At the Crossroads

 

With our season gradually disintegrating, we head to Recreation Park Alloa to face The Wasps @ the Indodrill Stadium. It's a 3:00pm kick-off on Saturday with both sides lingering at the wrong end of the table, games in hand or not. 

Our games in hand are dwindling away and there's little improvement in our league position. Four wins from sixteen games is not the form of a team challenging for a play-off slot to the premiership.

This is now a crucial game in our season which is at the crossroads. Which way do we turn?

Crossroads

 

We have found Alloa difficult to beat recently with no wins in our last four meetings, such is the demise of our club. Financial constraints have seen us unable to attract the quality of player required at this level to sustain a challenge at the top end of the table and we are having to blood youngsters in the Championship. The latest jumping ship is James Keatings who has reportedly signed a pre-contract agreement with Raith Rovers. With little leadership on the park, it's difficult to get any consistency and Premiership football looks unlikely with the prospects of league 1 closer to the mark. It's a tough league to get out of at the right end and there's a fine line between challenging at the top to falling into a relegation battle and that is something we have to get used to pretty quick. We have eleven games left to save our season, which way will we turn?

Last 10 Competitive Meetings

2 - 2 (H)

1 - 2 (A)

0 - 2 (A)

1 - 1 (H)

3 - 2 (A)

2 - 0 (A)

2 - 2 (H)

3 - 0 (H)

2 - 1 (A)

3 - 2 (H)

		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

 

All Championship games this weekend

 

Raith v Dundee - Postponed - Covid

Alloa v Inverness CT

Arbroath v Queen of the South

Hearts v Dundee

Morton v Ayr United

Only eleven games left and we need to start picking up points starting with Alloa away at the weekend, so get behind the guys, for better or for worse.

 

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OFFICIAL PREVIEW

PPV STREAMING £12 FROM ALLOA TV

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Neil McCann pre-match with Alloa...

 

***Latest Team News***

Anthony McDonald has had an operation on his knee and with only a dozen games left in this season, it is unlikely we will see much, if anything at all from him this campaign. Roddy MacGregor is doubtful after the clattering he took against Hearts from Kingsley. The rest are back in training and will be needed as soon as they are ready for action before our season is beyond repair. It looks as though the best we can do this year is survive and get the youngsters some valuable game time ready for next season. This is not a drill!

Alloa will make it difficult and for the first time ever we will probably be regarded as underdogs in this fixture. Their mix of experience, young loanees and dogged journeymen have been good enough to hold the Indian sign over us recently and I see little evidence that will change this weekend. Loan signing Innes Cameron seems to be prospering with game time and Innes Murray likes a free kick, both scoring against us in the last couple of meetings. 

Here's a wee reminder that not all left feet are just for standing on....

 

 

 

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Penalty claim turned down. Sutherland played MacGregor in and he went down. Would have been soft.

Looking more promising in the second half. 

Edited March 6, 20215 yr by Robert

Mackay booked. 

3 minutes ago, Robert said:

 

Looking more promising in the second half. 

Trying to lull the part timers into a false sense of security by surrendering possession.

Keatings on for Toddy. 

Half chance fopr Keatings.

Decent effort by Keatings from MacKay cross. 

Why was the Alloa player sent off?

He didn’t argue so something must have happened off the ball or he said something?

Edited March 6, 20215 yr by Robert

Alloa are down to ten men. What happened?

Has anyone any idea what the red card was for?

Just not good enough. Surely we deserve better than that. Five league games so far this season against part time teams with, even in these strange and constrained times, far fewer resources than us and we have one solitary victory to show for it.

Our players may not be the best paid in the land, or even the division, but they have the advantage and privilege of being, still relatively well remunerated, full time professional athletes with the advantage of full time training and coaching.

This season they have let themselves down, they have let the club giving them the opportunity to play full time down and, most sadly of all, they continue to let the fans down.

Full time

Another poor performance 

Another poor performance against the part time team at the bottom of the league. Again, just not good enough.

Well, once again the part timers have our measure.  Proof, if indeed it were needed, that we can forget all about the play offs now, at least the top ones!

Full time.

Probanly a fair result. Alloa had the best of the first half, we looked more likely after the break.

A few good saves by Ridgers but credit Devine for keeping Cameron quiet after he came on.

I’m not sure about McCann’s tactics. A few times it looked like Ridgers’ instinct was to go long but he held back and played it short. If we are going to continue with that approach, we need to keep the ball better and give players options for passes.

We need to win on Tuesday against Morton now after today’s results. 

Edited March 6, 20215 yr by Robert

Just end the season now, please.

We are a hundred times more likely to get relegated than promoted.

3 minutes ago, Caley Mad In Berks said:

Has anyone any idea what the red card was for?

From BBC Alan Trouten (Alloa Athletic) is shown the red card for violent conduct.

1 minute ago, IBM said:

From BBC Alan Trouten (Alloa Athletic) is shown the red card for violent conduct.

Must have been something off the ball. Looked like the linesman saw something as he had to tell the red where the feee kick should be taken. 

Better second half but still underwhelming, a bit embarrassing really shelling it up to Shane.
Also really annoying how they always go back to Ridgers even when there's a spare man. He's a decent shot stopper but inevitably his distribution is poor so it's just squandering possession. Have to say Alloa very rarely resorted to the long hoof, far less nervous looking in their own box than us.

One win in eleven.

Ayr,Morton & ourselves for that playoff place.

Neil McCann on Football Focus saying today he hoped to reach the play offs and hand the club back to JR.

What play offs was he talking about ?

Maybe league 1 and 2 will eventually be nullified saving us from potential relegation!

11 minutes ago, Robert said:

I’m not sure about McCann’s tactics. A few times it looked like Ridgers’ instinct was to go long but he held back and played it short.

I would much prefer him to pass it out to someone than to hoof it aimlessly down the park, when we invariably lose it or it goes straight through to the other keeper.

Having said that, today was the worst performance I can remember seeing by Ridgers.  Good saves, yes, but, as you said, poor distribution.  It was almost as though his mind was elsewhere.

5 minutes ago, Satan said:

One win in eleven.

Ayr,Morton & ourselves for that playoff place.

I think Arbroath will be right back in there. Although you could argue that they faced a QoS team today who seem to have found some sort of miracle.

9 minutes ago, snorbens_caleyman said:

I would much prefer him to pass it out to someone than to hoof it aimlessly down the park, when we invariably lose it or it goes straight through to the other keeper.

Having said that, today was the worst performance I can remember seeing by Ridgers.  Good saves, yes, but, as you said, poor distribution.  It was almost as though his mind was elsewhere.

I don’t disagree but there were occasions quick distribution would have been effective or we just needed to clear our lines, but we dithered at the back, struggled to get up the park and lost the ball anyway.

Both Dundee and Alloa have pressed us hard early on and other teams will see we struggle when our under pressure. We either need to find a way of keeping the ball when playing it out, or mix things up more.

 

Edited March 6, 20215 yr by Robert

Not just struggling when pressed. Just f*****g struggling.