Sons' sorrow

[sonsanorak]

I thought we were dominated in nearly every position today.  It looked like a team of street wise experienced guys against some newbies and that shouldn't be the case when you look at our squad.

McKee seemed to be playing holding midfield which didnt suit how busy the midfield was or offer the defence much protection.  However, he's been out for a while and is a few weeks behind the rest of them in terms of fitness.  

Wallace looked decent but was often asked to try and win a crappy long ball against a centre back.

I dont normally go to these preseason cup games, they're not really anything other than exercises in improving fitness and teamwork.

Two positives; Lynas looks like he'll make tackles all day and Long looked decent.

[pleslie99]

Anyone sticking their mortgage on us?

[FifeSons]

10 minutes ago, pleslie99 said:

Anyone sticking their mortgage on us?

To come last, aye.

[Guest]

McNiff was fucking stinking. He was all over the place. 3 yards off it at times and bullied too. 
 

the fact he was covering for Greg Wylde potentially didn’t help him any but he was still rank 

[GordyBrow]

I didn’t see the game today, but having seen Wylde last season being a left sided centre back with Wylde to my left would give me the absolute fear. Wylde is the classic loves going forward, doesn’t track back at all “full back”.

[WC Boggs]

3 hours ago, Bring Back Paddy Flannery said:

Central midfield is a huge issue. David Wilson is having an absolute horror show out there and Stuart Carswell has been terrible. They either lose possession instantly or the opposition just ghost past them like they aren’t there. 

Wilson was very erratic in his time at Stirling. Possession broke down with him giving the ball away cheaply far too many times. He was by no means the only culprit for that at the time to be fair to him. He was dangerous with free kicks but otherwise an empty jersey too often. 

I have no idea if that's how he was today, but I was never impressed by him and not sorry to see him move on.

[BallochSonsFan]

12 minutes ago, GordyBrow said:

I didn’t see the game today, but having seen Wylde last season being a left sided centre back with Wylde to my left would give me the absolute fear. Wylde is the classic loves going forward, doesn’t track back at all “full back”.

Wylde wasnt bad today. Cut out a few passes before Stirling players could get into space.

 

McNiff played himself into trouble plenty of times by misjudging a pass or the bounce of the ball.

[Sweet Pete]

2 minutes ago, BallochSonsFan said:

Wylde wasnt bad today. Cut out a few passes before Stirling players could get into space.

 

McNiff played himself into trouble plenty of times by misjudging a pass or the bounce of the ball.

Wylde looks a player lacking confidence. He gets the ball, kicks it too far ahead of him, chases after it, then with space in front of him he checks back and makes a backwards pass. All the signs of a player who used to have "it" but is now scared to make a mistake. Which would explain his career trajectory.

[Sons Fan]

Positives - Brett Long looks good. Pitch looks good. The weather was nice.

negatives - The management team showing they were tactically enept, different square same shit. Though McNiff looked well off it. God only know why we have shortened the pitch.

[BallochSonsFan]

21 minutes ago, Sweet Pete said:

Wylde looks a player lacking confidence. He gets the ball, kicks it too far ahead of him, chases after it, then with space in front of him he checks back and makes a backwards pass. All the signs of a player who used to have "it" but is now scared to make a mistake. Which would explain his career trajectory.

He gets no protection from McLean. I'd be worried if that was who was supposed  to be helping me defend that wing.

[Sweet Pete]

36 minutes ago, BallochSonsFan said:

He gets no protection from McLean. I'd be worried if that was who was supposed  to be helping me defend that wing.

I meant going forward. He shites it when it's him with the ball to run ahead up the wing.

[Jan Vojáček]

That was really, really disappointing today. In some ways it gave me haunting flashbacks from the Edinburgh City second leg. Defensively we, for large spells at least, looked fine and elsewhere it was a bit like we were seeing a game out at 2-0. It just feels like we have to come up with a bit of magic to score - and opposition teams make it look easy.

The cliche is that games are won and lost in the midfield. And that was absolutely the case for us today. Carsy barely put in a tackle and certainly didn't impose himself on the match. McKee looked neat and tidy at times - but bereft of confidence. And poor Div Wilson had an absolute shocker. I'm not sure I can ever remember a player looking so uncomfortable in the position he was asked to play.

I think there's potential in a Carswell and McKee partnership. After all, they played together in League One and did fairly well. But neither player looked too up for it today, and neither looked particularly comfortable in what they were being asked to do. And that then bounced throughout the whole team - who just looked like they lacked urgency, ideas, confidence. Everything really.

That being said I did think we looked defensively a bit better than last year. I can only echo the comments about Aron Lynas, who I felt was our best player. Gregor Buchanan looked a bit more like himself, and Martin McNiff had a pretty decent first-half - followed by a horrible second. Gregg Wylde was caught out with an overload for the second goal, and looked like he was lacking fitness. He was out last week at Gretna and I wonder if there was still a hangover from that. But it didn't think he was our worst player. Although there are no signs at all yet of any sort of partnership down the left between him and Ross MacLean. Even after six months or so together at the club.

In terms of positives; I thought Ryan Wallace showed some moments of real quality and caused problems. As I've already said, I thought Aron Lynas was good and he's someone I've taken to as a player already. And I thought Brett Long was excellent. I don't think there will be a better keeper than him in the league this season.

We also created three excellent chances; two of which would fall into the sitter category, and one where you'd be backing Ryan Wallace to score 99 times out of 100. Maybe if we'd opened the scoring it would've been a different game...But, as with last season, our response to going behind isn't good enough.

I'm not going to start panicking after a League Cup game. But I woke up this morning with a bit of excitement that we might at least have something half enjoyable to watch this afternoon. In reality it ended up being a re-run of a game I've seen far too many times. I've got a bit of fear for the team heading up to Aberdeen on Wednesday night too.

One last word for the ref. He was absolutely dreadful; he denied Stirling Albion a stonewall penalty then gave a goal kick when a ball (quite clearly to every single person in the stadium) went behind for a corner late on. You won't see two worse decisions all season, and both went in our favour.

[Sweet Pete]

6 minutes ago, Jan Vojáček said:

That was really, really disappointing today. In some ways it gave me haunting flashbacks from the Edinburgh City second leg. Defensively we, for large spells at least, looked fine and elsewhere it was a bit like we were seeing a game out at 2-0. It just feels like we have to come up with a bit of magic to score - and opposition teams make it look easy.

The cliche is that games are won and lost in the midfield. And that was absolutely the case for us today. Carsy barely put in a tackle and certainly didn't impose himself on the match. McKee looked neat and tidy at times - but bereft of confidence. And poor Div Wilson had an absolute shocker. I'm not sure I can ever remember a player looking so uncomfortable in the position he was asked to play.

I think there's potential in a Carswell and McKee partnership. After all, they played together in League One and did fairly well. But neither player looked too up for it today, and neither looked particularly comfortable in what they were being asked to do. And that then bounced throughout the whole team - who just looked like they lacked urgency, ideas, confidence. Everything really.

That being said I did think we looked defensively a bit better than last year. I can only echo the comments about Aron Lynas, who I felt was our best player. Gregor Buchanan looked a bit more like himself, and Martin McNiff had a pretty decent first-half - followed by a horrible second. Gregg Wylde was caught out with an overload for the second goal, and looked like he was lacking fitness. He was out last week at Gretna and I wonder if there was still a hangover from that. But it didn't think he was our worst player. Although there are no signs at all yet of any sort of partnership down the left between him and Ross MacLean. Even after six months or so together at the club.

In terms of positives; I thought Ryan Wallace showed some moments of real quality and caused problems. As I've already said, I thought Aron Lynas was good and he's someone I've taken to as a player already. And I thought Brett Long was excellent. I don't think there will be a better keeper than him in the league this season.

We also created three excellent chances; two of which would fall into the sitter category, and one where you'd be backing Ryan Wallace to score 99 times out of 100. Maybe if we'd opened the scoring it would've been a different game...But, as with last season, our response to going behind isn't good enough.

I'm not going to start panicking after a League Cup game. But I woke up this morning with a bit of excitement that we might at least have something half enjoyable to watch this afternoon. In reality it ended up being a re-run of a game I've seen far too many times. I've got a bit of fear for the team heading up to Aberdeen on Wednesday night too.

One last word for the ref. He was absolutely dreadful; he denied Stirling Albion a stonewall penalty then gave a goal kick when a ball (quite clearly to every single person in the stadium) went behind for a corner late on. You won't see two worse decisions all season, and both went in our favour.

Was the pen call when mcniff booted the Albion player in our box? As that was a shocker and a clear pen / yellow.

 

[Sweet Pete]

Wallace was doing all the creation today, he was everywhere. Which is good if he was a cm, but bad as he was playing as a forward. That means he's having to come deep all the time to retrieve the ball and try to make things happen when it should be the players behind him doing that. As it was, he would appear all over the pitch for the ball, but never have anyone in front in his position to receive it. He looks a good player and plenty keen, but we need someone in the middle doing that job to let him play up front, otherwise the forward line is missing it's key player as he's dropped back to compensate for the midfield passengers.

[FifeSons]

f**k me, Farrell’s interview. New season, same old shite. It’s like Groundhog Day listening to him.

I honestly don’t know why he bothers speaking after games.

Edited July 9, 2022 by FifeSons

[Sweet Pete]

Positives and perspective: Long, Wallace and Lynas are players. Buchanan and McNiff could work as a CH pair with time and training and Orsi and C Wilson can contribute from wide. Today's game, this competition in actuality, is really a preseason tournament so no harm done. The real work starts in 3 weeks.

[Sweet Pete]

1 minute ago, FifeSons said:

f**k me, Farrell’s interview. New season, same old shite. It’s like Groundhog Day listening to him.

I don't think he's far wrong. It was second half we faded and they came on top.

[Jan Vojáček]

8 minutes ago, Sweet Pete said:

Was the pen call when mcniff booted the Albion player in our box? As that was a shocker and a clear pen / yellow.

Aye. McGeever and I watched it back a good few times on the stream to see if we could help the ref out with our Son's tinted specs. But nope. Think everyone in the stadium heard the contact...and McNiff clearly didn't touch the ball.

[Sweet Pete]

4 minutes ago, Jan Vojáček said:

Aye. McGeever and I watched it back a good few times on the stream to see if we could help the ref out with our Son's tinted specs. But nope. Think everyone in the stadium heard the contact...and McNiff clearly didn't touch the ball.

Yep, lucky escape as he really clattered him and you could hear the slap.

 

[Guest AberhillEnd]

Ryan Blair injured ?