[Cliche Guevara]

There are a lot of different factors in place - but there is no substitute for natural talent.

Regarding the set-pieces, that's another one that rears its head regularly. I simply don't see how full-time clubs can practice set-pieces to any meaningful effect. I've never really seen any evidence of a team benefiting from a set-piece that has been worked on in training (other than a cheeky wee free-kick routine that tends to work once, fail a couple of times then be consigned to history). I just don't see how the time available is sufficient to produce any fruit either.

What you need up-front is a guy who can put in a decent delivery and someone who is good in the air or sharp in the box. In defence a confident keeper who can come for crosses, and catch a ball cleanly, along with some brute centre-half who wins everything in the air and can head the ball as far as the half-way line are the order of the day. You can't teach those things on a training ground.

The idea that there is some orchestrated performanced that has been heavily rehearsed, in order to leave the poor part-time posties and brickies bamboozled, is non-existant in my experience.

This post has been edited by Cliche Guevara: 20 January 2012 - 14:30

[Flash]

Skyline Drifter, on 20 January 2012 - 14:21, said:

Absolutely.

For all your usual "glass half empty" approach to things there's normally clear logic in your analysis but I just don't follow your point here at all. If the clubs you currently don't think are good enough to justify full time status go part time instead the point just moves, it doesn't go away. There's no clearly massive gap in Scottish football between standards a place or two apart.

Agree to differ completely on this one I think.

I'm not saying the ones who are full-time should go part-time. What I'm saying is full-time should be better than part-time and if it isn't, the people in charge and the players should be embarrassed. Then they should be sacked.
However, there will always be people willing to make excuses for the incompetent.

[toms]

Flash, on 20 January 2012 - 14:34, said:

I'm not saying the ones who are full-time should go part-time. What I'm saying is full-time should be better than part-time and if it isn't, the people in charge and the players should be embarrassed. Then they should be sacked.
However, there will always be people willing to make excuses for the incompetent.

Are you talking about Gus and Andy here?

[comeonyebairns]

Hopefully accies, if not QOS will do

[accies4life]

comeonyebairns, on 20 January 2012 - 15:56, said:

Hopefully accies, if not QOS will do

well where did this come from did we offend you in some way

[GI 10-4-99]

accies4life, on 20 January 2012 - 16:11, said:

well where did this come from did we offend you in some way

Hamiltons mere presence is enough to offend

[accies4life]

GI 10-4-99, on 20 January 2012 - 16:18, said:

Hamiltons mere presence is enough to offend

oh great another arrogant morton fan to piss everybody off look out vikingTON and mckee you've got competition

[LiviLion]

accies4life, on 20 January 2012 - 16:11, said:

well where did this come from did we offend you in some way

You didn't invite them to your birthday party.

[Monkey Tennis]

Cliche Guevara, on 20 January 2012 - 14:24, said:

Regarding the set-pieces, that's another one that rears its head regularly. I simply don't see how full-time clubs can practice set-pieces to any meaningful effect. I've never really seen any evidence of a team benefiting from a set-piece that has been worked on in training (other than a cheeky wee free-kick routine that tends to work once, fail a couple of times then be consigned to history). I just don't see how the time available is sufficient to produce any fruit either.

I don't agree with this bit.
You're right in that intricate, dress rehearsed moves are rarely in evidence, but I don't think that's what other posters mean - it's certainly not what I'm meaning.

Where time on the training ground should be able to help is in setting up defensively, whether in sorting areas to be covered, or specific people to be picked up ahead of Saturday's game.

Even more fruitfully potentially, it's not unreasonable that designated takers of free-kicks and corners should be expected to spend time working on their delivery, hitting certain areas and targets. Full-time contracts should surely facilitate the spending of time on such things, more readily than part-time ones.

I'm not the biggest critic of Scott McLaughlin among our support - for me, he's no worse than several others and has at least chipped in with some goals which have otherwise proved elusive.
He usually gets the job of delivering our set pieces though and frequently makes an astonishingly bad job of it. I'd have thought he, and indeed anyone charged with this job, should practise it like hell. As a fulltime player, he's surely in a position to do so.
Perhaps he does of course, which would raise more questions about Gus than about him.

This post has been edited by Monkey Tennis: 20 January 2012 - 19:55

[itzdrk]

Monkey Tennis, on 20 January 2012 - 18:44, said:

Scott McLaughlin
He usually gets the job of delivering our set pieces though and frequently makes an astonishingly bad job of it. I'd have thought he, and indeed anyone charged with this job, should practise it like hell. As a fulltime player, he's surely in a position to do so.
Perhaps he does of course, which would raise more questions about Gus than about him.

he took everything for us last year and it was all these shockingly terrible short free kicks and blazing over the bar efforts, he apparently took everything at airdrie aswell

its bizzare how hes got away with it 3 clubs in a row

[comeonyebairns]

accies4life, on 20 January 2012 - 16:11, said:

well where did this come from did we offend you in some way

Style of play, shite crowds and orrible liitle c**t of a manager

[mcintyre_gmfc]

Dont know why people are saying morton will go down, Obviously wont be even near relegation. Ayr to go down.

[Monkey Tennis]

comeonyebairns, on 20 January 2012 - 19:14, said:

Style of play, shite crowds and orrible liitle c**t of a manager

Well the two clubs that cause me greatest offence, have the least shite crowds in the country, so I don't see that as much of a yardstick for such things.

[comeonyebairns]

mcintyre_gmfc, on 20 January 2012 - 19:59, said:

Dont know why people are saying morton will go down, Obviously wont be even near relegation. Ayr to go down.

morton have goals in them comfy mid table i would think

[AsimButtHitsASix]

accies4life, on 20 January 2012 - 16:38, said:

oh great another arrogant morton fan to piss everybody off look out vikingTON and mckee you've got competition

Morton fans aren't arrogant: just better

[Cliche Guevara]

Monkey Tennis, on 20 January 2012 - 18:44, said:

I don't agree with this bit.
You're right in that intricate, dress rehearsed moves are rarely in evidence, but I don't think that's what other posters mean - it's certainly not what I'm meaning.

Where time on the training ground should be able to help is in setting up defensively, whether in sorting areas to be covered, or specific people to be picked up ahead of Saturday's game.

You can't legislate for what the opposition are going to do though.

I mean are you going to spend a morning having your whole team standing around the penalty box while McLaughlin punts the ball in again and again? Telling defenders to do this or that, then on the Saturday the opposition's delivery is completely different to McLaughlin's - short corner, in-swinger, out-swinger - there's only so much room in the box anyway. Or, maybe even the same delivery but the opposition gets on the end of it anyway.

Then in attack you only manage to win three corners all game - one doesn't clear the first man, second cleanly caught by the keeper, and the third headed over the bar by your striker.

Net effect = complete waste of time.

Even if you do work on defending set-pieces, once it's done it's done - probably to no greater extent than a part-time team. I just don't see that there's that much scope for efficacious intervention on set-pieces etc.

This post has been edited by Cliche Guevara: 20 January 2012 - 20:47

[Monkey Tennis]

Cliche Guevara, on 20 January 2012 - 20:32, said:

Then in attack you only manage to win three corners all game - one doesn't clear the first man, second cleanly caught by the keeper, and the third headed over the bar by your striker.

Net effect = complete waste of time.

You're defeating your own argument here though mate.

If such skills were practised, the taker should be virtually able to ensure that his corners always clear the first man.

Of course there are variables in the game which is what makes it worth watching. The idea that you can't legislate for what the opposition do, so needn't work on doing things, doesn't really work though.

It's like saying you shouldn't practise taking penalties because you can't recreate the tension, or legislate for what the 'keeper might do. I thought only England managers felt this way.

This post has been edited by Monkey Tennis: 20 January 2012 - 21:04

[vikingTON]

utdtillidie, on 19 January 2012 - 22:19, said:

Ah you Morton fans are hilarious. I take it your having your fun after being our bitches for the late 90's and 00's. Judging by the vitriolic pish on these forums we must have really scarred you.

At least you made the most of your Bill Barr bubble (by winning something of significance) before it burst and you reverted to type - being distinctly inferior to big teams like ourselves. Just as you have been for over 100 years of misery and unrelenting failure.

This post has been edited by vikingTON: 20 January 2012 - 20:56

[Cliche Guevara]

Yeah but you see professional footballers failing to clear the first man time and again - even at the highest level. It's not for the want of practice or ability.

The penalty argument doesn't stand up either, I'd have to say, as in that situation you would be practising striking the ball - nothing else comes into play. If you work on your technique and get comfortable with raking a penalty into the top corner repeatedly, then you will probably be a bit more confident in a game situation. Although I don't know if practising penalties has anything more than a psycholical benefit.

I was going to use the word 'variables' myself as I think it's relevant. Players will have been in a set-piece situation for ten, twenty years of playing organised football. I'd reckon it was fairly standard stuff and if we all got together for a game, we probably wouldn't do that much different from professionals - pick up a man each, track the run and clear the ball if we get near it. Couple of boys on each post.

[Monkey Tennis]

Cliche Guevara, on 20 January 2012 - 21:02, said:

The penalty argument doesn't stand up either, I'd have to say, as in that situation you would be practising striking the ball - nothing else comes into play. If you work on your technique and get comfortable with raking a penalty into the top corner repeatedly, then you will probably be a bit more confident in a game situation.

Surely the same logic must apply with the delivery of free-kicks and corners.
Obviously, other players and factors come into play as to what ultimately comes of such an opportunity, but in terms of where you send a dead ball, it's not a huge leap to suggest that working on it should help.

[RoversMad]

Judging from some of the "football" I've watched this season I'd have to agree that training is a complete waste of time

[Cliche Guevara]

If you can fire it straight into the net then yeah, maybe.

[Monkey Tennis]

Cliche Guevara, on 20 January 2012 - 21:18, said:

If you can fire it straight into the net then yeah, maybe.

Yes, but I'm talking specifically about the delivery of the dead ball. If it's decent, the chances of a goal resulting are improved. I'm not talking about people scoring directly from corners, so there's little point in pretending that I am.

I'd imagine that Rory McElroy probably practises with his 5-iron quite often, not with the hope of holing out from 200 odd yards very often, but with the hope of putting it in the right areas when he needs to.

[RoversMad]

^^^ irony alert

[accies4life]

AsimButtHitsASix, on 20 January 2012 - 20:11, said:

Morton fans aren't arrogant: just better

is that your motto