Dons - Dumbarton - cup - Red Shed

[Slim]

McLennan wasn't great, but the Ghost of Gregg Wylde who came on to replace him managed to be even worse.

 

I think we need to throw a bit more money at St Johnstone to get Kennedy in quicker. And get a proper advanced central midfielder in on loan (that Gilmour lad at Chelsea maybe?).

[TheDeeDon]

Well I enjoyed this afternoon with the Merkland experiment, was like being at an away game.

 

Football wise we were up against a team that were well organised as you would expect from a team managed by Jim Duffy and who made things very difficult for us from an attacking sense, but boy we were wasteful at times and to be honest had periods where we looked just shyte, but should have been well out of reach by the time we got the penalty.

 

McGeouch looks tidy and the type of player who isn't scared of the ball and can only assume Ojo will make way for him when Ferguson is back. I thought Anderson did well today, unlucky not to score and don't think the chances he had were quite as clear cut as they looked, but he needs a run of games, not so sure about McLennan though, although to be fair to him he is clearly not a winger.

 

Need some quality from a creative sense, but I can't help think our tactics are more to blame rather than the personnel.

 

A decent enough away support up from Dumbarton for the game who will possibly feel a little sore at losing a goal so late in the game when it looked like they were going to get the draw.

 

What was the banner on show at half time in the Merkland which got the Stewards in a state and led to them getting abused for the rest of the second half, I couldn't read it as I sit up at the top of the stand.

[kevdon]

What was the banner on show at half time in the Merkland which got the Stewards in a state and led to them getting abused for the rest of the second half, I couldn't read it as I sit up at the top of the stand.

 

The banner read:

 

More income. Fuller stands. End the blanket alcohol ban

[TheDeeDon]

The banner read:

 

More income. Fuller stands. End the blanket alcohol ban

 

And the stewards were getting themselves in a state about that. They deserved the abuse they got, seemed to be a different company doing the stewarding today.

[Guest kiriakovisthenewstrachan]

McLennan wasn't great, but the Ghost of Gregg Wylde who came on to replace him managed to be even worse.

 

I think we need to throw a bit more money at St Johnstone to get Kennedy in quicker. And get a proper advanced central midfielder in on loan (that Gilmour lad at Chelsea maybe?).

 

Seriously Slim, we would have as much chance getting Gareth Bale to Pittodrie as we would Billy Gilmour. That kid is probably on about £30,000 a week and would fetch about £30m on the open market down south. Getting someone like him on loan is pie in the sky stuff.

[wee toon red]

McLennan wasn't great, but the Ghost of Gregg Wylde who came on to replace him managed to be even worse.

 

I think we need to throw a bit more money at St Johnstone to get Kennedy in quicker. And get a proper advanced central midfielder in on loan (that Gilmour lad at Chelsea maybe?).

 

Gilmour isn’t an advanced/attacking midfielder.

[KennyFuckinPowers]

Seems like we're doing things right off the pitch, but, as has been the case for approaching 3 years, on the pitch is a different story.

 

I don't really give a fuck how much of the ball we had, or how many chances we created, we needed a Penalty to get beyond the team sitting 6th in League 1. I get it though, we are in the next round, that's all that matters. Hopefully we get drawn against another League 1 team in the next round. 

[LA-Don]

One of, if not, the most frustrating games I’ve seen us play. We played the 6th placed team in league 1, below the likes of Montrose and East Fife, let’s remember that. My anger is purely towards McInnes, he got it wrong today.

 

Positives - we won. McGeouch looked good.

 

The rest

 

I love hearing differing perspectives of games and red tv commentators praised dumbarton at the end of the game for shutting us down. They were wrong, our own play shut us down.

 

We played two forwards who looked like they had no clue how to play together. Didn’t look like they worked together or knew what to do in relation to the other. Were they coached or did they train together as a front two?? Neither moved enough or dropped off enough to pull the central defenders out of position. Didn’t see Anderson running in behind for flick ons from Cosgrove either. It was easy for their defenders. Plus neither was able to hold the ball up and get others involved. It was a waste playing two up top who appeared not to know how a front two should play.

 

Huge hole below the two forwards and in front of the holding mids. The dumbarton defense had plenty of time to get back and organize all day. We don’t need two holding mids against anyone bar rangers and Celtic and even that’s debatable. McInnes’ stubbornness to play what he considers a fashionable shape. Neither central mid caused any attacking penetrative threat so again, field day for the central defenders. Neither had to step up to confront Ojo or mcgeouch giving forwards space or angles.

 

Our main attacking play is to give it long, hit and hope, or hope Cosgrove can hold it up. Didn’t work. Then we play to give it to two inconsistent wingers and hope they create something. Not great. Not a fan of McLennan but I actually thought he did ok and created some chances. We did this all day long with minimal success, hence the main chances we created were from set pieces. The game cried out for a change of tactics.

 

Sub #1 - great opportunity to change formation and challenge dumbarton to adjust. Instead we sub like for like. We hadn’t caused them major trouble so we went for more of the same. Such a lazy, uninspiring, and unimaginative sub. Easy to sub a youngster when I though McLennan had done more than McGinn. I’d have subbed Anderson though and played either hedges or McGinn in the middle. Even Wilson. They’d drop deep and give the defense a different challenge. But no.

 

Sub #2. Given the limited attacking threat from dumbarton did we really need to sub our MOTM? If we had to did we really need to replace him with another holding mid when we needed a goal and were so unimaginative? Pull of McGeough and put on Gallagher. He’s got the legs and engine to get up and create additional attacking threat plus is able to get back. But no.

 

Gallagher is limited but his running and work rate causes problems as we saw recently against rangers, I think he could have helped alongside Sam. So DM brings him on in the 91st minute. Great. Actually surprised he didn’t bring on Devlin for Anderson immediately after the penalty.

 

Luckily we won but majorly concerning. But then again today was not much different from most of the season regardless of formation. As so many have stated so many times we desperately lack an attacking creative mid. I expect Ferguson to replace Anderson on Wednesday so this may help but he’s still not the flair we need. I’d pair Ferguson and McGeough and sign a flair #10. That won’t happen as I’m sure Ojo is a starter. Interesting we are trying to sign another winger when we need a 10, will we try McGinn or hedges inside off Cosgrove? I hope so but doubt it.

 

 

[Slim]

Seriously Slim, we would have as much chance getting Gareth Bale to Pittodrie as we would Billy Gilmour. That kid is probably on about £30,000 a week and would fetch about £30m on the open market down south. Getting someone like him on loan is pie in the sky stuff.

 

His wages/value have nothing to do with it. He’s on the fringes of the Chelsea first team squad and in dire need of first team football. Chelsea have seen first hand the benefits of this for their current starting 11 (Mount and Abraham) and while the English Championship would probably be their preferred destination, we have a lot of goodwill from our role in developing James Maddison and Frank Lampard has first hand feedback on how well we treated Max Lowe who is now a regular starter for Derby. It’s nowhere near comparable with signing one of the highest paid players in the world. He plays in the same Scotland U21 team as Connor McLennan.

[rocket_scientist]

His wages/value have nothing to do with it. He’s on the fringes of the Chelsea first team squad and in dire need of first team football. Chelsea have seen first hand the benefits of this for their current starting 11 (Mount and Abraham) and while the English Championship would probably be their preferred destination, we have a lot of goodwill from our role in developing James Maddison and Frank Lampard has first hand feedback on how well we treated Max Lowe who is now a regular starter for Derby. It’s nowhere near comparable with signing one of the highest paid players in the world. He plays in the same Scotland U21 team as Connor McLennan.

 

Cultural divide. You're right but your detractor cannot imagine the possibility of positivity ergo stalemate.

[TheDeeDon]

I actually thought Anderson looked far better than Sam yesterday did a lot of running and at times we certainly weren't plying two up front. Sam throwing himself to the ground really does grip my shit. If he were to move whoever takes him still has a lot of work to do with the lad.

[KennyFuckinPowers]

I actually thought Anderson looked far better than Sam yesterday did a lot of running and at times we certainly weren't plying two up front. Sam throwing himself to the ground really does grip my shit. If he were to move whoever takes him still has a lot of work to do with the lad.

 

Coached, pure and simple. I remember watching the warm up in the Burnley game, the TV folk were doing a feature on Cosgrove and as the Camera went to him, he happened to be speaking to McInnes, you could clealry make out that McInnes said " Any contact ( Whilst he was doing the backing up motion ) just go down " A lot of our goals involve set pieces, we work incredibly hard on them, at least that's what we're told every week. It annoys the fuck out of me as well, but imagine where would be without him, we'd be a St Mirren or a St Johnstone. What a fucking sad state of affairs.

[RicoS321]

I actually thought Anderson looked far better than Sam yesterday did a lot of running and at times we certainly weren't plying two up front. Sam throwing himself to the ground really does grip my shit. If he were to move whoever takes him still has a lot of work to do with the lad.

 

Fully agree. Even though it was only red TV for me yesterday, I still felt that Anderson's movement was good. Cosgrove was frustrating yesterday. You can see what he's trying to do, get himself in front of the defender and take the challenge. For 85 minutes yesterday, he simply didn't manage to do that, their defender just being quicker and sharper. When he finally got the better of him, he wins the penalty. Hopefully just getting back up to speed after a good few weeks off.

 

Agree with LA regarding the mcgeouch sub. I'd have taken Gallagher on too, allowing him to charge past the front two and make space for others. I don't agree that Ferguson should be coming back in for Anderson though, I really think we need to persist with the two up front for a few games to see if we can get a partnership going. Would give us a great option to change things, which we're seriously lacking. Even more so if Kennedy can come in for McLennan.