hislopsoffsideagain

According to ex-Hibs player David Farrell, the idea that an artificial pitch runs "straight and true" is a myth. (taken from the article I linked to above) “From a player’s point of view, grass is always preferable”, ex-pro David Farrell told me. “At first team level it hinders passing football due to the speed of the game. The unnaturally high bounce means that many passes are difficult to control, meaning play continually breaks down. Also the speed of the pitch means many passes being misplaced even if they are only a fraction out. “Ultimately a form of "percentage" football is played by the home team who are more used to the bounce and feel. Long balls into channels clipped to force teams into playing in their own half as they don’t want to risk losing possession in their own half.” I seem to recall Jackie McNamara having similar objections to the pitch at Rugby Park earlier this season, after Dundee United lost there.

I wrote this piece earlier in the season for The Terrace on the subject. There are certainly pros and cons. http://terracepodcast.net/scottish-premiership/2014/10/8/the-plastic-pitch-fallacy

These things happen in football sometimes. Partick won't play better than that all season - and they produced that performance on a day where every one of our players, to a man, was honking. It might have been very different had Watkins not squandered that early chance. Tactically I thought we were poor - Partick picked a team with plenty of energy in midfield, which allowed them to press high and stop our midfield from having any time on the ball. They also used their full backs as a very effective out ball, knowing that our diamond midfield would be very narrow. Elliott (who looked well offside in the build up to the opener) and Higginbotham had a lot of joy getting in behind us when Shinnie and Raven were caught up the pitch. Really we should have gone back to 4-2-3-1 early on. That said, all the goals we lost were shocking from a defensive point of view. Brill should have come for the first, and we were all over the shop for the second and third. The fourth was partly down to our ploy of leaving three men up when we're defending corners. It's suicide. We can't afford to leave anyone on the posts, nor do we have enough men back to deny opponents clear space to attack the ball. Balatoni was able to get a run and jump without any impediment whatsoever. I'm not sure what the point of bringing on Doran and Christie for the last 25mins was. Talk about an exercise in futility. They should have been on as soon as it went to 0-3, if not at half-time. Onwards, then. Hopefully this was a blip rather than our bubble being burst.

Looking back, Motherwell's goal was their only clearcut chance of the whole game - and that came from a defensive shambles on our part. That in itself tells you how much we dominated. We looked superior from the get-go but we seemed to be playing in second or third gear till the opening goal. Mckay's finish was that of a striker who has his mojo back. Christie's through ball was beautiful. For Mckay's second half miss, I assume he had a pretty tight angle? If anything, Watkins hitting the bar from six yards out was worse! I always felt a little nervous at 1-1 but Watkins' goal knocked the stuffing out of Motherwell and it could have been five or six by the end. Not the best performance from us this season, but it was still pretty good and more than enough to beat today's opponents, who look like real relegation candidates. That's eleven game unbeaten at home, going back to April 1st. That's a heck of a record! A special shout out to Graeme Shinnie, who I thought was sensational today, both in defence and attack. Clearly he let all the guff with his agent go right over his head.

The scoreline flattered Dundee United. Apart from a brief opening salvo from them, which led to Erskine hitting the post, they looked disjointed and created very little. That was mostly down to our midfield. Draper's muscle and Vincent's tremendous industry meant we had control of the middle of the pitch all day long, and that meant that Tansey could spray passes to his heart's content. The three of them were absolutely brilliant. Huge credit to the boss today, who tinkered with the tactics. Watkins played so far forward that he was effectively alongside Mckay. The midfield was so narrow that often it looked like a diamond, with Draper at the back and Vincent at the front - and it worked because Hughes knew United's full-backs would be rubbish going forward. It was amusing how we kept goading them to pass to Sean Dillon, safe in the knowledge that he wouldn't threaten us. In contrast, Raven and Shinnie were great going forward, particularly the latter. Given that Meekings hit the post, and that Mckay, Watkins and Vincent all wasted one on ones, we should have thumped them. A great effort.

On the one hand, Kingsmills' point about the amount of cash that should have come from the cup semi and final is valid. On the other hand, CaleyD tends to have insider knowledge about this sort of thing. We only finished one place lower in the league than the previous season, which means a much smaller difference in prize money than previous. Our attendances were lower, but so much lower as to cost us that much money? CaleyD, could you elaborate on how the income from the cup semis and final was divided? It would be interesting to know how much of it was siphoned off by the SPFL and by Hibs and Celtic. My interest is purely selfish, as I feel I could write a good blog about the effects the lack of sponsorship etc are having on clubs...if I can prove that this is so.

As a small company we aren't required to disclose very much information at all, whereas a stock market listed plc has a whole raft of additional requirements in their accounts. There's actually nothing to stop ICT including the kind of additional info you suggest if the directors wanted to, but why would they? They will say it is commercially sensitive, for example there's nothing to be gained from publicising to our rivals what we spend on player wages. All that matters is that these figures are available to the relevant people at the club! Thanks for the explanation. Makes sense. The main reason for my interest is what CaleyD has alluded to already - that our cup run was worth very little cash to us because of the lack of sponsors and the amount of money paid to Hibs and Celtic for use of their stadia. If a well-run club which made a cup final can barely break even, what does that mean for the other clubs? We already know that Motherwell are cutting costs like crazy...

I read the report last night, and was surprised that our profit was so low given the cup run - some of the posts above give a very good explanation of why. Is there a reason why our annual report doesn't break down costs and sources of income, so we don't know how much is coming in from sponsorship/gate receipts, or how much is going out in wages? It's not nearly as detailed as reports from other clubs have been (Celtic's from a few weeks ago was about 70 pages long)

Like Kilmarnock before them, St. Johnstone came up with a plan to frustrate us. I think people who are criticizing the first half performance need to remember that. We had all the play and Graham's goal was their first shot on target. We were in control and cruising till that point, and I think the shock of conceding a soft goal, coupled with some weary legs after three games in eight days, was why we were hanging on at the end. I've got to say that I was generally happy with our build-up play. Christie, Doran and Watkins were interchanging very effectively and finding lots of space between defence and midfield. The criticism of Mckay is completely unwarranted - there were several occasions where he made superb runs but the man on the ball made a mess of the final pass (or, on a couple of occasions, didn't even notice him).

Three points, two terrific goals and sunshine...I'll take that any day. The game was hard work for long periods, but Killie were well organized and sat in a lot of the time, much like Dundee did. It was so hard to carve them open, but in the second half they ran out of legs and there was much more space to operate in. Doran's goal was beautifully worked, with a terrific assist from Williams, who I thought was outstanding today. As for that Tansey strike...RiG has a word for those. I daresay he'll be using it later. Hard to pick out a poor performance today. Aside from Williams, I was hugely impressed by the back four. Draper looked very comfortable in that role, which is reassuring. And some of Tansey's passing today was just gorgeous. The possession football can be so frustrating, but most of our opponents will be more adventurous than that. Not everyone is going to come up here and stick ten men behind the ball like Kilmarnock often did. Well, they might if we're still top of the league...:-)

After the first two minutes, where we passed the ball around at lightning speed, I turned to my friend and said "If we can keep this tempo up then we'll do well." We didn't. Not even close. Not a minute went past in the main stand without the phrase "too slow" being used by somebody. For all our possession, we managed to create one glaring chance in open play all night, for Graeme Shinnie. That's woeful for a home team playing against anyone. At the back, Warren and Meekings look a whole lot more comfortable than they did in this system last season, and until the late flurry of Dundee chances we didn't look like conceding. But often we got so many people behind the ball defensively that Mckay was left terribly isolated even when holding the ball up. If we're going to score goals in this system, we have to either be capable of 'pieces of magic' in the final third or we have to be able to simply tire out the opposition and pick them off in the later stages. Unfortunately, Scottish Premiership players are not capable of 'pieces of magic' unless they have time and space, which ours don't have. Worryingly, I thought Dundee looked fitted and stronger in the last 15 minutes, which means we weren't tiring them out. Quite the opposite in fact. We even managed to screw up a 4 on 3 break late on. If we can't manage to open up defences in these situations, what hope does Yogi have of us doing so against two banks of four?! Some great performances tonight, mind - Shinnie and Draper in particular stood out for me. Drapes must have won about 10 tackles, and the moment in the second half when a Dundee player tried to obstruct him and got run over was the highlight of the game for me!

Argh. Not Shinnie in midfield, for the love of god. At left back, he is an excellent defender and is able to get into dangerous areas, where he can threaten with a dangerous final ball. In midfield, his energy allows to him to burst forward quickly...into exactly the same tiny area in the middle of the pitch where all our forwards are running into. Meanwhile, if Shinnie plays in midfield, we end up with Tremarco, a hatchet man who is too slow to track wingers, too poor in the air to defend against big wide players and whose crossing is right out of the Richard Hastings school. In the last few months of last season, opponents set up so that we had to pass the ball to Tremarco, safe in the knowledge that he wasn't dangerous in the slightest. Is a wee bit of width too much to ask for?!

A wee plug for this article for the outstanding Scottish football website The Terrace (written by yours truly) I'm sure it'll bring back a few memories! http://terracepodcast.net/scottish-premiership/2014/5/15/hot-goal-time-machine-inverness-ct

Have to say that I thought DD summed up yesterday really well. In the first half our play was directionless. Again, and again, and again, it was sideways, backwards, sideways, backwards, and repeat until the ball was given away in our own half. Our tempo was too slow to particularly wear St Johnstone out, or to carve them open. There was precious little width and our attacks tended to stall just in front of the penalty area as all our forwards moved into that central area. The second half was completely the opposite. We were far more direct and decisive with the ball. We were more willing to throw players forward, particularly the full-backs, which gave us width. Possibly because they had the cup final in mind, St Johnstone couldn't, or wouldn't cope with the increased pace of our play. We carved out numerous chances and it was terrific to watch. It proves we can keep the ball on the deck but still play attractive attacking football. The trouble is that the first half reminded me of many of our games in 2014, while the second half reminded me of many of our games in 2013. It seems far more likely that Yogi made the necessary changes at half-time, rather than the players spontaneously reverting to type. But, pessimist that I am, the thought had crossed my mind... I strongly believe that we are a better team - and, with these players, will always be a better team - playing the way we did in the second half yesterday. That's simply because, in my opinion, you can't play like Barcelona unless you have Xavi at the base of your midfield, rather than Tansey. If Yogi proves me wrong, then brilliant. But, with 'Butcher-esque' tactics, we will be top six next season. With Yogi tactics, I'm not nearly as confident. At least, following that win, we have now scored more points with Yogi (29 from 25 games) than without him in the dugout (28 from 13 games).

Barcelona, Chelsea, AC Milan.... Though all utilised their full backs to good effect. Barcelona play with wide forwards - Pedro/Sanchez/Neymar/Tello spend a huge amount of their time out on the touchline. Ditto Hazard and Willian at Chelsea. (Can't really comment on Milan as I don't follow Serie A) In these teams, players start wide and wander infield, drawing full backs inside and so creating space for their own full backs to attack. This is different from not playing any attacking players wide at all, which is what we are doing. In addition, Barcelona, Chelsea and Milan have players who are about a million times more talented than those you find in the Scottish Premiership.

1. Butcher - he took us to top six and left us with a team lying second in the league. He also did wonders for our profile! 2. Paterson - it was just so much fun. Every home game was an absolute joy, even if we didn't win 3. Christie - hugely underrated for me. Tactically astute and kept us punching above our weight. 4. Robertson - took us up, but I don't know how well we would have done in the SPL if he had remained 5. Brewster (first time round) - how much of his success was down to Brewster the player? 6. Brewster (second time round) - after an initial bounce, his relationship with the players collapsed and the writing was on the wall months before his departure 7. Baltacha - I was only about 10, but I still remember that we were rubbish, and boring, under his charge 8. Hughes - has accomplished the remarkable feat of making decent players look useless. May yet become our shortest serving manager ever

Someone has written a blog on Hughes here

I imagine that, if a poll was held now over whether Hughes should be sacked or not, the results would be rather different from when this thread was started. There is certainly a bit more sympathy for Mahonio's opinion now!

I think anybody who attended last night's match will now be pretty certain that we are heading for disaster unless there is a change in style or a change in manager. I'm going to be sniggering all day at the thought that Yogi believes our players need "educated". He could do with learning from two people who sat close to me last night - firstly, a girl of 9 or 10 who said loudly within the first 10 minutes that "there's much too much passing!" - and secondly, my partner (who has barely watched any football in her life), who turned to me at half-time and said - "why do they keep trying to go down the middle? There's never any space." I thought it was hilarious that the pitch was watered at half-time - was that to make our 'slick passing game' even slicker?! This style of play isn't even enjoyable to watch - it is so slow that it becomes mind-numbingly boring. There were several times where we counter-attacked - only for the play to be slowed down, the ball passed back to the halfway line, knocked around a few times, then possession lost. I don't think we had an attempt on goal from inside the Motherwell box last night. That's pretty damning. It was hard for us to chase a goal, given that Hughes appeared to have told Vincent, Christie, Watkins and Mckay to play in pretty much the same position, so that they just got in each other's way. But hey, maybe that's because they need "educated".

For those who are interested, this is what the table would look like where ICT if the season started on 4 December, when Yogi was appointed. 1. Celtic 49 (18 games) 2. Aberdeen 36 (17 games) 3. Motherwell 32 (16 games) 4. Dundee Utd 31 (18 games) 5. St Johnstone 24 (18 games) 6. Kilmarnock 24 (18 games) 7. ICT 21 (18 games) 8. Ross County 20 (19 games) 9. Hibernian 18 (18 games) 10. Partick 17 (18 games) 11. St. Mirren 13 (19 games) 12. Hearts 12 (17 games)

Of course, as I imagine you have guessed, I don't have any coaching badges or experience of managing an SPL team. I didn't realize this was a prerequisite for having an opinion. I imagine you don't have either of these things either, so why are you allowed to give us your views? Frankly, if a complete moron like me can spot all these problems quite easily, then it doesn't reflect very well on the management team that they can't. I was trying to think of any team which had been successful with so many central midfielders playing at once. I guess Spain would be one. Unfortunately, they have Xavi, Xabi Alonso, Busquets and Iniesta. We have "guid honest laddies". Can anyone think of another team who have played with four central midfielders at the same time and been consistently successful? If not, then clearly we are lucky to have such a visionary in charge...

Ditch the 4-2-3-1 formation again, even though it works and the players are most comfortable with it, in favour of a 4-4-1-1 system? CHECK. Two central midfielders playing out of position on the wing, with no wide players picked whatsoever? CHECK. Telling the players at half time to sit in and invite pressure, even though we were massively on top in the latter stages of the first half? CHECK. Not changing things around in the slightest even when St. Mirren changed their system? CHECK. Bringing off our centre-forward and replacing him with a winger, who looked like he had never played centre forward in his life? CHECK. Firing off a load of pathetic clichés in the post-match interview? (Probably - I haven't heard it yet, but it seems like a safe assumption). The thing is that I thought the players did the best they could today, even though they were held back by dreadful tactics. Vincent must be regretting signing that contract, when Hibs would have paid him more and played him in a position he's comfortable with. It's no secret that St. Mirren's right-back, Naismith, likes to bomb on at pace, but Yogi clearly hadn't scouted St. Mirren at all and so Vincent got left for dead again and again by an overlapping full-back who was so much faster than him. Our midfielders did their best to get on the ball in the first half, even though all four of them kept trying to occupy exactly the same areas of the pitch. Add in a useless referee - and they don't come more useless than Willie Collum - and you have a side who were a bit lucky not to lose to a St. Mirren team who were possibly the weakest I've seen us play against all season. They were dreadful, even when we were down to 10 men. Not happy. Not happy at all. We have a decent squad of players, you know. Their attitude is superb, and they can play a bit too. But they're being held back by a manager who doesn't know what he is doing.

His team selections and tactics disappoint me hugely. He clearly doesn't do his homework on his opponents at all - when Aberdeen were 4-0 up at half-time against us, it was because he hadn't considered how to deal with Pawlett playing through the middle. Playing 4-4-2 against Celtic and Dundee United was clearly a disaster waiting to happen. He failed to restore Gary Warren to the team last night despite the fact that neither Meekings nor Devine would win an aerial battle with John Sutton. And Vincent on the wing?! He has ditched a 4-2-3-1 formation that worked, and which our squad is set up for, in favour of first 4-4-2 and now a 4-1-4-1 which leaves Mckay isolated and bereft of support, and makes us absolutely brutal to watch. We have gone from being a side who scored goals, conceded few and which played good football to a side that can't pass, can't defend and can't score. Yogi was given a winning formula by Butcher. Why on earth has he tried changing it? The only explanation I can think of is that his ego dictated that he had to make changes, so it was 'his team' and not Butcher's. Let's face it, he won't last beyond the end of next season. My concern is that we keep him on for several months after it is clear that he's not the answer - a la Brewster - and we end up relegated as a result.

I'm sorry but not playing Gary Warren is lunacy, especially against an aerial threat like John Sutton. I don't care if Devine played well on Sunday - it's a blatantly stupid selection by Yogi. Not happy.

The defence picks itself, in Warren's absence - Brill, Raven, Devine, Meekings and Shinnie. Mckay up front obviously. I think there's a good chance that Vincent was rested last night because he will start on Sunday, which is fine by me. In my opinion we've been best this season when Vincent has been playing between midfield and attack. He has such a great engine, and a terrific knack for being in the right place to pick up loose balls. He is capable of providing quick support for Mckay or of becoming an extra midfield player as is needed. If we play Foran in that position, he doesn't cover enough ground and it probably becomes a 4-4-2, which leaves us a man short in the centre of the pitch. Assuming he's fit, Doran is a certain starter. I always feel he is more effective in combination with Raven on the right, but playing Watkins gives us more height and an alternative option for Brill and the defenders to aim at if they need to go long. Therefore I'd have Doran on the left, Watkins on the right, and Nick Ross unfortunately misses out because I think there's too big a chance that the game will pass him by. That leaves space for two central midfielders, and Foran, Draper and Tansey to choose from (if you think Polworth should be anywhere near the lineup then you need your head examined). Foran simply has to play, not least because of the leadership he provides. He also offers an aerial presence in an attacking and defensive sense. I tend towards Draper's physical presence rather than Tansey's passing ability...as long as there is a plan in place to stop Pawlett getting behind our midfield with the ball at his feet. So, in conclusion: Brill Raven Devine Meekings Shinnie Draper Foran Watkins Vincent Doran Mckay Subs: Esson, Tremarco, Tansey, Williams, Ross