Jump to content

Saturday 23rd November 2024 - kick-off 3pm

Scottish Premiership - St Mirren v Aberdeen

Recommended Posts

Posted

Not really sure what else to do away at Portugal. In an ideal world we have a fit hickey at right back, tierney in the middle (although will he really ever be fit?) and Ferguson for McLean. Hopefully doak comes good and becomes a starter, but we’re crying out for a decent central defender and forward. Maybe nisbet finds form? 

Posted
8 minutes ago, Jute said:

I would like to have seen Gauld start to give us a bit more width and more attacking threat. 

Who would he replace? Most likely mcginn or Christie? Hard to argue dropping mcginn, and Christie is a EPL regular. 

Posted

Christie would be one to drop out for me. Being an EPL regular should not guarantee you a start. Gauld offered more than Christie on Thursday so should get the start in my opinion. 
 

Christie is 8/1 to score anytime before anyone asks. 

Posted

Poor half. Should be tanking this pish. 

In all seriousness though, we're not keeping this up for ninety minutes and getting a clean sheet. I'd take McGinn off, he's not been great. Christie on a yellow is an accident waiting to happen too. Some good solid defending though, McKenna having a great game.

Posted

Difficult to describe it as unlucky, got what we deserved. We don't have the depth of squad required to play that like for ninety. The subs made things worse, as they often do under Clarke. It's easy to point to the individual errors, but when you're on the ropes all game, it is difficult not to make them. Not the worst performance though, again, we're just not at the level of Portugal. 

  • Like 1
Posted

So 1 win in 14. Sat too deep at start of second and the inevitable equaliser arrived courtesy of another shot Gunn should have saved. He then redeemed himself with another couple of excellent saves and we did get up the field a bit for awhile but slowly got deeper and deeper and Portugal just kept coming down our right to go after Ralston and eventually got a cross in where McKenna switched off and it was 2-1. Seen some in press describe it as a positive performance but would argue that 2-1 flattered us and if Portugal had a decent striker or Ronaldo in his prime we probably get hit for 4 or 5.

Posted

I have seen this script played out more times over the decades of watching Scotland than I can possibly remember.

It's one of these things in life that never changes unfortunately 

Posted
40 minutes ago, BigAl said:

I have seen this script played out more times over the decades of watching Scotland than I can possibly remember.

It's one of these things in life that never changes unfortunately 

Not unlike Aberdeen against the old firm, particularly Celtic, and a factor in mcinnes being canned. Nobody wants to watch that, we got nothing from the game and got what we deserved. Scotland had moved away from these types of performances but they are definitely back, and our results over the last couple of years prove their effectiveness.

when did mcginn last have an influential game for Scotland? It’s been a while. Not sure of the position he plays for villa but he’s ineffective for us. Glad we’ve moved away from a back three to accommodate Robertson and tierney, time to rethink midfield as mcginn offers little at present.

Posted

Promotion to League A or whatever it's called is coming back to bite us in the short term, as predicted. We've done alright in both games but been undone by individual errors that teams at this level punish. Certainly last night was a different game to Thursday but in both we've at least been competitive. Had we been playing lesser teams then who knows, we could be sitting with six points from six.

This "season" of the Nations League has to be about gaining further experience of playing teams at this level, which is why it's so good to see kids like Hanley, Ralston and McLean getting good game time.

Posted
36 minutes ago, wee toon red said:

Promotion to League A or whatever it's called is coming back to bite us in the short term, as predicted. We've done alright in both games but been undone by individual errors that teams at this level punish. Certainly last night was a different game to Thursday but in both we've at least been competitive. Had we been playing lesser teams then who knows, we could be sitting with six points from six.

This "season" of the Nations League has to be about gaining further experience of playing teams at this level, which is why it's so good to see kids like Hanley, Ralston and McLean getting good game time.

Ralston is only 25! He's a placeholder for Hickey I guess, and probably about the level of Stephen O'Donnell before him. I assume that Barhun might be the replacement for McLean, but Clarke obviously felt that he wasn't ready currently. In my opinion, Ferguson should be used further forward (slowly replacing McGinn), but I have a feeling that Clarke might shoehorn him into McLean's role when fit. Porteous should be ahead of Hanley in my view, but I don't think there's much difference, with Porteous being slightly better on the ball. I don't think that there's another good replacement for that area. Otherwise, it's good to finally see players like Conway being given opportunities, although it's probably not enough. It was noticeable how much poorer we were in both games after Dykes went off. He's a good focal point, and offers respite against those better teams in Group A. Overall though, we've been okay and playing to our level. The hope is that this experience works in our favour when the next qualifying campaign comes round. It'd be nice to get some points on the board, perhaps against Poland away or one of the home games. I'd say that in the Poland game we were unlucky, whereas against Portugal we rode our luck. I'm not sure that the multitude of subs we have these days helps managers like Clarke. He never seems to get the balance right between making the right changes and making the correct number of changes. It's almost like we feel obliged to be making double and sometimes triple subs every game these days, and it often affects the balance of the side. He's always had players that he doesn't want to take off during games, and doesn't seem to analyse whether moving players to a different role is better than taking on a sub. For example, Barron should have come on to replace McGinn against Poland. Barron is not a better player than McGinn, but he's better at holding midfield than a McGinn who's just played 80 minutes. Clarke's success at Killie was down to him having players playing simple roles, and just swapping them out for guys who were similar when the original player tired. That's not to say that you can't change tactic during games, just that there is often no need to.

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted
11 minutes ago, Jute said:

Full squad.

 

Good honest club pro as he is and pretty much a 7/10 every week, Nicky Devlin is not an international standard player.

Mind you the boy McCracken @ Dundee certainly didn't look like an internationalist at the weekend either.

Posted

They'll struggle in these next 2 matches. In better news, Lewis Ferguson is appanrelybmaong good progress and is begun training with the Bologna squad, albeit light training. He'll be needed by Steve Clark, as guys like Kenny McLean are arguably past it now 

Posted
6 minutes ago, BigAl said:

Good honest club pro as he is and pretty much a 7/10 every week, Nicky Devlin is not an international standard player.

Mind you the boy McCracken @ Dundee certainly didn't look like an internationalist at the weekend either.

Nicky Devlin is fucking ace. Better than that Ralston pish. 

Interested to see Irving. Always thought Lindsay was a decent defender, but likely not international class, be interesting to see how he's matured. 

No place for Keskinen again, which is disappointing.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...