joewarkfanclub

Had a long think tonight before deciding how to respond to what was an incredibly satisfying performance and result. Without going over the top, I thought the first half was more "effective football" than top class entertainment. We smothered Hearts and prevented them from playing with our intensity and workrate, without being particularly easy on the eye. We limited them to very few real chances and defended very well whenever it looked like they were going to open us up. We deserved to go in at half time in the lead purely down to our endeavour and the goal itself was probably the best bit of football we played all half. 2nd half we played a lot more football through the midfield and it was really enjoyable to see. Getting the 2nd goal and having the extra man allowed everyone to relax and it was really nice to see that we can actually play a bit when we choose to. A really good day at the office. If Alexander and the players can continue to get the mix right between playing effective winning football and entertaimment, then there wont be many complaints on here or down Fir Park way.

Collum in charge. Might as well all go home now! No way we finish this with 11 men on the park. GA will be in the stand too!

After a magnificent week watching the national team play silky free flowing attacking football, its back to the weekly grind of club football! Just hope SOD can use the experience to drag all those around them up to his level rather than the other way around! Hopefully he will have some encouraging words for Liam Kelly and Tony Watt to pass on from Steve Clarke. The more internationals we can get in the team the better!

I hadnt realised at the time that he actually gets a touch on it before it hits the post. It was a good enough save already but a triple save is quite phenomenal.

We were knocking it about like Aberdeen and couldnt buy a win. Funny old game innit!

KVV. Did what a striker is paid to do. Shows what might be possible if we had more possession of the ball and put in more deliveries like that.

First of all, great 3 points. Most welcome. Our points total and league position cant be argued with and quite rightly make the manager bomb proof. But there is no getting away from how unenjoyable it is to watch. We are going over old ground, but it will only be suffered as a stop gap while we are maintaining our league position. If he doesnt think our current midfield is capable of playing more football than we are, fair enough. I would disagree with that, but can suffer it until he can sign better players. However, if this is the way we are going to play for the duration of his tenure, I may have to find something more enjoyable to do on a Saturday afternoon.

Which pretty much answers the McGinley/Carroll, O'Donnell/Mugabi argument.

That was a great game! Abercrombie was incandescent with rage!

Im hoping the "lessons learned" means that we press and defend from the front. That way we might not have to defend our own box so much as we will have more of the ball winning it higher up the field.

This. Its not rocket science.

He was some goalkeeper as well!

The difference with McLeans teams were that he was bringing us up from the old First Division and had to play a certain way to keep us in the league. His teams were always set up first and foremost to be hard to beat, and sometimes it wasnt pretty, but over time that changed. The team that finished 3rd and nearly won the league were great to watch. Of course that was pre Bosman so you didnt have the same turnover of players every season and building a team over time was still a thing you could do. We all have to accept that, whether we like our current style of play or not, GA has us sitting comfortably mid table and unless that changes he is not going anywhere. That said, Im not sure any of Wee Tommys teams gave away 65% possession of the ball to St Mirren at home. He would have went ballistic!

So who would you play?

I have absolutely no issues with us parking the bus and grinding out results against teams that are better than us. But we shouldnt be doing it against the majority of teams in our league, especially at home. I dont think you can compare the way we are playing now to the way we played at the start of Robinsons tenure. That was a very physical up and at em high press. It maybe wasnt pretty at times but the swashbuckling nature of it still had the fans pretty excited by the sheer effort and determination to win. It wasnt until Moult left and we got some injuries and form dropped off and we could no longer be effective playing that way that the fans turned. Thats where Alexander is now. Its up to him how he wants to turn it around.

I dont think the reaction is to the Rangers game alone. I dont think its even due to the other negative results you mention. Personally Im usually the last to turn on a mamager and have no issue with being considered a "happy clapper" as a result of trying to see the positives in our performances. However, its impossible to ignore how disjointed we are as a team and how poor we are on the ball. Trying to identify the positives in our performances right now is difficult. As I posted a week or 2 ago, our "style" will be suffered by the majority of fans as long as we are getting results. But when we dont, it becomes way more difficult and thats where we are right now. I believe most of our fans are pretty realistic about our place in world footballa and our league position and points total right now is acceptable. The lack of football we are playing against pretty mediocre teams is not.

Fair point! Id forgotten about the goal already!

McGinley needs to stay narrow until the ball is crossed, otherwise he leaves a gap that could expose his centre half. I agree that once the ball is played he needs to try and react and get out there to block the ball. However, its hard to react when the quality of the delivery is so good. We got away with it for most of the first half as Rangers delivery was poor. The first 2 good balls they put in we lose 2 goals. Thats the folly of giving up the wide areas. I accept we have players who are not on the same level as Rangers, which is why matching them up and going 4-3-3 was madness.

Hard to give it to any of our defence after conceding 6, regardless of whether they were personally culpable or not. Gave it to O'Hara as he was tye only midfielder that showed any semblance of composure and tried to pass it to a teamate. A pretty low bar granted. Could easily pressed the no candidate button.

Its easy to point the finger at McGinley and O'Donnell, but they are being coached to keep a narrow back four and defend their box. When the ball is crossed for the first goal, McGinley is in the position he has been told to be in. However, the cross and finish are top drawer so he has no time to react and get out there. Our midfield and forward line should be dropping back to fill those gaps and preventing such an easy ball, but the entire way we are set up is rotten and exposing our players all over the park. We have been getting away with it against most of the teams in the league, but the minute you play against a higher standard of opponent your definiencies get found out.

The Hibs game seems such a long time ago. It was a great game of football and great entertainment and advert for our game. Even though we lost, I still left the stadium full of hope for the season ahead. Where is that hope now?

To be fair, he had been injured and it was his first game back, so judging him on that game alone was a bit premature. Thats not to say you were wrong in your assessment or that Goss will turn out to be any good for us. His performances since then havent really shown any marked improvement. However, he is being asked to play in a 3 man midfield that is outnumbered every week and its worthy of note that Slatterys performances are going backwards after the early promise he showed. Its clear we need to be trying something different to try and get the best out of our players. If that happens ans Goss is still not showing any improvement after he has had 10 or so games under his belt then I would have to conceed that he maybe doesnt have the quality required to cut it at our level.

Aberdeen have beaten Hibs and Hearts in a week that saw them very unlucky not to leave The Temple of Doom with 3 points as well. Very difficult to see anything other than a loss here unless there is a dramatic change in the way we set up and get our square and round pegs in the right holes.

I understand your point and agree with it up to a point. But Alexander did sign the majority of these players now, so the sows ear is his. Added to that, if we need to shitfest games, there are better ways of doing it than our current set up. How our front 3 keep going the way they do shows a lot of mental fortitude on their part.

Ive said before that the best way to defend is to keep possession of the ball. We simply dont do that, so we never have a platform to play from which limits the opportunity to create chances for our forward players. Until we sort that aspect of our play out we will continue to see similar performances and results. I dont really care what the formation is, but we need to set up in a way where we dont get overun in midfield and actually have numbers in there that allow us to keep the ball. Once we do that we can see about getting bodies forward to create chances, as I do believe we have players in the squad that can hurt teams and score goals. It would be foolish to be shouting for the managers head at this stage, but he must be able to demonstrate that he can see that there is a problem and be astute enough to make the changes that will fix that problem. Unfortunately, Im starting to fear he is too stubborn to accept that......