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A good run out in a game we were never going to lose. But it took defenders to score both goals from set pieces.

When we broke forward on the wings there were hardly any times when we had anyone in the Elgin penalty box. The only time we had more than one in their box was at corners or free kicks.  Wallace often had to go wide and hold the ball until he got support and by that time Elgin had plenty players back. 

Thought the Elgin number 4 should have been booked as well as Wallace, but the ref seemed to forget that there were two involved in that incident.

Hopefully we play well on Wednesday, but Ross County will be harder to play against than the other sides in our group.

 

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23 hours ago, Gayfield said:

Finn Graham

Arbroath FC are delighted to announce that midfielder Finn Graham has today signed for the club and will go straight in today’s squad to face Elgin City.

We are delighted to capture Finn’s signature as the 22-year-old midfielder has been in high demand over the summer after leaving Brechin City.

Finn has of course featured in our pre-season against Huntly and Dunfermline Athletic as well as traveling to watch the team against Dundee United and Alloa Athletic.

Finn started his professional career with Dunfermline Athletic where he came through the youth ranks before moving to Berwick Rangers for the 2015/2106 season where he made 38 appearances and scored 5 goals. 

Finn then moved to Glebe Park making an impressive 42 appearances in his first season and scoring 2 goals along the way as Brechin won promotion to the Championship.  Last season Finn made 40 appearances for City in the Championship again scoring 2 goals.  

With so much experience of League One and the Championship and at such a young age we are delighted to welcome Finn to Gayfield Park.

Welcome Finn!

C’mon the Lichties!

37607301_1953469311338955_3431150124670124032_n.jpg

Good signing at last . Too good a player to warm the bench though.  I guess he ll take his chance when it comes along . 

 

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A good run out in a game we were never going to lose. But it took defenders to score both goals from set pieces.
When we broke forward on the wings there were hardly any times when we had anyone in the Elgin penalty box. The only time we had more than one in their box was at corners or free kicks.  Wallace often had to go wide and hold the ball until he got support and by that time Elgin had plenty players back. 
Thought the Elgin number 4 should have been booked as well as Wallace, but the ref seemed to forget that there were two involved in that incident.
Hopefully we play well on Wednesday, but Ross County will be harder to play against than the other sides in our group.
 


Thought Wallace was really good yesterday but him and McKenna both dropping in and going wide, that happens then you’re needing the midfielders to run beyond a bit more.

I know Wallace done really well for the first goal yesterday but can’t help feeling he would be better off the corners and standing on the keeper instead where he could be an annoying wee bass. Linn inswinging one side and DD inswinging on other side.

Thomson made massive difference to our attacking set plays too.
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Have not seen any of the BetFred games( have had f**k all on all summer, but the past two Saturday have had family commitments and could not attend midweek for work reasons) so looking forward to the Ross County game this week, hope he plays as full strength a side as we can, it is no longer the pre season

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It's obvious that with the team we have we are lacking a goalscorer.

Wallace in my opinion is not good enough for the team and doesn't fit  our style of play because he plays deeper. His set pieces are poor and he doesn't score enough. Dont get me started on him sitting on the ground and whingeing though.......

McKenna was and still is a brilliant signing for us and shows it every week. He has a big engine in him to run all over the park and is currently a stand out performer for the team but he is currently lacking goals in his game.

Hester is a breathe of fresh air when he plays as it is not often we have a striker who likes to run with the ball at goal with pace to score goals. He can be a good poacher for goals and often we notice when crosses come in, we are missing players in the box but Hester is usually in that position. He is a hard worker and I would rather see him play 60 minutes of a game rather than the last 30 minutes as he is always involves in goal scoring opportunities. 

Obviously we are know about Doris and can't wait for for his return to fitness.

Hopefully we will have more goals in the team soon.

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9 hours ago, superlichtie87 said:

It's obvious that with the team we have we are lacking a goalscorer.

Wallace in my opinion is not good enough for the team and doesn't fit  our style of play because he plays deeper. His set pieces are poor and he doesn't score enough. Dont get me started on him sitting on the ground and whingeing though.......

McKenna was and still is a brilliant signing for us and shows it every week. He has a big engine in him to run all over the park and is currently a stand out performer for the team but he is currently lacking goals in his game.

Hester is a breathe of fresh air when he plays as it is not often we have a striker who likes to run with the ball at goal with pace to score goals. He can be a good poacher for goals and often we notice when crosses come in, we are missing players in the box but Hester is usually in that position. He is a hard worker and I would rather see him play 60 minutes of a game rather than the last 30 minutes as he is always involves in goal scoring opportunities. 

Obviously we are know about Doris and can't wait for for his return to fitness.

Hopefully we will have more goals in the team soon.

While I agree we are missing another striking option/ goal scorer (very confident one is on the way in the next few weeks ;) ) , so far this season it's Kane who has made several hilarious dives while Ryan Wallace has been staying on his feet..... 

As I've said before - I really feel like Ryan Wallace drops deep at times because he needs too. We can't have two strikers with 40 yards of space between them and our midfield, that just doesn't work on any level at all. I think his set piece taking is okay, nothing special, but it's the manager who decides who takes the set pieces not the players, so I'd say any issue with that is a management issue not a player issue IMO.

Totally agree regarding Mikey McKenna - really proved everyone (including myself) wrong as on paper it was a very average signing but he has been excellent. The problem, as you've stated, is that he simply isn't a goalscorer.

If we play Kane from the start in league games, we'll struggle to hold the ball out of our own half for any length of time. We saw against Alloa and Elgin how good Ryan Wallace can be at his hold up and lay off play to get us further up the park, and without this we'd be hemmed in and under constant pressure for long periods of the game. Also in terms of the 'poaching' aspect, he missed two sitters and a couple of other good chances against Elgin, and for him to be near the team he needs to be burying these chances, as it's the thing his game revolves around. If Kane isn't scoring goals then very quickly it falls down and he offers little to the team. As I said before, he's improved since last pre season definitely but we have to remember our aim this year is to challenge to win League 1.....

If you took Ryan Wallace out of the team, you'd quickly notice just how much he does for us in terms of his overall game that is undervalued.

 

 

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You must be watching different games from me. I think Wallace is rather impressive with his strong running and physical presence. He holds the ball up and, in the limited space, is handy at the dribbling and layoffs. For his size he wins more headers than he should partly because he challenges. I doubt if we could have procured such a similar player to Doris -also a winger turned centre. Yes, maybe he should score more but, for example, that first goal at Alloa last week was a good example of a neat finish.

Agree with the assessment of McKenna and especially his excellent linkup play with Wallace.

Hester can be a decent impact sub, looks sharp and knows where the goal is. But he is still rather lightweight so balls forward are not being either won and opposing defences have it easier - one reason for impact being that the likes of Wallace have run them a bit. Sorry Hester missed maybe 3 simple chances v Elgin but his goal at Alloa was a neat opportunistic effort. 20-30 minutes a game is suitable but maybe with a bit of confidence that could change

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Well said Farflung and Simon.

 

Last week of the LC, loans be sorted out next week in time for Mo away I imagine.

 

Mikey McKenna must be one of the hardest working players I’ve seen, I think he has somehow managed to get himself fitter from the end of last season. He’s really pushed on, love him.

 

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One more wee thing I would say is that anyone who listened to Danny Denholm's podcast last week will have heard him asked about his thought on playing upfront. He mentioned that playing upfront last year with Doris prior to his injury compared to playing upfront himself/ with Pongo in the hole/ with Swanks after Doris got injured were two hugely different roles. When playing with Doris, he just had to get into the right positions and Doris did all the running and legwork outside the box to bring everything together, then when Doris got injured he found himself having to run about and do far, far more work outside the box. In my opinion this is directly relatable to Wallace' time so far where he's found himself doing a lot of work outside the box. If he can form a partnership with Doris, Stevie will do all the stuff he is so good at, leaving Wallace to do more penalty box stuff I think/ hope.

Since I've mentioned Denholm's podcast, it's worth mentioning a few of the other things he said regarding last season..... He said he simply isn't a wing back (said a day after we'd played him at wing back against Alloa, yet again, an been utterly fucked down his side :lol: ) , and found it difficult when we continually tried to play him in that position, and also without it being directly said it seems fairly obvious that he wasn't injured in 2018 when he kept dropping in and out of the team as people kept saying must be the case at the time. I remember being fairly pissed off at the time, and having several people reiterate to me that he must be injured/ carrying a knock......  to think Dick dropped both Bobby and Danny Denholm for performance related reasons in 2018 is incredibly surprising for me.....

Edited by SimonLichtie
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One more wee thing I would say is that anyone who listened to Danny Denholm's podcast last week will have heard him asked about his thought on playing upfront. He mentioned that playing upfront last year with Doris prior to his injury compared to playing upfront himself/ with Pongo in the hole/ with Swanks after Doris got injured were two hugely different roles. When playing with Doris, he just had to get into the right positions and Doris did all the running and legwork outside the box to bring everything together, then when Doris got injured he found himself having to run about and do far, far more work outside the box. In my opinion this is directly relatable to Wallace' time so far where he's found himself doing a lot of work outside the box. If he can form a partnership with Doris, Stevie will do all the stuff he is so good at, leaving Wallace to do more penalty box stuff I think/ hope.
Since I've mentioned Denholm's podcast, it's worth mentioning a few of the other things he said regarding last season..... He said he simply isn't a wing back (said a day after we'd played him at wing back against Alloa, yet again, an been utterly fucked down his side :lol: ) , and found it difficult when we continually tried to play him in that position, and also without it being directly said it seems fairly obvious that he wasn't injured in 2018 when he kept dropping in and out of the team as people kept saying must be the case at the time. I remember being fairly pissed off at the time, and having several people reiterate to me that he must be injured/ carrying a knock......  to think Dick dropped both Bobby and Danny Denholm for performance related reasons in 2018 is incredibly surprising for me.....

I like how you started that with “one more wee thing”
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Whilst it’s good that Danny engages these things like podcasts and blogs, it would also be good if he started getting his finger out and performing a bit better, I can’t think of a good game he has had since about February.

On the Wallace issue I kind of sit in the middle a bit, he does some good work and his goal scoring record at this level is very good I think we could get so much more out of him, in his defence we have never been able to pair one player up with him consistently so really excited to see him and Doris link up when He’s fit, has the making of a good partnership. In the meantime we need to find another way of getting goals.

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Whilst it’s good that Danny engages these things like podcasts and blogs, it would also be good if he started getting his finger out and performing a bit better, I can’t think of a good game he has had since about February.
On the Wallace issue I kind of sit in the middle a bit, he does some good work and his goal scoring record at this level is very good I think we could get so much more out of him, in his defence we have never been able to pair one player up with him consistently so really excited to see him and Doris link up when He’s fit, has the making of a good partnership. In the meantime we need to find another way of getting goals.


Bit harsh on Denholm surely haha, without looking was he not in and out of the team quite a bit second half of the season with an injury or two? Think he done pretty well, only real howler I can remember him having was the 3-0 loss to QP. If we do go 4-4-2 it just has to be him and Bobby starting every week, get him a run of games in his best position and hopefully see best of him.
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Whilst it’s good that Danny engages these things like podcasts and blogs, it would also be good if he started getting his finger out and performing a bit better, I can’t think of a good game he has had since about February.
On the Wallace issue I kind of sit in the middle a bit, he does some good work and his goal scoring record at this level is very good I think we could get so much more out of him, in his defence we have never been able to pair one player up with him consistently so really excited to see him and Doris link up when He’s fit, has the making of a good partnership. In the meantime we need to find another way of getting goals.
Both Danny and Bobby have been played at wing back for a good part of last season and neither of them are suited to that role. Looks like we may be going with a back 4 this season so I expect when Danny is playing on a more familiar role he will be more successful.
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Wallace played really well on Saturday and he is a far better option that Hester, All the abuse Wallace gets is a joke, Hester missed a few great chances on Saturday yet no one jumps on his back, I get everyone wants to see him do well because he is a young local boy but if we want to be pushing on in the league he isn’t good enough to be starting, I fully expect him to be out on loan by season starting .

Agree with McKenna, was overwhelmed by him singing but he looks like a great signing who can do a job in various positions, 

Also really happy we look like we are going with 4-4-2, Linn looks like he is flying and hopefully Denholm gets back on form, Kader seems to be struggling but a good squad player to have, 

Really been impressed by the new signings also, hopefully a few more to follow and we will be looking good.

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Whilst it’s good that Danny engages these things like podcasts and blogs, it would also be good if he started getting his finger out and performing a bit better, I can’t think of a good game he has had since about February.
On the Wallace issue I kind of sit in the middle a bit, he does some good work and his goal scoring record at this level is very good I think we could get so much more out of him, in his defence we have never been able to pair one player up with him consistently so really excited to see him and Doris link up when He’s fit, has the making of a good partnership. In the meantime we need to find another way of getting goals.

I partly agree with you in Denholm’s form. He started last season well but got crocked against Forfar and wasn’t the same player when he returned. I like him and think he is a good option but he is very frustrating at times.
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