RicoS321

Ahh well, we were close. I have to admit, I always assumed that if we went with a four at the back then it would mean McRorie in midfield, but taking him off completely, solved the conundrum. That's maybe the answer. Ramadani and Barron were very good in there. Clarkson didn't have his best game, but if he's playing further up the park then we have plenty options to bring on.

10 shots on target from 21 on goal. Should be at least drawing this game.

I think he meant the strike, rather than the award! You're right though. The game has not benefited from bringing back the game after several minutes to give penalties for accidental handballs. The handball rule needs to change.

Barron been very good since giving away the penalty.

This is just embarrassing.

VAR. Three fucking minutes? Fuck is that all about. Fucking anti football shite.

6-2 the Dons tonight. McKenzie 2, Duk, Miovski 2 and Watkins. Anderson with the double putting them two up.

Dylan. 17, attacking midfielder. Nae sure how good he is. Was on the bench the other week too.

The one where he ran it out of play was probably worse than thinking he had too much time. I've noticed a few times that when it comes to taking it on his left and turning his body round to pass back to the keeper, he's really uncomfortable. That particular one, Richardson shat himself and left it to Stewart and then Stewart couldn't get his body round the ball, so kicked with his right, off his left and out of play. If someone like Boyle had been playing, he'd have run right between the two of them and just taken the ball, setting him up for a certain dive in the box.

McInnes beat the Huns on several occasions. Saints regularly play a game where they sit in and catch the opponent on the break, so to do it in a game against the Hun is certainly easier for them. Goodwin has been lucky in several games already this season by playing a very attacking formation and nearly getting caught out. The fact that he thought he could continue that approach against a good team was just stupid. We gave ourselves no chance by choosing that approach, which was my only criticism. Livingston and Saints both maximised their chances of getting something and were rewarded. Goodwin's challenge should have been to find a system that was solid whilst leaving a strong threat up front (McInnes laterally just didn't bother with the latter part). Frustratingly, even Glass managed to get that balance.

No he isn't.

What choices are being used in Scotland? That's like saying that the way the pass back rule has been implemented in Scotland is poor. VAR is the same everywhere, by design. There is no versioning, and I'm not sure where the idea that there is has come from. VAR has existed in football for four years and has failed the match going supporter in every single league. The reason it works in other sports are exactly the reasons it doesn't work in live fitba. To add, tennis isn't comparable with VAR, it's equivalent is goal line technology. I think goal line technology is very good and an example of where technology can work to assist a referee (twice a year when there's a controversial goal line decision). There's no babies and bathwater, just a proposed solution that can't address the issues of subjective opinion without radically altering the game for the attending supporter. Not one person anywhere in the world has been able to draw a definitive marker on what is meant by clear and obvious in four years of the system being in play. It's collective ignorance and ego that keeps it going, backed by a cabal of childish managers, owners, pundits and EPL fanboys. If you can't define clear and obvious in a way that separates those decisions that are subject to checking from those that aren't then you don't have a working system. If fans are left wondering with every single goal, which they are, then it changes the way they watch the game. I've no problem with people saying that they enjoy the new watching experience, that removes the spontaneity entirely. Or that they enjoy the excitement of waiting for the goals to be confirmed or otherwise. It's those that pretend that VAR can ever be done in a way that doesn't change the experience that I have an issue with.

Nonsense. It's shite in every country it appears in for fans who attend games of football (take a look at polls in Germany, Netherlands, England etc). There is no "version" of VAR that works. It's a referee looking at a telly, not a technology. Clear and obvious is subjective and always will be. The number of decisions that are clear and obvious, as opposed to "subject to interpretation" will never be enough to justify its implementation and resultant watering down of the match going experience.

That was the worst 4-1 winning performance I've ever seen. We barely put a pass together, completely lost the midfield and Stewart and Richardson were worse than corpses. Then there was fucking VAR. What an abomination. It just ruins everything. It's fucking aids. That whole penalty debacle was an embarrassment to football. I think the ref was about to give it (he ran spot-ward) when the linesman flagged. I hate penalties like that, it's not sport. Throwing yourself at a ball, which you hoof out of play before diving at the keeper. Just shite. Football didn't benefit from the 45 minute decision making process. To then have a fucking retake was just cringe. I didn't even care by the time whatever happened, happened. I wouldn't blame anyone for not going back after that. Our game finished at the same time as the cove game, which started fifteen minutes later. Shambles. Then the police decided that everyone had to go over broadhill incase there was a scrap with the three remaining Hibs fans.

Harsh on McKenzie, thought Coulson was terrible when he came on against Der Hun. Richardson winning the "nae ither cunt plays there" award.

I think he's remarkably evolved given the previous Ferguson generation.

Nope. He's not better than Taylor was last time round. Not even close to be honest. He's definitely a better footballer, but he's so slow that he ends up making just as many simple errors on the ball as Taylor did. At least with Taylor the outcome was usually a broken seat in row Z. I completely agree with your other points (McRorie aside, we should be prioritising a midfielder in January in my opinion). The one thing I'd add is that with Considine and Taylor (and McKenna of course) you had real aggression at the back. Players that would play right on the backs of the strikers (through necessity a lot of the time!). That would have spilled a lot down at the feet of Ramadani. Stewart does it to an extent, but nowhere near to the same effect as either of the defenders before him. It's like we got used to having lightweight defenders after a year of Bates, McRorie and - weirdly - Gallagher. Maybe it's just the setup, but I don't think so. It seems like another personnel issue. I don't see Goodwin admitting defeat with his Captain though. As predicted, we're potentially in the situation where we're going to be replacing our entire back four in the next two windows. I think Stewart will be the one saved from the humility.

But you're not saying anything here anyone would disagree with. You're suggesting it has nothing to do with formation and approach, where it clearly does. I know that the fans won't accept the Livi approach (McInnes tried it against the Tims every time), I'm not advocating it. I'm simply pointing out that it doesn't result in a spanking for obvious reasons. We played with a back three and two wingbacks high up the park. Not five players in defence. If I'm predominantly a fullback that is good in the challenge and not particularly mobile, but the manager plays to my weaknesses by asking me to get high up the pitch and try and get back quickly, what do I do? If I'm a fullback who isn't particularly good at anything, and am offered no support from a right midfielder, what do I do? You state the problem (in bold) perfectly. Everyone could see that, and most mentioned it before the game. The manager decided that rather than address those glaring weaknesses, he'd try and attack his way out of it like we've done successfully against other teams. If the manager can't see the glaringly obvious weaknesses in the invidual players' games and then design a system to mitigate them then it's entirely his fault. The formation resulted in all the 3 on 3 situations that occurred, and there lots of them. The frustrating part is that it is simple organisation that you should be practicing every day in training - a switch between two setups. It should be like a military operation, and not one of those crappy Russian ones that keep failing. Start with the attacking setup, get the goal and then switch to the bank of three and five, with Miovski dropping deeper and Duk stretching them in possession. Keep things tight and frustrate for 20-30 minutes, forcing them into the wide areas to cross where they are weak (they had 70, I think, crosses into the box against Livi, scoring from 1). See it through until half time. Alternatively, watch gormlessly on as our fullbacks are caught high up the park, Ramadani is left marking two players and the quick one two leaves Sakala or Kent running full pelt at a centre half with Colak 1 on 1 in the middle - again. Again, nobody is suggesting we'd have won or drawn by being more conservative, just that we'd have increased our chances of doing so. Goodwin reduced our chances significantly.

But that's bollocks though. Livingston used a different shape than us, with worse players, reducing the number of shots by a third compared to us, and only 3 of those on target (that suggests that they largely limited them to shots for distance by sitting in deep - which they did). Our formation and approach left huge gaps, not the quality of player. McKenzie, for example, is a solid left back who does well when close to an opponent and not required to track back from high up the pitch. Miovski is a useful number nine who will convert (most!) chances and is good with the ball into chest or feet. Crucially, he likes to stay high up the pitch and offers very little in terms of back tracking. Duk noises up defenders and is very difficult to get the ball off of, but positionally he's poor, doesn't have a brilliant understanding with his team mates and his tracking back is sporadic (very good when he does, he just doesn't do it reliably). The point is that there are plenty of ways to play to these guys strengths, and plenty of ways that the opponent can take advantage of the obvious weaknesses. The point of the formation in games like these is not to find some instant formula that guarantees success, it's about reducing the obvious gap in quality between the two sides by maximizing our strengths and mitigating weaknesses. Goodwin did one at the expense of the other, very obviously, via the team selection. Nobody is suggesting that our players are better than theirs or that the formation alone can win us a game. Quality of player is obviously the biggest factor, I don't think anyone would deny that, and the Hun are well ahead of us there. The rest is about reducing the impact of that by having discipline and organisation in a particular shape, getting a bit of luck, combined with fan unrest and indecision, maybe even a fortunate refereeing call and a couple of individual errors to bridge the gap. Coming into the game, I thought personnel would be our biggest issue. Not that we don't have good players across the pitch, but that they don't suit this type of game. What we learn from Livingston last week and the games we played well against them under Glass and McInnes was that you need to have absolute discipline and a route to goal. We had that last season in our excellent set pieces and the strength in midfield of Ferguson. That allowed a tight, disciplined performance with the ability to get a goal on the break, and we drew 2-2. The approach to the game bridged the gap on that occasion, because quite clearly they had a much better team than us. At the weekend, I struggled to see a single formation that we could play that wouldn't leave a problem that could easily be exploited by one of their better players, but that's because we're wedded to this remit of "having a go", which seems to be - basically - indiscipline and throwing the game away. If we'd taken Miovski out, put McRorie into midfield and played a 4-3-1, switching to a 4-5-1 when required, we'd only have had the issue of Richardson at fullback (and not fulfilling our remit of attacking, entertaining fitba). That could have been mitigated by having the right midfielder double up and offer Richardson support. We might not have scored, but with Duk in the team there is always an opportunity (although we need to work on our set-pieces). Would it have won us the game? Probably not, I think we're still too weak in midfield, but it wouldn't have resulted in 4 going on 8 goals conceded I'm fairly certain. The longer that you are in the game, the other factors come into play with the Hun home crowd getting angry, players making mistakes. More importantly, in that more conservative approach, our own players make less mistakes as they're not caught out of position as often and reacting to situations. For me, the most disappointing thing was the inability to be flexible during the game. It's the biggest problem with playing Duk and Miovski up front, because the only way you can tighten up is to take one of them off and that looks bad and Goodwin would be unfairly criticised for it. I believe we are good enough to sit on a 1-0 lead at Ibrox, I don't believe we are good enough to go on and score 2-3 more without conceding, which is the absolute essence of what formations do. Formation, organisation and discipline are always the things that make a poorer team beat the better one, and you don't need to spend time watching a McGhee team to know that they're also the thing that will result in an absolute hiding, which is what we were on the end of at the weekend. Formation might not have won us the game on Saturday, but it was the entire reason we got papped off the park.

If I could be arsed with the pictures and shite, I could have written that very thing. It illustrates just how easy it would have been to drop fullbacks and the two midfielders back at 0-1 or 1-1 and see things through until half time. The number of times that Sakala and Kent were running directly at Scales and McRorie was criminal. McKenzie doesn't have the pace to play the system and Richardson doesn't appear to have the fitness or desire to both run up and run back (Coulson likely the same). Hayes is pretty much the only player we've got that would manage it.

The issue with 4-2-3-1 is that it doesn't work at home against 8-9 teams. For the first half yesterday we were playing 3-1-4-2, which is fantastic playing killie in front of a home crowd. I'm pretty certain that Goodwin has had it drilled into him by Cormack that we don't change the way we play when against the scum, the fans don't want us to go and sit in at Ibrox etc. Look on this thread pre-match and everyone suggested that we need to go at them because they're shite at defending or whatever. He's trying to juggle two remits of winning games and also entertaining. But it's almost like he's bought into it too much, as even the most rabid dandy could see we were going to be on the end of a skelping from the first minute. We just need to accept that there is more than one way to try and win a game, and that there's no shame in keeping it tight and using Duk to catch them on the break is fine. Use Watkins in behind him as part of the three would be a decent compromise (it's very noticeable that when Ramirez has been introduced recently, he's been asked to play behind Duk rather than alongside like Miovski does). However, we do have glaring personnel issues. Stewart and Richardson both require us to play a certain way due to their deficiencies. Ramadani very much suits being the 1 in front and has struggled as part of a 2 (we really miss Ferguson, as expected). McRorie has no fathomable position on a football pitch, whilst offering useful attributes in several positions. Miovski is like Kris Boyd in that he'll score goals but offer little else and should probably be dropped against the good teams. Clarkson and Barron are both good with someone good alongside them who isn't either Clarkson or Barron. McKenzie is a solid left back who doesn't have the pace to play wingback, whereas Coulson is a fantastic footballer who is very slack in defence (he was torn to shreds by Sakala when he came on). We need a midfielder in January, definitely, but we also need a plan to play against better teams and an acceptance within the club that it's okay to be organised and difficult to beat at times. Goodwin needs to approach games with a clear idea of what happens within games when things aren't going our way and explain it to the players too so that they won't be pissed off if we remove Miovski for example after 25 minutes. The players looked clueless after the change to a four yesterday in the second half. As you point out, most of this is basic stuff. We have to assume that there is pressure from within the club from the outset of his appointment that means he's not seeing things, or heavily biased in a certain style. Fourteen of the twenty goals we've let in have come in four games. It's clear that we've got issues with making changes when chasing a game.

Lembas retired a few weeks ago and I've not decided on a new supplier yet. Replenish in Stonehaven and Chapelton will deliver and the veg seems pretty decent. Bridgefoot mentioned that they might serve out this way if they get enough folk on board (I used them for years when in toon and were always good). I'm trying out buying veg for a couple of months to see if it's better, but I'm basically going into shops and just staring at the produce with nae idea what to go far. Twenty years of having my hand forced by a delivery does that. The shop in Newtonhill does decent stuff too on a small scale (tatties, carrots, pumpkins, eggs etc). I'm leaning towards replenish at the moment, but I'll give it a few more weeks to see if I enjoy the shopping experience.

We were punting it early (quite often to one of our fullbacks) and then charging after it - the very definition of cavalier. Nearly every time they had the ball, Barron, Clarkson and the fullbacks were way up the park. One pass round Ramadani and we were 3 on 3 for the hundredth time I'm the game. There was no organised defensive banks of five and three or even three and three. Livingston could certainly have taught us a thing or two in how to defend as a team. Goodwin backed himself into a corner with the two attackers again, showing he's learned nothing from the Hibs game. Duk showed today, unlike that game, that he could lead the line on his own. Sacrificing Miovski after we went ahead, and it was clear were never holding it, would have been the best way to go. Either switch to a 4-2-3-1 or 4-5-1 (preferably ditching Richardson at that point too). Keep the midfield close to the defence and keep things tight. We're not great at defending but I simply don't believe that we don't have it in us to be organised and disciplined in two lines. The arrogance and stupidity of thinking we can go away to any team and play the way did is ludicrous, bit especially not the Huns at Ibrox.

It's not shitting the pants though, it's the opposite. Being far too cavalier. I don't know what Goodwin is seeing.

Yep, pretty much. It's an insane approach to playing the scum at Ibrox. I'd expect this shape against a championship side or an off form SPFL team. As redordead pointed out, Ramadani (who's playing quite well) is playing in front of the back three with the two in front. We're going man for man against them in attack and defence. That had left gaping holes all over the place as soon as one player breaks through a challenge. Our defence is nowhere near quick enough to play this way and it appears we've learned nothing from utd and Hibs games. I understand we have no midfielders or defenders on the bench but an organised flat line of three would at least stem some of the flow. Clarkson and Barron are both tanking back in to help the defence, but they're sort of piling in and then sorting their shape. It's last ditch and ugly. Now that we're down a goal too, it's difficult to change things as we should really be tightening things up.