Double Winning St Johnstone FC Thread

[RandomGuy.]

Cant agree with the idea of dropping Clark, just feels like needing to drop someone and hes the easiest target. Its not as if Parish was playing well when he dropped for Clark.

[PauloPerth]

The things Zander was getting praised for a season or two back are well below the standard they were. The commanding of his box and coming for crosses, his great distribution from throws and kicks.  He's had a handful of very good saves, but I can't think of too many great blocks to keep us in games so far this season to be honest.

Whether it's enough to drop him is the manager's shout, and depends how highly he rates Parish from seeing him in training everyday. 

Theres no way our predicament is Zander's fault, it's a collective run of poor form, but other players are likely dropped if underperforming as well..

[glenrothes 1884 saint]

10 minutes ago, PauloPerth said:

.  He's had a handful of very good saves, but I can't think of too many great blocks to keep us in games so far this season to be honest.

Is that without the last minute penalty save against Livi, and the last minute save at Pittodrie off deflected free kick,both earning  a draw?

 

[Radford]

14 minutes ago, ali_91 said:

Those stats are a total nonsense.

Disagree. They are as close as you'll get to a statistical way of assessing a goalkeeper's shot stopping ability. 

I think it was a discussion worth having about Clark. He needs to up his standards. But a goalkeeper's distribution, for a club like Saints, is irrelevant to me. Keep the ball out of the net when you should and make some unexpected saves on top of that and job done. Clark is capable of that and needs to find that level again, however it's achieved. 

[Radford]

1 hour ago, ali_91 said:

Where do the stats come from?

AFAIK, they look at thousands of shots over several seasons in leagues comparable to the Premiership. The shots are then grouped together based on the area from which they are taken, route to goal etc... and attributed a value based on how often they are scored/saved. For example, the xG of Devante Cole's two big chances last week would be in excess of 0.90 (maximum is 1.00, i.e. a chance is scored 100% of the time), whereas the goal Craig Halkett scored against us last season was probably about 0.05 or less. Conversely they will have a value on the number of times you'd expect them to be saved. 

With that data, you can then look at every shot taken this season and determine how often, historically, a goalkeeper will save a shot of a type, from a set area. 

I don't know enough about the intricacies of it, do they take weather into account, for example. I doubt they take mental factors (pressure in front of a raucous away support) into consideration, so there are obvious flaws but it's still a pretty good measure IMO. 

I was a big fan of Peter Enckelman and actually think the numbers would have supported the case that he was a very good shot stopper. These analysts are trying to apply other things to goalkeepers (area dominance, distribution) but I'm not sold on those metrics. 

I completely agree, you form an opinion, then use stats to back it up if they suit. You most certainly don't look at numbers, then form an opinion on that, or @RandomGuy. would have us signing Elliot Frear. 

I've mocked the whole analytics thing in the past and don't want to be seen as a complete champion for it as I'm not but there is some useful stuff in there. I think in pure terms, related to individual players, xG is one such thing. 

Edited October 4, 2019 by Radford

[RandomGuy.]

52 minutes ago, Radford said:

You most certainly don't look at numbers, then form an opinion on that, or @RandomGuy. would have us signing Elliot Frear. 

Worth mentioning my suggestion of Frear was entirely based around us selling Swanson and looking for a cheap option to play back up to Kennedy. And, in theory, a youngish winger with "good numbers" in this league would be a better option than a complete gamble.

Edited October 4, 2019 by RandomGuy.

[PauloPerth]

11 hours ago, ali_91 said:

I genuinely can’t remember Zander ever being praised for his commanding of the area. I could be wrong, but he screams shot stopper and one on one to me. 

From what I’ve seen this season, granted not as much as you but I’m a season ticket holder who goes to plenty aways, his distribution problems have been completely overemphasised. 

Remember when Clark was breaking through and challenging Mannus, one of the major reasons folk were pushing for Clark to get picked ahead of Mannus was the latter's tendency to be rooted to his line, whilst Clark was far more commanding of crosses into the box.

His distribution hasn't been awful, I just think for a good spell last season it was a major asset, and some of his early long throws were setting up counters etc, whereas I don't think he's been anywhere near as effective this season. You could also point to movement of teammates as a factor.

11 hours ago, glenrothes 1884 saint said:

Is that without the last minute penalty save against Livi, and the last minute save at Pittodrie off deflected free kick,both earning  a draw?

 

Both good saves. Would say there's been a few goals conceded where he might have done better, even though they weren't howlers, e.g. Last Saturday's?

 

Hes not playing awful, he's still a very good keeper on his day, and I'm not on some campaign to get him dropped. If he starts today and plays outstanding I'll be delighted.  

I just think the coaching staff have to be looking at everything about the team and how to improve things. There's a balance between not panicking by constantly changing too much, and not doing  enough to improve things.  I make it 6 clean sheets with 5 victories in 28 matches since the end of January. This includes 2 at home to a hopeless Dundee, st Mirren and Brechin).

As shown before, we've only won one match where we've conceded a goal since the start of the previous season (14 out of 15 wins were where we kept a clean sheet).

At some stage we need to look at whether it's just another bad run of results, or something more than that.

 

[capt_oats]

24 minutes ago, PauloPerth said:

At some stage we need to look at whether it's just another bad run of results, or something more than that.

After the post-match chat following last week I was looking at your results since the start of last season and was curious as to whether something happened in January (injuries etc). I know Drey Wright picked up an injury around last November(?) and he's only just come back but have there been other issues?

This time last year everyone was on the #sexyStJohnstone bus and your form was legit European qualification level. To go from that to 5 wins in 28 is quite the cliff to go off.

Edited October 5, 2019 by capt_oats

[andrewh]

After the post-match chat following last week I was looking at your results since the start of last season and was curious as to whether something happened in January (injuries etc). I know Drey Wright picked up an injury around last November(?) and he's only just come back but have there been other issues?
This time last year everyone was on the #sexyStJohnstone bus and your form was legit European qualification level. To go from that to 5 wins in 28 is quite the cliff to go off.

We’ve had games last season with one shot on goal, and not against the OF. At home we are depressingly poor to watch, have been for about four years. In that time our away form has helped us, as well as being far better to watch. But this, this season doesn’t feel like any of that, and I don’t buy Tommy’s formation is fine it’s individual errors. I believe we’ve enough to stay up and may be good enough for a top six challenge, but I’ve yet to see evidence of it. Time is marching in but as yet the Saints are not.

[RandomGuy.]

1 hour ago, capt_oats said:

After the post-match chat following last week I was looking at your results since the start of last season and was curious as to whether something happened in January (injuries etc). I know Drey Wright picked up an injury around last November(?) and he's only just come back but have there been other issues?

This time last year everyone was on the #sexyStJohnstone bus and your form was legit European qualification level. To go from that to 5 wins in 28 is quite the cliff to go off.

I'll get the slated for these opinions, but to me we lost our form because Drey Wright got injured, Joe Shaughnessy started thinking about his next move and lost form, Tony Watt seemed to have some issue and completely vanished from view (allegedly he was virtually punted from the club unoffically) leaving us with Chris Kane as main striker who is miles behind Watt and then we had the manager trying to wedge Sean Goss into a well performing midfield and that completely ruined their momentum, even when we returned to what was working.

This season is different. We started the cup competitions with the majority of the defence never playing together competitively before, picked up poor results and the confidence is then gone after last season. A opening run of games where we play last seasons top six in our first 8 odd games just compounds things, along with losing the likes of Foster to unexpected circumstances, and Wotherspoon to injury.

Edited October 5, 2019 by RandomGuy.

[PauloPerth]

4 hours ago, capt_oats said:

After the post-match chat following last week I was looking at your results since the start of last season and was curious as to whether something happened in January (injuries etc). I know Drey Wright picked up an injury around last November(?) and he's only just come back but have there been other issues?

This time last year everyone was on the #sexyStJohnstone bus and your form was legit European qualification level. To go from that to 5 wins in 28 is quite the cliff to go off.

I think the issues @RandomGuy. mentions are factors and all good points.

We had developed into a team that were solid defensively, carried a great threat in wide areas and in Tony Watt had a very talented and effective lone striker.  Our centre midfield were solid and unspectacular, but we had enough elsewhere in the team to create chances.  After the end of January we also played Celtic three times and hearts which resulted in 4 defeats and confidence being sapped.  Everyone could see why we brought in Goss, but it turned out he was the wrong type of player for us, and far too much of a luxury player.

It could also be argued the manager's keenness to work with former players again has resulted in an imbalanced squad. Arguably 4 of our top 5 or 6 players are wide players, so when a couple of your best players are on the bench every Saturday it's not ideal.  Personally i wasn't  keen for us to sign Stevie May again, simply because I didn't think he was the type of striker we required.  The manager has developed a preference for 1 upfront, but you've got to have the personnel to do that.  I don't think May is best suited to a lone striker role.

Having said all this, Tommy has been a manger who has always turned things around when needed, and under him we have often been a team of runs of wins or losses. There's every chance we could win the next three, be on the cusp of top six, and posts like this one are put in the bin, where it possible  belongs anyway.

 

[Broon_100]

A lot of the goals Zander has conceded I've thought to myself could he have saved that? Not glaring errors but I often wonder if a better keeper makes the save. I always felt the same with Cuthbert when he was at Saints.

Enkelman was a wonderful goalie, totally underrated. 

[Lang Toon Saintee]

Vihmann on the bench and Duffy starting.iA current international player who is behind a 20 year old( who has only played a couple of first team games) I can't see him being here for the whole season..

[mizfit]

Fucking penalties

[Mr Positive, sometimes.]

Kane should have been won. Cannot rely on Kane to put the ball in the net when it counts. 

2 brilliant chances. 2 points dropped. 

On a positive note we were by far the better team. 

Referee as usual. Pish. Not convinced it was a penalty. How did County not end up with more bookings than they did. Consistently late and flying in. 

[RandomGuy.]

St Mirren game is a must win. No other result can be accepted. Huge pressure on the team and it's all their own doing.

[Mr Positive, sometimes.]

Also it must be said. McCann was superb. Mature performance and if he keeps playing like that he's one of the first names on the team sheet. 

County provided Amy McDonald with some kind of bodyguard while she was sitting in the stand opposite us. At half time she was filming the Saints fans slagging her off. What a total fucking diddy. 

Edited October 5, 2019 by Mr Positive, sometimes.

[Honest Saints Fan]

3 minutes ago, Mr Positive, sometimes. said:

 

County provided Amy McDonald with some kind of bodyguard while she was sitting in the stand opposite us. At half time she was filming the Saints fans slagging her off. What a total fucking diddy. 

Strange individual. Sat there for the sole reason of stroking her ego. 

 

Swanson was excellent and I thought May worked really hard. His goal was classic May. 

[RandomGuy.]

29 minutes ago, Mr Positive, sometimes. said:

At half time she was filming the Saints fans slagging her off. 

Tbf having 300 folk singing at her isnt something she likely experiences that often...

[mizfit]

Amy McDonald is just musics equivalent of Janey fucking Godley.