The St. Mirren FC 2023/24 thread

[Torfason]

1 hour ago, ZingaliMan said:

Reading Strachan has lined up Griffiths on a loan deal. Great signing if true he is a goal machine like him or not. 

 

1 hour ago, ZingaliMan said:

 

Christ I've stayed into a Dees forum by accident. 

[ZingaliMan]

8 minutes ago, Torfason said:

 

Christ I've stayed into a Dees forum by accident. 

The type of striker we could do with is on the market for a loan deal. 

[sergie's no1 fan]

6 minutes ago, ZingaliMan said:

The type of striker we could do with is on the market for a loan deal. 

Nah way too much baggage and with his latest incident, Dundee are more than welcome to him. 

 

[djchapsticks]

1 hour ago, ZingaliMan said:

Reading Strachan has lined up Griffiths on a loan deal. Great signing if true he is a goal machine like him or not. 

File in the David Goodwillie camp of 'avoid the wrongun' for me.

[codfish]

File in the David Goodwillie camp of 'avoid the wrongun' for me.

To be honest, it’s more the fact that his last three seasons make Curtis Main look prolific that would make me stay clear. He’ll be the highest earner wherever he goes, with no guarantee he can actually hit the levels he used to.

[GAD]

6 hours ago, McG said:

I’m told we are working on a couple of deals at the minute, Kennedy was desperate to join but Aberdeen shifted the goal posts at the last minute.

Heard the same tonight, he's on a serious wedge though and Aberdeen wanted more than we could afford in the end. Shite for Kennedy, but I'm sure one of the teams that took a bigger loan from the SG will stump up this week.

[IrishBhoy]

On 24/08/2021 at 10:07, Ric said:

When you say "missed out on", I don't think we missed out on Middleton and/or Kennedy, more we "dodged a bullet". Not that they are bad players, but adding them to the squad would not have helped us in any way,

Going off Middletons two displays for St Johnstone against LASK, I wouldn’t have him for St Mirrens B team. Running the ball out of play, giving away needless fouls when you have a defender under pressure and being unable to take a composed touch of the ball inside the opponents 18 yard box seem to be specialities of his. I’ve seen him have good games before so I’m not saying he’s a properly terrible player but he looks like a typical ‘1 good game in 5’ winger, which I suppose is the market both St Mirren and St Johnstone are working in to be fair. 

[FTOF]

14 minutes ago, IrishBhoy said:

Going off Middletons two displays for St Johnstone against LASK, I wouldn’t have him for St Mirrens B team. Running the ball out of play, giving away needless fouls when you have a defender under pressure and being unable to take a composed touch of the ball inside the opponents 18 yard box seem to be specialities of his. I’ve seen him have good games before so I’m not saying he’s a properly terrible player but he looks like a typical ‘1 good game in 5’ winger, which I suppose is the market both St Mirren and St Johnstone are working in to be fair. 

Add to that, when he was tracking back, or rather trying to, he looked like he was towing a caravan.

[IrishBhoy]

26 minutes ago, FTOF said:

Add to that, when he was tracking back, or rather trying to, he looked like he was towing a caravan.

It was his miscontrol in the first leg that ruined St Johnstone’s chance to go 2-0 up away from home, which to be fair was no more than they deserved at that point of the game. He was hopeless last night though, his lack of composure and ability to find a team mate with a pass surprised me a little as I genuinely thought he was better than that. 

[RandomGuy.]

The desperation of St Mirren fans to claim Middleton has been shite for us is really bizarre.

He was quite easily our biggest threat last night, and the only reason we were still in the tie was because he created a goal from nothing in the first leg.

Literally every chance we had last night was from him finding space in the box, while he hit double figures for completed passes.

His issue is more down to the fact Booth offers nothing to help him, Murray Davidson offers nothing to help him, Kane offers nothing to help him, and MOH offers nothing to help him. Against LASK he was generally left isolated against 3 defenders and expected to create something.

Like a lot of our players he was fucked after 70 minutes, but then again he'd played 350 minutes in 11 days when we reached that point.

Edited August 27, 2021 by RandomGuy.

[saint in exile]

54 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

The desperation of St Mirren fans to claim Middleton has been shite for us is really bizarre.

He was quite easily our biggest threat last night, and the only reason we were still in the tie was because he created a goal from nothing in the first leg.

Literally every chance we had last night was from him finding space in the box, while he hit double figures for completed passes.

His issue is more down to the fact Booth offers nothing to help him, Murray Davidson offers nothing to help him, Kane offers nothing to help him, and MOH offers nothing to help him. Against LASK he was generally left isolated against 3 defenders and expected to create something.

Like a lot of our players he was fucked after 70 minutes, but then again he'd played 350 minutes in 11 days when we reached that point.

Apart for when Kane hooked it back for Middleton to have our best chance of the night though

[IrishBhoy]

2 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

The desperation of St Mirren fans to claim Middleton has been shite for us is really bizarre.

I’m honestly not saying he is shite, I would have been pretty pleased if he had signed for us when it was speculated a few weeks back. 
 

However, as a knowledgeable football fan like you seem to be, can you honestly tell me he looked anything close to a good player in your two recent European games? I’m only using those games as I watched both, he might have played well in other games this season. I was genuinely surprised with his lack of quality, especially last night. He was trying his best to close down the LASK defence along with Kane and O’Halloran, and early on it looked like a tactic that may have paid dividends. But time and time again he rushed towards the player with the ball, taking him completely out the press the minute the defender played an easy 10 yard pass. Kane is clever enough to try and close off the passing lanes instead of sprinting head down for the ball, and he turns over possession far more because of that. That’s not even mentioning his lack of composure on the ball, and I lost count the amount of times an attack broke down with him. I’m sure you will agree St Johnstone didn’t have their best game last night, but he stood out like a sore thumb to me. 
 

Edit - And I’m not talking about percentage of completed passes, xG or any statistic like that. I’m talking about looking at a player with your own eyes and watching them be unable to perform the basic abilities a football player needs to possess. 

Edited August 27, 2021 by IrishBhoy

[Munoz]

1 hour ago, RandomGuy. said:

The desperation of St Mirren fans to claim Middleton has been shite for us is really bizarre.

He was quite easily our biggest threat last night, and the only reason we were still in the tie was because he created a goal from nothing in the first leg.

Literally every chance we had last night was from him finding space in the box, while he hit double figures for completed passes.

His issue is more down to the fact Booth offers nothing to help him, Murray Davidson offers nothing to help him, Kane offers nothing to help him, and MOH offers nothing to help him. Against LASK he was generally left isolated against 3 defenders and expected to create something.

Like a lot of our players he was fucked after 70 minutes, but then again he'd played 350 minutes in 11 days when we reached that point.

You got reeled. 

[IrishBhoy]

On 27/08/2021 at 23:39, saint in exile said:

Apart for when Kane hooked it back for Middleton to have our best chance of the night though

Along with his miscontrol of the ball in the away leg where he was unable to control a ball which would have resulted in him being worst case one on one against a defender about 15 yards from the goal, and if he had the composure could have found another St Johnstone player in a better position whilst the LASK defence were all over the ship. 

Edited August 28, 2021 by IrishBhoy

[RandomGuy.]

3 minutes ago, IrishBhoy said:

I’m sure you will agree St Johnstone didn’t have their best game last night, but he stood out like a sore thumb to me. 

He probably only "stood out" to you because he was the only player trying to actually do anything in attack. Its not even a contest between him and O'Halloran if you're looking for players who were completely ineffective over the two ties.

Middleton is a 21yo winger whos been forced into a side that creates nothing and is expected to pick up all the creative slack with Wotherspoon being out, while also providing goals. I suspect when Wotherspoon, or Vertainen, is in the same team he'll look better, as teams won't be able to just stack defenders on him as they know we've zero threat on the other side, this was exacerbated by Rooney playing at CB and our RWB being unable to beat a man aswell.

Its honestly just weird how you're picking up a couple of miscontrolled balls and saying he was woeful because of it, as if you're expecting a 21yo to be flawless. If he didn't have those errors in him then he wouldn't be near us, learning from them is virtually the entire point of him being loaned to us, but over the course of a season it should even out for us.

[IrishBhoy]

1 minute ago, RandomGuy. said:

He probably only "stood out" to you because he was the only player trying to actually do anything in attack. Its not even a contest between him and O'Halloran if you're looking for players who were completely ineffective over the two ties.

Middleton is a 21yo winger whos been forced into a side that creates nothing and is expected to pick up all the creative slack with Wotherspoon being out, while also providing goals. I suspect when Wotherspoon, or Vertainen, is in the same team he'll look better, as teams won't be able to just stack defenders on him as they know we've zero threat on the other side, this was exacerbated by Rooney playing at CB and our RWB being unable to beat a man aswell.

Its honestly just weird how you're picking up a couple of miscontrolled balls and saying he was woeful because of it, as if you're expecting a 21yo to be flawless. If he didn't have those errors in him then he wouldn't be near us, learning from them is virtually the entire point of him being loaned to us, but over the course of a season it should even out for us.

I will be honest and say I probably wasn’t holding O Halloran to the same standard, but only because I was surprised with how poorly Middleton was playing and focused more on him. You will understand how your team plays much better than me, and I’m aware that you had to change formation last night which undoubtedly had an effect on your performance. Rooney playing in a back 3 the most glaring example due to how good he has been for you as part of a 4, especially in attack. I don’t expect any St Johnstone fan to take my opinion as an authority on Middleton, I was just genuinely expecting him to be better, especially with stuff like his close control and ability to bring others in to play. Multiple times last night the ball was played over the top in to Middletons channel, admittedly some of the balls were of poor quality, but even with the pace he’s got I don’t remember a single time he managed to get on to the ball and hold it long enough in order for Booth or one of the midfielders to get up and receive a pass from him. He either gave away a foul or played a bad pass that was cut out by the opposition. 

[RandomGuy.]

Just now, IrishBhoy said:

I’m aware that you had to change formation last night which undoubtedly had an effect on your performance. Rooney playing in a back 3 the most glaring example due to how good he has been for you as part of a 4

And with the revelation that you seem to think we usually play a back four, and changed to a back three for last night, this conversation ends.

[IrishBhoy]

14 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

And with the revelation that you seem to think we usually play a back four, and changed to a back three for last night, this conversation ends.

You moved Rooney from wingback to be part of a back 3. As I said, I’m not an authority on St Johnstone and never will be. That doesn’t take away from anything I said. You spend hours on this website pouring through the intricate details of players from every club, sometimes it’s very interesting to read.
 

However you seem unable to objectively comment on players of the team you support…if you watched that game last night and can only excuse Middletons performance with things like ‘he’s only 21, he can’t do everything’,‘he wouldn’t be playing for St Johnstone if he was a superstar’ etc., instead of just admitting that, so far, there’s some glaring inadequacies in his game. As I said earlier, he strikes me as a ‘one good game in five’ type of player, and I think I will be proved right with that come the end of the season. St Mirren have had a few players like that over the last few years, Connolly probably being the most recent example. Middleton, like Connolly, will most likely be able to fill a 5 minute highlight reel video come the end of the season, that makes him look unplayable. But the supporters who turn up to watch every game know those moments are few and far between, and ultimately they become a liability that ends up punted. 

Edited August 28, 2021 by IrishBhoy

[Torfason]

1 hour ago, RandomGuy. said:

And with the revelation that you seem to think we usually play a back four, and changed to a back three for last night, this conversation ends.

Good, now f**k off from this topic………at the very least until the window closes.

I saw a bunch of posts and thought we might have signed someone.

[IrishBhoy]

3 minutes ago, Torfason said:

Good, now f**k off from this topic………at the very least until the window closes.

I saw a bunch of posts and thought we might have signed someone.

I seen a Twitter post from St Mirren earlier along with a picture of McGrath, and instantly assumed it was going to be accompanied with the text…’we have reluctantly accepted a £300k bid from *A.N. League 1 team* and Jamie is now free to agree personal terms etc etc…’. 
 

Luckily they were just congratulating him on his call up the ROI National team, but I can’t help but feel we will be seeing something like that soon enough.