.

I lost count of the times McCart had an easy pass out to Booth but chose to pass infield & give the ball away.

I am beginning to think last season success was down to Tommy's team & formation from previous season after break.

Stole a point today again.

Sakes. You were even more miserable when Tommy was the manager!

[Cagey]

2 minutes ago, rik2304 said:

Sakes. You were even more miserable when Tommy was the manager!

Have to agree,

[Rob]

Think Rooney gave his shirt to a kid in the crowd who presumably asked for it. Considering these shirts with the printed poppy are going to be worn only once I thought it was a nice gesture. Hope something good is being done with all the shirts.

I think one of the issues this year is that we havent strengthened and spent money while every other team has. We are unfortunately a weaker team. We lost key players that played a massive part in our stability over the last few seasons with no time to find the right replacements. The instability seems to have really messed up the whole team.

 

[SlickDT]

Really quite comical how quickly people would write off players after a few poorer games. The team as a whole were dreadful yesterday but the idea that we remove contract offers for the likes of McCart and stick in youngsters that have had barely any game time at this level is gold standard football fan overreaction. Double cup winners win the right to sort their form out.

Let's remember as bad as the football was we've come away with 5 points out of 9 from three tricky ties.

Let's not beat about the bush- there are issues to sort out. We are missing McCann dreadfully and we need to find a solution in there with 3 of our options clearly closer to the end of their career than the start. I've said it many times before- I love Murray Davidsons commitment on the park, but I often think in games he is the solution to a problem that he helps create. Crawford has ability, but it looks to me like we would need two players in beside him that cover alot of ground and can press hard. Players that look to get the ball to feet so they can build play through him, as opposed to the centre-backs regularly having to play long balls forward due to a lack of movement infront of them.

Kerr is also a huge loss for us, but injuries have really hampered us and the constant changing of the 3 doesn't help. I personally think Dendonker looks the best option to join Gordon and McCart. Given time that would be a solid unit. Let's not forget the boys kept a clean sheet yesterday. Muller looked ropey in the first half, but he came on to a game in the second and made some great blocks at the end. He was also very quick to encourage McCart after his mistakes. I like to see that attitude.

We were blunt again upfront, but couldn't agree less with the accusation Middleton didn't look bothered. He was trying hard, but it just wasn't his day. He was pressing the back-line and trying to get in behind at times. His game is never going to look great when he is trying to deal with long balls. His form is being hampered by our overall play. Eetu clearly is not fancied by Callum at this point. Whether that's because he still feels he has things to learn about our playing style or that he believes we've brought in a dud I don't know, but one way or another it would be nice to see a new option in the January window if he's not going to be used.

As for Rooney at the end, whilst unprofessional, I'm OK with a player showing he cares on a day like yesterday. He clearly had something to say to one fan in particular. I highly doubt there wasn't something said to him in the first place that didn't trigger it. I'd be much more worried if players like Rooney coming to end of their contract showed no passion at a performance like that.

Onwards and upwards. Callum is aware of how poor we were. He will work hard in the lead up to the semis and the likes of Rooney and Spoony will be back and ready to get involved in the starting XI.

 

[sixties saintee]

Jeez mate positively on Wap, cue the moaners.

[Johnny B]

Last season in the main we played 3 4 1 2 or 3 4 2 1. recently we have been playing 3 5 I much preferred us with 2 central midfielders inside the wing backs and 2 behind the striker. We have played various pairs up front with now number 10: Kane and May, Middleton and Kane & MOH and Kane. The most sucess we had with this was MOH and Kane in Europe. I my opinion back to 3 4 2 1. Take your pick any two from Wotherspoon, MOH Middleton or May behind Kane.

[Rob]

2 hours ago, SlickDT said:

Really quite comical how quickly people would write off players after a few poorer games. The team as a whole were dreadful yesterday but the idea that we remove contract offers for the likes of McCart and stick in youngsters that have had barely any game time at this level is gold standard football fan overreaction. Double cup winners win the right to sort their form out.

Let's remember as bad as the football was we've come away with 5 points out of 9 from three tricky ties.

Let's not beat about the bush- there are issues to sort out. We are missing McCann dreadfully and we need to find a solution in there with 3 of our options clearly closer to the end of their career than the start. I've said it many times before- I love Murray Davidsons commitment on the park, but I often think in games he is the solution to a problem that he helps create. Crawford has ability, but it looks to me like we would need two players in beside him that cover alot of ground and can press hard. Players that look to get the ball to feet so they can build play through him, as opposed to the centre-backs regularly having to play long balls forward due to a lack of movement infront of them.

Kerr is also a huge loss for us, but injuries have really hampered us and the constant changing of the 3 doesn't help. I personally think Dendonker looks the best option to join Gordon and McCart. Given time that would be a solid unit. Let's not forget the boys kept a clean sheet yesterday. Muller looked ropey in the first half, but he came on to a game in the second and made some great blocks at the end. He was also very quick to encourage McCart after his mistakes. I like to see that attitude.

We were blunt again upfront, but couldn't agree less with the accusation Middleton didn't look bothered. He was trying hard, but it just wasn't his day. He was pressing the back-line and trying to get in behind at times. His game is never going to look great when he is trying to deal with long balls. His form is being hampered by our overall play. Eetu clearly is not fancied by Callum at this point. Whether that's because he still feels he has things to learn about our playing style or that he believes we've brought in a dud I don't know, but one way or another it would be nice to see a new option in the January window if he's not going to be used.

As for Rooney at the end, whilst unprofessional, I'm OK with a player showing he cares on a day like yesterday. He clearly had something to say to one fan in particular. I highly doubt there wasn't something said to him in the first place that didn't trigger it. I'd be much more worried if players like Rooney coming to end of their contract showed no passion at a performance like that.

Onwards and upwards. Callum is aware of how poor we were. He will work hard in the lead up to the semis and the likes of Rooney and Spoony will be back and ready to get involved in the starting XI.

 

I think this sums it up nicely. It would have been a great 3 points yesterday but we didnt deserve, we were awful but didnt lack passion. Getting something out of yesterday was a positive as this is probably the strongest St Mirren in quite a while and this season is going to be a scrap. The team just isnt gelling at the moment, very much changing and not the continuity we had towards the end of last season. Its going to take time and we can hopefully get through these games and stay in the league. Our expectations are of course high, no one will be able to take last season away from us so hopefully we just need to ride this out.

[RandomGuy]

Let's not pretend this is just a bad run of form or something. We broke the league record for least amount of goals at home last season, and this year I think we've failed to score in 50% of our games.

There's a fundamental issue with us scoring under Davidson and has been since he took charge. It's fine when everything clicks but the majority of games last season were a slog to watch too. Maybe a personnel issue, or maybe a tactical issue, but it's starting to bite us now.l and its something he needs to address.

[Jenko82]

5 minutes ago, RandomGuy said:

Let's not pretend this is just a bad run of form or something. We broke the league record for least amount of goals at home last season, and this year I think we've failed to score in 50% of our games.

There's a fundamental issue with us scoring under Davidson and has been since he took charge. It's fine when everything clicks but the majority of games last season were a slog to watch too. Maybe a personnel issue, or maybe a tactical issue, but it's starting to bite us now.l and its something he needs to address.

Would have to agree with this. We have an inability to break teams down and that was typified yesterday with St Mirren sitting in and being difficult to breakdown, Jim Goodwin pretty much admitted that his team was set up. Parking Tanser right on OHalloran prevented Mikey getting any space and prevented him being able to run at Tanser which is likely where we saw our best attacking opportunities.  We lack any sort of guile when spoony is missing and quickly resort to going long, this was slightly improved in the 2nd half.

All these things were apparent at home last season, the main difference being I was watching on a laptop or phone, and could distract myself with other things and come back to the football, we don't have that luxury when watching it in the flesh, which amplifies how poor our home form is.

A big January coming up and hopefully with financial backing and the HoR onboard we can see some positive movement for targets.

 

 

[sixties saintee]

Great editing fae the Beeb,  Kane gets two yellows and sent off, and then is seen in the next couple o shots running around.

[blueheaven]

Even though we got a point, I thought that was probably the worst I've seen us play under Davidson. Even worse than the hammering we took from Livi a few weeks back. I really like Davidson, and his achievements in his short time here have been off the scale, but I think he needs to take a lot of the blame for a performance like that. When the manager says before a game "We've got a plan. We've had a really good week's training, so we are looking forward to it" - and then the team plays as badly as that, I really wonder what that plan was and exactly what's happening at training. Because yesterday we looked sluggish and lethargic, we were second to most 50-50 balls, we could barely string three or four passes together and our players were mis-controlling the ball all over the pitch. 

Last night on MOTD Gary Lineker was talking about how so much of Man City's hard work is done off the ball. When our players are off the ball they stand still. I don't expect us to be as good as Man City, but there's no reason why we can't work as hard as they do. When we try to attack, everything breaks down because no one is making runs off the ball, and when players do make the runs forward the ball often gets played behind them so there's no flow. It makes us so easy to defend against. It's such simple stuff and after a year and a half of Davidson being in charge I'd expect that to have been sorted out in training.

Another thing - our discipline is rotten. I'm sick of seeing our players getting booked for mouthing off at referees. We now have our first choice striker suspended, and for what? Rooney completely lost the plot and probably would have also been sent off if the match had gone on for another 5 or 10 minutes. Davidson needs to get a grip of that situation.

On the bright side, St Mirren didn't actually cause us many problems and it just shows how tight things are in the league and we're not the only team who struggle to score goals. It really feels to me like it wouldn't be that difficult this season to piece a run together and stay comfortably in the Top 6. We have good enough players to do that - they just need to get back to basics and start doing the simple things well again.

Also - have to say that I thought Stevie May played really well when he came on. Some great touches and fantastic work rate. He should really be starting games for us at the moment.

[RandomGuy]

4 minutes ago, blueheaven said:

we're not the only team who struggle to score goals. 

Also - have to say that I thought Stevie May played really well when he came on. Some great touches and fantastic work rate. He should really be starting games for us at the moment.

On the first point, we've scored 8 goals in 13 games, with 3 coming in 1 game. Ourselves, Dundee, and Livingston, are the only clubs to have scored less than 15 goals. We are so, so, bad at scoring.

May was good aye, but it's the same issue we have with O'Halloran. You maybe get 2 good games in a row from them then 3/4 games where they do nothing.

[Cagey]

Only positive from yesterday apart from stealing a point was that Callum had the balls to make 2 subs at halftime. Usually leaves it to 80 mins.

[RandomGuy]

1 hour ago, Cagey said:

Only positive from yesterday apart from stealing a point was that Callum had the balls to make 2 subs at halftime. Usually leaves it to 80 mins.

Hopefully just a coincidence he finally does it the week after United do it against us.

[rik2304]

He can make a sub after 5 minutes if he likes. We don't have a strong enough squad to have any really influencial players on the bench.

[blueheaven]

1 hour ago, RandomGuy said:

On the first point, we've scored 8 goals in 13 games, with 3 coming in 1 game. Ourselves, Dundee, and Livingston, are the only clubs to have scored less than 15 goals. We are so, so, bad at scoring.

Absolutely, I wasn't disputing that at all. Simply pointing out that despite us playing badly and St Mirren being on top, they struggled in front of goal just as much as we did.

8 minutes ago, rik2304 said:

He can make a sub after 5 minutes if he likes. We don't have a strong enough squad to have any really influencial players on the bench.

Not sure about that. To me our squad looks pretty strong now - arguably the strongest it's been in many, many years. We have multiple options in every position right across the park. It's not a stronger squad we need at this stage. It's for the team to start playing to its capabilities and doing it consistently.

[Brian Potter]

15 minutes ago, blueheaven said:

Absolutely, I wasn't disputing that at all. Simply pointing out that despite us playing badly and St Mirren being on top, they struggled in front of goal just as much as we did.

Not sure about that. To me our squad looks pretty strong now - arguably the strongest it's been in many, many years. We have multiple options in every position right across the park. It's not a stronger squad we need at this stage. It's for the team to start playing to its capabilities and doing it consistently.

I disagree the squad is stronger. We’ve replaced quality with quantity. Apart from up front where we’ve lost both. 

[Sergei]

14 hours ago, Brian Potter said:

I think we’re seeing the impact that losing Kerr and McCann is having on the rest of the team. 

 

13 hours ago, R.B.B:- Adz said:

Alas, we haven’t had a settled back 3 for a very very long time.

 

12 hours ago, Rob said:

I think one of the issues this year is that we havent strengthened and spent money while every other team has.

To me these are the core reasons for how things are at the moment. 

It's unforgiveable we didn't strengthen over the summer. I doubt the Chairman offered Callum a budget to sign players and he turned it down saying he'd much rather flood the squad with loan signings. Obviously injuries and suspensions haven't helped but I wonder if so many changes are being made because Callum isn't totally convinced by the players he's had to bring in/been given to him. I doubt much will change in January either. 

[Abernethy Saint]

Haven’t we just taken 5 points off 3 teams higher up the league than us? And aren’t we ahead of where we were in the league last year, and so far matching our performance in the Cups last year? 

The real difference is folk are now paying hard-earned cash to watch Scottish football, and a lot of it isn’t great. 

I’m not complaining - you paid, so you get to moan. 

[Rob]

Yeah I dont think the team is stronger this season. Think it was a mistake to not strengthen in the Summer like other clubs, maybe its budget, maybe losing two of our best and most reliable players so late in the window. The goals are a worry but have been for years. We seem to struggle to attract someone who can score 10-15 goals a season. We had Watt a few seasons back who we probably thought was going to be that and that never materialised.

[Brian Potter]

We might need to recall Hendry if we get anymore suspensions/injuries.