St.Johnstone V Livingston - Saturday 2nd March

[blueheaven]

Was that the longest league league game in Saints history? The irony is that Livingston's time wasting was probably what killed them. Had they changed their approach and had a bit more faith in themselves they probably would have won that.

Given how bad things looked at this time last week, I think you have to say four points from these last two games is a pretty good outcome and has given us back a tiny bit of breathing space in comparison to how things could have been.

My feeling is we took Aberdeen by surprise by hitting them with two up front and particularly Kimpioka's pace. But yesterday Clark was essentially playing as a midfielder for most of the game which meant Kimpioka was playing on his own against three big defenders who were ready for him and he just didn't really stand a chance. Having two strikers on the pitch is a step forward but we need to be brave enough to actually use them as strikers or it becomes a bit pointless.

Sidibeh and May both looked lively when they came on and I like our striking options at the moment but I'm not sure the best way to use them has quite clicked together yet. And when DJ had to go off it seemed to kill off our gameplan a bit.

Just a general thought, but surely something has to be done about the amount of players now going down holding their heads to get games stopped? I think if players with head "injuries" had to go off the pitch for five minutes to have these injuries monitored/treated you'd very quickly see a big reduction in the number of players claiming to have had head knocks.

[dave mc]

David Keltjens was mom for me, looks a great player  

[rik2304]

Add another to the list of goals against from cross balls as well.

God I miss Ando and Wright.

[johndb]

1 hour ago, blueheaven said:

Was that the longest league league game in Saints history? The irony is that Livingston's time wasting was probably what killed them. Had they changed their approach and had a bit more faith in themselves they probably would have won that.

Given how bad things looked at this time last week, I think you have to say four points from these last two games is a pretty good outcome and has given us back a tiny bit of breathing space in comparison to how things could have been.

My feeling is we took Aberdeen by surprise by hitting them with two up front and particularly Kimpioka's pace. But yesterday Clark was essentially playing as a midfielder for most of the game which meant Kimpioka was playing on his own against three big defenders who were ready for him and he just didn't really stand a chance. Having two strikers on the pitch is a step forward but we need to be brave enough to actually use them as strikers or it becomes a bit pointless.

Sidibeh and May both looked lively when they came on and I like our striking options at the moment but I'm not sure the best way to use them has quite clicked together yet. And when DJ had to go off it seemed to kill off our gameplan a bit.

Just a general thought, but surely something has to be done about the amount of players now going down holding their heads to get games stopped? I think if players with head "injuries" had to go off the pitch for five minutes to have these injuries monitored/treated you'd very quickly see a big reduction in the number of players claiming to have had head knocks.

Time for rugby style gumshields with radio accelerometers?

[R.B.B:- Adz]

2 hours ago, dave mc said:

David Keltjens was mom for me, looks a great player  

Football ability wise he is head and shoulders above quite a few in the current squad who were being selected ahead of him. Hope to see him start most games for the rest of the season.

[Smarmy Arab]

4 hours ago, rik2304 said:

Add another to the list of goals against from cross balls as well.

God I miss Ando and Wright.

Know the feeling rik, I still miss Hegarty and Narey, always will!  

[johndb]

I only gave up on the saints once back in 67 when Celtic went on their European cup run. Well they were Scottish and winning. And they did win, still recall running from school to watch them win the final.  A few years later saints got to the final of the Scottish cup only to be beaten by a Bertie Auld goal. I'm near thatb time in 67 again. But how can you not support your home team??

34 minutes ago, Smarmy Arab said:

Know the feeling rik, I still miss Hegarty and Narey, always will!  

 

[johndb]

36 minutes ago, Smarmy Arab said:

Know the feeling rik, I still miss Hegarty and Narey, always will!  

Kevin or Paul? I played park football with both in Edinburgh. Kevin was a bit of a show off with step overs etc but Paul was just a hard player of the time. He used to 'help' our pimary school team with advice - he had his favourites and advovacted hard tactics. Great guy  even though a bit broadly spoken, even I had a hard time understanding his Embra accent.

[rik2304]

55 minutes ago, Smarmy Arab said:

Know the feeling rik, I still miss Hegarty and Narey, always will!  

Hegarty was class. I was gutted that Totten couldn't convince him to stay on for another full season.

[Smarmy Arab]

2 hours ago, johndb said:

I only gave up on the saints once back in 67 when Celtic went on their European cup run. Well they were Scottish and winning. And they did win, still recall running from school to watch them win the final.  A few years later saints got to the final of the Scottish cup only to be beaten by a Bertie Auld goal. I'm near thatb time in 67 again. But how can you not support your home team??

 

I was brought up n Dundee, United are my local team!

[Templar Saint]

2 hours ago, johndb said:

I only gave up on the saints once back in 67 when Celtic went on their European cup run. Well they were Scottish and winning. And they did win, still recall running from school to watch them win the final.  A few years later saints got to the final of the Scottish cup only to be beaten by a Bertie Auld goal. I'm near thatb time in 67 again. But how can you not support your home team??

 

Keep the faith johndb.  In your time as a Saints fan you have seen worse crap than we are seeing now.

[Smarmy Arab]

5 hours ago, johndb said:

Kevin or Paul? I played park football with both in Edinburgh. Kevin was a bit of a show off with step overs etc but Paul was just a hard player of the time. He used to 'help' our pimary school team with advice - he had his favourites and advovacted hard tactics. Great guy  even though a bit broadly spoken, even I had a hard time understanding his Embra accent.

 

Heggie was my absolute hero growing up, what a player, what a captain, what a guy!  Thanks for the memories John.

[Maskrey]

On 3/3/2024 at 8:42 AM, Muirton Saint said:

Did you start drinking before the game? Or have a quick sniff in the toilets at halftime?

May is okay, but he just doesn't go up for headers, and you can blame it on Livi having a recruitment focus on height before football abilities but still. He's very good at looking like he's physical while doing **** all.

Balls in the air, him vs another player and he'll have a small push around with him for a second before slinking behind the player leaving a free header.

We noticed it immediately how useful it was to have a 2nd striker who could win a header when Sidibeh came on, him and Clark actually offered somewhat of an aireal threat. The striker order for me is: Clark, Kimpioka, Sidibeh, May. 

Thanks for the smart opening line👍🏻. Groundbreaking stuff.  If we want to launch balls at May’s head then yeah he is not the man for the job.  If we want to play football the right way then he could be used very effectively.  Kimpioka is vastly over rated on here and is like Bambi on ice most of the time.  Very very raw.  May had interest from teams higher up the league than us in Jan but chose to stay so fair play to him.

[SaintJet]

That was a truly brutal watch. I knew after five minutes that we were going to be lucky to get anything out of the game. The ref's are going to have to realise that fans have actually payed to get in to watch the game and this type of time wasting tactics is driving fans away. If anyone had the misfortune of bringing along a friend on Saturay I suspect that friend won't be rushing back anytime soon.

I think any team would have struggled against Livi on Saturday - they set out their stall early and had done their homework; Kimiopka was closed out early and never got away from their giant centre backs. I would say that we were very poor and never managed to exert any control on the game; we just didn't seem to have the nous to affect the negative tactics of Livi.  The pitch doesn't help and needs dug up and buried - it's a disgrace and doesn't lend itself to playing football. If we had any serious VAR intervention our game would have finsihed at 5.30pm! Disgrace.

I came away feeling like it was good result given the circumstances. Their were few encoutraging performances - Kelts had a tidy assured game and DJ looked good before his departure, Nicky Clark reminds us he can score goals and McGowan is still for me the key player in defence.

 

[blueheaven]

On 3/3/2024 at 8:42 AM, Muirton Saint said:

Did you start drinking before the game? Or have a quick sniff in the toilets at halftime?

May is okay, but he just doesn't go up for headers, and you can blame it on Livi having a recruitment focus on height before football abilities but still. He's very good at looking like he's physical while doing **** all.

Balls in the air, him vs another player and he'll have a small push around with him for a second before slinking behind the player leaving a free header.

We noticed it immediately how useful it was to have a 2nd striker who could win a header when Sidibeh came on, him and Clark actually offered somewhat of an aireal threat. The striker order for me is: Clark, Kimpioka, Sidibeh, May. 

May's never been the kind of striker who's going to win headers. If you watch the YouTube video of all the goals he scored in his peak season 2013/14, I think only one of them was a header and only one of them came from a cross. We need to play to our strikers' strengths and that's never going to involve pumping high balls up to May, especially against a team like Livingston.

I'm pretty pleased with the fact that we have a few different kinds of strikers at the moment and think they're all going to have an important part to play between now and the end of the season. I'd still say May is the best all-round footballer out of the four of them and for me he's the one who's most suited to playing a bit deeper. Clark is the best out-and-out goalscorer and has to be first choice, and needs to be getting into the penalty box. Kimpioka looks brilliant at running on to through balls and seems to be a really good finisher in those situations, if we can exploit that. Sidibeh seems to want to do a bit of everything and is fast, hard working and likes to try having a shot from all angles. These are the best options we've had for quite some time but they all need different types of service so we need to make sure we're giving them that.

[garydavidson]

18 minutes ago, blueheaven said:

May's never been the kind of striker who's going to win headers.

The defence offers exhibit A: Very important header won  

Edited March 4 by garydavidson

[Papa Jack]

8 hours ago, garydavidson said:

The defence offers exhibit A: Very important header won  

I would argue that you had to go back 10 years probably adds to the prosecution case to be honest. 😉

[garydavidson]

17 hours ago, Papa Jack said:

I would argue that you had to go back 10 years probably adds to the prosecution case to be honest. 😉

I did think that after I posted it but watching that video made it feel like it was yesterday!

[templeofsaints]

DJ out for potentially weeks with knee injury - possible ligament damage. 

[Cagey]

11 minutes ago, templeofsaints said:

DJ out for potentially weeks with knee injury - possible ligament damage. 

Ffs. At least we dont have game for weeks and he probably won't play at parkhead .

[blueheaven]

23 hours ago, templeofsaints said:

DJ out for potentially weeks with knee injury - possible ligament damage. 

Funny how quickly things can change. A couple of weeks ago I'd have thought an injury to DJ would have made no difference to us whatsoever. Suddenly, with the new system we've adopted and the way he's been linking up with Kimpioka, losing him feels like a pretty big blow. 

[Melbourne Saint]

Let's hope scans show no tear to the ligament and it's just bruised. On the plus side, we have plenty of attacking options to prove themselves...

[johndb]

On 3/4/2024 at 9:08 AM, Maskrey said:

Thanks for the smart opening line👍🏻. Groundbreaking stuff.  If we want to launch balls at May’s head then yeah he is not the man for the job.  If we want to play football the right way then he could be used very effectively.  Kimpioka is vastly over rated on here and is like Bambi on ice most of the time.  Very very raw.  May had interest from teams higher up the league than us in Jan but chose to stay so fair play to him.

Never forget Henry Hall! He wisnae tall.

[johndb]

On 3/3/2024 at 7:29 PM, Templar Saint said:

Keep the faith johndb.  In your time as a Saints fan you have seen worse crap than we are seeing now.

Yes I remember a rainy night at Muirton when we were tharshed by the **** 4-0. Even super sub(?) Brogan didn't dent them. I was amazed how many he scored for Saints yet my uncles never rated him at all? Too much history and pride invested to ever change allegiance.  COYS

[johndb]

On 3/3/2024 at 10:38 PM, Smarmy Arab said:

 

Heggie was my absolute hero growing up, what a player, what a captain, what a guy!  Thanks for the memories John.

Aye they were both great Paul even played for saints at one point i beleive.I was very releived to learn quite recently how the Arabs nickname came about. Tons of sand were spread on Tannadice to try and make it playable in the dire winter of 1962 an the papers commended the united players for playing like Arabs! The term was something of a derogatory insult in my youth! We came up for the VandA and saw Discovery a wee while back. We found Dundee quite a happening place.