The season is becomming a bit of a mess

[The Mantis]

Read your history Laurence my old son.

[clacher_holiday2]

The season isnt a mess but it really could become one very quickly.

I've been saying for about 6 years now our pitch is far too big and thus far too open for us to defend well on against decent or athletic teams, being honest there wasnt any of either in the SFL. When we play well, we can also use it to our advantage but typically it doesnt suit our style of play, if the SPL played on 6 a side pitches we would be unbeatable! Apart from set pieces, when was the last time any team spent an afternoon putting decent balls into our box from the touchline? Or us into theres? All the decent balls into the box coem from players cutting in and getting closer to goal. As simplistic as it sounds, on a slightly thinner park theres less distance for a ball to travel and thus its easier to whip a ball in rather than loft it, it sounds too stupid to be true, to me it is.

I've made alot of money over the past 3 years gambling on away teams in the SFL when playing at a ground with a plastic pitch. The psychological boost received when running out onto a clean, fresh, perfect astroturf pitch in the middle of winter, after a weeks training in mud and slush, cant be accounted for when considering tactics, the side who doesnt normally play on the decent pitch or rather hasnt recently, is always up for it as theres a genuine motivation there to go out and take advantage.

For me, its exactly the same when GOOD teams come to the TCS, they see a huge wide park with all the space in the world to pick out passes or try runs through. When defending, they can do so further up the park as they know any attacks coming in numbers will have to be built slowly, they dont need extra time to react to a long ball as they can see all of our players are the extra 10-15 yards further back and wont support quickly enough to make anything of it. EVen when a full back is beaten on the wing by one of our players they know that they'll have an extra second or two to catch the flight of any cross.

I've heard it from fans of all Scottish clubs, even when we were getting beat 3-1 on Saturday- 'its a very difficult place to play'... is it really?! Thats like saying Hampden is a difficult place to play! We should slash 5 yards off both touchlines, take a good 6-7 yards off the goal lines, we'll never see international football at TCS so why the hell do we need an international sized pitch?

[PullMyFinger]

Did TCS not host an U21 Euro qualifier a few years back? I agree with what you're saying, too much space.

[Caley Mad In Berks]

The season isnt a mess but it really could become one very quickly.

I've been saying for about 6 years now our pitch is far too big and thus far too open for us to defend well on against decent or athletic teams, being honest there wasnt any of either in the SFL. When we play well, we can also use it to our advantage but typically it doesnt suit our style of play, if the SPL played on 6 a side pitches we would be unbeatable! Apart from set pieces, when was the last time any team spent an afternoon putting decent balls into our box from the touchline? Or us into theres? All the decent balls into the box coem from players cutting in and getting closer to goal. As simplistic as it sounds, on a slightly thinner park theres less distance for a ball to travel and thus its easier to whip a ball in rather than loft it, it sounds too stupid to be true, to me it is.

I've made alot of money over the past 3 years gambling on away teams in the SFL when playing at a ground with a plastic pitch. The psychological boost received when running out onto a clean, fresh, perfect astroturf pitch in the middle of winter, after a weeks training in mud and slush, cant be accounted for when considering tactics, the side who doesnt normally play on the decent pitch or rather hasnt recently, is always up for it as theres a genuine motivation there to go out and take advantage.

For me, its exactly the same when GOOD teams come to the TCS, they see a huge wide park with all the space in the world to pick out passes or try runs through. When defending, they can do so further up the park as they know any attacks coming in numbers will have to be built slowly, they dont need extra time to react to a long ball as they can see all of our players are the extra 10-15 yards further back and wont support quickly enough to make anything of it. EVen when a full back is beaten on the wing by one of our players they know that they'll have an extra second or two to catch the flight of any cross.

I've heard it from fans of all Scottish clubs, even when we were getting beat 3-1 on Saturday- 'its a very difficult place to play'... is it really?! Thats like saying Hampden is a difficult place to play! We should slash 5 yards off both touchlines, take a good 6-7 yards off the goal lines, we'll never see international football at TCS so why the hell do we need an international sized pitch?

I think the easier thing to do is to make the opponents' goal a yard wider and a foot higher, and ours a yard narrower and a foot lower!

[ICTPaisley]

The season isnt a mess but it really could become one very quickly.

I've been saying for about 6 years now our pitch is far too big and thus far too open for us to defend well on against decent or athletic teams, being honest there wasnt any of either in the SFL. When we play well, we can also use it to our advantage but typically it doesnt suit our style of play, if the SPL played on 6 a side pitches we would be unbeatable! Apart from set pieces, when was the last time any team spent an afternoon putting decent balls into our box from the touchline? Or us into theres? All the decent balls into the box coem from players cutting in and getting closer to goal. As simplistic as it sounds, on a slightly thinner park theres less distance for a ball to travel and thus its easier to whip a ball in rather than loft it, it sounds too stupid to be true, to me it is.

I've made alot of money over the past 3 years gambling on away teams in the SFL when playing at a ground with a plastic pitch. The psychological boost received when running out onto a clean, fresh, perfect astroturf pitch in the middle of winter, after a weeks training in mud and slush, cant be accounted for when considering tactics, the side who doesnt normally play on the decent pitch or rather hasnt recently, is always up for it as theres a genuine motivation there to go out and take advantage.

For me, its exactly the same when GOOD teams come to the TCS, they see a huge wide park with all the space in the world to pick out passes or try runs through. When defending, they can do so further up the park as they know any attacks coming in numbers will have to be built slowly, they dont need extra time to react to a long ball as they can see all of our players are the extra 10-15 yards further back and wont support quickly enough to make anything of it. EVen when a full back is beaten on the wing by one of our players they know that they'll have an extra second or two to catch the flight of any cross.

I've heard it from fans of all Scottish clubs, even when we were getting beat 3-1 on Saturday- 'its a very difficult place to play'... is it really?! Thats like saying Hampden is a difficult place to play! We should slash 5 yards off both touchlines, take a good 6-7 yards off the goal lines, we'll never see international football at TCS so why the hell do we need an international sized pitch?

I think the easier thing to do is to make the opponents' goal a yard wider and a foot higher, and ours a yard narrower and a foot lower!

They'll destroy us in the 2nd half though.

[Caley Mad In Berks]

I've heard it from fans of all Scottish clubs, even when we were getting beat 3-1 on Saturday- 'its a very difficult place to play'... is it really?! Thats like saying Hampden is a difficult place to play! We should slash 5 yards off both touchlines, take a good 6-7 yards off the goal lines, we'll never see international football at TCS so why the hell do we need an international sized pitch?

I think the easier thing to do is to make the opponents' goal a yard wider and a foot higher, and ours a yard narrower and a foot lower!

They'll destroy us in the 2nd half though.

No, we swap them at half time when no one is looking!

[+CaleyD]

I don't subscribe to the "big step up" theory between the first and the SPL, but I do think the style of football is very different and that's where it takes a little time to adapt.

What I have seen so far this season is encouraging and looking at the Hearts game I always thought we appeared capable of pulling the game back and getting something from it....a stark contrast to a couple of seasons back when I had little confidence in our ability to score, let alone come from behind.

Also, looking at the wider picture, aside from the OF everyone is taking points off everyone else and even at this early stage it's shaping up to be a tight league with nobody looking to be certain for top 6 and nobody finding themselves adrift at the bottom. Our next 4 games are more of the bread and butter variety and if we continue to play as we have, and we can get a couple of players back fit, then I would be expecting us to take twice as many points from them as we have from our opening fixtures.

In short, I have seen nothing to worry about this season and so long as we don't start going backwards, in terms of performance on the park, then I'm confident we'll have a reasonably comfortable finish among "the best of the rest".

[KingBeastie]

DON'T PANIC...

[ICTPaisley]

A little bit more stat finding shows that in season 2007/2008 when we finished 9th (also quite successful) we lost our first 6 matches and finally managed to record our first win on the 22nd of September of that season. Its far too early on in the season to suggest how bad we'll be. I'm still very confident we'll managed around 8th or 9th.

[clacher_holiday2]

I think the easier thing to do is to make the opponents' goal a yard wider and a foot higher, and ours a yard narrower and a foot lower!

That could also work!

[lukemackay]

I've heard it from fans of all Scottish clubs, even when we were getting beat 3-1 on Saturday- 'its a very difficult place to play'... is it really?! Thats like saying Hampden is a difficult place to play! We should slash 5 yards off both touchlines, take a good 6-7 yards off the goal lines, we'll never see international football at TCS so why the hell do we need an international sized pitch?

I think the easier thing to do is to make the opponents' goal a yard wider and a foot higher, and ours a yard narrower and a foot lower!

They'll destroy us in the 2nd half though.

No, we swap them at half time when no one is looking!

that'll never happen with our quality half time entertainmentt

[robbylad]

you can't narrow the pitch. if you do that, my seat in north stand section c will be outside the touchline!!!!!

now if you lengthen the pitch, the nth stand would be on the goal line. that would stop us conceding too many goals.

[TopSix]

If it's any indication the bookies offered 7/1 for us to win on the opening day of the season. Tonight we're at 14/1 for a win tomorrow night. Should be a spur for the team to prove the doubters wrong. I think that on any day though we can match any SPL team.

[Alex MacLeod]

I dont think our season is a mess so far. We should have gained three points against Hamilton but we didn't. We tried but their very early goal and the way they played the rest of the gamespoiled it for us. Apart from that we've taken three of DU and a point of Hibs.

The next four games I think we'll take eight points. Three from St Midden and three from St Johnstone. I'd like to say three from Aberdeen but I think they'll scrape a draw. Kilmarnock are doing ok just now so I think a draw there as well.

All in all things aren't looking too bad yet.

[ICTPaisley]

I dont think our season is a mess so far. We should have gained three points against Hamilton but we didn't. We tried but their very early goal and the way they played the rest of the gamespoiled it for us. Apart from that we've taken three of DU and a point of Hibs.

The next four games I think we'll take eight points. Three from St Midden and three from St Johnstone. I'd like to say three from Aberdeen but I think they'll scrape a draw. Kilmarnock are doing ok just now so I think a draw there as well.

All in all things aren't looking too bad yet.

I have to disagree there to some extent, no our season isn't a mess and i would love us to beat st mirren on saturday but i'm doubting myself more and more each day on the build up to it. We have a lot of injuries just now and it seems our replacements just aren't upto the job. Heres hoping for a win on saturday but if we lose i can see us losing against St Johnstone, Aberdeen and Killie, or stealing a point here and there.

Saturday really is a make or break game for us just now and a win could really help us push through what is going to be a hard few weeks with injuries.

Edited September 24, 2010 by ICTPAISLEY

[Wilsononourwing]

The season is becom(m)ing a bit of a mess............what a ridiculous statement.

Terry I have Faith.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Have a feckin green dot ya **** - thought you only posted in the SFL !!!

[Council Juice]

Haven't read every response but c'mon folks remember we had 1 win in like 8 in our 1st SPL season and still did very well at the end. Don't get worried. Keep the faith and get behind Terry "does anyone have any vodka?" and the lads