CaleyD

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Are you sure you were watching the game at Easter Road? I was nervous of our defense early on due to past perfromance but as the game proceeded they looked confident in everything they had to deal with. Apart from one small blip right at the end I don't recall any bomb scares.

If it's not broke, don't fix it - same as team for Hibs please Brew :021:

Stomach looks to have been right with Ridgers having 4 put past him yesterday!!!!

From what you watched at the match yesterday, who would you have put Deano in ahead of and what would have made him more effective than what we had on the pitch?

We never played much of the long punt up the park yesterday, but we were utilising the wings a lot and you need forwards with height to pick up on the crosses in to the box. When we were playing the ball through the middle it was often with pace to the feet of Brew or Niculae who 9 times out of 10 were being harassed by a defender. Deano simply wouldn't have had the size or presence to be coping with either situation too well. As you've said, you'd be looking to change the way we play to accommodate Deano. This is a team that have been struggling to find consistency, the last thing they need right now is wholesale changes to the team and tactics. We need to get back to playing to our strengths to get us of the bottom and that's what we did yesterday. I'm not knocking Deano, I think he is an exciting prospect, but he will just have to bide his time until the situation, game or tactics calls for his style of play.

If Frasers improved presence and the solid performance from our back 4 are down to nothing other than the fear of having competition for their places then the signings made are doing the job already IMO. Only time will tell how good, bad or indifferent the new players prove to be on the pitch.

You must be terribly selective in your reading if that's the stupidest post you've ever read on here :015: Out of curiosity, just who would you have played Deano ahead of then? Brewster, the only forward we have capable of out-jumping such tall defenders (and he did on many occasions yesterday) and one of the SPPL top scorers so far this season or Niculae, the most classy player we had on the park yesterday? On what do you base your suggestion that Deano would do better against larger defenders than Marius or Bayne? True, but again, who would you have played Deano ahead of and based on what? And how often did you see Dargo beating 6'7" defenders in the air? Deanos time will come and I actually do rate him from what I saw pre-season but he doesn't have the pace (yet) to take full advantage of the ability he has with the ball at his feet and as he won't be out jumping the opposition defense on a regular basis then he'll be looking to benefit from running at players in the same fashion as Dargo, not taking them on in aerial challenges. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that had Dargo still been in the squad then I wouldn't have been surprised to see him sitting out yesterdays game either. There are only 11 spots to be filled on the pitch at any one time and it's all fair and well saying XYZ should play but you also have to look at who you leave out and how they fit in with the rest of the set up. I'd love to see Deano out there playing and Zander Sutherland (before going on loan) would possibly have been another I would have had on the pitch but I'm not a Manager, I don't get to see how players perform in training etc. A man with one eye could see that our team performed at the best it has for a long time yesterday and that includes every man from the front to the back. It's easy to take a back seat and criticise (i've been known to do it too), but I don't believe that any change in personnel or set-up yesterday would have improved the result. It just wasn't to be - end of.

Sutherland and Ridgers both started for Elgin today. Unfortunately Arbroath shipped 4 past Ridgers.

As someone pointed out today - the corner flag was taller than Deano...just how on earth do you think he would have managed against a 6'7" defender? Brewster got it spot on with his squad selection today.

One of the newspapers reported Brewsters appointment as the return of the Messiah - I have to disagree, the Messiah was already here in the form of Marius Niculae, it was his link up play that made Brewster look at his best today.

I was quick to berate the comment, but I have to put my hands up and apologise. For those not at the match, the Hibs Keeper was dressed head to toe in Yellow, he also happened to be coloured. Had he been white then not a second thought would have been made on the comment about him being a big banana. Unfortunately we live in a society where it is only acceptable to make comments towards white male heterosexuals and we are all to quick to jump to the wrong conclusion when circumstances are otherwise. The comment was completely innocent and the person who said it should not feel any need to defend themselves, in fact, he should not be expected to defend himself.

Brewster laid off as many balls for Niculae as Niculae did for him. Both were possibly guilty of trying to make one pass too many on a couple of occasions, but it wouldn't have taken much of a change in fortune for either of them to have stuck away a goal or two. Brewster made the absolute right decision in playing himself today of that I have no doubt, and it was done for the right reasons which I will cover in the match report.

Every man on the pitch gets full marks from me for todays performance. Sitting here scratching my head trying to decide who gets MotM points as you could pick any 3 from the 11 guys who started the match. Off to do the Match Report so I won't bore you with all my thoughts and stuff twice :001:

Only thing for sure is that we'll never know :001:

I wonder if this is in lieu of the money Utd were rumoured to still owe us?

Good squad player given his versatility, but not the answer to our problems at the back IMO.

From the ICT Official Website

Source of information on Proctor?

On loan till January window.

Sensible bit of business. We get one of our own youngsters out on loan to gain experience whilst providing competition and incentive for Fraser to keep on top of his game,

Still space left on the minibus, so if anyone has any last minute urge to go then you should be safe enough to just turn up at the Innes Bar in the morning.

Hear where your coming from RiG, but between now and January we've got a battle on our hands and we need tried and tested players to pull us off the bottom of the league. It will be a while yet before we are a team that aren't always going to be among those tipped for the drop and that brings pressure in itself but that pressure is magnified 10-fold at present. Morale isn't the best and we need players who we know can slog it out and are equipped to deal with the pressure. Dropping young guys into that kind of environment just now would, IMO, do them more harm than good and getting them out on loan for regular football will inly serve to toughen them up at a level where they will, again IMO, shine.

Have dropped you a PM with my mobile number.

"It's not fair, I'm always the last to be picked when deciding the teams"