Tribute act away

[Elgindon]

4 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

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. 

Didn't watch the second half. Glad I didn't. 

 Changing subject - Far yi getting your veg box fae these days,if any? 

[BigAl]

On 24/10/2022 at 12:03, BigAl said:

Kind of get where you're coming from TLG but I have this nagging fear at the back of my mind as usual whenever we are due to play that mob at Ibrox.

As per, they'll have their baying mob roaring them on from kick off, no doubt they'll raise their game against us (the irony of which is totally lost on 99.9% of Huns), we'll no doubt have a weak referee (maybe VAR might just work in our favour, unless those running it are completely incompetent).

All of these factors added to the relative newness of our team, hardly any of whom will have played in the vitriolic atmosphere that 50000 Huns frothing at the mouth are capable pf creating go a long way to dampen any optimism I may have.

Sincerely hope I'm wrong and that we give them a bloody nose in their own backyard, but I just can't see it happening to be honest

Hate to say  told you so, but  told you so.

Total shit storm, only surprise was domehow managing to get our noses in front.

Without a word of a lie, and bring totally honest, that could have been ten or twelve.

Our MOTM was Roos who conceded four.

[RicoS321]

55 minutes ago, Elgindon said:

Didn't watch the second half. Glad I didn't. 

 Changing subject - Far yi getting your veg box fae these days,if any? 

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.

[Elgindon]

Aye.was also with Lembas,Vital veg down the road have stopped too. Had a nosey at Replenish shop a while back. Will enquire,cheers

[OrlandoDon]

Few observations. We’ve conceded 20 goals in the first 12 games of the league season. Awful. This has to be our worst defensive record in a long time. Last year was our worst season in a while and we conceded 46 in 38 games. We’re certainly on schedule to beat that! You can’t be a good team if you are shit defensively. And we are shit defensively.

I commented last week 3-5-2 is not the answer, and Barron and clarkson in center mid is not the answer. We are starting to see more of a long ball team appearing again too and that means we’re less appealing to watch too, a priority of goodwin, and don’t keep the ball. Watched the first half, we couldn’t string passes together so lose possession and or belt it long. We are/were a decent passing team but the 3-5-2 and two up top seems to have brought about more long ball which doesn’t help us.

Didn’t want goodwin as you all heard but I’m still giving him time given the squad overhaul. However, step one of with any good coach is to fix a team from losing goals, or at least become tougher to score on. We are worse.

winter window is always a tough window so I expect little transfer help there. So we need quality coaching to improve us. We’re 12 games in plus the cup and I totally believe moving to the 3-5-2 has made us worse. Interesting times ahead.

The league is weak, rangers and Celtic aside the league is not strong at all. A half decent coach with our money and squad should surely get us third. Even with our awful defense and inconsistent performance we’re 4th, go back to 4-2-3-1 and work on defending and 3rd is ours.

[Jute]

6 hours ago, OrlandoDon said:

Few observations. We’ve conceded 20 goals in the first 12 games of the league season. Awful. This has to be our worst defensive record in a long time. Last year was our worst season in a while and we conceded 46 in 38 games. We’re certainly on schedule to beat that! You can’t be a good team if you are shit defensively. And we are shit defensively.

I commented last week 3-5-2 is not the answer, and Barron and clarkson in center mid is not the answer. We are starting to see more of a long ball team appearing again too and that means we’re less appealing to watch too, a priority of goodwin, and don’t keep the ball. Watched the first half, we couldn’t string passes together so lose possession and or belt it long. We are/were a decent passing team but the 3-5-2 and two up top seems to have brought about more long ball which doesn’t help us.

Didn’t want goodwin as you all heard but I’m still giving him time given the squad overhaul. However, step one of with any good coach is to fix a team from losing goals, or at least become tougher to score on. We are worse.

winter window is always a tough window so I expect little transfer help there. So we need quality coaching to improve us. We’re 12 games in plus the cup and I totally believe moving to the 3-5-2 has made us worse. Interesting times ahead.

The league is weak, rangers and Celtic aside the league is not strong at all. A half decent coach with our money and squad should surely get us third. Even with our awful defense and inconsistent performance we’re 4th, go back to 4-2-3-1 and work on defending and 3rd is ours.

We played 4-2-3-1 against Hibs and United and were just as bad as we were yesterday. To play a 4 means having Richardson at right back beside Stewart at right centre half which was causing us huge problems defensively earlier in the season. We have been slightly better defensively the previous 3 games to yesterday with us playing the 3-5-2. I do agree that rest of the league is pretty poor and if anyone can string a run of results together they will run away with third. Not convinced anyone will from what I have seen though. 

[RicoS321]

6 hours ago, OrlandoDon said:

Few observations. We’ve conceded 20 goals in the first 12 games of the league season. Awful. This has to be our worst defensive record in a long time. Last year was our worst season in a while and we conceded 46 in 38 games. We’re certainly on schedule to beat that! You can’t be a good team if you are shit defensively. And we are shit defensively.

I commented last week 3-5-2 is not the answer, and Barron and clarkson in center mid is not the answer. We are starting to see more of a long ball team appearing again too and that means we’re less appealing to watch too, a priority of goodwin, and don’t keep the ball. Watched the first half, we couldn’t string passes together so lose possession and or belt it long. We are/were a decent passing team but the 3-5-2 and two up top seems to have brought about more long ball which doesn’t help us.

Didn’t want goodwin as you all heard but I’m still giving him time given the squad overhaul. However, step one of with any good coach is to fix a team from losing goals, or at least become tougher to score on. We are worse.

winter window is always a tough window so I expect little transfer help there. So we need quality coaching to improve us. We’re 12 games in plus the cup and I totally believe moving to the 3-5-2 has made us worse. Interesting times ahead.

The league is weak, rangers and Celtic aside the league is not strong at all. A half decent coach with our money and squad should surely get us third. Even with our awful defense and inconsistent performance we’re 4th, go back to 4-2-3-1 and work on defending and 3rd is ours.

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.

[wokinginashearerwonderland]

There is an awful lot of emphasis placed on formations by fans but for me it comes down to how good your players are and how good the opposing players are.

Playing five at the back does not necessarily make it more defensive nor does one up front. There were times when the great Barcelona teams played with no recognised striker but they were certainly not negative in their approach.

We have a good team of SPL standard players and when playing a Motherwell or St Mirren we look like a decent side. Problem is the same players are nowhere near the calibre of the old firm players yet as fans we expect them to be. You can get away with doing certain things against poorer teams and still win, against the better teams you can’t. As was said before, we gifted a massive number of chances to Hearts and Motherwell but they did not take them but a better side did yesterday.

We will still likely be in the shake up for third but yesterday was a huge reality check. Goodwin’s comment about third being the minimum requirement was just foolish and naïve. With the greatest will in the world, third is the best you can expect with the gulf in resources there is in our league.

[manc_don]

Interesting read:
 

 

[RicoS321]

10 hours ago, manc_don said:

Interesting read:
 

 

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. 

[wokinginashearerwonderland]

"It's quick risky but it's fun to watch" 

These geeks are great entertainment with their tactics boards but the game is played on grass and there is way too much analysing goes on nowadays.  The Dons let the opposition have 36 attempts at goal on Saturday, did we have 1 on target, I think?  People who think that the reason for the thrashing was that we did not change to a back four for example, are just deluded.  Going with a back four would probably have meant one/maybe two changes to the starting line up so at least nine of them would have been the same players.  The result would have been exactly the same.  We were not beaten because of a tactical masterclass by Bronkhorse nor because of the system our team played, their players are just better than ours and also on the day we were rubbish.

We've won at Ibrox about twice in the last 30 odd years and we must have tried every formation and every system.  Other than Celtic, every team has a horrendous record at Ibrox as it is a David v Goliath job each time you face them.  It's not because of tactics it is because they sign international players and we sign players from england's league two.

 

[RicoS321]

2 hours ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

"It's quick risky but it's fun to watch" 

These geeks are great entertainment with their tactics boards but the game is played on grass and there is way too much analysing goes on nowadays.  The Dons let the opposition have 36 attempts at goal on Saturday, did we have 1 on target, I think?  People who think that the reason for the thrashing was that we did not change to a back four for example, are just deluded.  Going with a back four would probably have meant one/maybe two changes to the starting line up so at least nine of them would have been the same players.  The result would have been exactly the same.  We were not beaten because of a tactical masterclass by Bronkhorse nor because of the system our team played, their players are just better than ours and also on the day we were rubbish.

We've won at Ibrox about twice in the last 30 odd years and we must have tried every formation and every system.  Other than Celtic, every team has a horrendous record at Ibrox as it is a David v Goliath job each time you face them.  It's not because of tactics it is because they sign international players and we sign players from england's league two.

 

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.

Edited October 31, 2022 by RicoS321

[wokinginashearerwonderland]

The Livi example is fine Rico if you are happy with your team parking the bus which Livi do quite a lot.  They have had so many one nils or been beaten by the odd goal and only managing a couple of shots at the opponents goal. Our fans would just not accept it if we set up to play that way.

Regardless of formation and approach, I blame the players.  If you play with five defenders you should not be giving anyone 36 shots at goal if you are doing your job.  I just think we cannot defend properly and in most league games we can get away with it because the opponents are mince but when we come up against proper teams we get found out. 

[RicoS321]

1 hour ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

The Livi example is fine Rico if you are happy with your team parking the bus which Livi do quite a lot.  They have had so many one nils or been beaten by the odd goal and only managing a couple of shots at the opponents goal. Our fans would just not accept it if we set up to play that way.

Regardless of formation and approach, I blame the players.  If you play with five defenders you should not be giving anyone 36 shots at goal if you are doing your job.  I just think we cannot defend properly and in most league games we can get away with it because the opponents are mince but when we come up against proper teams we get found out. 

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.

[Panda]

14 hours ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

We've won at Ibrox about twice in the last 30 odd years

It's actually three wins at Ibrox in five and a bit years. Four in Glasgow if you include the Hampden win.

We also were two poor refereeing decisions away from winning at Ibrox last season.

14 hours ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

 

.  It's not because of tactics it is because they sign international players and we sign players from england's league two.

Not a single player in our team on Saturday was signed from League Two.

The poorest player in red is a North Macedonian internationalist.

 

 

 

[Panda]

As critical as I was of our performance on Saturday, I do think we're not far away from being a good team.

We need two defenders (you know Michael Hector is still a free agent? Criminal really) we could go with the below line-up and I'd be confident we'd finish third, win the League Cup and bottle the Scottish Cup semi to St Johnstone.

 

[OrlandoDon]

35 minutes ago, Panda said:

As critical as I was of our performance on Saturday, I do think we're not far away from being a good team.

We need two defenders (you know Michael Hector is still a free agent? Criminal really) we could go with the below line-up and I'd be confident we'd finish third, win the League Cup and bottle the Scottish Cup semi to St Johnstone.

 

I don’t see two up top as the way forward, or three at the back. We just don’t have a strong enough midfield to play two up top. I think relying on two very lightweight center mids is a tough ask.
i agree though, I don’t think we are far from a bad team. think we weren’t far away with a back 4 and ramadani and mccrorie in midfield. I hear very different opinions of mccrorie but early season he proved to be a very effective midfielder. miovski up top with Duk as the john Hewitt off the bench.

where we have failed is wide and attacking mid. hayes continues to be our best winger and I see vinnie, kennedy, Watkins, and Morris as squad fillers, Morris in particular a panic buy. Still feel Ronan at 10 and another legit winger are needed. Maybe Roberts is the answer, but presently I’d rather see Duncan play over kennedy or Morris.

I think Stewart is a tough one. I don’t see us enough to really judge but he seems a really good leader and a solid player, just not for us if we expect to be a top 3 team. Is he really much of an upgrade on ash Taylor??

[RicoS321]

6 hours ago, OrlandoDon said:

Is he really much of an upgrade on ash Taylor??

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.

[wokinginashearerwonderland]

9 hours ago, Panda said:

It's actually three wins at Ibrox in five and a bit years. Four in Glasgow if you include the Hampden win.

We also were two poor refereeing decisions away from winning at Ibrox last season.

Not a single player in our team on Saturday was signed from League Two.

The poorest player in red is a North Macedonian internationalist.

 

 

 

You're being a bit pedantic dude.  We have a shite record at Ibrox was the point I was making, sorry for missing out one win in about 60 attempts. If you want to be pernickety, Rangers were a bit of luck away from winning 10-1 on Saturday which is a bit more relevant than two poor refereeing decisions last season. We bought our right back from Notts Forest's reserves and we have just signed someone from Turriff United, again you know my point, you're just being a eejit.

[Panda]

5 hours ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

You're being a bit pedantic dude.  We have a shite record at Ibrox was the point I was making, sorry for missing out one win in about 60 attempts.

It's not pedantic to say that results and performances 10/15/20 years ago under different managers and players is irrelevant.

In the past five and a half years we've won three, drawn twice, and beat them at Hampden.

Seven days previously Livingston drew there.

It's not unrealistic to have expected us to have gone there and competed. 

Had we gone there, put in a performance, but just been outplayed by a good team, then I would take your point. But we were so poor that most teams in the Premiership would have beat us comfortably.

That's the point I'm making. Putting Rangers on a pedestal and saying "we'll take it on the chin" to quote Jim Goodwin infuriates me, because it's making excuses for our own inability to play better than we should be. Goodwin's post-match interview smacked of a St Mirren manager talking. Saturday was completely unacceptable for any Aberdeen team. 

I can accept losing to them. But I can't accept that meek performance.

5 hours ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

 

We bought our right back from Notts Forest's reserves 

And Rangers bought their right back from Wigan reserves.

Let's go through the Dundee United squad and all their multi-million pound players since they skelped us 4-0.

Or Hibs, since they rather easily beat us at Easter Road.

We've won at Tynecastle three times in 12 years if you want to talk about records.

We were shit on Saturday. Rangers summer spending has nothing to do with that. Historic results from the Dick Advocaat era are irrelevant. It's on Jim Goodwin and the players.

You're correct on one thing though, I am an eejit. Can't help that I'm afraid.

[wokinginashearerwonderland]

1 hour ago, Panda said:

It's not pedantic to say that results and performances 10/15/20 years ago under different managers and players is irrelevant.

In the past five and a half years we've won three, drawn twice, and beat them at Hampden.

Seven days previously Livingston drew there.

It's not unrealistic to have expected us to have gone there and competed. 

Had we gone there, put in a performance, but just been outplayed by a good team, then I would take your point. But we were so poor that most teams in the Premiership would have beat us comfortably.

That's the point I'm making. Putting Rangers on a pedestal and saying "we'll take it on the chin" to quote Jim Goodwin infuriates me, because it's making excuses for our own inability to play better than we should be. Goodwin's post-match interview smacked of a St Mirren manager talking. Saturday was completely unacceptable for any Aberdeen team. 

I can accept losing to them. But I can't accept that meek performance.

And Rangers bought their right back from Wigan reserves.

Let's go through the Dundee United squad and all their multi-million pound players since they skelped us 4-0.

Or Hibs, since they rather easily beat us at Easter Road.

We've won at Tynecastle three times in 12 years if you want to talk about records.

We were shit on Saturday. Rangers summer spending has nothing to do with that. Historic results from the Dick Advocaat era are irrelevant. It's on Jim Goodwin and the players.

You're correct on one thing though, I am an eejit. Can't help that I'm afraid.

Panda, I think you and those who blame the performance on tactics/formations/approach are missing the true reason for what happened on Saturday which is mental toughness.  You are absolutely right to say that most teams in the premiership would have beaten us on Saturday playing like that but the reality is, we don't play like that against other teams.  The reason the record over the last 20/30 or however many years is totally relevant is because the playing conditions remain the same irrespective of the personnel.  It's the big occasion, the away crowd and handling the expectation from your own fans. No fancy formations on a tactics board can stop your players from pooping themselves in the Ibrox tunnel. 

It's interesting that you mention the 2018 semi final.  Take a look down our team sheet that day and compare it to the one from Saturday, it's like chalk and cheese in terms of character. 

  

[Elgindon]

Had a look at St Mirrens results over the few years Goodwin was in charge.Took the occasional pasting off the Infirm,but also gave good accounts of themselves against them at other times,with a win or 2 thrown in.Most games against the rest of the teams were pretty close affairs

  St Mirren 2020-21 Fixtures and Results - Football - Sports Mole

   Not arguing he got things wrong on Saturday,but should we allow that, due to the pace and volume of player turnover this season,that aspects of player suitability to how we wanted to set up,were overlooked as a result?

    Dont dislike Stewart,..or Scales,but as a pairing,there seems to be a lack of McKenna/Taylor type presence there,.....and Richardson,a seeming lost cause at R/B,which going by the speculation,Goodwin seems to have acknowledged.

    Lot of things still to sort out,including midfield(Clarkson,good on his day,but beginning to look a bit of a luxury),hence why I was prepared to write off this season.Think he'll get there in time,...if he's given the time

    

   

[OrlandoDon]

4 hours ago, wokinginashearerwonderland said:

Panda, I think you and those who blame the performance on tactics/formations/approach are missing the true reason for what happened on Saturday which is mental toughness.  You are absolutely right to say that most teams in the premiership would have beaten us on Saturday playing like that but the reality is, we don't play like that against other teams.  The reason the record over the last 20/30 or however many years is totally relevant is because the playing conditions remain the same irrespective of the personnel.  It's the big occasion, the away crowd and handling the expectation from your own fans. No fancy formations on a tactics board can stop your players from pooping themselves in the Ibrox tunnel. 

It's interesting that you mention the 2018 semi final.  Take a look down our team sheet that day and compare it to the one from Saturday, it's like chalk and cheese in terms of character. 

  

That’s a very bold statement re mental toughness. How well do you know these players??

[OrlandoDon]

3 hours ago, Elgindon said:

Had a look at St Mirrens results over the few years Goodwin was in charge.Took the occasional pasting off the Infirm,but also gave good accounts of themselves against them at other times,with a win or 2 thrown in.Most games against the rest of the teams were pretty close affairs

  St Mirren 2020-21 Fixtures and Results - Football - Sports Mole

   Not arguing he got things wrong on Saturday,but should we allow that, due to the pace and volume of player turnover this season,that aspects of player suitability to how we wanted to set up,were overlooked as a result?

    Dont dislike Stewart,..or Scales,but as a pairing,there seems to be a lack of McKenna/Taylor type presence there,.....and Richardson,a seeming lost cause at R/B,which going by the speculation,Goodwin seems to have acknowledged.

    Lot of things still to sort out,including midfield(Clarkson,good on his day,but beginning to look a bit of a luxury),hence why I was prepared to write off this season.Think he'll get there in time,...if he's given the time

    

   

Yup. Sadly it’s a transitional year. With the new coach and a complete squad overhaul it’s a tough ask to get it right in a matter of weeks. On average at least half the signings won’t be good enough. I’d say this year it’s more of an assessment of goodwin and whether he has the ability to build and coach a squad.