The Arbroath Thread

[Housecaptain]

Donnelly to me is a waste of space, does nothing and should not displace McKenna who when he came on made a difference. Before Forfar scored we had 3 great balls across the 6 yard box and not 1 of them was put away. Wallace and Swankie did nothing.

[lichtie23]

Donnelly to me is a waste of space, does nothing and should not displace McKenna who when he came on made a difference. Before Forfar scored we had 3 great balls across the 6 yard box and not 1 of them was put away. Wallace and Swankie did nothing.

He has played twice! Deary me

[ecto]

Donnelly to me is a waste of space, does nothing and should not displace McKenna who when he came on made a difference. Before Forfar scored we had 3 great balls across the 6 yard box and not 1 of them was put away. Wallace and Swankie did nothing.

Holy s**t, it's only been a couple of appearances, hopefully he will improve

[Shelldon]

DonNeLly iS a WaSTe oF Space

 

we-all-know-what-he-s-thinking-photo-u1.webp

[afc_36_0]

Donnelly to me is a waste of space, does nothing and should not displace McKenna who when he came on made a difference. Before Forfar scored we had 3 great balls across the 6 yard box and not 1 of them was put away. Wallace and Swankie did nothing.

Ffs

[SimonLichtie]

I really like Mikey McKenna, but I don't quite understand why a player with 3 goals and 3/4 assists in 20 odd starts is seen as such a necessity to start upfront?  

 

Would like to give a big shout out to the fan who was screaming abuse at Dick Campbell yesterday, special mention to him for screaming 'Campbell your strikers are shite' at a time when we have scored the joint second most goals in the whole of the SPFL, with only Celtic having scored more.  

[farflung lichtie]

We’re all entitled to an opinion but surely rushing to early judgement on a player/any player when the team as a whole has underperformed is a little premature.

 

I thought the team setup wasn’t right yesterday (don’t think we can start with both Linn and Denholm -leaves us light in midfield) but I would be critical of the home support. The attendance was decent but most of the noise was from the Forfar fans - oft criticised like our other Angus rivals. In games like this, fans need to lend a bit more vocal and moral support to the team but the home fans were quiet again with the exception of the usual moaning and criticism from a deluded minority.

 

And what was the disgraceful early exodus after Forfar scored their second? Shows a complete lack of character - acting like big team fans.

 

Must try harder - maybe we just don’t deserve a successful team

 

[keptie]

37 minutes ago, farflung lichtie said:

We’re all entitled to an opinion but surely rushing to early judgement on a player/any player when the team as a whole has underperformed is a little premature.

 

I thought the team setup wasn’t right yesterday (don’t think we can start with both Linn and Denholm -leaves us light in midfield) but I would be critical of the home support. The attendance was decent but most of the noise was from the Forfar fans - oft criticised like our other Angus rivals. In games like this, fans need to lend a bit more vocal and moral support to the team but the home fans were quiet again with the exception of the usual moaning and criticism from a deluded minority.

 

And what was the disgraceful early exodus after Forfar scored their second? Shows a complete lack of character - acting like big team fans.

 

Must try harder - maybe we just don’t deserve a successful team

 

A bit harsh to suggest we don't deserve a successful team because we're not making enough noise but don't mistake lack of noise for a lack of passion for the team. we used to have a young crew who would start the singing but they seem to have disappeared and I think a lot of our supporters are just a bit reserved and  and just need a group of supporters to start singing to get them going. The noise coming from the Forfar support yesterday was only coming from about a group of about fifteen schoolboys so it doesn't take much to get a bit of atmosphere perhaps you could kick start the singing at the next game fl , get a Gayfield choir going

It is strange though that the whingers and moaners all seem to have voices like foghorns.

Edited January 27, 2019 by keptie

[Mexico]

I thought Donnelly played alright yesterday, it looks clear he will work in this squad if players, linking up well at times, just needs to get used to this group of players a bit more. 

Forfar played well yesterday and sat deep enough to nullify our attack at times, the keeper bailing them out when it didn’t work. 

[afc_36_0]

Wallace is a good player and a clever one at that. I think fans (and my) frustrations are that he doesn’t always put in the effort that the likes of mckenna or doris do and can easily go in the huff. We’re spoilt for attacking options and its a fine balance between competition for places and keeping a settled team

[Bannyfaws]

Maybe only a group of school kids but at least they make an effort to follow there team, Made a atomsphere yesterday by singing all day which by the way never heard nothing from u lads who are top of the league you would supporters would making a racket but not a noise.

[Bannyfaws]

That tube in Tutties made more noise than the whole of your supporters.

[JoseMarooniho]

Maybe only a group of school kids but at least they make an effort to follow there team, Made a atomsphere yesterday by singing all day which by the way never heard nothing from u lads who are top of the league you would supporters would making a racket but not a noise.

Anybody translate?

[Mexico]

13 minutes ago, Bannyfaws said:

Maybe only a group of school kids but at least they make an effort to follow there team, Made a atomsphere yesterday by singing all day which by the way never heard nothing from u lads who are top of the league you would supporters would making a racket but not a noise.

I knew someone would come out with this shite eventually, whilst I agree it’s great to see a group of kids get behind their team and make a noise, let’s not pretend it was all game, because it wasn’t, not even close. 

[1320Lichtie]

I really like Mikey McKenna, but I don't quite understand why a player with 3 goals and 3/4 assists in 20 odd starts is seen as such a necessity to start upfront?  

 

Would like to give a big shout out to the fan who was screaming abuse at Dick Campbell yesterday, special mention to him for screaming 'Campbell your strikers are shite' at a time when we have scored the joint second most goals in the whole of the SPFL, with only Celtic having scored more.  

 

Never meant upfront. Needs to play, don't care where. Midfield, uptop, anywhere in my opinion

[SimonLichtie]

34 minutes ago, afc_36_0 said:

Wallace is a good player and a clever one at that. I think fans (and my) frustrations are that he doesn’t always put in the effort

I agree with this, although I would change that too 'perceived effort'.

If we'd played this year with two Michael McKenna esque players up top, we wouldn't have as many points as we do. We'd have scored a dozen + less goals and have struggled massively to put the ball in the back of the net.

If we'd played this year with two Ryan Wallace esque players up top, I think we would have scored the same amount of goals, but we'd have conceded more from being under more pressure in midfield/ defence through not closing down the opposition defence and defending from the front.

With Ryan Wallace AND Michael McKenna playing together, we have scored the joint second most goals in the whole of Scotland AND have conceded the least amount of goals in the division. 

Let's look at two scenarios here..... It's an hour into a game, Mikey McKenna has done a tremendous amount of work and is busting a gut to try and get us the 3 points, however it's 0-0 and we don't look like scoring. The fans will be right behind him due to that workrate and perceived effort. Meanwhile, in a different game Ryan Wallace has scored a goal and got an assist from being in the right positions and making the right runs. Unfortunately the score is 2-2 and instead of chasing a lost cause, Wallace decides to continue to position himself where a striker should be to give him and us the best chance of getting a goal. The fans berate him, call him a lazy c**t and demand he is subbed for someone who puts in more effort. Should Wallace listen to the fans, run around after the ball like it's u11s playground stuff to keep the fans happy or should put position himself correctly and try to score a goal/ assist with a goal to win the game for us? One of them will get praise from the fans, but be less effective, while one of them will get him abused but give us a better chance to win the match.....

[Lichtielegend]

Donnelly and Wallace are drawing a lot of criticism but the problems really stemmed elsewhere.

Baird dropped deep and allowed Forfar to crowd out our midfield, meaning there was no great out ball and we resorted to trying to go long. Travis has his weaknesses but winning high balls is not one of them.

McKenna may not be the answer in terms of goals and assists but he does compete better in the air and presses from the front. Our best performances this season have seen us pressing and winning possession high up the park and McKenna does embody that. I like Donnelly and there has been moments when him and Wallace have had some nice linkup play but I think our starting pairing for now should be McKenna and Wallace.

 

The reaction to a defeat is way, way over the top. Like I say, we were a bit one-dimensional and Forfar defended well after going ahead. Despite this, we still had chances to equalise and it just didn't go our way.

 

I overheard two people at half-time asking why we had changed a winning team. That means either;

They were too daft to realise that it was the exact same team as we had against Stenny.

or

They were meaning we shouldn't have changed the team from the Celtic friendly and actually started with Jamieson, Swankie, TOB, Thomson and Linn on the bench.

[timlichtie]

There's a real danger of getting carried away about yesterday's result. Forfar defended well and scored 2 good goals. On another day both of those could have gone wide. Their keeper was by far the busier and made some great stops. Again, a deflection or miss hit shot could have beaten him on several occasions . One of these days!
Donnelly is a tricky player but not a target man. He and Wallace link well at times but yesterday a more physical style from McKenna may have worked.
Could Donnelly have been brought in to deflect the flak from Wallace?

[lichtiekev]

Mckenna improved us when he come on but taking Wallace off was a mistake, Donnelly has a few nice touches but didn’t do much, I personally was surprised in signing him but I also doubted the McKenna signing and that turned out good, 

It’s actually come to a point where we have to many attaching options and it’s gonna be hard to keep everyone happy, I wouldn’t be opposed to Doris going out on loan and starting Some games and getting sharpness back, 

Was surprised Swankie stayed on all game yesterday, McCord has got us so many goals from midfield and thought he deserved his chance 

[timlichtie]

Have to agree. Once we were chasing the game McCord might have been the man to unlock that packed defence. Gav was off his game. Is it a derby thing? He never seemed at his best against us either.