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Double Winning St Johnstone FC Thread


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22 minutes ago, andrewh said:

Can you remember when that was and where? My memory isn’t helping me much in this one.

Was at Tynecastle in early 2018, possibly the day Willock made his debut.

Tommy Wright went to town on Andrew Dallas afterwards.

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Davidson is ideal for games where you want to break up play and steal the ball in the centre of the park and play on the counter. The problem last night was the three ahead of him didn't do their job.

In games where we have more of the ball, he either needs to be part of a three or have a player like Morris or Millar next to him.

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Our pressing and breaking up wasn’t an issue yesterday, our use of the ball was terrible though, night and day to last week. I’d still say Kane and Middleton did about as well as could be expected, with Muzz and Zander the stand outs.

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Davidson played more passes to teammates than most last night.  Probably stays will say no, but it felt even more than McCann for once.

Yes he was immense at winning it back, but he also did okay at keeping the ball.

Booth, Middleton and MOH failed to keep possession nearly every time they got the ball.

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It's been my expressed view over a number of weeks that Devine has to be looking at the LB slot and thinking he has a chance of playing 20ish league games this season as a minimum. Booth is the archetype 2-2.5 star player on FM that you keep around because he tries hard and doesn't complain. Feels bad even typing it out, but too often in the European games he looked like a player a step below just about getting by through giving it everything. Brown doesn't look massively dissimilar. 

SPL squads need players like that, but given Devine could very quickly become the better player I really hope we see more of him soon, even if I almost understand why experience was preferred in the European matches, especially after first Galatasary.

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11 minutes ago, PauloPerth said:

Yes he was immense at winning it back, but he also did okay at keeping the ball.

What does he do that McCann doesn't do though? Neither of them will create a chance or play through opponents, both are just ball winners who can play safe passes either to a wing back or centre back. I'll try and find out how often they pass to each other/Kane, but can't be much.

Ideally you have one player like that and then another beside them who's more "complete", and capable of playing through opponents, otherwise it becomes easy to stop you.

Not saying Davidson got it wrong last night, as he didn't have much option at all centrally, bit going forward we need better in the middle than Davidson to really reach that next level.

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42 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

This'll be a harsh post and I expect pelters for it.

I like Murray Davidson and he was one of our better players, but him being first choice is a pretty good example of why we never make it in European competition.

McCann aside there's not a single player in last night's defence/midfield who can play through pressure. Rooney maybe but that's just strength rather than technical ability. I think Bryson would've helped but you can't be relying on an injury prone player over 30 for that. Still no idea about Gilmour.

Same up front really. Middleton probably good enough, Kane works hard but compare him to Karamoko who's got everything Kane has but is so much better technically. O'Halloran is virtually useless in these games aside from being a threat in behind every so often. 

These players are all fine domestically, but as soon as we reach a level where opponents are both technically better but also match their work rate, you see the issues it brings us. Obviously hard to get players better on our budget though.

Don't think anyone would give you pelters at all, very fair IMO. 

Was clear over the 4 games that we've got maybe half a dozen players that are just about good enough but the teams we've been playing have got squads full of them. In Galatasaray's case they have that plus a handful of gamechangers. I think in part that's what led to the frustration that we saw boil up last night - that and sheer exhaustion and of course not real experience of dealing with that level of pressure. I include the manger in that, who for all his experience in the game is still learning. 

Disappointed in how it ended but have to take heart that we were so nearly there - for large parts of both games we more than held our own and were often the better team. My hope is that having some so close and had a taste of the possible, the club use it positively, learn from it, grow the depth and quality. I'd like to think that if we can somehow get to a similar place again in the near future we'd be far better in being able to handle it. 

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On another note, that’s us got 2 players from our youth academy in their respective international sides, and 2 in the u-21’s although granted one is a Rangers loanee.

We should be getting looked at as a possible place for talent to grow, and hopefully our youth academy grows in the coming years.

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Another interesting thing after the red card was the reaction of some players to the adversity (also the players didn't really seem that outraged with the Spoony red, they all saw it and just looked furious with him)

McCann and Davidson never stopped running to try and make something happen, Rooney also really tried to step up and you could see Kane was still trying to put himself about, but MOH completely went missing, started taking up a position where he couldn't get in behind or be found with a ball to feet, so starting to worry that we have a massive issue with mentality and having players who actually have the belief and drive to win games.

It's much easier to press and run around in the first hour when it still feels like there's plenty of the game left and if we knick a lead then we can try to hold it, but we dont' seem to have much when it's money time and somebody needs to step up and be decisive

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I do think quite a few players were shown up from a technical point of view last night. The LASK players often looked a lot better at controlling a ball. On top of that they were quicker to loose balls and showed some decent shielding of the ball.

A lot that the team can and should learn from those four games. 

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3 hours ago, The Saintee said:

Rooney isn't a CB. He doesn't have the concentration.

This 100000%. Just because he is dominant in the air doesn’t mean he’s a capable Centre Half. Defensively he can be really poor at times - just look at the penalty, should never be caught wrong side initially. For me he’s a Wing Back and only that. Love the mad beardy b*****d to pieces and think he’d be foolish to leave a team that has a position and way of playing suited perfectly to his game. 

Edited by PSJ.84
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On 24/08/2021 at 16:16, Jamie_Beatson said:
2 minutes ago, PSJ.84 said:

This 100000%. Just because he is dominant in the air doesn’t mean he’s a capable Centre Half. Defensively he can be really poor at times, for me he’s a Wing Back and only that. Love the mad beardy b*****d to pieces and think he’d be foolish to leave a team that has a position and way of playing suited perfectly to his game. 

I agree too. We should have started with Muller at the back. With our problem of not scoring enough goals at home. not having Rooney out on the right was a disadvantage for us. 

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1 hour ago, Valentino Bolognese said:

I'd like to think that if we can somehow get to a similar place again in the near future we'd be far better in being able to handle it. 

How often can we keep saying that though? 

Last night was our sixth go at it and we come up short every time. 

You kind of excused not having the squad built when the games were in June but we had so much extra time this campaign and still have been virtually inactive. 

We'll see what the next few days bring. If it's panic signings then I will despair. 

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Worry I have now is that it starts to play on the players’ minds that we’re yet to win a game in 90 mins so far this season, particularly if we lose on Sunday. With Rangers at home, then trips to both Aberdeen and Hibs we could be looking at 2 points from our opening 6 games. Considering it was a fairly favourable opening 4 games on paper…

Not like a Saints fan to be overreacting!

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6 hours ago, Radford said:

I suppose the argument is the manager should have identified that Wotherspoon was super-charged before he came on and told him to stay calm. Equally, a leader on the pitch should have got in his ear when he was going tonto at the referee after not getting a foul before the throw. 

I think that's what probably made me think he might be guilty at the time, not having had the benefit of a replay.

He has to live with that but the fans will support him.

I was in the North Stand, so was too far away to see what happened.  My initial thought was that he had maybe mouthed off at the ref again,  given what had just happened.

A few around me were furious and felt he had done nothing wrong,  although how they could tell from that distance I don't know.  

My feeling was the ref was ten yards away and had the red card out immediately,  so Spoony must have done something.  Having seen it on the telly,  it's obviously a clear red card. 

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In many (most?) of the European home games we've lost, I've felt we had a chance to go through but have been beaten by a team that is just technically better - quicker passing, better movement, better positioning, more clinical.

It was the same again last night.

I think that's what makes this one frustrating - there's a sense of 'here we are again'.

In saying that, expecting us to compete like-for-like with LASK is unrealistic. Some of our players just aren't good enough to play well against a team like that - but we're never going to have a team that good on our budget.

Not being defeatist and obviously we should always be trying to improve. When it's happened so many times to us before though, it makes me think the impact of that technical ability gap is more significant than it first appears.

I wonder how addressable that gap is - is it a case that Scotland's youth system is producing players with less technical ability than other countries, or is it just that these other teams generally have more money and therefore have better players, and it's that simple?

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