The St. Mirren FC 2023/24 thread

[Buttocks Brown]

Jim on SMTV yesterday saying that we had a fully fit squad but then McAllister completely absent again. Looks like he's been bombed out.

The 2nd goal was the killer wasn't it? A rare mistake from Alnwick. Huffed and puffed a bit in the second half but I think there's still enough there to suggest we can have a reasonable season. Hearts will be in and around the top 6 I would think so no shame in losing to them by the odd goal.

[djchapsticks]

30 minutes ago, Biscuits said:

I'm worried about us already.

The manager seems to have committed to this 3-5-2 and has brought in players to supposedly fit this system. It doesn't work for us. Would much rather switch to a back four with Fraser at right back where he belongs. Big Joe and Mccarthy at centre half and bring in an actual left back.

That's two weeks in a row our 5 across the middle has been pretty much redundant as all we do is punt high balls up to Main in the hope he gets a flick on to Brophy.

Not once did we play the ball in to our strikers feet and ask them to hold it up for a midfield runner. Not once.

We have decent players - I think Power has added a lot in the middle of the park.

But I think we need to find a system that fits the players rather than the other way around.

I tend to agree. I wouldn't go as far as saying I'm worried just yet but I did mention in the wake of the Dunfermline game that it's not a good look to only have one way to play and that's it.

We seem to be going with the 'route one fire in as many crosses as possible' approach and the concern is that when it's not working, we don't have a backup plan

[codfish]

I tend to agree. I wouldn't go as far as saying I'm worried just yet but I did mention in the wake of the Dunfermline game that it's not a good look to only have one way to play and that's it.
We seem to be going with the 'route one fire in as many crosses as possible' approach and the concern is that when it's not working, we don't have a backup plan

Cracking approach when it works - outside of the goal, though, I only recall thinking ‘that’s a f’cking great ball’ once.

We need to be able to mix it up, and with McGrath, Main and Brophy we should be able to play into feet far more. There’s also the Ryan Flynn question - maybe not him exactly, but today was the sort of game that was crying out for a bit of vision.

[Coventry Saint]

Might get slaughtered for this, but it might not be the end of the world if McGrath moves on. We're building the team round him and, while he remains our best player, he's not hugely creative, nor does the system we have to play to accommodate him actually work very well.

[Silvio]

12 minutes ago, Coventry Saint said:

Might get slaughtered for this, but it might not be the end of the world if McGrath moves on. We're building the team round him and, while he remains our best player, he's not hugely creative, nor does the system we have to play to accommodate him actually work very well.

I agree.

As soon as they only have a year left, it's time to sell. I would have taken the money for Hladky as well. Was it Qarabag or someone? 

[pozbaird]

First game for me since Obika relegated Hearts. Was in my own seat today, and just to my right, one row in front of my seat is the ‘vomitory’ which, unless I’m mistaken, now has a new feature - it’s had a three-bar barrier thingy affixed to it. I nipped down a row and tried a few of the seats immediately behind it. It actually obstructs your view. Any kid or smaller person in those seats is in for a treat when they get back into their ST seat in that row. I’m not imagining it, am I, these things are new?

 

 

[McG]

McGrath and Kiltie can’t play in the same team unless we just go with 1 up top with Kiltie in behind the striker, Power was doing it all in the middle of the park himself today.

The manager got it all wrong today.

[Coventry Saint]

9 minutes ago, McG said:

McGrath and Kiltie can’t play in the same team unless we just go with 1 up top with Kiltie in behind the striker, Power was doing it all in the middle of the park himself today.

The manager got it all wrong today.

The annoying thing is we all saw this after the LC games. Absolutely mad that Jim has tried that at home to Hearts.

[Mainstand Sweary Mob]

First game for me since Obika relegated Hearts. Was in my own seat today, and just to my right, one row in front of my seat is the ‘vomitory’ which, unless I’m mistaken, now has a new feature - it’s had a three-bar barrier thingy affixed to it. I nipped down a row and tried a few of the seats immediately behind it. It actually obstructs your view. Any kid or smaller person in those seats is in for a treat when they get back into their ST seat in that row. I’m not imagining it, am I, these things are new?
 
 

My brother and I have just got season tickets again, with getting one for my 7year old son for the first time too and we are going to be a row behind a similar seating arrangement. I hope this isn't going to obstruct our views... Also what stupid git would fall from there that makes there a need for this?

[tree house tam]

48 minutes ago, McG said:

McGrath and Kiltie can’t play in the same team unless we just go with 1 up top with Kiltie in behind the striker, Power was doing it all in the middle of the park himself today.

The manager got it all wrong today.

That's not like him.....

[pozbaird]

What do other Saints fans think about the experience of being at today’s game in general? I was surpised that it didn’t feel particularly strange compared to a normal day at SMP. It certainly was far from normal, and I really hope we get back to normality asap, but I expected it to feel awful, and it didn’t. Strangest thing I felt was the complete lack of away fans. I actually really missed the fact that there wasn’t our lot with black and white tinted specs on, and a large, vocal Jambos support booing, cheering, and giving it large with maroon tinted specs on.

Roll on normality.

[Mainstand Sweary Mob]

What do other Saints fans think about the experience of being at today’s game in general? I was surpised that it didn’t feel particularly strange compared to a normal day at SMP. It certainly was far from normal, and I really hope we get back to normality asap, but I expected it to feel awful, and it didn’t. Strangest thing I felt was the complete lack of away fans. I actually really missed the fact that there wasn’t our lot with black and white tinted specs on, and a large, vocal Jambos support booing, cheering, and giving it large with maroon tinted specs on.
Roll on normality.

I didn't think it was bad at all. It was a pain trying to figure out what gate to go into, but apart from that it was good. It was my son's first ever game. He seemed to really enjoy it apart from not being able to get the hotdogs I said they normally sell. Looking forward to the next home game and hopefully we will be in our new season ticket seats with him.

[Munoz]

38 minutes ago, pozbaird said:

What do other Saints fans think about the experience of being at today’s game in general? I was surpised that it didn’t feel particularly strange compared to a normal day at SMP. It certainly was far from normal, and I really hope we get back to normality asap, but I expected it to feel awful, and it didn’t. Strangest thing I felt was the complete lack of away fans. I actually really missed the fact that there wasn’t our lot with black and white tinted specs on, and a large, vocal Jambos support booing, cheering, and giving it large with maroon tinted specs on.

Roll on normality.

I was at the Thistle game and it all felt really odd. Great to be back and all that, but a poor resemblance of what the match day experience should be.

[Norrie82]

3 hours ago, Stan Bo said:

McGrath or Kiltie for me, not both in the current formation. didn’t think Tait looked too good today, thought Halliday had the beating of him (which is scary to say!)

Had a great view of Dennis’ red card and it was a stick on red, thing is Haring made a bee line to block him off, if he just ran into him there’s a decent chance we get the foul, as it was he moved out the way then clocked him with his arm. Was bizarre!

 

first ten minutes was pretty end to end then hearts got a foothold and absolutely dominated and passed the ball really well. Last ten mins of the first half they seemed to retreat, let us have the ball and be content to slow the game, was a bit surprising as they were battering us for a 25 minute spell

I actually thought we done ok second half, was hard to get going with Hearts slowing down the play at every opportunity. The second goal was an absolute shocker, pish defending, probably Alnwicks biggest mistake since joining, from where I was it looked like he just missed the ball.

 

ref had a nightmare, did he actually give an offside from a free kick that the linesman didn’t give?  

McGrath or Kiltie? Are you suggesting Kiltie is in the same league as McGrath? One tried to link play and generally scores all our goals and the other has been a passenger in previous appearances. I mean come on when Jamie goes for a poor fee an a couple of weeks Kiltie won’t be a replacement

[cass316]

Kiltie being a ghost and a passenger?
I am shocked and stunned.

[Doonhame Buddie]

Playing the two promoted sides in our first two games of the season was as much as we could have asked for.  A minimum of 4 points surely?  Instead we failed to win against 10 men and were then soundly beaten at home. 
I have the fear.  When I saw the line up against Dundee I thought that is a right good team.  Delusional me.  Our “strongest” side turned out to be not nearly good enough. 
The team was improved against Hearts by replacing Henderson with Tait.  Again, we never looked like winning.  
COYS and all that but looking at the forthcoming league fixtures is nothing less than frightening.  
We need better, quicker recruits and Jim needs to be much more reactive during games. 
One more drink and I’m off to bed. 
 

[Torfason]

Hearts looked a very good side and I expect them to finish top six, so the newly promoted label is a bit of a misnomer.

We need some guile though as we look very predictable in attack and launching crosses from deep is easy for any decent centre half.

[Ric]

6 hours ago, Torfason said:

Hearts looked a very good side ...

Do you think? I thought they were fairly average. I mean obvs we were worse, or at least our defending was at times, but that Hearts team doesn't look like one that has "top 6" nailed onto it.

[buddie06smfc]

15 hours ago, AW saint said:

Cant agree. We have areas that look ok but we have no pace, we don't have a player who can carry a ball forward and our strikers are poor. This is going to be a struggle until Goodwin finds the missing parts of this jigsaw. 

Time to bin Dennis after today. No excuses 

Would be crazy to get rid of Dennis after one moment of head loss. He'll pay for it as he will be further down the pecking order behind Erwin now. Dennis is a good finisher and will score goals for us over this season if he gets games and we get the ball to him in a reasonable manner - not hit and hope punts up to him. He would be the one that could make use of Tanser's crosses. 

[pozbaird]

9 hours ago, Torfason said:

Hearts looked a very good side and I expect them to finish top six, so the newly promoted label is a bit of a misnomer.

We need some guile though as we look very predictable in attack and launching crosses from deep is easy for any decent centre half.

In my opinion here’s what Hearts looked like - they looked like everyone else in the league at ‘our level’…. don’t necessarily have better players than us, but they are better organised, are generally employing better tactics, their players have defined roles, they are set up better by their manager, they know their best XI, they know how to play against St Mirren and reduce us to hoofballs and our usual huffing and puffing. They have our card marked. Hearts, St Johnstone, Livvy last season… could go on. Other clubs at ‘our level’ also seem to have fully functioning midfields that can actually create chances for front men, giving them more chance of scoring goals to beat other clubs in and around them in the league. They also seem able to mostly know which player should play in which position, and don’t, for example, have a kid like Erhahon playing everywhere, bar backing up Alnwick.

Long season ahead.

Edit to add. Hearts also looked like a team who knew exactly how far to go with sneaky goalie timewasting, slowing it down when it suited them, and were generally more streetwise and switched on. We can boo Craig Gordon all we like, but if it was us winning at Tynecastle, we’d have been singing Alnwick’s name and loving it. You know we would.

So, apart from it being a long season watching other teams have our card marked playing wise, it’s also likely to be long season ahead, watching us be some sort of ‘play by the rules’ good guys, against all these cheating bad boys…. who are leading while we boo them. Over to you Goody.

Edited August 8, 2021 by pozbaird