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Ross County v Motherwell 04/11/17


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Excitement for this one is obviously palpable.

Big game for us though, on the back of a defeat last week and with our next 3 league fixtures being Aberdeen away and then a double header against Celtic we could really do with picking up something here.

Interested to see what Robinson does in this one. Our last away game he started Bigi and Tanner and we probably played some of our best football this season, until we ran out of steam and we improved 2nd half Saturday with those two coming on at half time. However would he be willing to sacrifice the solidity that the Rose, McHugh, Campbell trio gives you for a bit more attacking intent? I’m not so sure at this stage, I could see one of them starting but not both, also think Tait will be back in for Frear.

Anyway how have Ross County got on under Coyle, much improvement?

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I think there is some milage in changing the way we play when we aren't playing the "bigger" clubs. I think when we have to be solid and try to stay in the game first and foremost, Robinson's tactic of having our "hard to beat" lineup on for the first 60-70 mins and then bringing on our more creative players to try and win it has been sound so far - but when we are playing a team with similar levels of resources and ability to us, why not try to be more creative as we did well at Dundee in the first half. I would personally like to see both Bigi and Tanner get more game time and I'd have no concerns if they started tomorrow...

The other aspect is that in the first quarter of the season, we've had the benefit of a team that aren't familiar to the opposition - and we know how it goes in our league - teams work each other out all too easily as time goes on. This season, we have a squad that allows us to send out some genuinely different teams in terms of style - and we should try to take advantage of that..

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1 hour ago, Casagolda said:

Anyway how have Ross County got on under Coyle, much improvement?

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm still waiting for a moment to be convinced that Coyle is going to be much of an improvement over McIntyre.

I admit that's pretty harsh, because:

  • Team performances have been much more steady and consistent from week to week.
  • Coyle has had a habit of putting players in their better or best positions (Draper excepted) with consistent selections, which is not something McIntyre did in his last year.
  • He's completely trusted Davis Keillor-Dunn to start every game despite his age, which is something we all wanted to see McIntyre do with the u20s.
  • He's got the team playing as well as the sum of its parts so far, which McIntyre hadn't been doing.
  • He's trying to manage McIntyre's squad and hasn't made any additions.  He is trying to make sure those of the squad he is keeping is fully won over by him before he brings other players in.
  • The bottom of the table is so tight that it's difficult to quantify the small improvements so far.

The problem lies in the team being a bit uninspiring, which isn't Coyle's fault - the squad badly needs someone on the wings with pace and a midfielder with a bit of creativity.  There is so much reliance on Naismith overlapping Gardyne.  Keillor-Dunn has quality but it's not fair to expect him to bring that to the table every week.

Coyle has been keeping things simple from a strategic point of view:  Plan A tends to be 4-1-4-1 / 4-3-3 against better teams or away from home; Plan B is 4-4-2 at home in games where they can try to play more on the front foot.  I anticipate 4-4-2 with Curran and another up front vs Motherwell, but he's not been in great form so far and each of the four strikers deserve a start for different reasons.

 

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I've managed to get a freebie so I'll be in the home end today. Hopefully County start Mikleson or Billy McKay over Schalk as they have the other times I've seen them this season.

Schalk and Mikkelsen made the difference against Hamilton imo. Curran has to be benched as he hasn’t been able to hit a cows arse with a banjo in recent weeks.

Motherwell playing well under Robinson, high up in the table and a league cup final in their pockets, gonna need to be Coyle’s best performance so far if we’re going to take all the points in this game. Need to get going from the off, recent games have been very stop-start from the go and we need to get a foothold early.

1-1. Hopefully Curran will prove me wrong.
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This will be a tough one for us I'd expect. Of the two meetings so far this season, the Cup game could have gone either way and at Fir Park County played us off the park for the first 45 minutes but just couldn't get in front before Robinson's half time changes turned the game for us, so it's a hard one to call today.

I'll be optimistic and go for 2-1 to us with Bowman getting himself on the scoresheet.

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Tait, Tanner and Bigi in. Quite bold from Robinson.

Motherwell: Carson, Tait, Bigirimana, Hartley, Cadden, McHugh, Moult, Rose, Dunne, Kipré, Tanner
Motherwell subs: Griffiths, Grimshaw, Frear, Bowman, Fisher, Petravicius, Campbell

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