ShineOnYouCrazyDiamonds
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Everything posted by ShineOnYouCrazyDiamonds
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Watson motm for me yesterday, think it was possibly his best performance in an Airdrie shirt. Draw probably a fair result but both sides had their chances to win. At times a very frantic and exciting match, but all became a bit stop-start in the second half. Obviously we were without Gallagher and McGill today but it definitely feels like we lacked someone capable of coming off the bench to make a difference. Would love to see another forward in before the window shuts. Thought McGregor done really well yesterday. Hasn’t played much for weeks and came back in playing out of position and while he didn’t so anything spectacular he caused a lot of problems and even won a few headers. Didn’t really seem a downgrade on McGill (based on this season’s McGill rather than last season’s) -
If O’Connor doesn’t start tomorrow he never will. Agree that he’s offered very little and I can’t say I’d expect much from him if he does start but it’ll be awful for his confidence if McGregor starts over him out of position or if the shape that’s been working is changed purely to avoid starting him. I feel O’Connor’s in a similar place as McGregor was last season where you can see he has pace but he doesn’t appear to have much else. A run in the team worked wonders for McGregor and it might be the same for O’Connor. I’m not saying I’d be confident of him playing well, or even that he’s earned the chance, but it might be worth giving him a chance by bringing him into a team that’s playing well and getting results when he is the obvious replacement given the fitness issues that others have.
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Shankland will be at Rangers by then and Hearts won’t know how to play without him
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Probably on higher wages than we’d be willing to pay, but Cammy Kerr is a right back so could be a Megwa replacement and I think we’d all be happy to see a another striker join. I do think they’re probably both out of our reach though.
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Could have been more. Easy peasy and never in doubt
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Presumably it’s either going to be Easton or Smith playing on the left for Raith today and I’m really looking forward to seeing Megwa come up against either
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That's a massive win today. Seems surreal considering recent performances and results that we're actually sitting fifth, but that's where we are halfway through the season and you have to be happy with that. Still important to get a couple of players in to improve our first team in my opinion, but really good win today. Even better that we also stopped the team in last place from picking up any points.
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Actually felt quite good about that lineup when I saw it, turns out I was massively wrong. Obvious issue us that we aren’t just failing to score, we’re failing to even threaten the opposition keeper. I thought the defence were fine, Megwa solid, McCabe and Fordyce didn’t do much wrong, and Hancock done well too. Hard to praise anyone further up the park apart from McGregor. The midfield and forwards aren’t creating anything. I think a lot of it is to do with players simply being too slow and weak. Gallagher is getting nowhere near as much time on the ball as he did in League One and it really shows. By the time he receives a pass and gets the ball under control there’s a player or two on top of him. Frizz seems to have no confidence whatsoever and you very rarely see him threading a through ball forwards or driving at players anymore. Definitely need something in January and not just Aiken’s return (although hopefully that will help). Would bite your hand for 8th now.
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Might seem a bit obvious and signing this type of player is easier said than done but what we really miss is a player than can produce something out of nothing. In recent years we’ve had Turner, McInroy, Easton, and to a lesser extent Smith. Frizz has his moments but he’s been a bit off the boil and more a player that works well within the team at his best, rather than someone capable of individual brilliance to turn a game on its head. You put someone like Dylan Easton into this team and those moments of controlled possession turn into goals, even if that’s because the opponents double up on him as our main threat, freeing up others like Frizz or Gal to produce something. That player could be a midfielder, winger, centre forward (preferably not a defender) and as I say, signing that player is easier said than done, but for me that’s all we really lack. We lose soft goals at times but defensively we aren’t bad. We move the ball around well and can control possession, but we struggle to turn that into goals. If we can sign someone like that that goes straight into our first team then I think we’ll be fine but that’s our current situation. We could sign one player that turns around our poor form and we shoot up the league, or we could sign several players to provide “competition” to our current squad and it doesn’t really improve us much at all. Agree with others that McGill should be playing, I don’t understand why he doesn’t get a chance and to be honest I’d have him ahead of Todorov, not just O’Connor.
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Rather than drop Frizzell (who has been poor) I’d rather see him play deeper like he did when we had Eason, with McStravick maybe playing in Easton’s role. Maybe something like this Rae Watson Fordyce Hancock Megwa McMaster McCabe Frizzell McStravick McGill Gallagher Not that easy to tell when it’s written like that but McCabe would sit deepest in a midfield diamond, could even drop between the centre halves and make it more like the back 5 we’ve been using. Likewise you could shift it to 433 by moving McStravick to the left and McGill to the right in a front 3. Although I still would like to see Todorov and Gal play together as a strike pairing at some point just to try it out.
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Really poor performance today. I’d have McMaster, Megwa and Hancock as my only pass marks. Watson and Frizz were hopeless and I think both were asked to play a bit higher up than their ideal positions. Gallagher is clearly better than Todorov so should be starting going forward. Obviously not ideal with Aiken, Telfer, Ballantyne, McGregor out as well but there’s still enough quality there for a better performance than that imo.
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Megwa cup-tied and ATS on international duty this weekend along with Hancock and Aiken’s injuries. If we’re keeping the same system we’ll need Fordyce back in and someone like McGregor playing wing back. Otherwise it could be a switch back to a back 4 with Watson and Ballantyne at full back and Fordyce and McCabe and centre back.
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When him and Agnew were standing over the ball that day I fully expected Agnew to hit it
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Watson, McCabe, Ballantyne back 3 with Dunlop and McGregor as wing backs? Front 3 of McGill, Gallagher, O’Connor while Frizz and Telfer run the midfield on their own? Rae might be the closest thing to a centre half in that lineup.
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Interesting lineup, reckon we’ll miss Dycey but hope we cope without him. Probably the most defensive looking lineup under McCabe considering he’s playing himself plus 5 recognised defenders. Could be a 5-4-1 but I wouldn’t be totally surprised to see Megwa playing in midfield since he’s drifted in there a lot while playing right back but most likely like a 5 considering the lack of wide players starting.
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Meant to add and to be fair I don’t think I’m really adding anything that we aren’t all aware of. We are probably the least streetwise team in our league. I know nobody “likes” to see time wasting, cynical fouls, going down easy to look for a foul etc, but we let teams (especially when we’re behind) do this and I would like to see a bit more fire and aggression from us at times. It’s maybe not nice but sometimes you need assert a bit of physicality on a game to fire up the crowd and your teammates, especially considering how low-energy we appear to be when chasing a game.
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Decent spell at the end of the first half and important to remember we were up against the best team in our division there. But that’s what? One point from our last four games? And if we’re being honest, most of us won’t be expecting a result away to Raith Rovers at the weekend. Obviously we had a poor run last season but it will be harder to bounce back this time against stronger opposition. I think the main frustration and worry is that we have one way of playing and everyone now has that sussed out. We do need a bit more creativity to play the way McCabe wants us to imo. Don’t get me wrong I think there’s quality in the squad; Rae scares me sometimes but he’s a good keeper and he is good on the ball most of the time even if he makes an arse of it on occasion, Ballantyne’s quality and I’ve been really impressed with Megwa, there’s a player in McStravick but he needs a bit more match experience imo. Others may disagree but I think we’re a better team with McMaster in. Frizzell hasn’t been at it last few weeks imo, but hopefully he gets back to his best as I have no doubt he’s good enough for this level when he gets going. I like him at right back but I don’t rate Watson at centre back at all. I’m still hoping there’s scope to add a bit of quality in January as I do think we could do with it all over the park. We don’t really have a commanding centre half that can drag us through a game or a dominating midfielder that can fire the team up and take control of the midfield or a forward that has the ability to change the game with a bit of magic. Obviously I’m not expecting us to have all three of those as a newly promoted team. Other teams do have one or two of those types of players though. We don’t really have individuals that are capable of single-handedly changing the game at this level.
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Obviously yesterday was a bit crap. We need a plan B. If we’re 1-0 down at home to Ayr we can’t expect them to press our defenders so we have to be a bit more creative. I also think it was a case of a few individuals simply not being at it. Frizz was uncharacteristically poor, as was Gallagher. Hancock started really well I thought but got sucked into playing that overly patient game after the first Ayr goal and all his passes started going sideways. McStravick gave us something when he came on and I think at the moment he might be a better option than McGill. Megwa obviously at fault for the first goal and had a shaky start but I think it was a case of debut nerves. He had a much better second half and him and McStravick linked well down the right I thought. Telfer done well when he came on.
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Good to see Corrie Fellows get a move to Albion Rovers and hopefully he gets regular game time. Think having Albion Rovers so local to us, now a few leagues below us, and with an Airdrie man in charge there’s a great opportunity to create a mutually beneficial relationship where we can loan them guys like Corrie to help them develop and still have them train with us when the Rovers aren’t training since they’re part time.
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McStravick’s been called up to Northern Ireland U21 squad for their qualifiers next weekend. Devenny called up too.
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I’ll be honest, I thought losing the playoff final to Queen’s Park was a massive missed opportunity. The year before that the team that lost to Morton in the final was nowhere near good enough for the Championship but Murray’s last squad was excellent and we’d likely have kept Easton and Smith would still have been in contract. The guys that have stayed since then and the young lads brought in by McCabe have done so well and, while it’s still a long season to go and we should still be keeping an eye on the teams below us, we’ve had as solid a start as anyone could have hoped for in terms of establishing ourselves in this division.
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Thought Hancock was excellent at left back today and would’ve been my pick for motm. Nice to have some genuine competition in defence now. Really enjoying the midfield 3 of McMaster, Aiken and Frizzell too.
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Midfield diamond of McMaster holding, Frizz and Aiken playing as 8s and McStravick in a more advanced no 10 role with either McGill or Todorov to partner Gal up top would work for me, but that’s no good for Saturday with McStravick suspended. I think that shape going forward might be our best bet though since we’re definitely better in midfield than in wide areas.
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Was going to happen to us at some point this season and I’m not surprised it happened at Gayfield. Result next week would be massive to stop us getting into a rut like we did around this time last year. Will be harder to get away with it like we did last year because it will be that much harder to go on a winning run like we did a couple of times last season. 8th place is and always was the aim.
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I have a feeling there may be a managerial change in our league soon - Billy Dodds is having a terrible time at Inverness. Hopefully whoever replaces him is equally as hopeless because I’d feel a lot more comfortable with a poor team sitting well adrift at the bottom.
