#21 - 20/12/08 - Airdrie United (a)


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He's plenty good enough,just wish he would role the sleeves up and deliver on the hype.

The guy is a really good player as the cliche goes he "oozes class" what maybe an issue is a the deep possession game he is plaing, which may well be too subtle for this division. Saints fans are impatient at best, look at the stick McInnes got as a player when playing deep/holding role. I thought Morris was by some distance the best player at Airdrie.

He reminds me of a cross between Charlie Nicholas and Davie Cooper - Chas and Dave.

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I'm glad to see you, Radders and Dave were all wearing the blue tinted spectacles...If you don't think we were poor yesteday god help us when we do have a game in which you think we are poor....

How good out of 10 please were our....

1.Finishing/Hiting the target......3/10

2.Passing...............................5/10

3.final ball..............................3/10

4.Crossing..............................4/10

5.Defending............................8/10

6.Second phase ball collection....3/10

7.Craft/composure/ball control.....2/10

Tin helmet time again......BH0120.jpg

Certainly not a case of me wearing blue tinted specs Ghostie,just an honest opinion.Having seen most games this season,yesterdays performance was much better than any of the last 4 imo.We kept possession much better,all we really lacked was a cutting edge.I like to look at both teams,and thought Airdrie had good movement and pace out wide,the boy gave Liam a torrid time in the first half.Tolerance and expectation levels seems to have lowered and heightened respectively lately,but no team lies down,and fans have to be patient and hope our quality wins more points than others.Some fans are getting like Old Firm fans,expecting world class shows every week,and not realising the opposition are there to do a job.As for your marks,God only knows what you'd give against the previous 4 teams,'cause we were much poorer than yesterday.

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Certainly not a case of me wearing blue tinted specs Ghostie,just an honest opinion.Having seen most games this season,yesterdays performance was much better than any of the last 4 imo.We kept possession much better,all we really lacked was a cutting edge.I like to look at both teams,and thought Airdrie had good movement and pace out wide,the boy gave Liam a torrid time in the first half.Tolerance and expectation levels seems to have lowered and heightened respectively lately,but no team lies down,and fans have to be patient and hope our quality wins more points than others.Some fans are getting like Old Firm fans,expecting world class shows every week,and not realising the opposition are there to do a job.As for your marks,God only knows what you'd give against the previous 4 teams,'cause we were much poorer than yesterday.

I actually think I would give about the same marks for the previous 4 games. They have all been pretty poor with the same faults. We have very little creativeness in the final 3rd of the park and our strikers have lacked the killer touch.I honestly believe it's the midfield that is at fault and with so many possible combinations available to Del it's a very tricky job. If we get the midfield right, the strikers will get many more chances to put the ball in the net.............

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I actually think I would give about the same marks for the previous 4 games. They have all been pretty poor with the same faults. We have very little creativeness in the final 3rd of the park and our strikers have lacked the killer touch.I honestly believe it's the midfield that is at fault and with so many possible combinations available to Del it's a very tricky job. If we get the midfield right, the strikers will get many more chances to put the ball in the net.............

That's something i'll agree with,our midfield is not creating nearly enough decent openings or contributing in a scoring sense.As i said earlier Airdrie had decent width and pace,and got to the goal line more often than us.Del has a problem in working out his best 4,personally Swankie would be in mine more often than not,for his width and trickery,but i know i'm in a minority .Not sure we can carry a less effective Hardie much longer,time for more energy in there,maybe Mooner,but that would give us a midfield smaller than Snow Whites mates!

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Agree with that and hopefully Dunfermline draw with Livingston on Saturday. Also after they play Livingston Dunfermline are playing Dundee at Dens. Them slipping up could get us a fair few points in front of them.

I dont think its up to the pars now, livi seem to be back in it and scoring plenty of goals with two of the top scorers in the division. by next week they will be back into second place.

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. I thought Morris was by some distance the best player at Airdrie.

Absolutely agree and think he has been getting consistently better in recent weeks. Find the criticism he is getting staggering. Sometimes he passes the ball square or, god forbid, backwards? It is called keeping posession. Endlessly lumping the ball forward does not work, as we see time and time again.

I think McInnes needs to settle on a consistent midfield but whatever he decides Morris simply has to be in it.

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God I thought that was 2 posts without slagging Del :-)

Del isn't the only manager in the country that plays corners in that way and it is nothing new. The idea is that if you get the ball you have more options to attack from deep with runners going in various areas, we did it twice today in the second half and if memory serves me right Holmes miss was from one of these moves. Leaving one up the park does not result in the opposition taking an extra man out as even with no one up fiels Airdrie still had 2 back.

You're explaining Del's thinking but are supporting this tactic? I believe you are a football coach in real life, do you employ this technique? Times without number we win the ball, or second ball and the recipient looks up and cringes; "wha ah'm a gonnae play this tae?"

Del's instructions appear to be directed at maintaining the unbeaten run, rather than winning three points. Robbo didn't save anything other than freekick effort. Draws cost us against Gretna, let's not allow them to do so against Dunfermline.

As far as Homer is concerned, we better get used to it. Del is convinced by the method, that's why he signed Skippy McBreen, that's why he signed Homer. One option might be to try Mental up front; gets him out the battle and he knows how to score with his head.

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I was extremely disappointed yesterday. In all honesty, it was an Airdrie team which lacked confidence and was there to be taken to the cleaners. In spite of that, we let them build their confidence and by the end, they were knocking the ball about well without really threatening. I doubt they resorted to hoofing the ball once - if you notice they played everything out from the back. It was interesting to see bottom of the league try and play a passing game.

Anyway, on to Saints. The formation looked a bit shitty from the start but it should have been enough. Samuel was giving them hell on the left and looked quite good again - he needs to find those shooting boots though. He seemed to stop playing in the second half though, it was a bit weird. Was he injured?

Up front we looked dreadful though, that was the main problem. Homer is poor in the air so for a target man he's pretty much useless. With the ball into feet he is a far better player as he uses his body well to protect the ball. As for Savo, he's not had a shot on goal since the Dundee game. He shouldn't be near the team at the moment. In midfield Miller (not a right midfielder) was ok, Morris was class and Hardie was fairly awful. I cannot understand how he is getting picked.

As an attacking threat we were impotent until Jacko came on - what a difference. He makes the right runs. When Holmes goes to win a header Jacko is ready for the flick every time. Only a couple of offsides stopped him from getting clear. And of course he goes down too easily so is worth 5 or 6 pens a season. Defo deserves a start next week.

Over all, it was an un-characteristic error by Ruti for the goal (though Main was nowhere to be seen). It was a shame, because the defense were super all day long. Craig had it hard in the first but was exceptional in the second. Irvine was excellent. 2 points dropped but we didn't play that well, though not terrible.

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I have been fortunate (or unfortunate, given the weather) to have seen the last 4 matches we have played and, being honest, we have come out with pretty much what we deserved from them all in my opinion - and it is a couple of points less than what I thought we would have.

Before the game, I had a mixture of feelings - looking for a win against the bottom of the table side who are really struggling and looking to just make sure we didn't concede ground to Dunfermline at a ground we traditionally get the best part of f*** all from normally!!!

Over the course of the 90 minutes there can be no real arguments that the draw was the fair result, though for the equaliser to come from poor defending and shambolic goalkeeping having done so well in the last few weeks and rightly earning the plaudits from the various media outlets the gaffer has been quoted in was disappointing.

We look a very good side on the counter attack and, for me, we look the type of side that Hamilton wish they were in going up to the SPL - being very pacy, with wide players who go forward as often as possible, thus pushing the opposition back and allowing them to have less focus called on to their defensive ability, which (certainly in the case of our full backs) is not as good as the attacking abilities they have [NOTE THIS IS NOT A CRITICISM!!!]

The one thing missing was the end product. I lost count of how many times Morris, Hardie or Millar got the pass spot on to the wide man whose delivery was generally of top order for the chance to go begging. Any decent Holmes-esque striker at this level would have certainly had a couple of goals with the crosses delivered into the box (though Airdrie must be credited with some good defending of these cross balls on occasions as well). Holmes' miss was one that befitted a striker lacking in confidence, however it only takes one to go in off his posterior for him to then go on a run of form that will hopefully see us wrap up a league title that, realistically, should be ours for the taking already.

Final point, and I apologise if you are bored with this post already, is that I agree with the point regarding why Sheerin wasn't playing. Hardie wasn't having his best game ever and, for me, we didn't need a big tough tackling player in the midfield as Airdrie didn't have one but we needed someone with the guile to create something. Millar looks like he could certainly do us a job in the middle of the park and it would allow Sheerin to come in from wide, or to allow Craig the opportunity to push further forward on occasion with Sheerin covering.

All in all, the dropped points haven't hurt us so far because of the other teams taking points off one another, but as we have seen already, it only takes someone to go on a little run (like Livi in the last couple of games) for us to get dragged back in to a scrap rather than being out front while the rest trip each other up.

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You're explaining Del's thinking but are supporting this tactic? I believe you are a football coach in real life, do you employ this technique? Times without number we win the ball, or second ball and the recipient looks up and cringes; "wha ah'm a gonnae play this tae?"

.

I coach kids yes, and that is very different. I actually think there can be benefits in bringing all men back. very few teams will put extra men into the box if we don't have any men up front.

As far as playing the ball out from the back how many times do players clear it long and then just see the ball coming right back at them. This was we should be playing it short and building from the back.If the goalie gets the ball he can then have a number of options with runners going in various directions.

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