Clyde vs. St Johnstone 25/08/07

[lethamsaintee]

Another display of what seems to be the norm now. Yes, we could have scored a couple in the first half, with easy chances being missed, but overall our play was poor.

We looked devoid of any ideas or a way to really open up Clyde. We made it easy for them and i fear that unless there is a very quick turnaround and an introduction of a natural "finisher" we are going to be knackered,

McInnes and Sheerin i am afraid simply dont have the legs to run the middle of the park and we must look to strengthen that area. Even in pre season i suggested we would be lucky to see an effective Sheerin this season. Coyle now needs to be brave and realise that although some of these guys have done well for him, there is no room for sentiment in football and he has to address the problem pronto or we will genuinely be fighting nearer the bottom this year.

I mean let us face the bare facts of our opening games of the season. Our opponents thus far have been, other than Dundee, the lesser lights of this division and to have only a 3 point haul is nothing short of a disgrace. Throw in a dismal performance at second division Raith in the Challenge Cup and you see a pattern starting to emerge.

I am not having a go at Coyle but he needs to wake up to the problems very quickly. Otherwise the decent work he has done in the previous two years will be for nothing.

[St Mikey]

I agree today was terrible but the answer doesn't lie in playing guys like Moon and Dyer.

We need 2 central midfielders and 2 players worthy of the name Striker.What price Offiong now?

Offiong probably 200k now maybe... Im a little worried bout kerkar tho. Another signing of an old player?! Maybe experience but hes no goin 2have the pace in midfield that mensing had. Time will tell.....

[templeofsaints]

Fair point, and we were also missing James, Savo, Ruti, Willie McLaren and Hardie.

I'm excited about Kerkar to be honest. He won't solve the work-rate problem but he will over us something more creative. Striker is key, even if it's just until Savo is fit.

At the same time we know James and Savo are meant to be out for a while and in Savo's case, the cover brought in by OC is simply not good enough. McLaren wasn't a regular starter last year and while I'd have Rusty in the team ahead of McManus, these aren't our main worries.

Our central midfield was left for dead for long periods today. And in 480 minutes of football this season our strikers have managed a collective total of one bloody goal.

I don't know if Kerkar will be the answer (he's not exactly been the name on everyones lips over the summer). At the same time apart from one obvious candidate in Offiong (and while he's on form just now he didn't seem that good when I saw him last year) there are very few other names being mentioned. Certainly none that would have the impact of the likes of a Scotland on the forward line.

[St. Paddy]

Offiong for that crap bag Stewart, Kerkar in for the seemingly past it Sheerin and Imrie as a replacement for Mensing. Moon for McMince. Dyer for the tired Stanic. A new centre back to prop up injury prone James. We just might avoid relegation yet! Seriously though we need a major over haul of a tired ageing squad. I have never been an advocate for sacking managers, they all have poor spells, and I think OC can turn this around, but will it be turned round soon enough to save the season?. At least we are not miles adrift of dunfy and meadowbank yet, cant see hamilton lasting the pace (especially if we steal their star player) and Dundee seem abit thin. 3 draws and a defeat are not championship form, but alarm bells are ringing.

[andrew]

Always thought last season's efforts led to unrealistic expectations, and that this wasn't going to be the season we all hoped for. Early days yet, I know, but a poor start that will take a while to recover from. Alan Main was poor against Clyde (who don't look like the worst team I've seen in this league). Central defence changes every week. No central midfield. No striker. No backbone. Weak from back to front. Good cup runs and indifferent league form. Are we turning into Airdrie?

[EastinWest]

Would just like to say that while Scotland is clearly a huge miss, it should be noted that in the first game at Broadwood last season he missed an easy one on one. In the same game, Milne volleyed over from 6 yards out. During that game, Mensing ran around trying his best to get sent off and this was just one off many games when he contributed little more than physical presence to the team (think Ayr United game at McDiarmid, worst player on the park by a mile that day).

However, it's still clear we need a new central midfield and a striker, Stewart and Daal will never be the answer, regardless of what the question is.

[7-2]

However, it's still clear we need a new central midfield and a striker, Stewart and Daal will never be the answer, regardless of what the question is.

I think you are being a bit unfair there. They could easily be the answer to the question...If we wanted to make sure we didnt get promoted this season who should we play up front?

[Aitchy]

Calm down, calm down!! Fair enough today was bad but im still hopefull that things will come good. At the moment the team probably is not good enough to win the league, but im pretty sure once Irvine settles in and when Kerkar and Imrie come in we will be a much better team, all of us probably need to lower our expections we have no right to stroll this league, we are viewed as a big team in this league, hence how every team trys their hardest against us, its a hard league. Dont worry about Hamilton, they dont have a big enough squad, Dundee will bottle it and Dunfermline still think they are a priemer league team, therefore i think they will not be challenging for the league. Owen Coyle is the man for the job, he is passionate, commited and the players are willing to work for him, the start has been bad, but come christmas we will have forgotten about it, bring on the Thistle on Tuesday.

[Corned Beef]

These are the sort of games we should be winning. It came down to having a late charge and missing out on promotion last season because of games that Saints should have won earlier in the season. It'll happen again this season probably, have any lessons been learnt? It's easy to forget Coyle is still quite an inexperienced manager.

[Broggy Man]

Look im not gonna use the managers cliche and yes we were missing key players. We are a small club and missing the players we were is going to hurt.

positives Gary Irvine looks like a player. He always looks play the ball and follow it looking for the return note central midfielders thats what you meant to do. I have that itching feeling that when we service and support strikers they will score. yes Daal missed a sitter yesterday but all strikers do. We played with two wide men but when you have inept crap in the middle of the park it doesnt matter. So come on its not all crap!!

[The ghost of Jim Morton]

Quotes from Coyle are on the Clyde website...

"I hope to never see another match where we miss such chances. Clyde started well but the chances were beyond believe, not half chances but sitters. All credit to Clyde, they battled away well and have some good players.

"Clyde were fortuitous with the goal as we had four players around the ball and they defended valiantly late on. We were missing some players through suspension and injuries and did not get international clearance for another player (Kerkar?). But I have to say that didn't affect the result as Daal should have had a hat-trick and later on Stewart and Jackson both should have done better but we paid the price."

Same old pish!!!!! Would be nice if he just said ."today we were rank rotten shite and got what we deserved".... Then told us it would never happen again and that he would sort it out. He would get much more credit for a bit of good old fasioned honesty ..

[7-2]

Wish folk would stop worrying and panicking and over reacting. How dare they criticise the club. There’s nothing wrong with the team. There cant be after what we did last season, which was the greatest ever.

Owen’s a brilliantly gifted manager who never makes mistakes, doesn’t sign bad or past it players and is tactically brilliant whilst Geoff is the greatest Chairman ever and is helped by a board who have put a lot of money into the club and contribute a lot more to our success . They don’t just say Yes Geoff all the time you know. Remember we are a small club from a small town and we should know our place.

Something will turn up. For a start we’re going to sign 2 players, Imrie and Offiong, because the papers and people on here say so therefore it must be true. They are bound to want to come to us because we are Saints. Everything will be alright after that and we will start playing well, winning games and will end up being promoted.

Now will you all just settle down and be quiet. I’ve got my slippers on and I’m away to get my pipe and settle down to read this week’s People’s Friend as soon as I find my bag of Wurthers Originals.

:rolleyes:

What a bunch of short sighted, head in the sand ostriches. Time to get real.

[SJC]

Coyles right in what he said about the missed chances, but that is an incredibly Connolly-esque thing to say, those two chances should definately not have been missed, but why the hell didn't we manage a shot on target throughout the whole game! Twice the strikers he signed in the summer were clean through but didn't manage a shot at goal- thats disgraceful.

He has to sort it out- forget Partick in the cup midweek because we should be concentrating on the league this year- cup semi finals are great for the bank balance but won't get us up to the top flight.

A cup run would show that the players are not interested in grafting and working hard during the league games and only in it for a chance to make a showing for themselves on the big stage ala cup ties last season against Rangers, Falkirk, Motherwell, Hibs and Celtic where the players all gave 100% commitment and ran themselves into the ground, I doubt any of them will have woken up this morning feeling that they are tired after giving their all yesterday.

[SlickDT]

Wish folk would stop worrying and panicking and over reacting. How dare they criticise the club. There’s nothing wrong with the team. There cant be after what we did last season, which was the greatest ever.

Owen’s a brilliantly gifted manager who never makes mistakes, doesn’t sign bad or past it players and is tactically brilliant whilst Geoff is the greatest Chairman ever and is helped by a board who have put a lot of money into the club and contribute a lot more to our success . They don’t just say Yes Geoff all the time you know. Remember we are a small club from a small town and we should know our place.

Something will turn up. For a start we’re going to sign 2 players, Imrie and Offiong, because the papers and people on here say so therefore it must be true. They are bound to want to come to us because we are Saints. Everything will be alright after that and we will start playing well, winning games and will end up being promoted.

Now will you all just settle down and be quiet. I’ve got my slippers on and I’m away to get my pipe and settle down to read this week’s People’s Friend as soon as I find my bag of Wurthers Originals.

:rolleyes:

What a bunch of short sighted, head in the sand ostriches. Time to get real.

I have to disagree. The teams rubbish, all coyle's signings are crap, Brown's done sod all for the club and we are doomed! :confused:

Changes are needed, but it's easy to dish out criticisms left, right and centre! Time for us to back the club.

[lethamsaintee]

Wish folk would stop worrying and panicking and over reacting. How dare they criticise the club. There’s nothing wrong with the team. There cant be after what we did last season, which was the greatest ever.

Owen’s a brilliantly gifted manager who never makes mistakes, doesn’t sign bad or past it players and is tactically brilliant whilst Geoff is the greatest Chairman ever and is helped by a board who have put a lot of money into the club and contribute a lot more to our success . They don’t just say Yes Geoff all the time you know. Remember we are a small club from a small town and we should know our place.

Something will turn up. For a start we’re going to sign 2 players, Imrie and Offiong, because the papers and people on here say so therefore it must be true. They are bound to want to come to us because we are Saints. Everything will be alright after that and we will start playing well, winning games and will end up being promoted.

Now will you all just settle down and be quiet. I’ve got my slippers on and I’m away to get my pipe and settle down to read this week’s People’s Friend as soon as I find my bag of Wurthers Originals.

:rolleyes:

What a bunch of short sighted, head in the sand ostriches. Time to get real.

Thankyou. Someone else who sees it the way it really is.

[monkfish]

Think folk are being a bit harsh on Daal. He missed a few easy chances, but at least he was getting himself into positions to get them. I can only really remember one decent chance Stewart made for himself. He also looked puffed at about the 60 min mark again, but that might be from having to chase punt up the field balls from our 'continental style of football'.

Mcinnes wasn't as obviously bad as he has been, because he just didn't do anything. Same goes for Sheerin.

Team as a whole doesn't look anything like a unit, as someone said they look like they've never played a game together.

Defence seems not too bad now, apart from whatever was going on with the goal, seemed like a miscommunication.

Main didn't do anything that made him seem better than Cuthbert, apart from running off his line for no reason every 5 mins, realising there was 2 defenders on the player to start with and he wasn't gonna make it anyway, then getting chipped. He's had a chip attempt made on him in every game this season, apart from maybe Dundee.

Whatever way you look at it Clyde are not a good team, but they could be arsed, and actually PASSED the ball about a bit. We didn't.

So aye, pretty pish.

[blueheaven]

I haven't had time to read through most of the posts on the thread, but yesterday was my first game since the Hamilton game at the end of last season so just thought I'd give my opinion. Up until yesterday, as a regular forum reader, I'd thought that everyone on here was really over-reacting. Now I'm not so sure. I thought we were an utter shambles yesterday - one of the worst Saints performances I can remember and also, I'm very sad to say, one of the worst Saints teams.

Again, bear in mind this is only based on one game, but right now I think Coyle's pre-season signings have been extremely poor and we are a shadow of last season's line-up. Bearing in mind that even with genuinely good players like Scotland, Mensing and Morais we were unable to win the league, so I struggle to see how we can now put in a challenge having replaced our departees with what look like significantly inferior players. Daal and Stewart were both awful. Our midfield was non-existant. The defence was constantly ropey. Main was a disaster. Peaso should have played - sure, he's not been scoring goals, but neither have the other strikers and at least he's a good footballer. I have no faith in Jackson to ever score goals for us - he's all well-intentioned effort and nothing else. Of our better players from last season who have stayed, many are now really getting on and are probably now sadly reaching the stage where their performances start to go downhill - I'm thinking of Stanic, Sheerin, McInnes.

I only really take some hope from knowing that we still have Hardie, Ruti, James and Savo who can come back in at some point and make us look a bit more like we did last season. But then again, as I've said, even last season we weren't good enough, and we needed to improve on that, not just struggle to tread water.

I did think Irvine looked quite promising. McCluskey is clearly very skilful but I have my doubts as to how effective he actually is. Weatherston was okay but not the player I'd been expecting from reading reports on here.

But, man for man, the line-up we fielded yesterday was no better than John Connolly's Saints line-ups, and if we play like that regularly we'll be fighting relegation.

[Ronaldo]

Wish folk would stop worrying and panicking and over reacting. How dare they criticise the club. There’s nothing wrong with the team. There cant be after what we did last season, which was the greatest ever.

Owen’s a brilliantly gifted manager who never makes mistakes, doesn’t sign bad or past it players and is tactically brilliant whilst Geoff is the greatest Chairman ever and is helped by a board who have put a lot of money into the club and contribute a lot more to our success . They don’t just say Yes Geoff all the time you know. Remember we are a small club from a small town and we should know our place.

Something will turn up. For a start we’re going to sign 2 players, Imrie and Offiong, because the papers and people on here say so therefore it must be true. They are bound to want to come to us because we are Saints. Everything will be alright after that and we will start playing well, winning games and will end up being promoted.

Now will you all just settle down and be quiet. I’ve got my slippers on and I’m away to get my pipe and settle down to read this week’s People’s Friend as soon as I find my bag of Wurthers Originals.

:rolleyes:

What a bunch of short sighted, head in the sand ostriches. Time to get real.

By posting the above you obviously believe the opposite. If we agree with you and are to be long sighted without our heads in the sand then -

I wish folk would worry and panic and overreact;

How dare they not criticise the club;

There’s nothing right with the team;

There is bound to be after what we did last season; which wasn't the greatest ever;

Owen’s not a brilliantly gifted manager who always makes mistakes, always signs bad or past it players and is tactically niaive;

Geoff is the worst Chairman ever;

He isn't helped by a board who have not put money into the club and never contribute anything to our success;

They always just say Yes Geoff all the time you know;

Remember we are a big club from a huge metropolitan area;

We shouldn't know our place;

Something will never turn up;

For a start we’re never going to sign 2 players, Imrie and Offiong, because the papers haven't said so, and people on here haven't said so, therefore it must be false;

They'll never want to come to us because we are Saints;

Everything will never be alright after;

We will never start playing well, but always losing games;

We will end up not being promoted;

Now will you all just get upset and be noisy.

................ I agree we should not accept order and our place but the signings stuff is just normal debate over potential or not signings. The rest sounds like natural reactionary outburst and just as head in the sand as the people you riticise. Life isn't that straight forward or black and white.

By the way people 30 years older than me used this quote and are now getting on - you will get older too. -

"I’ve got my slippers on and I’m away to get my pipe and settle down to read this week’s People’s Friend as soon as I find my bag of Wurthers Originals".

Anyway it's not exactly an accurate stereotype when most old people I know are all touring the world or buiding things yet we're all getting worked up by a bad start to the season, you were right to bring up Ostrich, head in the sand

[7-2]

Anyway it's not exactly an accurate stereotype when most old people I know are all touring the world or buiding things yet we're all getting worked up by a bad start to the season, you were right to bring up Ostrich, head in the sand

Thats your interpretation.

Its not only the old that have old or small minded attitudes.

[Ronaldo]

Its not only the old that have old or small minded attitudes.

You're right that''s what I'm saying.

I wouldn't say everything's wrong with the club though.

[7-2]

You're right that''s what I'm saying.

I wouldn't say everything's wrong with the club though.

Neither would I. I am saying though that its not nearly as rosie as a lot of people on here appear to think it is and its about time they woke up to that fact.

[a monkey]

I wouldn't say everything's wrong with the club though.

I wouldn't say everything's wrong, I just think that a lot of people seemed to think that we were going to walk the league this year.

However, last season we were an average team with 1 or 2 very good players. They have now moved on because we did not get promoted. This leaves us as just an average team.

Coyle's new signings seem to have done OK in pre-season against poorer opposition, making us think that we have immediately replaced said "very good" players, giving some kind of stupidly high expectations and confidence for the season ahead.

I can't see us going up this season because we are lacking that "quality" player like Jason was.

I still hope we can challenge, but unless some GOOD signings are made, midtable is all we can expect.

[Chuck Norris]

However, last season we were an average team with 1 or 2 very good players.

I'll give you Jason Scotland - who was the other one? Please don't say Mensing - as much as he has been missed at times, he was hardly in the same class.

[a monkey]

I'll give you Jason Scotland - who was the other one? Please don't say Mensing - as much as he has been missed at times, he was hardly in the same class.

point taken

[Ronaldo]

I can't see us going up this season because we are lacking that "quality" player like Jason was.

.

Yeah true some of us stuck by Jason but even he got five or six threads criticising him during the season entitled 'Jason Scotland'. It was Coyle who thought very much of him in training at United and it was the club that noticed the loophole in the immigration status rules relating to Scottish football.

Everybody agrees things need to improve including the club and Coyle. The defence has gone 3-2-1-1 and so is improving, the attack has gone 3-2-1-0 so they are getting worse. Hardie was a miss and we need to rattle in the goals. Maybe we'll not win the league but we're not entitled to. I don't think any teams favourite at the moment including Dundee. Maybe we'll get a run of wins plus the odd draw. I am surprised that our first defeat was against Clyde since I knew they were going to get off the ground but not against us.