Big 'un this!

No idea what to expect this Saturday, Cowden were in a bit of a slump until the weekend when they comfortably beat an Elgin side who by all accounts were fancied by some to cause another upset, from a personal point of view we look in decent shape going in despite not winning on Saturday, we were highly unlukcy not to take the 3 points although I'm sure the Cowden fans can sympathise with that after the daylight robbery we performed on them earlier in the season.

Don't know much team news yet although I would expect Jordan Smith won't play for a while so it will again be a back 4 of Lyle-Ovenstone-Thom-McGroarty - should be interesting to see how we handle Gemmell as he gave us a bit of a torrid time in the reverse fixture. We were still without Stevie Desmond and Fergie at the weekend, remains to be seen if they can get back for this one, we could do with one returning as Motion will miss out which is a huge blow for us (although I am not sure what the ruling is, does Motion miss out definitely?) but with the likes of Brand starting to hit form hopefully it won't matter too much. Hope wee Lovey gets a start again as his pace can trouble anyone in this league and he is probably the only guy in our team that has that ability in his arsenal.

It will be difficult for us to still be top after this weekend with a difficult away fixture and Dumbarton playing a very winnable match away to the Shire, but hopefully we can avoid defeat and keep confidence up.

Thoughts please?

I think a straight red means automatic 1 match ban while points are totted up, though he surely can't have enough points to deserve a further ban this early in the season.

I was quite impressed with Love on Saturday, tricky guy who's difficult to shake off the ball, though his final ball could be better. Mind you, a la Carcary & Murray, if their final ball was a lot more consistent, then they wouldn't be playing division 3. Love seems a good out if your defence are under pressure though, from what I saw at the weekend.

Probably like Cowden fans at the weekend, I'm hoping a draw between you while we hopefully take care of the Shire. I think both Sons and Stenny will have to be better than last weekend if that's going to happen, I still stick with my view in the other thread that both sides played poorly at the weekend. Mind you (Devils Advocate), you can only play as well as the opposition let you, so maybe both teams played well defensively?

I was of the opinion that the main reason it wasn't the greatest spectacle was because the two teams cancelled eachother out, there weren't many unforced errors and both teams moved it around well. Of course both had a man down very early on as well, I thought it was a decent showing to be fair.

I think that this will be a very tight game and could go either way by the odd goal. I more expect a 0-0 or 1-1 draw though. Mind you my predictions are always crap. Cowden managed to find their scoring touch at long last against Elgin but we tend to have a very defensive style of play about us. We do however have a score to settle with Stenny after the last game and i am looking forward to the game already. Good news for Cowden also concerning Motions suspension . Does anybody know how big Mbu's injury is coming along and when he may be back for us?.

This is one of the games that I would give anything to go to but cant

Will take a draw right now to keep us in touch but hopefully Lennon will have the boys fired up and we can sneak a win

Like last week I will take the draw before kick off but we are capable of getting the three even without Smith, Ferguson and Motion.

I believe the Animal is starting up front for them now with Gemmell dropped and we all know the ability of Dempster when he is on his game he could be just a handful as Gemmell was earlier in the season.

I wonder if McEwan will come in to the team to do a marking job on Tomana with a space available because of Motion's send off?

Draw please

This will be the 1st, and hopefully the only, game i will miss this season as i am away galavanting in Inverness for the weekend. Gutted that im missing it but i feel we will get a result. Cant see anything other than a draw, we might sneek it if we are clinical and Tomana is 100%

Edited for being a muppet

The beast isnae in the huff already is he???
be prepared for the transfer request to Benburb or similar

Both teams to have a 22-man brawl and get deducted ten points each, please

Really looking forward to Saturday. After seeing Cowdenbeath earlier in the season I believe if we can nullify the threat of Tomana we should be ok.

Everything has been said in posts above.

0-2.

cowden to win 2-1

Am sure if Cowden can put a banging donk on it, they can win this by a couple.

And I'm sure Cowden aren't a group of 17 year old wannabes.

Im sure this will be a tough fixture for both sides. Having witnessed the onslaught that cowden gave stenny at ochilview this season i expect a pretty similar game this time round. Motion wll be a big miss for stenny after his smash and grab winner last time but there is enough quality in the side to deal with his absence.

Cowden blackout crew 0 Stenny 1 (Brand 88)

Put a donk on that!

's a donk?

A Donk

Here to help.

I know what it's in refernece to but I'm not sure what it is.

It's all very confusing.

Get on the youtube or google and search for 'black out crew - put a donk on it'

All will be revealed

Worked the last time when you had two or three defenders booting the shit out of him before he had to go off injured. Take it it will be the same tactic on Saturday

Judging by the way Willie Lyle went through Stevie Murray on Saturday in the first minute, I would say it probably will be aye!

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Pretty cynical - different defender booting him each time - could have been coincidence of course.

As long as we stop him playing and don't pick up too many bookings or a sending off then get in about him I say. You can't let a guy like Tomana do what he wants on these occasions or your asking for a pumping.

It's good to see you recognise his quality but a bit disturbing that you would be quite happy to see him getting booted off the park. Can we take it that Coughlin's instructions to your guys will be stop Tomana at all costs? Personally, I hope he runs your defence ragged and lays on a few goals for our strikers.

Sadly this is the way of football. If they had Marek id be saying get realy tight on him and let him know you are there. Hopefully he manages to rip the piss so no one gets near him. With Shields and McGregor we could easily out fight them in the midfield battle anyway. C'mon the beath, give them a doing

Bit disappointing if you set-up to play like that. With McGregor and Shields in the midfield we should have a bit of bite in there too. How's Scott Dalziel been playing - I think he will come back to haunt Cowden this saturday - hate to say it but Stenny to win 0-2.

I'm not saying we will be set up solely to stop Tomana I was merely saying we can't allow him space to do what he wants.

We have enough good players for Cowdenbeath to worry about going in the other direction make no mistake about that. Love, Brand, Thomson and Shirra are all capable scorers from midfield as well as Dazzler.

Regarding Dalziel I think he is having a great season for us, not littered with goals but a few important strikes and his work rate for the team is brilliant. Plays the lone forward role tremendously well and I wouldn't swap him for anyone in the league.

I liked Dalziel when he was at Cowden but he had one big handicap - far too slow otherwise he has pretty much everything.
If Stenny have managed to get him a bit fitter/faster he could come back to haunt us but never did anything the first game and got subbed.
2-0 Cowden.

Get on Google and search for Fractional Reserve Banking, and come back when you understand it.

See you in a year or two.

What a load of pish. Yes I understand that you want your best player to be able to shine through and everything but this is the third division, it's bordering on a kickabout down the park with your mates. For me (and I'd like to think for any football fan) it's win at all costs; and if that means nailing a wee guy who doesn't want to rip his tights so be it. I don't want any long term damage, that's just not nice, but if it means he can't play for the rest of the game, fine.

With everyone complaining about the likes of Drogba and co. falling down like a big ol' sack of tatties everytime the wind blows them over, and how football is a man's game and players like that are ruining it, at the other end of the spectrum (in both the fouling aspect and the actual football aspect) you have the lower leagues where everything is 100 mph and can be very physical. If a player can't handle it then maybe they should either deal with it, or piss off somewhere else.

To be honest I think Cowden fans should get off their high horses. You complain about the treatment of Tomana and then go on to say how you'll 'have more bite in the midfield'. That statements not got a bit of malice in it at all, has it?

If Tomana goes off greeting again I suppose it will give the Cowden fans another excuse if we get a result.

There is a difference between putting in hard tackles, and actually singling out a player for a kicking. If we give Tomana little time, and put in very hard but legal challenges on him, then his sand-dancer nature will mean he is more likely to shirk out of challenges and underperform for the rest of the game.

Saying that, I'd expect Willie Lyle to absolutely crunch him within the first 10 minutes of the game

We seem to play the better teams in the league in a string of games, followed by the lower teams. At worst, we will come out of Saturday's game a point off the top, with these games to follow..........

Shire (h)
Berwick (a)
Albion (h)
Forfar (a)
Annan (h)
Shire (h)

Obviously these will still be very tough games, but we are more likely to get wins in these games than we are against Montrose, Cowden and Dumbarton.

By staying in the hunt until this point, we can hopefully use this run of fixtures to pick up more points than our title rivals, who will probably be playing and dropping points to each other during this time.

Edit - Dalziel does so much running and wins so many flick ons that he is very valuable for thses assets alone, but in his 26 games for us, he has 14 goals, which is a goals to games ratio of 0.54. Any striker would be proud of such a ratio and it's particularly impressive given all the other aspects of play he contributes to.

That was my thinking as well Fudge, ultimately it shouldn't mean too much what happens in this game - all that is really at stake at the moment is early bragging rights. I think we're in the driving seat with the games we have coming up and hopefully we can kick on regardless of this Saturdays outcome.

what was our excuse when we got beat last time like??

Had a look through the thread on the last game, have a look for yourself. Pages 4 and 5 contain the likes of;











So to answer your question, the main excuse for the defeat last time was the Tomana 'injury', as Dubs previously stated.

Looking at the quotes i cant see where we have used Tomana going off as an excuse that we got beat. Even when tomana went off we still should have won but didnt end of. If tomana doesnt make saturday (has a slight injury through another reckless tackle on him!) then I think the squad is more than capable of getting a positive result.

Mcregor is a hardy guy and is extremly hard in the tackle but fair so hopefully he can win some key 50/50s on saturday as midfield is where it might be won or lost.
Mone the cowden.

Im not too bothered about what Stenny get up to, they are a quality side with a good manager so it will it will be tough for Cowden this Saturday. If you are going to quote me stop taking my statements out of context - I said that with McGregor & Shields in the team, we will have a bit of bite in the midfield as well - no more or no less than any other team in Div 3. On Sat I want to see a decent game of football that doesn't descend into a kicking match.

Hopefully the Cowden will be up for it for the 1st to last minute. Mon The Cowden

And if Andrew Brand gets kicked off the park, you won't use that as an excuse.

We won't need to.




Hopefully...

I doubt it, football is a contact sport and I feel if someone puts a dangerous tackle in more often than not the referee will deal with it appropriately - at Ochilview, Tomana had a few hard but fair challenges on him and limped off. I think it's been exaggerated over the time that has passed, I would say some of the treatement Steve Murray got from us on Saturday was far worse. That's why I'm calling it an excuse, I don't think it's as cut-and-dried as 'we kicked lumps out of Tomana' - I just think we were commited but fair. We wouldn't have finished with 11 men if we had been tackling with malice and intent IMO.

I don't think the game will come down to who targets who, it will come down to who defends better. If we can cut out any silly mistakes and get a bit of luck (and can nullify Tomana, whatever that means), we will probably win again.

Cowden to win 2-0

Andrew Brand is Scottish and was brought up playing in Scottish amateur and boys clubs leagues where the game is physical and an attacking midfielder like him would have been kicked senseless every week. As a result, he is quite wtough qhen it comes to being challenged and it doesn't really phase him.

On the other hand, Tomana is a sand dancer, who was brought up in a country where tackles are almost outlawed, and cheating, diving and simulation are rife. He can't handle a meaty challenge, and will disappear from the game if touched.

That is the main difference.

That post is laughable.

As laughable as Tomana's play acting skills.

Whilst the post was a tad tongue in cheek, you can't argue that Tomana was reluctant to get involved in any physicality in the game at Ochilview.

I don't think he was seriously injured when he went off, was he?

so you admit - tomana gets kicked etc yet he is still play acting mmmm funny that?

I think tomana has a great attitude to being targeted week in week out.Doesnt really complain whereas we have a player like gemmell who goes mental at everyone if he is pushed out of the way for a header.

im not even sure if tomana is fit or not for tomorrow.Anyone confirm?

Unless he landed awkwardly after performing one of his customary triple somersaults followed by a backwards pike whenever an opposition player comes within tackling range.

G Thom will have tomana nestling in his back pocket next to his loose change anyway

Gonna be playing the gillette soccer special drinking game tomorrow to ensure that my nerves dont get the better of me