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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2 hours ago, TheMantis said:

Yip, appreciate that. When I say a fit Doran, I don’t mean the player who has filled a jersey but has struggled through games when he’s obviously not fit. His whole career has been a bit tragic, although if it hadn’t, he wouldn’t have been with us. He’s still only 29, but I’m slowly coming round to the view that maybe we should cut our losses.

Disagree. One of our best players ever and we’re lucky to still have him. Hope he can still give a decent bit to the cause!

Re Doran. I remember venturing a few years ago  that we werent missing Doran because there was nothing to miss. He was almost permanently injured or coming back. I got shot down in flames. I feel the same now and find myself in agreement with Mantis. He could actually be a liablility. Dont get me wrong................a fit Doran could be a match winner and a wee bit special. But will we ever see the likes again?

Agree. He's a matchwinner when fit but he never is.

I just wonder if we have also become a bit too predictable with our 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 set up. Other teams seem to be exploiting this too easily.

Perhaps it's time to change things slightly and give our promising full backs a bit more protection in defence as well as when they venture forward in the absence of the out and out wingers we are missing. Is switching to a back three plus two wing backs too obvious? Also have two central midfielders with two midfielders cum forwards with a free role supporting a target man up front might make things a bit more solid at across the park.

With the squad we have the names of players for each role are possibly interchangeable perhaps with the exception of the back three and the two wing backs. McKay, Deas and Devine are obvious back three for now, unless Toshney can work his way into the reckoning. Duffy and Harper would more than likely be the wing backs but Carson can also slot in on the right.

These are just my thoughts about how slight tinkering with the current limited squad in this difficult season might turn things around, at least to get us clear of the bottom. Making the Premiership play offs would be a bonus.     

I’ve wondered about 3 5 2 also recently given our lack of natural width amongst the fit members of the squad, at least until we have Doran or McDonald available.

I agree the most likely 3 are Mckay, Devine and Deas.

The middle 5 would presumably have Duffy and Harper playing wide. We then pick three from Welsh, Carson, Allardice, Vincent, Mackay and MacGregor.

Up front it would be 2 from Toddy, Sutherland, Storey and Keatings.

I suspect we will stick with what has recently looked like a 4 4 2 though. 

Edited March 7, 20215 yr by Robert

Hard not to notice that McCann persisted with trying to play it out from the back despite 1) the players really not looking comfortable with it; and 2) Alloa, like Dundee, cottoning on to this and press us high up the pitch making things even more uncomfortable. 

Very strange that McCann didn't seem to make any changes in response to this. I could hear Peter Grant over the stream (or a member of his coaching staff) telling his players to push right up on us. Hard to believe McCann couldn't also hear this.

Highlights from Alloa are here BTW.

 

2 hours ago, RiG said:

Hard not to notice that McCann persisted with trying to play it out from the back despite 1) the players really not looking comfortable with it; and 2) Alloa, like Dundee, cottoning on to this and press us high up the pitch making things even more uncomfortable. 

Very strange that McCann didn't seem to make any changes in response to this. I could hear Peter Grant over the stream (or a member of his coaching staff) telling his players to push right up on us. Hard to believe McCann couldn't also hear this.

Highlights from Alloa are here BTW.

 

A bit strange that Grant took about 10 minutes to do this as even a blind man knew that McCann would have them trying to keep possession at the back - even the two commentators were predicting it pre-match.  But early on they just left us loads of space to get on with it.

Edited March 8, 20215 yr by TheMantis

7 minutes ago, TheMantis said:

A bit strange that Grant took about 10 minutes to do this as even a blind man knew that McCann would have them trying to keep possession at the back - even the two commentators were predicting it pre-match.  But early on they just left us loads of space to get on with it.

Probably got that from TWS scouting report that was prepared for them ahead of the game 

I've seen enough this season to suggest there is a good team team but it is inconsistent and for me the biggest issue is lacking a number 9 who can put the goals away. Keatings is past his best but is the best natural goal scorer in the squad as Toddy isnt prolific and Shane showed in the big moments that we cant rely on him to take the big chances to make a difference. The league table is a contridiction of pros and cons. The pro is it still pretty tight that IF (big if) caley go on a winning run they will sneak into the play offs but is there much confidence that they will in those play offs? But flip it upside down and the league being tight is also very dangerous as make the wrong move and could be looking at a lower division. For me it is about self preservation now making sure we stay safe which I think we will. If that leads to the play offs then great but these are the games to cash in and frankly it hasnt been good enough 

Todorov has a decent return with a goal every 182 minutes.  That's a goal every other game if he was playing a full 90 minutes and his goal conversion rate is significantly higher than our other strikers.  I've sometimes felt that he's almost trying to hard and has maybe snatched at some chances.  You can't fault his effort and he gets in some decent positions.  I think if he was to get a proper run in the side he could get enough goals to at least help us keep in touch with the playoffs at the right end of the table and away from them at the wrong end.  

Seems Trouten was sent off for kicking out at MacGregor off the ball.