Gregor

listen up folks Oakley 7 league starts 4 goals White 8 league starts 4 goals Anyone with any knowledge of football will know these stats are very good. Stop blaming the strikers and look at the other end of the park and maybe you will find where we need to improve.

Good point but its rugby and a different mindset from teams and fans. In football most clubs have a critical fanbase and we all want to win. Im no different I would rather watch a winning team than a team playing awesome football and losing. My gripe is not so much the critics but just picking out certain players to blame on a regular basis as I feel football fans aee guilty of that on a regular basis and therfore a scapegoat is all that is bad at the club. Its happened here with White , sure he isnt Ronaldo but he is nowhere as bad as some say. I have tried suggesting different formations as we have to find the correct formations to suit the players at the club. The buck stops with the manager he picks the team and since he has come back to the club has done well and I applaud him. However imo we have some really good players who we have use coreectly to get the best out of them.We saw a major glimpse of that at Dumfries in the latter part of the game with reverting to two up allowing Polworth space in middle of park to create and have the physicality of White and Austin beside him which helped make space for Walsh and young McGregor on both flanks. But what did we do against Edinburgh City , yes we played 2 up but put Polly out wide and played two players , Welsh and Chalmers who have played this season as defensive midfield players , and all of a sudden asked them to be creative in central mid. So Im not surprised it didnt work. Most managers would say if you get the spine of team cortect then you can build on that I feel that we have that in 5 very decent players below then add the width to this team and go 442 Ridgers Donaldson McCart Polworth White We all have opinions and that whats great about football. Being passionate is what being a football club supporter is all about and we at Caley are no different and sometimes this spills out to being over critical. I honestly believe we are only a little tweak away from going on a winning streak if we play to the strengths of the players we have at the club.

?? hiya pal

Caley Girl Please accept my apologies didnt mean to offend.

Waken up people its a team game all players have to take responsibility and the management too.

yawn yawn

Cant believe you pick out White as the only one to complain about after that disgrace of a midfield performance. As I said before White is a decent player , who just happens to be our top goalscorer, but is the scapegoat for many fans.

Well that was a disaster of a performance and once again the usual blah blah of blame the strikers on here. White in particular is the scapegoat lol. The midfield was a shambles no creativity at all .Polworth did hee haw but miss a chance to score, he cant play wide right so why does Robbo play him there. Walsh couldnt make a decent cross all day cant miss the first defender. Why are we playing 2 defensive midfielders in central midfield no creativity from Welsh or Chalmers but thats not their game but Robbo picks them as central midfield, Madness imo after we did so well in latter part of game against Queens with Polworth central as a two and young McGregor came on wide. There were two misses from Austin and Polworth which should have been converted , but in reality we really need to get our midfield sorted to create more opportunities to score Polworth should be playing central, but he was bad today as were all his team mates in midfield.Walsh created nothing today, its no wonder as he never lifts his head to see his team mates in good positions. Have to say the pitch is a disgrace no wonder some managers have a right song and dance about these pitches. We will beat them at home but cmon we really need to uo our game creatively because that today was diabolical.

Absolutely fantastic gesture well done to all involved.

If you were at the game you would have seen the difference two strikers on at same time makes to the dynamic of the team,it allows more space for others like Polworth and Walsh as the defence have to keep their wits about them to cover the two forward players, imo both Austin and White did really well when introduced and helped change the outcome of the game. This isnt a critiscm of Oakley regarding the game on Saturday as one up top leaves the striker a bit isolated, I feel we really need to go all out attack on Sunday and two up front as a partnership would help greatly.

We need to sort out the silly mistakes at the back The strikers are fine just need to play two of them up top and get decent balls into box. Been saying this for weeks, on Saturday we needed 3 goals to just obtain a draw, cmon we need to wake up and stop blaming the strikers. Will say it again Thank God for Ridgers,apart from his dashing out of box on Saturday. However that first goal was shambolic and we need to be more disciplined as a defensive unit when we are attacking and not through as many bodies forward.

Below is a quote from a Queen of South Fan taken from pie and bovril " We really should have been out of sight with the number of good chances we created before JR changed the game. I was both surprised and relieved to see White and Austin on the bench today but boy, did they make a difference when introduced. Fair play to JR as he must have thought we have nothing to lose, let's go for it and see where it takes us." Hopefully Robbo goes two up top next week v Edinburgh City Well done to all the team today fantastic fightback.

Only lost 27% of games so not too shabby

tbf you are absolutly correct,didnt think it was a great performance at all.Thats why I will continue to bang on about changing formation. I understand that on Saturday it was difficult to do so with losing Calder, having Tremarco and Rooney injured, however we really need to be looking to change to a formation that is a bit more attacking as we are allowing teams to have a real go at us with the existing formation. Sometimes attack is the best method of defence. Partick should have been out of sight in the first half ,and they are a team who have been rubbish recently. Thank God for Ridgers because the defence just got opened up again so easily at times. Also it was interesting to see you only gave a 2 to Oakley ,but that dosent make him a bad player, but highlights the difficulty of the position of playing one up on his own, we have 3 good strikers on our books surely we have to start utilising them properly. Having said It was a brilliant victory and a wonderful goal from Walsh ,good to see midfielders chipping in with goals. Wins are what we want no doubt about it ,hopefully we can start to be a bit more confident in ourselves and really go for teams and get some decent wins on board , after all we are 24 games unbeaten which is no mean feat at all. A win at Queens with a good performance would put us in a great position going forward.

??? yeah no sh#t sherlock

I think my suggestion of formation change is better than what you have just said ?

Stats for defence dont stack up overall tho thats my point. In the away games we have have only conceded 1 goal and 4 clean sheets which is a fantastic performance , we have scored 5 goals and achieved 9 points from a potential 15 which is 60% achieved of away points. If we continued this form away from home all season it would be an excellent performance. Now here is the rub we have scored 10 goals at home which is double the goals scored away but we have conceded 9 goals which is 9 times as many goals conceded at home than away. Home form has always been accepted as where a championship challenge can be built on but as I pointed out in 4 of our games at home we have conceded 2 goals meaning we have to score 3 to win, we managed 1 win out of these 4 games, but we are certainly making it more difficult to achieve the 3 points by having to score 3 goals to win the game. We have achieved 9 points from a potential 21 which is only 43% points achieved compared to 60% away. So its not just as easy as saying a lack of goals thats costing us, there are other factors which I have indicated. We have failed to score in two games and that has led to blame being laid at lack of goals ,one of these games was against league leaders. However we have conceded 2 goals each game 4 times , in these 4 games we have managed to salvage 3 draws and a victory ,therefore I think blaming lack of goals has covered up what in reality is the real reason for costing us points at home. Our home defensive record has to improve if we want to have any chance of challenging for the title. I stand by my suggestion of 352 as worthy of being tried, by introducing McCart as extra defensive cover ,having Oakley and White up top together for more opportunities of scoring to achieve the win we have craved for so long.

Totally agree with you in regards the above statement and thats exactly why I made my original suggestion of changing formation to 352. We havent tried this system ,so how do we know it wont work until we try it.

Im sure having a good knowledge of the court system in whatever capacity ,you will be aware they dont always come to the correct decision in both guilt or sentencing I can understand everyones dismay and disappointment that this has occured, but surely we all have to careful in our judgement of the lad,especially saying his caeeer should be over etc. I think this is where Doofers Dad is coming from, and I can understand his pov. However I also understand the majority of views on here too. Its a very sad situation but justice has to be done and Riccardo has been found guilty, the sentence will be passed on 4th December. Whatever happens now and after sentence is passed, hopefully both parties can get on with their respective lives in their chosen caeeers in the future. This has put the club in a very difficult situation and Im sure they will be taking legal advice on how to proceed.

? Well not exactly as there is chances of 13 outfield players from each team playing each week in the Championship. So for White to have only 5 players scorng more goals out of 130 and Oakley only to have 9 players scoring more than him is not too shabby. My point is that 2 forwards have contributed to 47% of our total league goals and infact they have contributed 54% of league goals scored in open play. White 31% and Oakley 23% respectively. Its surely not an insane idea to have them on the pitch at the same time. Only 5 players have scored league goals for us in open play White,Oakley,Rooney,Polworth and Calder so getting as much playing time as we can for them wouldnt be a bad idea surely.

Agree with you regarding the defence overall but it is the away form that is exceptional only losing 1 goal away from home.However if you take the home games we have conceded 9 goals and in 3 games conceded 2 goals each game. This means we have to score 3 to win those games at home we did so in one of those games scoring 3 v Partick Thistle. It really does make it harder for us to win 3 points at home when we have to score 3 to do so. Yes we have had games where we didnt score at home against Ayr Utd but when you look at where they are in the league ,was that such a bad result. Probably the one where we should have done better was against Queens but the worst one was against Alloa who we should be beating at home but we did score 2 that day but also conceded 2 to only give us the draw. If we can sort out the silly defensive errors at home then we would be further up the table no doubt about it. It isnt the lack of goals thats cost us points but not having a good defensive record at home. I think that having McCart as an extra defender with 3 at the back also allowing Rooney and Calder to come back as we defend would give us more cover. Where I cant agree with you is regarding decent midfielders or goalscorers as Polworth has had 4 assists, also White and Oakley are in the top ten goalscorers in the league. My suggetion of playing 352 would enhance the defensive cover with McCart, continue to allow Polworth to play in the middle and have two decent goalscorers on the pitch at the same time.

It was a great performance on Saturday but it was still a draw,we have had great performances before with this 4231 formation against Dunfermline and again against Partick where we won both games. Oakley came back in and scored but in actuality we only replaced one goalscorer with another as White had scored 3 in his previous 4 games. Oakley and White represent 47% of our goals so surely it would be a good idea to have both players on the park at the same time. We played a 442 for first three league games which meant Polworth on right side where he is least effective imo.However as I rate him as creative player in the middle of the park. So maybe it would be worth looking at a 352 keeping Polworth in the middle and having Rooney who has scored 3 league goals as RWB an Calder who has recently chipped in with 1 goal as LWB 4 players White ,Oakley ,Rooney and Calder starting the game makes sense to me as these 4 players have contributed 11 out of the 15 goals which we have scored in the league so far. If we continue with one striker we reduce our goals tally by 27% if White is on the bench, and by 20% if Oakley is on the bench so therefore surely it makes sense when we need a win, to have 2 players who have contributed to nearly half of our goal tally on their own, to play both players as a front two. As someone once said the definition of insanity is to keep on doing the same thing and expect different results, 4231 formation in the last 7 games have got us draws ,maybe a small tweak to a 352 would get us the win we all crave. Also this would mean that McCart would come as part of a back 3 with Brad and Coll ,leaving Rooney and Calder to play as wing backs and they can fall back when defenfing to create a five back line. Oakley and White up top Polworth in the middle with the other two slots coming from Walsh Doran Chalmers and Welsh who incidently havent scored a league goal in open play between them so far this season.My choice to start would be Chalmers and Doran with Polworth. So a lineup for Partick as follows Ridgers McKay Donaldson McCart Rooney Doran Polworth Chalmers Calder Oakley White May just get us the win we all want. Roll on Saturday

Well said lots of good valid points,well done too on your personal achievements so far.

excellent report ,was a great game to watch and as you say a draw was probably the fairest result.

Nothing wrong with your pov either.