Another big game. 

Seems like virtually every game in this league is a 6 pointer!!

Edited February 27, 20215 yr by aaroncoganshogun

1 hour ago, Naelifts said:

I dont get it.........I just dont get it. The club is under incredible pressure right now. The players (of whom we ask so much) are , Im sure, trying their level best. They arent trousering thousands a week; they are dealing with the internal upheaval and in a lot of cases isolated from their families. Its no picnic for these youngsters. I did expect them to challenge for the play offs and that may still happen. Unfortunately if they read some of the rubbish that spews forth from here every time we have a reverse in fortune..........well, that cant help either. Consistency would be great; a sustained run of form.....fantastic. We have done it before. But can we just get off their backs.........we are starting to sound like entitled Old Firm fans.

I agree, and I was being critical last night watching the game as I want us to do well.

Unlike others, I don’t think there is any evidence of players not trying. Last night Dundee had a game plan that pressed us back and didn’t give us space. Due to that we lost the midfield battle and struggled to create anything. That resulted in long balls being played which promptly resulted in us not keeping possession and getting pressed back again.

We need to decide who our target man is, if indeed we are playing with one, and then build the team and formation to support that. We’ve had Sutherland, Storey, Todorov and even Keatings playing as lone striker, with mixed success.

Sutherland is better up top than out wide, and with our injuries we should use Storey’s pace by playing him wide.

Looking at this season compared to last season, I think there are a number of areas we are weaker. I like Duffy and he is developing into an important player for us, but he is not yet as effective as Rooney. We will see more from him next season.

We are also missing Walsh and injuries to Doran and McDonald have meant we have had to play players wide who are not naturally wide players (such as Sutherland and Mackay).

Dare I say it, we are also missing White, as whilst he got mixed reviews here, he was a nuisance to defenders and was our top scorer.

Add to that the injuries, particularly those to Carson, Toshney and Doran, the turmoil behind the scenes with the issues faced by Robbo and Kells, the run of postponements (our form was better before the postponements started than it has been since), the number of youngsters being used (which is a positive in the longer term), of course the pandemic impact and the changes that has brought, and the financial position we are in, not forgetting that many of us on here were already hoping at the start of the season that we would simply have a club at the end of the season, and there is some inevitability that we would struggle to meet our expectations this season.

There is still time to go on a run and challenge for a play off place, as Queen of the South have shown, but currently we need to focus on getting points and steering our way out of trouble at the bottom.

We have three games ahead that are winnable, but equally we could lose some or all of them. We will know by 2200 next Friday which battle we are in!

I agree with Naelifts, now is the time to show our support, not just to the players but to Robbo, Kells and McCann.

 

Edited March 3, 20215 yr by Robert

10 hours ago, CaleyTennis said:

It certainly has to because we cannot afford to fall any lower!

I expect a reaction on Saturday and tbh, its a must win if we are to have any chance of reaching play offs (which is still achieveable amazingly), I still believe that we will be good enough to avoid the bottom 2 but our abysmal record of 1 in 10 means that we can't afford any more slip ups against Alloa or Morton in our next 2 matches.

 

I get that injuries are problematic for us but we can't use that as an excuse, every team gets injuries during a season. The lack of matches is a very good point though so hopefully now we are back to full fit instead of being rusty.

 

Anything other than 6pts from the next 2 and questions will need asked of the players commitment to the team because, me and others, are of the opinion that the players are playing like they don't care about a) the pride of wearing the strip and b) the troubles the management team have had this season.

Part of the issue has to be that we have bought a lot of players with suspect injury records in their career. Obv that’s why their cheap and available and willing to come to us but we probably have more than most that we need to pay weekly wages too. Would loan deals be a better option???

Toddy's header...

		Pld	W	D	L	F	A	+/-	Pts
1.	Hearts	18	12	3	3	44	20	24	39
2.	Raith Rovers	16	8	3	5	32	24	8	27
3.	Dunfermline	17	7	6	4	26	19	7	27
4.	Dundee	16	6	6	4	30	30	0	24
5.	Queen of the South	18	7	3	8	26	35	-9	24
6.	Arbroath	18	5	6	7	15	20	-5	21
7.	Inverness CT	16	4	7	5	24	21	3	19
8.	Morton	17	4	7	6	16	22	-6	19
9.	Ayr United	16	4	5	7	20	21	-1	17
10.	Alloa Athletic	18	3	4	11	20	41	-21	13

4 hours ago, Naelifts said:

I dont get it.........I just dont get it. The club is under incredible pressure right now. The players (of whom we ask so much) are , Im sure, trying their level best. They arent trousering thousands a week; they are dealing with the internal upheaval and in a lot of cases isolated from their families. Its no picnic for these youngsters. I did expect them to challenge for the play offs and that may still happen. Unfortunately if they read some of the rubbish that spews forth from here every time we have a reverse in fortune..........well, that cant help either. Consistency would be great; a sustained run of form.....fantastic. We have done it before. But can we just get off their backs.........we are starting to sound like entitled Old Firm fans.

I suspect thats aimed at me, who else gets criticised this much on a forum!

 

i say this hundreds of times, I AM A FAN SO ENTITLED TO AN OPINION FFS, if you don't agree then fine but don't pick on me everytime you don't agree with me.

is it any wonder I don't post on here often, its like I get ganged up on for having an opinion and the mods just allow it, sometimes I wonder why I bothered registering in the first place, I'm slowly being driven away from the forum, something a few on here (Highland Capital to name one) would love to see happen.

Got to comeback on this. Nobody was being singled out. I was referencing "the mood in the room". Degree of paranoia here I think

No one says you aren't entitled to an opinion.

No one is picking on you.

No one is ganging up on you.

No one is trying to drive you away from the forum.

4 minutes ago, RiG said:

No one says you aren't entitled to an opinion.

No one is picking on you.

No one is ganging up on you.

No one is trying to drive you away from the forum.

That sounds reassuring Mr Mod :).

I'll choose to believe that you are being sincere.

If however you do feel that any posts on here break any of the site rules you can, of course, report that post.

11 minutes ago, CaleyTennis said:

That sounds reassuring Mr Mod :).

Go and fill up your glass and try and keep it half full

It's been a crap year and the football season is not much better with all the problems the club has had but we still need to get behind the team and hope things will improve next season although there is a lot of rebuilding to be done with the team.

A few more goals from Toddy like the one above will help 

1 hour ago, CaleyTennis said:

I suspect thats aimed at me, who else gets criticised this much on a forum!

 

i say this hundreds of times, I AM A FAN SO ENTITLED TO AN OPINION FFS, if you don't agree then fine but don't pick on me everytime you don't agree with me.

is it any wonder I don't post on here often, its like I get ganged up on for having an opinion and the mods just allow it, sometimes I wonder why I bothered registering in the first place, I'm slowly being driven away from the forum, something a few on here (Highland Capital to name one) would love to see happen.

I was critical last night too and my glass is usually half full.

We all want the best for the club, but this season is unique and we hopefully come out of it unscathed and can have a great season when the 2021/22 campaign starts.

The forum needs different views and healthy debate.

16 hours ago, CaleyTennis said:

something a few on here (Highland Capital to name one) would love to see happen.

Wrong forum bud.

On 3/3/2021 at 8:30 AM, Stirling Observer said:

As fans the quicker we rule out promotion playoffs the better.

 

Team isn't consistent enough but has shown we can raise our game sometimes. 

Use the rest of the season to stabilise in the league and focus on the cups. Hopefully win the challenge cup and knock County out the big cup.

(Cough... B*ck*e first 😇)

On 3/3/2021 at 10:51 AM, Stirling Observer said:

Biggest problem for me is a lack of leaders. When I look at the team don't see many players who respond when the chips are down or we need to buck up. It is normal with a relatively young side. If we have allardice, magregor, Mackay, Duffy, Deas and Harper playing almost half our team our much over 21 therefore limited experience.

Most concerning is the defence. Harper, Duffy and Deas are just learning the game. An experienced leader beside them would be great but is something we don't have unfortunately. 

Agreed. Carson is about the nearest, apart from maybe Devine. But that challenge on Craig Gordon was pure mental. Allardice is a big strong boy who can put himself about in midfield but he's rushed into a few rash tackles, he needs an experienced head alongside him talking him through it, and I'm not sure Sean Welsh is doing that, but happy to be proven wrong. But when Welsh hasn't played, he's always had another rookie alongside him.

If the rumours about Keatings are true I feel we just have to stay up and give these young lads a chance to develop as the core of the side next year, along with any 33-year olds we can sign for the short term. I've felt for months that the playoffs are unlikely, 5th is about the ceiling for us this season but it could be far worse.

On 3/3/2021 at 6:25 PM, tm4tj said:

		Pld	W	D	L	F	A	+/-	Pts
1.	Hearts	18	12	3	3	44	20	24	39
2.	Raith Rovers	16	8	3	5	32	24	8	27
3.	Dunfermline	17	7	6	4	26	19	7	27
4.	Dundee	16	6	6	4	30	30	0	24
5.	Queen of the South	18	7	3	8	26	35	-9	24
6.	Arbroath	18	5	6	7	15	20	-5	21
7.	Inverness CT	16	4	7	5	24	21	3	19
8.	Morton	17	4	7	6	16	22	-6	19
9.	Ayr United	16	4	5	7	20	21	-1	17
10.	Alloa Athletic	18	3	4	11	20	41	-21	13

Morton and Ayr are playing each other tomorrow, which highlights the need for us to do what we seldom do in the league and beat Alloa.