ictchris

Looking at the goals on a YouTube they are both pretty poor. First goal, Vigurs doesn't track back to cover McKee and, as said above, Elsdon should have dealt with what was a relatively poor cross. 

The second goal is obviously a mistake by Ridgers, a terrible clearance. However, we don't seem to be able to respond to a press from opponents and end up putting our keepers and defenders under pressure.  We were vulnerable to it last season and there were glimpses of it again against Stirling and again there. Robertson and the coaches need to deal with that.

Here's a breakdown of Polworths performance, in terms of goals and assists, by position played for the last couple of seasons.

2015/16

Right midfield - 16 games: 5 goals, 5 assists

Attacking midfield - 11 games: 1 goal, 1 assist

Central midfield - 8 games: 0 goals, 1 assist

2016/17

Right midfield - 15 games: 2 goals, 4 assists

Central midfield - 10 games: 1 goal, 1 assist

Attacking midfield - 5 games: 0 goals, 0 assists

Should we be playing him centrally?

His attributes are his use of the ball, his shooting and his passing. These can all be effective in wider areas - we have Oakley and Zschusschen who can be targeted with crosses or long passes. Also, if we are going to play with two strikers then your central midfielders can end up being outnumbered by teams matching up with a 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3. Having a wide midfielder like Polworth, as opposed to a pure winger like Mulreany, gives you the option for him to tuck in and solidify in the centre,

Tremarco was clearly the deserving winner of this award.

Not starting Fisher earlier probably cost us our place in the league.

There are hardly any shops in the city centre anymore, let alone a Caley shop.

 City centre shops are money pits.

I haven't seen any radar charts on Liam Polworth I'm afraid.

The expected goal and expected assist charts produced by @TheBackpassRule on Twitter do feature him though.

In terms of xG for midfielders, he sits about where you'd expect, just a little below

https://public.tableau.com/profile/thebackpassrule#!/vizhome/xGper90Midfielders/Dashboard1

In terms of xA he was ahead of the curve

https://public.tableau.com/profile/thebackpassrule#!/vizhome/xAp90/Dashboard1

Everyone has to call Riccardo Calder Jim, pass it on.

He was good last night.  After this thread I tried to watch him quite closely and what was interesting was how many of his passes were forward - he doesn't just play sideways and try and recycle the ball, he's always looking to find someone up the pitch.  We played a 4-4-2 and he dropped back a few times to take the ball from the central defenders and play out with it and if you have someone doing that who is positive with the ball then it helps the team get forward.  

It wasn't great last night but it's really a glorified pre-season friendly.  It's about getting the legs working again, getting the team used to each other.  Obviously we want to qualify but it's not too important.  So no point going into despair over a 0-0 with Albion or getting too excited about a 3-0 win over Brechin.

It wasn't a great game, we struggled to threaten Stirling.  Oakley had a few decent touches and Baird worked very hard, buzzing about well, but we didn't manage to create that many chances and those we did we didn't finish well.  We were probably hampered by having to take Mulreany off early and replacing him with Chalmers clearly weakened us.  Chalmers was a trier but he's not got the threat that Mulreany has.  As someone else has said, our full backs seemed to offer the most width with Calder especially getting forward in the second half.  Warren and Mckay were mostly solid, albeit with a couple of shaky moments early from Warren.

In midfield, I thought Vigurs had a good game.  He moved the ball well and played some pretty incisive forward passes.  Draper was quiet and didn't have a huge impact on the game - if he stays he'll need to offer more than that in the Championship.  Polworth huffed and puffed and had a few efforts on goal but wasn't particularly effective.  Mulreany was quiet for the brief period he was on and then Chalmers gave it his all but doesn't really have the talent to play wide.  I though Calder was the bigger threat on the left, might've been worth swapping them over.  Zschusschen looked good when he came on - his touch was excellent and he did well with everything we offered him, which wasn't a great deal.  Once he gets used to the team I think he could give some teams problems.

Really though we lacked creativity going forward.  We didn't have anyone who really dropped off and used the ball or did anything that different up front.  It's very early days but if we are going to play 4-4-2 then we need to work out how to shape our team to create chances, how to drop into dangerous areas and stretch the opposition.  Vigurs passing was good yesterday but he's doing that from deep, we need to make a difference further forward.  If you play two strikers then you can end up just hitting them all the time rather than getting between the oppositions lines and that could be a danger for us.  We'll see how the team develops.

Vigurs got two assists last season, both in the last three games, both straight passes from central midfield to Alex Fisher.  Maybe if he has good targets he can be more productive in terms of attacking this season

7 hours ago, Council Juice said:

He's probably the best we have at spreading the ball around and finding a pass. He's got great vision. I think he'd do best as a deep lying playmaker with a defensive minded grafter and a box to box dynamic player alongside. One to do the dirty work and one to carry the ball.

Just think, in time we could be calling him the Pirlo of the North. But if that's to happen Vigurs needs others to be his legs and help create space. Just as the Italian maestro had Ambrosini, Gattuso and Seedorf at Milan and Vidal, Marchisio and Pogba at Juve. Ok so maybe I'm slightly exaggerating but humour the idea rather than a literal comparison.

 

The idea of Vigurs as a Prilo-style regista is maybe better than the reality.

I think he needs to be more consistent and work harder but he's certainly got the talent to succeed in the Championship - he's done so before.  He's become an easy target for some of our fans and is the first to be criticised when players alongside him have been just as poor, if not worse.  

The game at Dens was the best I've seen him play, he was superb in that game, used the ball so well. If he played like that every week he'd be one of our key players.

And finally in the Iain Vigurs stat attack, he had the tenth most successful forward passes per ninety minutes of any player in the Premiership last season

There's a really interesting account on Twitter @TheBackpassRule on Scottish football stats.

The guy who runs that has produced charts on expected goals per 90 mapped against actual goals per 90 for SPFL premiership midfielders. Vigurs significantly under performs in that chart, as do all our midfielders.

https://public.tableau.com/profile/thebackpassrule#!/vizhome/xGper90Midfielders/Dashboard1

Some stats on Vigurs compared to Draper and Tansey last season courtesy of @TheSPFLRadar on Twitter.

Vigurs

Tansey

Draper

Abramovich takeover IMO

I appreciate people are getting excited by these signings but we don't really know anything about these players.  Aside from Baird none have any real experience that we can judge them against and players straight out of youth academies are often very raw and unable to make an impact in first team football.  Look at the example of Jake Mulreany, who generated a lot of excitement thsi time last year but didn't have as big an influence as anyone would've wanted.

We should also beware comparing these players to the players we've previously signed from the English lower leagues and Academies.  None of these guys have over fifty games in first team football, a couple (Elbouzedi and Elsdon) have never played first team football.  Players like Hayes, Rooney, Draper, Tansey, Watkins, Tremarco all had far more experience, most of them had around 100 first teams games under their belts.

They could be excellent signings and I hope they are but I'd be very surprised if, aside from Baird and Ridgers, more than one or two of these guys becomes a regular first team player.

Sometimes it's best to sell players when you get a great offer for them.  If we sold Draper and managed to get three good quality players from the wages and fee then selling him would make sense.

The club have actually suffered a lot by imposing red lines on who can stay and go.  You could argue it was us refusing the countenance Hughes going to Dundee Utd that has lead us to be relegated.

Elbouzedi is an Irish youth internationalist recently released by West Brom.

dunno who Leitch is.

1 hour ago, SteveA said:

According to the Scottish Sun we have signed Riccardo Calder on a free on a two year deal. Ex Aston Villa and Dundee winger. 

Really hoping he is the long lost son of Jim, sired during a post-season trip to Mexico and he's returned home to win the respect of his now ageing but still legendary father.

Five signings

Joe Chalmers

David Ferguson 

George Oakley 

Mark Ridgers

Ivor Lawton

?

2 minutes ago, RiG said:

Out of interest, what kind of infrastructure are we talking about here?

We're going to build a wall, a great wall to stop our players leaving.  And County are going to pay for it!

2 hours ago, Moogthurso said:

Sorry strong speculation but draper raven, fon Williams and esson as a player all seem very credible. rumours. I hope I am wrong but was based on training pics comments earlier.

That's just a photo of a bunch of guys doing laps of a pitch.

While the board are useless and our communication is terrible I think releasing a statement detailing exactly who attended training that day is expecting a bit much.

It's reported in other papers as well.  McNaughton was told he was getting a contract and then the offer was withdrawn without a phone call.

SO far that's Josh Meekings, Duncan Shearer and now Kevin McNaughton who have reported this sort of behaviour and that's just the people who have gone public with it.  Best case this is due to the upheaval caused by relegation, changes to the board and management team and we'll settle down and stop this.  Worst case is that the new board are simply arrogant and/or incompetent and are treating people like this due to their own lack of organisation or ability to run an organisation.

I think the worst case scenario is closer to the truth.

Someone told me that Draper is leaving, it's a done deal.  He's off to England.

I don't really mind us freshening up the squad.  We haven't added anyone of any real substance to the squad for years, it clearly peaked in 2015 and started to go stale after that.  

Problem is that I don't have any real confidence in us freshening up the squad with anyone half decent.