wellfan

When the ball is booted at your hand from 2 feet away, it should never be a foul, unless it denies a goal or leads to a goal, maybe?! It’s not deliberate, regardless. Halliday didn’t do himself any favours, however, by turning his back to the ball and raising his hand, regardless of his arm/elbow being tucked in. It gives the idiot refs a decision to make. The bottom line is that it’s a stupid rule that’s not fit for the realities of the game. And the referees apply different interpretations of that rule every week, which is worsened by the interventions of VAR. It’s utterly ridiculous and having Collum at the helm won’t change a thing for the better.

Yes, but he’s also signed a lot of shite. Let’s see if he can move those on swiftly again in January.

Poor second half but VAR got us out of jail today.

We started pretty poorly, but the energy brought by Kaleta, Sparrow and Maswanhise is the difference.

Probably because Kettlewell has turned a goalscoring club captain into a headless chicken. Although he has also been injured recently which meant he's probably dropped down the pecking order a bit. A shame for him, but he really needs to be banging down Kettlewell's door asking him to play a system that suits him; otherwise, his signing will prove to be a waste of our money and his time.

One of my nominations to the WS Board was Kyrk Macmillan, so it's pleasing to see a young and clearly talented CEO become Club Chair after missing out on being nominated to the WS Board. Some other great additions to both Boards as well, and it's good to see our former stadium announcer become WS Chair. Now let's see what they can collectively do for our Club.

It’s probably already been done to a death by me and others, but simply our game plan was shit and one that generally always plays into the hands of the bigger/better team. And it didn’t have to be that way because that Rangers team are on the ropes these days, but we allowed them to dominate the game with our negative standoffish approach. We didn’t play to exploit our strengths; instead, we played to contain them and to feed off scraps. It obviously backfired because they eventually wore us down, which we could all see was coming, particularly after the baffling substitutions and tactical changes were implemented. It’s done now, though. Time to move on and hope that lessons have been learned. Again.

Probably one of the most cogent points made in the aftermath of the game. A massive opportunity was wasted because of the predictably poor overall approach to the game and more crazy in-game decisions. We weren’t well beaten. We didn’t put up a valiant fight. We weren’t robbed. Yes, they had to work and have a bigger budget, but anything is possible in a knockout game yet we more or less gifted them the win before a ball was kicked. It was so predictable. To get knocked out of a domestic cup competition in that fashion is absolutely scunnering and I refuse to accept that a loss such as that is acceptable just because Joe Bloggs highlights that we’re currently 5th in the league in Autumn or that the manager helped to develop some players last season. The manager shat the bed, which we all seem to agree on, and the Club and fans deserve better when these opportunities come around. I’m sure that a manager without fear of the Old Firm and with a modicum of tactical nous about them would’ve produced a better showing against that Rangers team. Back to league business now, which is quite good at the moment, so let’s see how my favourite donkey does for the rest of the season.

Superb petty stuff from the chief antagonist here. It must be so joyful being so persistently intolerant/dismissive of others’ views.

You don’t have to tell me anything. We’ve both made our minds up.

I can only assume that some on here won’t accept or can’t see that we’re stagnating under Kettlewell until we go on another awful winless run and/or have another shit transfer window and/or have another glorious cup failure as a result of his tactical genius. We flopped yesterday because of him, which was sadly not in the least bit surprising. The players (and he) got us there, but he alone messed up our chances at the penultimate hurdle. He set us up to fail because he’s tactically limited, made bad decisions during the game because he’s clearly an idiot, and had limited options to change things due to more previous bad decisions. See any patterns yet?! I’m extremely disappointed by what happened yesterday. We all are. It was auch a predictable let down and without even a whimper. If people can’t see, or refuse to acknowledge, that the overwhelming body of evidence before them already presents a generally crap picture and outlook, then so be it. As I said before, and for the reasons outlined here and elsewhere, my view is that we’re going nowhere under Kettlewell. The odd semi-final and Theo Bair story won’t change that view. We should expect and aspire to something better. An identity at least.

Did he get us to a final or win us a domestic trophy? No. Is the season over yet? No.

I don’t have a visceral dislike for him. You could probably say I had that towards Alexander. With Kettlewell, I just think he’s an over-promoted harebrained donkey. His tenure has been marked by wild swings in form, strange recruitment, and a complete inability to show that he’s capable of learning from his continual mistakes. We’re going nowhere under him. It’s turgid and unexciting and he’s willing to accept playing for 30% possession and winning via the odd break of the ball or set piece. That’s not for me. I want bravery. I want an identity. I want to enjoy watching us.

My comment was more blind hope. I agree that there’s no chance he’ll deviate from his crap approach to games.

Given the injury list, the lack of attacking midfielders, and zero players to lead the line, I’d like to see us move to a 433 or something similar.

How many times has this been written? There has to come a point where people accept that he’s just not that capable a manager. A good coach, maybe, but nothing more.

It was pretty clear to me that the team was instructed to stand off them and let them use the width of the park in front of us. The freedom given to Cerny (their best player) on that wing was always going to hurt us, and it did. We deserved to lose and they deserved their win.

You can pick and choose individual players all you like to suit your narrative. We all can. But you’re also talking about the guy who thinks Robinson is a good target man, that Casey can play anything other than CB, and that Tavares merited an appearance in a cup semi ahead of others. Etc. We let them win yesterday because our donkey manager is (a) hamstrung by his own poor recruitment and (b) a shitebag who set us up to fail. Yesterday was a huge opportunity that won’t come around often in Kettlewell’s career, or for us fans, and he completely fucked it. The sooner he’s gone, the better.

Perhaps. But we still lost because the manager set us up to lose.

Really? That’s not why we lost the game today.

It’s almost like we still haven’t replaced Spittal.

I’d admire your optimism pal. However, he set us up to contain them, not beat them. He replaced Stama and Maswanhise with two more donkeys. He put Casey to RWB then CF. We don’t get to many semis, and he’ll be remembered for that today, unfortunately.

Pull your nose out of his hole. Kettlewell wouldn’t know a good idea if it landed on his knee.

Hopefully today is the last meaningful game we go into with that donkey in charge.

I’ve tried to calm myself down, but I can’t. Today’s loss is on Kettlewell. He’s a clown. He’s clueless. His approach and his subs. Uggh.