YOUTH OVERKILL

[roby]

It is good to see the young ones on the pitch but we need maturity.

Duncan and Proctor should be back for the hearts game.

They did play well.

both have just come back to training this week so i dont think that they have fully recovered yet. but once they have i would definitely get the two back in there. proc right back and duncan usual position. i think tokely needs competition to perform to his best.

Anyone at the game yesterday could see it was not the young players who were the problem.Where we were let down was with some of our more experienced players. Ross could not possibly have played a worse game for the club , If Procter is fit he must start next saturday. Roy was totally ineffective in the middle and how many more times is Michael going to get caught in no mans land .

[+Tree]

Anyone at the game yesterday could see it was not the young players who were the problem.Where we were let down was with some of our more experienced players. Ross could not possibly have played a worse game for the club , If Procter is fit he must start next saturday. Roy was totally ineffective in the middle and how many more times is Michael going to get caught in no mans land .

I have to say that I agree with Roby with some of our experienced players letting the side down more than the younger lads.

In relation to the team selected by Brewster - After the Falkirk game it was always going to be difficult to make changes from the starting 11.

For the next game I am sure that Grant will be back and perhaps Imrie/Barrowman. The critisism of Wood is uncalled for and he again showed at times that he has a lot of promise if lacking in experience of playing at the SPL level (no surprise).

Tokely has to be dropped. It is becoming a common theme and whilst I do not agree with the comments that he is at best Div 2 (or whatever lower division anyone seems to pick) he is going through a real loss of form which I think is precipitated by his belief that he is far better than he actually is (when we first came up he worked harder and more importantly concentrated harder - almost nobody got the better of him whereas now everyone just about seems to). This is being commented to me by some fans of other teams in the division so it is clearly becoming noticeable and even Arbroath concentrated their attacks against him (and got a lot of success).

I would be happy moving McGuire into the RB role (where he played numerous times for the Dons) if Proctor is still struggling and going for a central pair of Duff and Munro.

[CaleyP]

It is good to see the young ones on the pitch but we need maturity.

Duncan and Proctor should be back for the hearts game.

They did play well.

both have just come back to training this week so i dont think that they have fully recovered yet. but once they have i would definitely get the two back in there. proc right back and duncan usual position. i think tokely needs competition to perform to his best.

Anyone at the game yesterday could see it was not the young players who were the problem.Where we were let down was with some of our more experienced players. Ross could not possibly have played a worse game for the club , If Procter is fit he must start next saturday. Roy was totally ineffective in the middle and how many more times is Michael going to get caught in no mans land .

yeah i completely agree, it wasnt the younsters at all, i think procs and duncan should replace two of the more senior players once they are fit. i would keep vigurs, wood and duff in the line up for next week.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Duff and Vigurs maybe but Wood should not be played away from home - he could never play the lone role and we really need to revert to a 4-5-1 at Tynie. It could be the return of Barrowman - I think Rooney could play the lone striker in the future but he doesnt look sharp enuff yet.

[CaleyP]

Duff and Vigurs maybe but Wood should not be played away from home - he could never play the lone role and we really need to revert to a 4-5-1 at Tynie. It could be the return of Barrowman - I think Rooney could play the lone striker in the future but he doesnt look sharp enuff yet.

well yeah i agree with that if brew plays a 4-5-1, however, brew was bigging up Wood in a post match interview so i cant see him dropping him.

[caley100]

Hold on a mo' Duff was at fault for middens equaliser yesterday, Hamilton beat Mcguire to the long ball (again) Duff was caught in two minds what to do he stooped to head it when a big boot was needed, Mehmet said cheers and prodded the ball past Fraser ( who needs to be dropped ).

Wood was gash, no better than Bayne and a lot less pace, his ball control was poor, yesterday needed gtanty at the back where he should be. Barroman should have started and Imrie should have started instead of Cowie.

Start with your strongest options at home.

[CaleyP]

Hold on a mo' Duff was at fault for middens equaliser yesterday, Hamilton beat Mcguire to the long ball (again) Duff was caught in two minds what to do he stooped to head it when a big boot was needed, Mehmet said cheers and prodded the ball past Fraser ( who needs to be dropped ).

Wood was gash, no better than Bayne and a lot less pace, his ball control was poor, yesterday needed gtanty at the back where he should be. Barroman should have started and Imrie should have started instead of Cowie.

Start with your strongest options at home.

i reckon granty would have started had he been fit, i hope he is fit enough to be in next week with duff. which team would you play next week?

[tokelyisvictorious]

I'd play duff and munro, but no more youthful exuberance in the starting eleven than that please.

[tokelyisvictorious]

Shut up tokleyisvictorius. No one is agreeing with you so you are obviously wrong, just accept it.

P.S. Tokley is not victorius. Grow up.

P.S. I'm a tit

who's tokley by the way?

[Guest CALEY CALEY CALEYJAGS]

why continue to blame mcguire when it clearly shows on tv or if anyone was at the game was duffs fault. long ball yeah flick on from hamilton duff should have cleared like the numerous times mcguire cleared from duff being beaten in the air thats a sign of defensive understanding and mcguire did it well along with the most part duff and the rest of the back 4 fraser had not 1 save to make in entire game. duff will make mistakes thats sure but will learn from them thru time....

[CaleyP]

I'd play duff and munro, but no more youthful exuberance in the starting eleven than that please.

just so its clear 'tokelyisvictorious' you dont want any of our young players who have consistantly played well anywhere near the first team....however, you think being a senior player excuses them from being poor every week(i.e Imirie, Barrowman, maguire and tokely at times)...coz they have been....where is your logic here?? so your happy to play senior players week in week out even if they dont perform? so what you are saying is, please dont play the young ones because i'd rather see our under-performing older players play?! im intrigued...where is the logic? im wondering if you can explain why you think this...dont just say it...explain it. maybe you can change my mind to why i think they should keep the young guys in the starting line up. also what is your hate towards vigurs all about...do you not realise he has been excellent every game he's played for the first team bar the st mirren game where he played ok...??? were you not at the falkirk and arbroath games to see this??

Edited September 16, 2008 by CaleyP

[GATEPOST]

Shut up tokleyisvictorius. No one is agreeing with you so you are obviously wrong, just accept it.

P.S. Tokley is not victorius. Grow up.

P.S. I'm a tit

who's tokley by the way?

Pedantic fu*k. Also i told you to grow up, adding 'i'm a tit' to my quote is not growing up. Try to learn. And since your being so pedantic you should have added P.P.S. not P.S. before your hilarious and witty remark.

PS. Do you not feel a bit daft idolising another human being, especially an average (at best) right back from Aberdeen?

[dreamers]

After todays disappointing match against st miren, i think brew made a big mistake in the starting lineup.

Playing Duff, Vigurs and Wood was a bad mistake. I know that all three have talent, but in an important and tight game we can't afford to test our youngsters. All three didn't play well IMO, duff was shaky, vigurs was poor and wood passed up good opportunities.

For these games that we need to take points in, we have to play our best players, and that means Munro in, Imrie in and Barrowman in.

I know that i have previously said it was a goodish performance, but with three inexperienced youngsters playing we lacked grit and just plain good old determination. Several times vigurs didn't track back and that left us exposed at the back. Many times wood got the ball stuck under his feet and couldn't see a pass. Duff was second best to everything that was a contest between him and hamilton.

"you dont win anything with kids" Is that right or what? Brewster, play your best side and save the youngster for when we are clear at the top of the table.

i've been to all the games so far this season and i couldn't disagree with you more 'tokelyisvictorious' the lads you mentioned have been the best players so far this season along with black. think you might have a grudge it seems.

Edited September 16, 2008 by boon

[CaleyD]

Having just read through this thread some of the comments about Vigurs from Saturday are laughable. Going forward he was making some intelligent runs and moves into space and when he wasn't doing that he played some cracking defence splitting balls which a more "intelligent" forward would have put to better use....it was this kind of service we were crying out for last season when we had Marius up front. On occasion he did leave us a little exposed when making runs and this meant St Mirren could exploit the wide areas...however, it's not something we got punished for by a poor St Mirren side.

Duff...as I have said elsewhere he was absolutely solid for the first 45 minutes and owned Mehmet. but that changed after the break where, for whatever reason (Brewsters Orders or off his own back) he wasn't man marking him and that's why we lost the first goal IMO. He looked to try and be too clever with a wee head back to Fraser, but missed the ball and McGuire couldn't quite get in to recover the situation. It was his only real error in the entire game, but as with the Hamilton game it cost us a goal.

Wood was struggling with his first touch all day and struggling even more to turn when he did manage to control it. However, when he did manage to shake the defenders he had a couple of good shots on goal and probably worked Howard more than Rooney or anyone else on the park. Inexperience perhaps did get in the way on a couple of occasions. Once following the rebound from Rooney hitting the bar where Black was running in behind shouting him to leave it as he was better positioned to hit it on the volley and once when Imrie was trying to get a shot away on the left hand side of the box and Wood was looking around to see where the ball was instead of following Imrie's shouts and getting out of the way.

Rooney had some great runs and it was his final shot that was letting him down...but that's been a problem with most of our strikers for 2 or 3 seasons now and it makes you wonder why.

In summary....

Duff....I don't think there's anyone "better" to taking his place from him. He's made a couple of errors but no more so than Munro or McGuire.

Vigurs....Away from home or in a 5 man midfield I'd have him playing inside a winger ahead of Cowie who's a little off the boil at the moment and needs a game or two on the bench IMO.

Wood....If we had a more potent striker to play him alongside then, as with Bayne, I think he would have a very important job to do in winning the ball at the front, but he desperately nees someone to be supporting him to mop up from his poor first touch, or someone to be drawing the defenders to give him a little more space to turn.

Rooney....He's starting to realise that tippy tappy football is not how we play it up here and he's starting to make stronger more physical runs in to the box with the ball. He is improving and will continue to do so. Again, I think he lacks a more experienced Striker to play alongside.

Whilst we can all sit here and find fault in the youngsters and blame "youth", the only real options for replacing these guys is with other young players. I don't necessarily agree or like that fact we are relying on so many young guys...or to be more precise, we don't have enough experience playing alongside them (certainly up front), but that's the way it is for now and so long as they are out there giving it 100% then that's all you can ask, regardless of how good, bad or indifferent you think they are.

[Kingsmills]

I wouldn't take issue with any of that.

[AJS]

The youngsters have done ok considering we lack alot of SPL experience because when you think about it the player in our squad that has played the most SPL games in his career is McGuire.

I wish he had signed some players that have played SPL football in the summer because the only one that has is Esson and he won't ever get used regularly.

[Guest zxycba]

It is good to see the young ones on the pitch but we need maturity.

Duncan and Proctor should be back for the hearts game.

They did play well.

both have just come back to training this week so i dont think that they have fully recovered yet. but once they have i would definitely get the two back in there. proc right back and duncan usual position. i think tokely needs competition to perform to his best.

I was at the St Mirren game. I commented at half time that Vigurs and Wood should come off for Imrie and Barrowman. Vigurs allowed St Mirren to have a huge space to them selves. Wood didn?t chase after the ball. When he had it, he didn?t always know what to do it. Yes he had one reasonable shot at goal; it was too close to the keeper to stand a chance. If he had looked in front to his left, he would have found a person with a better chance than himself (I believe it was Rooney). Rooney had a really good chance but hit the upright. Wood picked up the rebound and was hopelessly lost as to what to do with it. He even fell over. Giving Wood man-of-the-match was a complete joke. I was not overly impressed with Duff. The goals St Mirren scored were rather soft give-aways. We miss Munro.

I have been impressed with Black this season. His tackling and passing of the ball has been really good. What has happened to Cowie. He doesn?t seem to be playing like he did last season.

I was impressed with Rooney. He puts a lot into the game. He always runs after the ball. Rooney and Barrowman work well together. It was there effort that led to Dougie Imrie?s goal against Falkirk. I just can?t imagine Wood bothering to put that kind of effort into the game.

I say Imrie, Barrowman in. Our best attack is Rooney Barrowman and Imrie.

We would also benefit from Duncan and Proctor being available (the sooner the better).

[caleyboy]

I am no fan of Brewster but I must applaud him for blooding the youngsters.

[SMEE]

My own personal view is......may as well throw the youngsters in at the deep end against the "lesser teams" in the SPL and slowly build from there.

P.S We are a lesser team also

[Alex MacLeod]

I'd play duff and munro, but no more youthful exuberance in the starting eleven than that please.

So we dont play Rooney either??

[Guest zxycba]

I am no fan of Brewster but I must applaud him for blooding the youngsters.

I am a Brewster fan, but I think he got the subs wrong against St Mirren.

[tokelyisvictorious]

I have always supported Brewster, but he made the wrong team selection.

Just to clear things up : Vigurs, Duff and Wood did not play well enough to impress me. They looked slow, unreliable and lacked any real spark that was needed to win the game. I think that if we had played Imrie (who has only played badly in one half of one game so far) instead of Vigurs out wide, we would have stretched the st mirren defence much more than we did. If we had played Barrowman instead of Wood then we would have scored another couple of goals as Barrowman has more presence and can keep his head when in front of goal. ALso, if we had played Munro instead of Duff, then i doubt we would have conceded any goals on saturday. To leave the club captain and a man that scored 29 goals last season (alright at a lower level but confidence is all he needs to repeat the feat in the spl, and sitting on the bench isn't going to inspire him to anywhere near that tally) andreplace them with two inexperienced young players strikes me as bizarre.

Fair enough, all three played their part against falkirk and all three played well, but the 'hype' after that game was unbelievable. We played well, but didn't deserve half the praise we received. The game against st mirren was important, if we'd won there would have been a 7 point gap between us, and we should have played our best players. I don't think Vigurs and Wood come under that category. They were not the only problems on saturday and they didn't play as badly as Mcguire and indeed Roscoe, but i'm not saying that they should have been playing either.

I have no grudge against vigurs, duff or wood and i think they will become very good players for us one day. But against st mirren wasn't the time or place. When we are safer than we are at the moment, then we can afford to give them a game or the last 30 mins of a game. Hopefully only Duff will have retained his place against Hearts, and this will be the line-up:

gk Fraser

rb Tokely (preferably Proctor)

lb Hastings (just)

cb Munro

cb Duff

lm Imrie

rm Cowie

cm Black

cm McBain (or Duncan)

fc Rooney

fc Barrowman

ps just for alex macleod; although rooney is a young player, he has had enough experience to give me confidence in him.

Hope that clears things up. Also, GTF Gatepost, try posting something worthwhile.

[CaleyP]

It is good to see the young ones on the pitch but we need maturity.

Duncan and Proctor should be back for the hearts game.

They did play well.

both have just come back to training this week so i dont think that they have fully recovered yet. but once they have i would definitely get the two back in there. proc right back and duncan usual position. i think tokely needs competition to perform to his best.

I was at the St Mirren game. I commented at half time that Vigurs and Wood should come off for Imrie and Barrowman. Vigurs allowed St Mirren to have a huge space to them selves. Wood didn?t chase after the ball. When he had it, he didn?t always know what to do it. Yes he had one reasonable shot at goal; it was too close to the keeper to stand a chance. If he had looked in front to his left, he would have found a person with a better chance than himself (I believe it was Rooney). Rooney had a really good chance but hit the upright. Wood picked up the rebound and was hopelessly lost as to what to do with it. He even fell over. Giving Wood man-of-the-match was a complete joke. I was not overly impressed with Duff. The goals St Mirren scored were rather soft give-aways. We miss Munro.

I have been impressed with Black this season. His tackling and passing of the ball has been really good. What has happened to Cowie. He doesn?t seem to be playing like he did last season.

I was impressed with Rooney. He puts a lot into the game. He always runs after the ball. Rooney and Barrowman work well together. It was there effort that led to Dougie Imrie?s goal against Falkirk. I just can?t imagine Wood bothering to put that kind of effort into the game.

I say Imrie, Barrowman in. Our best attack is Rooney Barrowman and Imrie.

We would also benefit from Duncan and Proctor being available (the sooner the better).

i'd always play vigurs over imirie...vigurs is stronger, faster, a better passer of the ball, better football brain, has a lot more skill and basically is a far more better player. if imirie is to play it shouldnt be to replace vigurs thats for sure. once vigurs gets his run of games and settles in he'll control the midfiled just like he did in the reserves so easily...i watched vigurs play celtic reserves and vigurs had jarrikson(sorry not sure of the spelling) in his back pocket. this is a guy that was at chelsea and played for czech republic....still a better qulality of any player we have unfortunately. yes the level is better first team but once vigurs gets settled and confident playing first team and realises he's one of the better players in the team he'll excel. so imirie in yes but not for vigurs.

[CaleyP]

I have always supported Brewster, but he made the wrong team selection.

Just to clear things up : Vigurs, Duff and Wood did not play well enough to impress me. They looked slow, unreliable and lacked any real spark that was needed to win the game. I think that if we had played Imrie (who has only played badly in one half of one game so far) instead of Vigurs out wide, we would have stretched the st mirren defence much more than we did. If we had played Barrowman instead of Wood then we would have scored another couple of goals as Barrowman has more presence and can keep his head when in front of goal. ALso, if we had played Munro instead of Duff, then i doubt we would have conceded any goals on saturday. To leave the club captain and a man that scored 29 goals last season (alright at a lower level but confidence is all he needs to repeat the feat in the spl, and sitting on the bench isn't going to inspire him to anywhere near that tally) andreplace them with two inexperienced young players strikes me as bizarre.

Fair enough, all three played their part against falkirk and all three played well, but the 'hype' after that game was unbelievable. We played well, but didn't deserve half the praise we received. The game against st mirren was important, if we'd won there would have been a 7 point gap between us, and we should have played our best players. I don't think Vigurs and Wood come under that category. They were not the only problems on saturday and they didn't play as badly as Mcguire and indeed Roscoe, but i'm not saying that they should have been playing either.

I have no grudge against vigurs, duff or wood and i think they will become very good players for us one day. But against st mirren wasn't the time or place. When we are safer than we are at the moment, then we can afford to give them a game or the last 30 mins of a game. Hopefully only Duff will have retained his place against Hearts, and this will be the line-up:

gk Fraser

rb Tokely (preferably Proctor)

lb Hastings (just)

cb Munro

cb Duff

lm Imrie

rm Cowie

cm Black

cm McBain (or Duncan)

fc Rooney

fc Barrowman

ps just for alex macleod; although rooney is a young player, he has had enough experience to give me confidence in him.

Hope that clears things up. Also, GTF Gatepost, try posting something worthwhile.

you clearly feel strongly about this, i think vigurs will change your mind though...trust me he is a far better player than imirie and reckon by the end of the season you will think so too. but for moment you have your opinion and im not going to criticise your opinion anymore as i think its unfair to do so. but i do feel you maybe went the wrong way about the youngsters with this thread. im sure you can agree you could have worded some comments differently.

[tokelyisvictorious]

yep i probably got caught up in the moment after finally starting a reasonably successful thread (probably due to the slightly controversial nature to it) but my opinion is now clear.

i hope vigurs will change my mind, but i doubt i will ever change my name to vigursisvictorious.

although it does have a certain ring to it.....