We have conceded 29 goals in 15 matches, 3 goals more than any other team.  Conceding virtually 2 goals per game obviously makes it hard to pick up many points.

It's rather uncharacteristic of ICT to appear so porous at the back, so I'd be interested to know what people think is the cause, or causes.  I've also added a poll where you tick whichever factors you think apply.

Lets Feckin cement our reputation - and add lack of discipline to the poll options.

On 11/28/2016 at 11:55 PM, caley100 said:

Gary Warren past it?

Like i said...... 

Foran said after today's debacle that our problem is that we have too many attack minded players, we need more defence minded players and he will address this in January as funds are available.

Aye... attack minded players that canna score????  fecks sake!

Attack minded players that are fear't to take a feckin shot! 

So if we don't have defensive players then why not play those who are like draper in that position - holding midfield instead of further forward where he's been all season ? Why put Vigurs in a defensive role when he doesn't run, track back or tackle in fact he doesn't go forwards or shoot either? We have players played out of position like draper and Polwarth?  there's a clear lack of confidence throughout as seen by today's lack of shooting even the likes of tansey won't try a 25 yarder.

For an excellent example of the "Midfielders not working hard enough to provide protection" check out how little effort Vigurs puts in to follow his man for the Saint Johnstone opener today.

Edited December 3, 20169 yr by RiG

Evidence if we needed it. Send this to Foran. Guilty as charged M'lud...........

In his defence, m'lud, he had to change his boots twice in the process, according to the outlined photos that is......................then nearly got back into the bargain so surely he cant be that slow!!.....he remains not guilty on this occasion your worship.

13 hours ago, bughtmaster said:

In his defence, m'lud, he had to change his boots twice in the process, according to the outlined photos that is......................then nearly got back into the bargain so surely he cant be that slow!!.....he remains not guilty on this occasion your worship.

Eh? I can only assume that you can't make out who our players are.

In the first photo, outlined, Tansey is at the bottom and Craig is tussling with Vigurs for the ball. In the second photo Craig has laid the ball off to Maclean and is now heading for the box, running across Vigurs who starts to track back with him but with no real effort. Tansey is to the right of Vigurs in this photo and about 5 yards from Craig. In the third photo Maclean has played in Craig now in acres of space in the box with Vigurs still trying to catch him. He hasn't 'nearly' gotten back in the slightest.
 

Edited December 5, 20169 yr by RiG

2 hours ago, RiG said:

Eh? I can only assume that you can't make out who our players are.

In the first photo, outlined, Tansey is at the bottom and Craig is tussling with Vigurs for the ball. In the second photo Craig has laid the ball off to Maclean and is now heading for the box, running across Vigurs who starts to track back with him but with no real effort. Tansey is to the right of Vigurs in this photo and about 5 yards from Craig. In the third photo Maclean has played in Craig now in acres of space in the box with Vigurs still trying to catch him. He hasn't 'nearly' gotten back in the slightest.
 

Thanks for the explanation Rig.  You are quite right, being visualy impaired, I cannot distinguish the players particularly well, I assumed that the outlined player in the photos were all  'supposedly' of Vigurs.  I suppose the old adage of 'never assume' is true in this case. Photographic evidence without accompanying explanation can sometimes be so misleading.

Nice photos though and good thinking if you were recording that in anticipation of catching Vigurs out or did you just go through a recorded version of the match and pick out said frames ?

At the game it was evident that someone had let Craig run free without properly tracking him. After Craig had scored both Vigurs and Tansey had a heated conversation about something, I would guess who should have been following him, so it was something I kept a look out for when I watched the highlights on YouTube. These confirmed my suspicions that at least one of the aforementioned two had been slack in their defensive covering contributing to the defensive mess that saw Saints open the scoring.

Harsh to single out individual players making mistakes, collectively over the past few weeks they have been shocking and that includes a very inexperienced manager.. 

Not really, there are players out there who aren't giving 100%, look disinterested and not stepping up to fill their roles in the team. Over recent weeks only Draper, Tremarco, Doumbaya, Mckay and OFW have played well, with maybe Doran & King passable. Sadly the rest are not performing how they are capable and in the way we are used to seeing in the past. So yes criticism may seem harsh but we pay our money and have rights to an opinion, inexperienced manager or not, he and his backroom team aren't learning from the mistakes and seem to be happy to persevere week on week making the same errors.

Dropping down the table, we are on current form real relegation fodder - time to step up and stop the excuses before its too late. Its beginning to sound like Mixu last year who's DUtd team were in free fall and couldn't win yet he praised the way they played.

 

Interesting from the poll though that on Sat goal 1 was a consequence of the highest selected response and goal 2 from the 2nd highest. Clearly on here the majority can see the issues

Edited December 5, 20169 yr by bdu98196

On 03/12/2016 at 11:09 PM, RiG said:

For an excellent example of the "Midfielders not working hard enough to provide protection" check out how little effort Vigurs puts in to follow his man for the Saint Johnstone opener today.

Nice work, RiG. The definition of a midfielder is somebody who attacks and defends. In the case of holding or defensive midfielders, the emphasis is on the latter - you either go to the ball or track the runner and leave the ball-carrier to the defenders. Vigurs does neither here, although you could argue that Tansey is pretty slow to get back too. Warren is far too advanced, leaving a gap in behind. One pass takes him out of the game and drags Draper out (which he is obliged to do) and Tremarco tracks his runner effectively (which he too has to do). If everybody had done their job, there would not have been a free shot at goal, but sadly there was an absentee and we know what happened next. Put simply, if Polworth had been in that position, I don't think Craig would have had a clear sight of goal.

For me, Vigurs is a luxury for a team in our current position. Our team needs to dig in and make sure they concentrate and do their jobs accurately in defence to provide a platform to attack. That requires all of hte midfield to do likewise and Vigurs is too often posted missing for my liking.

Unfortunately, our shortage in personnel just now means Vigurs has to play.....but he needs a rocket!

Agreed Vigurs does have his faults and lets be honest if he had pace and was the complete midfielder he probably would not be playing for us. But why are we singling out one  player when mistakes are happening all over the park. Lets be honest other than Carl Tremarco the rest have been below average for weeks now.

    

2 hours ago, RiG said:

At the game it was evident that someone had let Craig run free without properly tracking him. After Craig had scored both Vigurs and Tansey had a heated conversation about something, I would guess who should have been following him, so it was something I kept a look out for when I watched the highlights on YouTube. These confirmed my suspicions that at least one of the aforementioned two had been slack in their defensive covering contributing to the defensive mess that saw Saints open the scoring.

Interesting watching the highlights and seeing all the goals again and hearing Thompson and Stewart deconstructing all the mistakes. At the first goal Yngwie and I turned to each other and both thought Gary Warren was a bit out of position and too easily turned. Seeing it again, Vigurs makes virtually zero effort to track back. Depends what you're looking for I suppose. 

What most people will agree on is, we've seen ICT teams in the past biting and scraping to salvage a point in the most hopeless cases. On Saturday, and other times, e.g. Firhill and Tynecastle, everybody knew we were beaten once the first goal went in.

Is it just me or do both Vigurs and Tansey both seem to be lacking in desire and commitment for some reason at the moment ?

It must be difficult to run quickly with a big red box surrounding you.

3 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

Is it just me or do both Vigurs and Tansey both seem to be lacking in desire and commitment for some reason at the moment ?

Tansey has been taking a lot of stick recently, but I don't really think looked like he lacked commitment on Saturday - he made himself available for the ball (noticably more than some others), tried to take charge of building from the back, made a few runs forward and tracked back better than Vigurs. He didn't always use the ball that well though - there were a few overhit long balls and a couple of times going forward he tried to hang onto it too long, as if to work a better opportunity for himself that wasn't going to come. I'm not sure that's a lack of commitment, but his game might well have been affected by frustration or nerves, especially after we'd lost the first goal.

Vigurs is a different matter, but I don't entirely blame him either, in that we knew what we were getting with Vigurs when we signed him. County supporters and Motherwell supporters tended to be divided on him, precisely because, for all his vision and his ability with a dead ball, he simply didn't work hard enough. He never really established himself in the Motherwell first team for that reason. Personally, I wouldn't have him in the first team at all if we had a full-strength squad, and I certainly wouldn't use him in a deep-lying midfield role, where he will regularly be expected to track his opponents, put in decisive tackles and provide defensive cover and reinforcement, except as a very last resort. Saturday probably was that, but Foran has used him in that role for almost the whole season, and it absolutely baffles me. I've said before, probably in this thread, that I think that that tactic is probably more responsible for our dreadful defensive record than Warren's lack of form, and the two may well related to some extent anyway. Until Polworth is fit again, though, we probably don't have any option but to continue with Vigurs in there, but once we have more players available, I hope Foran at least tries going with something and someone else. We can talk about giving Vigurs a rocket to try to get him to work harder, but I'm just not sure he has it within himself.  

  

14 hours ago, alternative maryhill said:

Tansey has been taking a lot of stick recently, but I don't really think looked like he lacked commitment on Saturday - he made himself available for the ball (noticably more than some others), tried to take charge of building from the back, made a few runs forward and tracked back better than Vigurs. He didn't always use the ball that well though - there were a few overhit long balls and a couple of times going forward he tried to hang onto it too long, as if to work a better opportunity for himself that wasn't going to come. I'm not sure that's a lack of commitment, but his game might well have been affected by frustration or nerves, especially after we'd lost the first goal.

Vigurs is a different matter, but I don't entirely blame him either, in that we knew what we were getting with Vigurs when we signed him. County supporters and Motherwell supporters tended to be divided on him, precisely because, for all his vision and his ability with a dead ball, he simply didn't work hard enough. He never really established himself in the Motherwell first team for that reason. Personally, I wouldn't have him in the first team at all if we had a full-strength squad, and I certainly wouldn't use him in a deep-lying midfield role, where he will regularly be expected to track his opponents, put in decisive tackles and provide defensive cover and reinforcement, except as a very last resort. Saturday probably was that, but Foran has used him in that role for almost the whole season, and it absolutely baffles me. I've said before, probably in this thread, that I think that that tactic is probably more responsible for our dreadful defensive record than Warren's lack of form, and the two may well related to some extent anyway. Until Polworth is fit again, though, we probably don't have any option but to continue with Vigurs in there, but once we have more players available, I hope Foran at least tries going with something and someone else. We can talk about giving Vigurs a rocket to try to get him to work harder, but I'm just not sure he has it within himself.  

  

So what you are saying then, is that playing Vigurs in a central midfield is the reason we have a dreadful defensive record. Nothing to do with not being able to defend set pieces,  being caught out for pace at the back and at times some questionable goalkeeping. 

1 hour ago, forresjags said:

So what you are saying then, is that playing Vigurs in a central midfield is the reason we have a dreadful defensive record. Nothing to do with not being able to defend set pieces,  being caught out for pace at the back and at times some questionable goalkeeping. 

That's clearly not what he's saying at all. Poor defensive cover from any of the midfield two that we tend to play with has often contributed to our defensive frailties. Vigurs on Saturday was culpable for one goal conceded in such a manner but the others came from poor play as well. No one is denying that.

It's clearly not just one player at fault but one of the reasons we seem to be conceding lots of goals this season was again clearly evident on Saturday with this slack piece of play by Vigurs which has been highlighted above.

Edited December 6, 20169 yr by RiG

You are totally correct it is not one players fault that we are conceding cheap goals, but at the moment there seems to be a consensus that the problems stem from central midfield, one player in particular.  

Solve the problem move Tremarco from left back into central midfield, plenty of energy, pace and commitment there. If its good enough for Shinnie at Aberdeen, its good enough for the far superior Carl  Tremarco.       

Don't think that will solve, probably make us weaker? We move a player from his natural position where he is performing well (rare shining light this season) then put someone weaker in his place leaving us horribly exposed on the left side. We already look suspect down the right as we saw with Mckay/Raven out and Meekings having a horror of Horner proportions.

Edited December 6, 20169 yr by bdu98196

Watching the highlights and these piccies the defence is at fault as well. WTF is Warren doing so far forward. If the back four had remained together then Tremarco or Draper would have picked up the runner. Where are the two wide players ? As bdu points out however we are playing some out of position. I would suspect that Draper would play more as a traditional centre half which does not tie in with Warren. Meekings always struggled as a full back. And finally we simply dp not have a squad where we have straight replacements if needed. BTW Warren's second yellow was correct, needless and stupidity.