The Falkirk FC Thread

[HoBNob]

Turns out I had QoTS to finish second, I thought that Connolly was a massive re-signing. 

Quite a few posters had Queens winning the title, while it seemed the majority had them in the playoffs at least. With QoTS and Kelty seemingly under performing, and Edinburgh doing as well as they've done I don't think many predictions came close! 

[Shodwall cat]

4 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

...and not being top when the music stopped.

Because of covid the music stopped on a random date and we had no chance of a playoff. We had a decent side that season especially with McManus on top form. 

[Otis Blue]

We were expecting to be in the playoffs but few of us on here thought we'd be serious title contenders ... especially when we watched the (lack of a) central defence (incl. keeper) being "assembled".

We figured our budget would be 3rd or 4th highest, so there's no question it's a total failure of a season.

[Monkey Tennis]

2 hours ago, Grant228 said:

Turns out I had QoTS to finish second, I thought that Connolly was a massive re-signing. 

Quite a few posters had Queens winning the title, while it seemed the majority had them in the playoffs at least. With QoTS and Kelty seemingly under performing, and Edinburgh doing as well as they've done I don't think many predictions came close! 

Where is the prediction thread?

I'm guessing I was pretty pessimistic, but probably not pessimistic enough.

[MrDust]

20 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Complete bollocks.

We came closer to adding a second than you did to equalising.

You didn't score your first goal so surely it would be scoring your first goal

Personally thought a draw would've been fairer result but we have had a few victories this season where it was looking likely a draw, it's football it happens

 

[Stainrod]

3 hours ago, Reggie Perrin said:

We have a bad day yesterday and the arse twitching on here reaches pandemic levels.

Settle yourselves for f**k sake.

It was not a great surprise we dropped points yesterday. We won’t catch Dunfermline now and the players performance reflected that reality. But we have the playoffs and Scottish cup to look forward to so let’s not be too critical. Does anyone know if the cup final losers still get into Europa conference. Found the article below suggesting they do & it’s worth a lot of cash ! 

“Scotland’s improved co-efficient has led to the number of European spots increasing to five from next season.

But the introduction of the Conference League has made the Scottish Cup more lucrative than finishing third in the Premiership.”

[Monkey Tennis]

2 minutes ago, MrDust said:

You didn't score your first goal so surely it would be scoring your first goal

Personally thought a draw would've been fairer result but we have had a few victories this season where it was looking likely a draw, it's football it happens

 

That doesn't really make a lot of sense.  We came closer to adding a second goal for our team.  We already had a goal, regardless of who put it in the net.  

The clearest cut chance of the match fell to McKechnie early in the second half when he rolled it tamely straight at the goalkeeper.  If he'd lifted it or found a corner, it would have made it 2-0.

[Rob1885]

5 minutes ago, Stainrod said:

It was not a great surprise we dropped points yesterday. We won’t catch Dunfermline now and the players performance reflected that reality. But we have the playoffs and Scottish cup to look forward to so let’s not be too critical. Does anyone know if the cup final losers still get into Europa conference. Found the article below suggesting they do & it’s worth a lot of cash ! 

“Scotland’s improved co-efficient has led to the number of European spots increasing to five from next season.

But the introduction of the Conference League has made the Scottish Cup more lucrative than finishing third in the Premiership.”

No, only the winners qualify.

[FK1Bairn]

9 minutes ago, Stainrod said:

It was not a great surprise we dropped points yesterday. We won’t catch Dunfermline now and the players performance reflected that reality. But we have the playoffs and Scottish cup to look forward to so let’s not be too critical. Does anyone know if the cup final losers still get into Europa conference. Found the article below suggesting they do & it’s worth a lot of cash ! 

“Scotland’s improved co-efficient has led to the number of European spots increasing to five from next season.

But the introduction of the Conference League has made the Scottish Cup more lucrative than finishing third in the Premiership.”

No, we need to win the cup to qualify for Europe. 

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, Stainrod said:

It was not a great surprise we dropped points yesterday. We won’t catch Dunfermline now and the players performance reflected that reality. But we have the playoffs and Scottish cup to look forward to so let’s not be too critical. Does anyone know if the cup final losers still get into Europa conference. Found the article below suggesting they do & it’s worth a lot of cash ! 

“Scotland’s improved co-efficient has led to the number of European spots increasing to five from next season.

But the introduction of the Conference League has made the Scottish Cup more lucrative than finishing third in the Premiership.”

Need to win the cup. If we did then guaranteed at least €3m in prize money alone as would end up in the conference group stages. One can only dream!

ICT game alone is worth an extra £500k so huge incentive to try our best to win that.

[AGPar]

25 minutes ago, Stainrod said:

It was not a great surprise we dropped points yesterday. We won’t catch Dunfermline now and the players performance reflected that reality.

I could not disagree any more with this. Why exactly was it not a surprise? We are coming off a massive win five days earlier, confidence and morale sky-high, general good vibe about the club and amongst the support, options and depth of squad unrivalled in this division, playing an opponent we had already beaten convincingly three times and who themselves were not exactly flying high. Really, really struggle to understand how that particular combination of circumstances translates into this "aye, crap performance and result absolutely to be expected" theory that's being banded about all over the place.

The suggestion that Dunfermline were completely uncatchable at three o'clock yesterday afternoon is just complete and utter nonsense. Loser's mentality writ large. Had we won in Dumfries the gap would have been six points. Still a long shot, but with two reasonably kind fixtures to come prior to them coming to TFS on 8/4, certainly not in any throwing the towel in territory yet. I actually do not believe for one second that was the attitude of the playing staff or management (because if it is, that's a problem) We've had a very good run of form pretty much from the home defeat to them in November, but when it really came to turn the screw, the cliched business end of the season, we've turned in two shite performances, lost both, and that's pretty much cost us any chance of automatic promotion. 

[19QOS19]

48 minutes ago, MrDust said:

You didn't score your first goal so surely it would be scoring your first goal

Personally thought a draw would've been fairer result but we have had a few victories this season where it was looking likely a draw, it's football it happens

 

All those stats show is that the BBC don't give a f**k about lower league football. They're wildly wrong. We had more than 1 shot on target. There are at least two shown on your club's highlights package. 

[Skyline Drifter]

33 minutes ago, Otis Blue said:

We were expecting to be in the playoffs but few of us on here thought we'd be serious title contenders ... especially when we watched the (lack of a) central defence (incl. keeper) being "assembled".

We figured our budget would be 3rd or 4th highest, so there's no question it's a total failure of a season.

Again, I think there's a touch of revisionism here. Our budget's at least 3rd and I thought the central defence would be ok with McKay back and East playing even if I was unsure about what exactly Dave McKay and Stuart Morrison were like. Max Currie was hardly an untried youngster either. He'd had a decent season with a team very unlucky not to be promoted.

As I say, did I think we were favourites? No, Dunfermline looked to have a better squad. Did I think we would be serious title contenders? Yes, I did and we should have certainly been a comfortable top 4. We're not only not that but we're unlikely to be that. We'll need to win at least 5, and maybe 6, or our last 7 to have any serious chance of that. We need Falkirk to win all their games with Alloa, Airdrie, Edinburgh and Montrose, and Dunfermline to do the same (and hopefully concede us some points on April 15th).

30 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

Where is the prediction thread?

I'm guessing I was pretty pessimistic, but probably not pessimistic enough.

I never make prediction thread posts for obvious reasons but per above, there's no doubt we should have been capable of competing at the top of this league and playoffs were the minimum we should have been getting. I'm not swallowing this line that "we might get a playoff place"  as a pre-season expectation.

21 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

That doesn't really make a lot of sense.  We came closer to adding a second goal for our team.  We already had a goal, regardless of who put it in the net.  

The clearest cut chance of the match fell to McKechnie early in the second half when he rolled it tamely straight at the goalkeeper.  If he'd lifted it or found a corner, it would have made it 2-0.

Indeed. Leaving aside the goal (which should have been finished directly without Donaldson's unfortunate complicity - it was a lovely move and opened Falkirk right up), the next two best chances in the game were McKechnie's side foot at Kinnear when anything lifted was a goal early in the 2nd half and Paton's open goal header over the top about midway through the 1st half.

At the other end the only chances of note in the whole game were Paton's flashing header at a corner that almost resulted in an earlier own goal (commentary attributed it to Oliver but it was Paton) and Burrell's late dreadful 1st touch straight to Dabrowski when a good touch would have left him with a sitter but he ultimately didn't even get a shot off. And I suppose possibly Kennedy's early free kick past the post. Not sure how close that actually was.

I thought we did enough to win it, I think we deserved the win. A draw wouldn't have been a horrible miscarriage of justice but the better side on the day won. I just think McGlynn's statement that Falkirk were much the better side in the 2nd half was bizarre. They were closer to being the better side in the first half than the second and if they did have more 2nd half possession (did they?) then it was only because we were happy to let them have it and rarely concerned with anything they did second half. It's probably the most comfortable clean sheet we've had all season outside of an Edinburgh game.

[bairn88]

8 minutes ago, 19QOS19 said:

All those stats show is that the BBC don't give a f**k about lower league football. They're wildly wrong. We had more than 1 shot on target. There are at least two shown on your club's highlights package. 

I actually think they might have them the wrong way round. 

[Ranaldo Bairn]

Remember a shot on target only counts as such if it is saved by the goalkeeper, or blocked by the literal last defender. So if you are shooting and the ball is streaking into the net, if a defender blocks it heroically, and there's another defender anywhere behind him, even leaning against the post having a fag, it doesn't count.

Stupid, but that's how they count them.

[19QOS19]

11 minutes ago, bairn88 said:

I actually think they might have them the wrong way round. 

Was wondering that myself tbh. I can recall at least 3 saves Kinnear made, two of which he handled really well as I can mind commenting at the time that he isn't spilling anything unfortunately (our players were closest to it if he had on two occasions). I can only mind our GK having that one good stop in the first half. The shot from Morrison was going wide. 

 

Just now, Ranaldo Bairn said:

Remember a shot on target only counts as such if it is saved by the goalkeeper, or blocked by the literal last defender. So if you are shooting and the ball is streaking into the net, if a defender blocks it heroically, and there's another defender anywhere behind him, even leaning against the post having a fag, it doesn't count.

Stupid, but that's how they count them.

Nah we had at least 3 on target that hit no on on the way through. They're just wrong, as they often are with BBC. Bet365 is the best one but you have to get it in-play obviously. 

[Skyline Drifter]

2 minutes ago, bairn88 said:

I actually think they might have them the wrong way round. 

I'm sure we had more than 2 corners too. But you definitely did so they aren't the wrong way round. One of the things I was so impressed with about us at the back yesterday was you DID get a good few corners and we dealt with them all very well.

Certainly in terms of shots on target Paton definitely forced a save from Kinnear with a 1st half free kick (on your highlights) and he's made that good save from McKechnie early in the 2nd half which was on target too. I assume technically the goal isn't counted as the initial shot deflected onto the post and Donaldson wasn't trying to score obviously. It was on target before the deflection off McKay though.

[RC55 FFC]

A draw was a fair result yesterday but we didn’t get it & we move on. Dunfermline were always going to drop some points and it’s frustrating we couldn’t gain some ground. 

Agree that Friday is huge & really needs to be 3pts to stop the league defeats going to 3 on the spin. 

[Shodwall cat]

It was an absolutely honking performance yesterday with too many players simply  not turning up . Whether that was from tiredness or a hangover from  Monday it shouldn't matter given the fact that we have a reasonably strong squad now and mcglynn could easily have freshened things up more.  We didn't put in great performances in our last two league games post cup ties but got away with it so this has been coming.I'm not sure why nesbitt was dropped either given the energy he adds to the midfield and the ground he covers. Whilst Kennedy made an impact against Ayr his more recent starts have been poor so I'd have kept him on the bench once again.  Thankfully back at home next after two poor league away performances. Three points is a must.

Edited March 19, 2023 by Shodwall cat

[Rugster]

45 minutes ago, Ranaldo Bairn said:

Remember a shot on target only counts as such if it is saved by the goalkeeper, or blocked by the literal last defender. So if you are shooting and the ball is streaking into the net, if a defender blocks it heroically, and there's another defender anywhere behind him, even leaning against the post having a fag, it doesn't count.

Stupid, but that's how they count them.

Pish