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The Arbroath Thread


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Good interview with Gav just been uploaded - main things of note are that he admits he's been struggling for fitness so far but feels like he's nearly back to fully fit, and that we're aiming for the play offs at least, which several of the players have said over the past month or so. It's good to see us showing ambition, and based on the first 10 games I think we've got a superb chance of getting top 4.

I actually thought we were better against Stranraer than yesterday, as it was such a complete performance and we dominated from start to finish, whereas yesterday we benefited from several costly individual errors from Airdrie. However, I'm certainly not complaining, and it's great to see us scoring so many this season. Especially good to see Bobby/ Gav chipping in with goals/ assists from the wing - imagine if they weren't both 'finished', eh? We'd have had double figures....

Gav's performance on the wing certainly makes my 'he can't play on the wing' comments seem a bit fuckin stupid now :lol: If fitness has been an issue up to this point, and he can keep taking full backs on and beating them like Saturday then I shall definitely be proved wrong :) However, if that's the 'once a month' performance then I'd definitely stick by my original comments. Time will tell....

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In the Evening Tele that Skelly is out till Christmas and Dick is looking to bring someone in on loan. Also says that Gomes is injured.

At least they’ve made some sort of statement about Gomes. Hopefully all is well and he returns soon.

Skelly hasn’t done anything this season so won’t be too much of a miss
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Not sure we really need to loan in a replacement for skelly, with kadar, henry, prunty, hester struggling to get in the team and doris to come back a centre half might be a better option

 

Only Kader plays on the wing from them though. For centre half Yule has shown he's comfortable there. So you have Little/ToB/Hamilton then Yule. Golds shown he is good at LB and Henry can fill in at right back with Whatley as an extra option for both full back positions if we're really struggling.

 

Don't think it'll hurt to have another wide/forward option.

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 Only Kader plays on the wing from them though. For centre half Yule has shown he's comfortable there. So you have Little/ToB/Hamilton then Yule. Golds shown he is good at LB and Henry can fill in at right back with Whatley as an extra option for both full back positions if we're really struggling.

I agree we have options but i would rather have a straight replacement rather than shifting the defence about to accommodate. I.e if tob or little got injured hamilton goes to cb, gold to lb and henry fitting in at rb
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Out of interest, what do people expect as a rough return from a winger over the course of a season? The reason I ask is we have a winger who has scored twice and got 7 assists so far this season but a lot of people seem to think he is finished and that he shouldn't be in the starting line up. All of this while said player has been carrying an ongoing injury.

I know we've got understandably high aims this season, but surely considering we're only just over a quarter of the way through the season that's a rather good return, no?

Edited by SimonLichtie
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If you're on about Bobby I think it was only one person that said that to be fair.

I think he's had a very good season after a slow start personally, I spoke to Bobby after the Forfar game and he told me he had been doing extra work on a programme to help his Hamstring.

Did look like it was bothering him at start of season and it's clearly helped I think, brilliant on Saturday.

We've really taken him for granted the last couple of seasons. Lucky to have him for such a long time. Clever clever player.

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3 minutes ago, 1320Lichtie said:

If you're on about Bobby I think it was only one person that said that to be fair.

I think he's had a very good season after a slow start personally, I spoke to Bobby after the Forfar game and he told me he had been doing extra work on a programme to help his Hamstring.

Did look like it was bothering him at start of season and it's clearly helped I think, brilliant on Saturday.

We've really taken him for granted the last couple of seasons. Lucky to have him for such a long time. Clever clever player.

I've personally heard or seen around half a dozen people say he is 'finished', and while everyone is of course entitled to their opinion I simply can't understand anyones logic or why they would come to that conclusion.

I think because he's not miles ahead of the rest of the players we've got like he was in his first few years and we have a solid squad of players who are at a good level with a couple of standouts (ToB and Denholm) suddenly people think he's rubbish. If we were still rotting at the lower end of League 2 with a squad full of under par players no-one would be saying he's finished and everyone would still be singing his praises and saying thank f**k we've got him in our team.

He struggled through for 6 months of this calander year and obviously his performances dipped as he couldn't properly accelerate and beat a man which is a big part of his game. However, instead of praising him for continuing to play through this he's taken flak from some fans for his drop in performances. If Stevie Doris played through an injury for 6 months I suspect the same people would give him far more leeway and be going on about how committed he was etc.

As we continue to progress as a club on and off the park, players who were superb for us in previous years will begin to look less impressive, and ultimately there will (hopefully) come a time where some of them end up out of the starting 11 and some moving on. This doesn't mean they're performing any worse than in previous years (in Bobby's case his performances have obviously been poorer in 2017 than 2015 or 2016 for obvious reasons) it just means that our squad is of a higher standard, and we are playing games against stronger teams every week.

Against Raith, I thought Bobby Linn was awful. He didn't beat his man once, was poor in posession and was rightly subbed. Does that mean he is finished, can't cut it anymore, etc etc? Of course not - playing against a full time Raith team away from home is FAR different from playing Berwick at home and being up against a slow, overweight Michael Dunlop.

 

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I actually thought he was ok v Raith too tbf had a very hard job. But then again I'm never really too critical of any of our players.

 

Agree overall though, he's still a fans favourite, he's been here that long and probably been one of our best signings in my time supporting the club.

 

Think wingers get a harder time than a lot of players in other positions. Said on here a hundred times but they're the guys that have to go and make things happen and take people on, not going to beat your man every time and not everything's going to come off. When it does come off though it can make a big difference. Some just don't seem to get that.

 

Surely nobody will have that viewpoint now though. If we were to lose him to injury or whatever I think it would really hit home how important he is.

 

Great guy too that loves playing for us. Legend. [emoji12]

 

 

ETA: also, when everything's as good as it is at the moment, there's always something negative that people have to start debating or discussing.[emoji6]

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We should be grateful to Bobby Linn for the times he, in effect, carried the team in the past. Every player will have a dip in form at sometime or other especially if they are carrying an injury, so to suggest he is finished is nonsense. Comparisons between him and Steven Doris cannot be made, they are completely different players playing different games but neither ever hide on the pitch, are team players and assets to the club.

Hopefully Bobby is back to full fitness and we will continue to see him at the top of his game for the foreseeable future. With the better players we have now in the side he shouldn't have to carry so much weight of expectation and enjoy playing his own game again.

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My only issue with Bobby (for the entire time he has been with us) is his tendancy to run back to the halfway line to look to recieve a pass..... especially when our player with the ball is less than 5 yards from it.

At times i wish he just made that wee run past their full back. or got close enough that he may create space for our striker as their centre back would be thinking about moving over to cover Linn's run, especially when they know how much damage he can do. He would also be in a great position to recieve a pass or make a run to the back post if the play shifted elsewhere.

I know he is great with he ball, but sometimes he just needs to stay forward and allow his teammates to pass to him in a more advanced position rather than at the halfway line. a quick counter attack can really unnerve defences and Bobby certainly has it in him to tear a defence to shreds on the counter attack.

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Bobby was looking like he had lost a yard at the start of the season and so would be understandable if people thought he was on the decline.

Since then it's been revealed he's been carrying an injury, rested and treated for it and come back looking much fresher and producing.

 

 

Same goes for Swankie too. His performances up until Saturday had been underwhelming but if he hasn't been fully fit (not helped by a pre-season interrupted with his wedding, honeymoon etc) then we can have a bit of optimism that he'll kick on.

 

With the likes of Linn, Doris, Swankie, Gold and McCord in our squad, we're probably witnessing the most talented group of players at Gayfield in a generation. Even the team that John Brownlie kept up in what is now the Championship didn't have this kind of technical ability.

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