Recently there has been quite a few poor players in the Starting XI and am wondering due players who aren't playing well need a shake up, letting them know that good performances gets starts not poor ones. In's; Nick Ross Daniel Devine Ryan chirstie Adam Evans Marley watkins Out's; Josh Meekings, Red cards and poor of late James Vincent, offers little going forward and loses the ball often Dean Brill, Blunders and poor distrapution JUST SUGGESTIONS so please be NICE!

This didn't come out at all the way i wanted it to...

In all honesty, I don't think any of the players have been poor as such. The current style of play that has been asked from them needs time for them to adapt to and understand which in time might work or might not who knows.

What I am disappointed in with Yogi's tactics is that you have Nick Ross who has been a right good talent under Terry Butcher on the wing and Yogi's put James Vincent wide left where you can see he is uncomfortable with it.

Marley Watkins being on the bench to me is a good idea. If you recall to the game over in Dingwall last Feburary, we were cruising 2-0 and needed a bit of a spark and up steps Marley Watkins to the scene and we are 3-0 up. So in that respect, Watkins could be used as an impact sub when the opposition is tiring, same could be said for Danny Williams.

Regardless for Ryan Christie being a local lad and stuff, he MUST be a regular starter playing behind Mckay. The kid's passing is tremendous and looking back to the Motherwell game, he was the only guy that was looking to play attack passing and getting the ball forward.

I have said in the one of the match day threads that Graeme Shinnie should be played wide left purely because he has a great left peg on him and while Yogi wants us to play like "Barca" I'd love to see Graeme play like Gareth Bale and I think he could go places if he did that. We have a great left back in Carl Tremarco and you could see on Tuesday night that Carl and Graeme link up very well but Yogi's style of play is surrendering too much space on the wings maybe it won't work but if it did, I wouldn't be surprised to see Mckay scoring regularly again.

So my team for the rest of the season:-

Brill/Esson

Raven Warren Meekings Tremarco

Draper Tansey

Ross/Doran Christie Shinnie

Mckay

The players have not, as far as I can see been poor. There are one or two that are running on empty, showing the cumulative effects of a massive fixture schedule, and tired people make mistakes. I thought that things changed for us on Tuesday when Watkins came on and played beyond Mckay. It gave him an outlet for the flicks and knock ons that he makes every game. I'm less concerned right now about width, as getting deep crosses in really needs the type of striker that we don't have to convert them. If Doran is fit, i'd like to see him start as he is consistently our most creative player, and his stats back this up. I think that James Vincent is finding it more difficult than he perhaps though it would be to recover from his injury and get back to the form he showed early in the season. His pace and aggression make him difficult to ignore though.

The players have not, as far as I can see been poor. There are one or two that are running on empty, showing the cumulative effects of a massive fixture schedule, and tired people make mistakes. I thought that things changed for us on Tuesday when Watkins came on and played beyond Mckay. It gave him an outlet for the flicks and knock ons that he makes every game. I'm less concerned right now about width, as getting deep crosses in really needs the type of striker that we don't have to convert them. If Doran is fit, i'd like to see him start as he is consistently our most creative player, and his stats back this up. I think that James Vincent is finding it more difficult than he perhaps though it would be to recover from his injury and get back to the form he showed early in the season. His pace and aggression make him difficult to ignore though.

While I wholeheartedly agree with majority of what you have said Davie but where I have highlighted is what I have to disagree with.

At our recent home games especially I feel that that team are getting into great spaces but then they play it through the middle leaving great spaces in the edge of the oppositions box (I highlight this on the Motherwell match thread with screenshots to back this up) Now, during the Butcher reign a lot of the time, we would see Shinnie and Raven for that matter overlap the wingers, exploiting the flanks and getting a good cross in for Billy Mckay, Richie Foran and Ross Draper to get a head to. By playing the narrow style of play, we are simply trying to walk the ball into the net and ocassionly have belter of goals like Christie's and Polworth's for example. The tactics that are being employed at the moment will take time to master because it's the complete opposite to how they lads have played the last season and a half. I am not saying the tactic will fail far from it but I think there should be a happy medium of both narrow and wide play especially at home.

With all due respect Davie, I don't agree when you say we don't have the striker needed to convert them. Billy Mckay converted them during the Bucher reign, what's changed that he can't convert them now?

Edited April 4, 201412 yr by ICTRoughi

 

The players have not, as far as I can see been poor. There are one or two that are running on empty, showing the cumulative effects of a massive fixture schedule, and tired people make mistakes. I thought that things changed for us on Tuesday when Watkins came on and played beyond Mckay. It gave him an outlet for the flicks and knock ons that he makes every game. I'm less concerned right now about width, as getting deep crosses in really needs the type of striker that we don't have to convert them. If Doran is fit, i'd like to see him start as he is consistently our most creative player, and his stats back this up. I think that James Vincent is finding it more difficult than he perhaps though it would be to recover from his injury and get back to the form he showed early in the season. His pace and aggression make him difficult to ignore though.

While I wholeheartedly agree with majority of what you have said Davie but where I have highlighted is what I have to disagree with.

At our recent home games especially I feel that that team are getting into great spaces but then they play it through the middle leaving great spaces in the edge of the oppositions box (I highlight this on the Motherwell match thread with screenshots to back this up) Now, during the Butcher reign a lot of the time, we would see Shinnie and Raven for that matter overlap the wingers, exploiting the flanks and getting a good cross in for Billy Mckay, Richie Foran and Ross Draper to get a head to. By playing the narrow style of play, we are simply trying to walk the ball into the net and ocassionly have belter of goals like Christie's and Polworth's for example. The tactics that are being employed at the moment will take time to master because it's the complete opposite to how they lads have played the last season and a half. I am not saying the tactic will fail far from it but I think there should be a happy medium of both narrow and wide play especially at home.

With all due respect Davie, I don't agree when you say we don't have the striker needed to convert them. Billy Mckay converted them during the Bucher reign, what's changed that he can't convert them now?

 

 

Agree.  Worth looking at the highlights of the last County game where getting wide behind the defence caused county all sorts of problems.  That was not passing through the middle type football, that was counter attacking with pace both down the wings and through the middle when width had created the space.  It was a joy to behold with bith Shiinie and Raven involved in the goals and Doran pulling all the strings.  That is not the way the team were instructed to play against Motherwell.

But isn't this part of the dilemma?. Some posters state that players seem to be playing to a very rigid sysytem instigated by Hughes ( I would argue that the players have to take some respomsibility for how things are going on the pitch, it cannot be all down to Hughes).

When Christie and watkins came on against Motherwell , increase in tempo from us and better attacking play and similarly to when Watkins came on against St Mirren, there was an increase in tempo. Are Christie and Watkins being told to up the paceby Hughes or are they just playing the game the way they want to. Hughes must see this and what works/what doesn't so who is pulling the strings?.

You'd have to ask the question, if Christie and Watkins are changing games for the better when they come on, why are they not starting?

You need some sort of width. It doesn't matter if you're trying to play through the middle like Hughes or play crossing wing play. You need wide players to stretch the opposition and create the gaps to play through the middle. To me, from the way it's be consistently described, not only are the players trying to play completely through the middle, all of their runs and play go through there too. This just allows opposition full backs to tuck in and cover their centre halves and midfielders and stops them ever being turned and running towards their own goal.

Maybe we've been missing Doran more than we realised.

I think our best attacking mid 3 at the start of the season was; Doran - Vincent - Ross. I'd only suggest swapping Vincent for Christie in that. If Doran isn't fit, play Ross there and push Shinnie wide left with Tremarco coming in at left back. But Shinnie is quite capable of attacking from Left Back anyway without leaving us too exposed, more often than not.

The ball will be like a bar of soap tonight - it's been drizzling constantly all day. Maybe a night to try some shooting from 'range' with the County 'keeper hopefully spilling the ball at Billy's feet!

Regardless of the weather and formations, I can see tonight being error-strewn which could make for an entertaining game for the fans and TV viewers!

Are we allowed to bring in Iniesta and Messi?

Playing with Width doesn't necessary mean that we putting crosses in every 2 seconds. We don't have a tall imposing striker to lump balls in there i agree but even a small striker like Billy can cause problems with movement if the cross is good enough. My main point though is having width means there should in theory be more space in the middle to exploit. We have struggled to beat teams recently because the tempo is slow and being narrow makes it so much easier for teams to defend the width of the penalty area. If you try and play with more width and stretch out the pitch then it will pull defenders out and create that space on the edge of the area that wont be there if they play narrow. I will use a perfect example from a game i went to this week. I went to the United Bayern match at Old Trafford and it was obvious how we managed a draw from that game. United sat deep and defended the penalty area and Bayern with 2 of the best wingers in the world (Ribery and Robben) kept cutting inside trying to play neat one two passes and flicks in the united area to get through which they failed every time. Now had they gone wider towards the touchline then the full backs would have go out to cover and then there would have been more space in the middle to exploit. Celtic do it week in week out by pulling teams out of position to get there goals so all in all playing with some width is an advantage in my view.   

Playing with Width doesn't necessary mean that we putting crosses in every 2 seconds. We don't have a tall imposing striker to lump balls in there i agree but even a small striker like Billy can cause problems with movement if the cross is good enough. My main point though is having width means there should in theory be more space in the middle to exploit. We have struggled to beat teams recently because the tempo is slow and being narrow makes it so much easier for teams to defend the width of the penalty area. If you try and play with more width and stretch out the pitch then it will pull defenders out and create that space on the edge of the area that wont be there if they play narrow. I will use a perfect example from a game i went to this week. I went to the United Bayern match at Old Trafford and it was obvious how we managed a draw from that game. United sat deep and defended the penalty area and Bayern with 2 of the best wingers in the world (Ribery and Robben) kept cutting inside trying to play neat one two passes and flicks in the united area to get through which they failed every time. Now had they gone wider towards the touchline then the full backs would have go out to cover and then there would have been more space in the middle to exploit. Celtic do it week in week out by pulling teams out of position to get there goals so all in all playing with some width is an advantage in my view.

I felt tonight we were playing with a fast tempo with both width and narrow and battered County for it. As you can see my posts above this is what I wanted and this is what I got so I am a happy ICT fan tonight. Play like this and I think we will beat Aberdeen at home.

One thing I will say is that we need to cut out the unnecessary pass backs to the keeper.