Linlithgow Rose 18/19

[Sheep77]

Where’s BBB 

[surely not!]

So, the manager again...
The season before last wasn't just a bad season - we were in really serious danger of relegation. Had we not punted the worst manager I've seen at this level, I think we would have gone down.
Bradley steadied the ship, and then he did more than that. I didn't think it was possible to fix all of the problems in one summer, but he did; left back, creativity in central midfield, width, a link from middle to front and support for Tommy Coyne. He signed (or re-signed) a clutch of very good players who had an almost immediate impact. They lost the first league game 3-2 at Penicuik as they settled in; from 3-0 down at half time they pulled it back to 3-2, and I think they'd have got something from the game had Coyne not been sent off. From then they went on a run, and they finished the season in second place, only 4 points behind a very good Bonnyrigg side and 8 points clear of third placed Penicuik. That was an unthinkable position from previous season when we finished 29 points behind second-placed Bonnyrigg, and even that was after we'd had a good end to the season and Bonnyrigg had wilted.
This season we started with two big problems; an injury crisis, and the loss of Colin Leiper in defence. Injuries meant we were fielding weirdly uneven, unbalanced teams and we had poor results in the early cups. Confidence crumbled and guys like Ruari, on whom we depend, were playing well within themselves. Luckily we had a relatively easy start to the league campaign, with only one tough tie until November (which we lost away at Camelon), so the damage wasn't as bad as it could have been. Even when the injured players came back, they were coming into a team that had lost a lot of confidence.
I think Leiper is a ridiculously underrated defender. He just does right time, right place. On top of that he's a talker and he organises the defence, and is tall and physical enough to be commanding. He also has a sweet left foot and ca start moves with raking cross-field passes. In the two season up until this one he has been, IMO, clearly the best and most important player at the club. The hole he left was always going to be difficult to fill. The players Bradley used to replace him ought to have been able to do so.; it wasn't a bad judgement call that he thought they would. 
Bradley couldn't sign a whole team to cover the injuries and deficiencies, but he signed two players that have improved the team significantly - Ovenstone and Barbour. Ovy is an old war horse who definitely helped shore up the defence, especially through organising those around him. He's why we went from losing 4 against the likes of Dunbar, to beating teams at that level reasonably comfortably. He got found out against better opposition like Beith and East Stirling, but I'm sure Bradley's only looking to use him until he can get someone better in the summer.
Barbour is probably the technically best player in the team. He sits in front of the defence and can both break up attacks and starts moves by spreading it to Ruari, Roddy, Ronald and Batchy. We're immediately a much, much better team with him in it.
Your contention that "the buck should always stop at the managers [sic] door" is obviously, logically wrong. Should Spurs sack Pochettino because they lost at Watford and aren't top of the league??? The team Bradley sent out today should have won without difficulty. There's nothing about the man, as a player or a manager, that tells me he's prone to complacency or not preparing his team properly. Maybe Auld Heid will tell us that the team weren't set up right today, in which case, fair enough, slag Bradley. But if not, it was the sloppy attitude of the players that cost it. Shit happens.
And where are we now? Probably the fourth best team in the EoSFL. Given where we started this season, I can more than live with that. We need to see a response from the team, and I think we'll get one, because today would have hurt them like f**k.

If the manager sent out a team of players with the wrong attitude then it’s on him. If spurs players weren’t at it attitude wise they’d blame poch. At no point do I say ‘sack
Bradley’, I merely point out the manager must take the more of the blame when the team underperforms- even if the fans believe is the players fault ( because he signed/chose them and set them up that way).

[AlanCamelonfan]

13 minutes ago, baker2 said:

We won’t get a response! The league is finished! The heads will be well and truely down and we will be lucky to finish 2nd!

You will finish 2nd but it has been a shocking season for the Rose one of the main reasons for me was failure to have positive enagement for the change of set up. Usiing the same old players and really for me need to bring in young fresh players much like when most of these guys came in.

Too many Rose fans think they have the god given right to win things. They don't they have to be earned and the Rose haven't done that. Shocking performances in the cups. Yous should probably try and use the Kings cup as a consolation prize to get things ready.

[Auld Heid]

Alright, I skipped this one and did something else with my day, cos I thought this would be as one sided as recent games. I thought we were pretty poor at Stirling Uni and we still won easily, so I didn't think we were capable of dropping points to Ormiston, especially as it's a toss-up between them and Inverkeithing for the worst team I've ever seen the Rose play. Anyone that wants to slag me for that, feel free (but I bet I had a better day than if I'd gone to Prestonfield...)

So AH, what caused that flustercluck? The defence has been shite all season, would I be wrong in assuming that losing three goals at home to Ormiston means they were shite again? You watch that central defence for a while and it's clear they're not good enough. People rate Thom and he's a good footballer, but he has nowhere near the positional sense to play centre half. 50% of playing there is knowing where to be, and he doesn't.

You say the result has been coming for a while - I can't say I saw it like that, but I did think they'd been complacent a few times. Bradley gave them a bollocking about 10 minutes into the game at Stirling, but when they saunter through a game and win 6-1, it's hard to get the message across.

Well, they know now, and probably too late. Broxburn know that if they win their games it's theirs, and they should win all their remaining matches. We needed 7 wins in a row up to the Jeanfield game; now we're praying for snookers.

We are fine going forwards but no one busts a gut to get back. Leaving us woefully exposed

Jamie for me is our rock that should be holding the back 4 together. But he is getting far to gung ho and leaving us exposed time and time again.

Teams sit in and pacy front men causes us bother because our defence is slow to get back. 3 break a way goals where we were slow back.

Only Barbour of our midfield busts a gut to defend - unfortunately Barbour going off injured was a miss.

Batchy taking off meant our most creative player was missing. (Not sure if injury or not?)

Neither Smith or Roddy coming on added anything.

I thought the pace and trickery of Roddy would have added something but no.

No 3rd sub I thought that Sloan at least would of at least added some creative influence. But we didn't bring on a 3rd sub.

Shields unused and seemingly unfit with an arm injury. Turnbull unused? and McKinven SG.

Ronald was poor today which is a major miss as he is our best player. TC and Coco were both ineffective.

Ormiston - 3 breaks = 3 goals

[baker2]

You will finish 2nd but it has been a shocking season for the Rose one of the main reasons for me was failure to have positive enagement for the change of set up. Usiing the same old players and really for me need to bring in young fresh players much like when most of these guys came in.
Too many Rose fans think they have the god given right to win things. They don't they have to be earned and the Rose haven't done that. Shocking performances in the cups. Yous should probably try and use the Kings cup as a consolation prize to get things ready.

Fair point Alan! Can’t disagree with any of that! As far as the king cup goes it’s a waste of time they aren’t good enough plus the heads go down when they no they can’t win the league! Season over as far as am concerned! We will finish 3rd! Don’t be shocked if they loose next Saturday!

[Sheep77]

8 minutes ago, Auld Heid said:

We are fine going forwards but no one busts a gut to get back. Leaving us woefully exposed

Jamie for me is our rock that should be holding the back 4 together. But he is getting far to gung ho and leaving us exposed time and time again.

Teams sit in and pacy front men causes us bother because our defence is slow to get back. 3 break a way goals where we were slow back.

Only Barbour of our midfield busts a gut to defend - unfortunately Barbour going off injured was a miss.

Batchy taking off meant our most creative player was missing. (Not sure if injury or not?)

Neither Smith or Roddy coming on added anything.

I thought the pace and trickery of Roddy would have added something but no.

No 3rd sub I thought that Sloan at least would of at least added some creative influence. But we didn't bring on a 3rd sub.

Shields unused and seemingly unfit with an arm injury. Turnbull unused? and McKinven SG.

Ronald was poor today which is a major miss as he is our best player. TC and Coco were both ineffective.

Ormiston - 3 breaks = 3 goals




 

A was told they just about scored a fourth goal 

[AlanCamelonfan]

1 minute ago, baker2 said:

Fair point Alan! Can’t disagree with any of that! As far as the king cup goes it’s a waste of time they aren’t good enough plus the heads go down when they no they can’t win the league! Season over as far as am concerned! We will finish 3rd! Don’t be shocked if they loose next Saturday!

I think Jeanfield have a tough run in though lost to brox and we also have to go up their

[GordonS]

28 minutes ago, Sheep77 said:

Gordon quick question how long has Bradley been back at the rose 2 years 3years surely this is his team  and it’s his team no silverware and in the big games has failed to deliver 

He's been there less than two years, returning on 27 May 2017. At the tail-end of 16-17 we immediately went on a run to avoid relegation by 10 points, having been circling the drain with a few weeks to go; 2017-18 was a massively better season than could have been hoped for (as I said); and this season, which started with problems that weren't the manager's making, which he has done a decent job of fixing.

If he doesn't bring in at least one central defender with the ability to play LL level than I'll criticise Bradley, but it seems to me that the criticism is coming from fans of other clubs (natch) and a shower of barely-literate haufwits. 

Rose stuffed Camelon and Broxburn at home this season, our two biggest home games so far, so no, I wouldn't agree they've "failed" in the big games. 

[Casey Jones]

35 minutes ago, GordonS said:

So, the manager again...

The season before last wasn't just a bad season - we were in really serious danger of relegation. Had we not punted the worst manager I've seen at this level, I think we would have gone down.

Bradley steadied the ship, and then he did more than that. I didn't think it was possible to fix all of the problems in one summer, but he did; left back, creativity in central midfield, width, a link from middle to front and support for Tommy Coyne. He signed (or re-signed) a clutch of very good players who had an almost immediate impact. They lost the first league game 3-2 at Penicuik as they settled in; from 3-0 down at half time they pulled it back to 3-2, and I think they'd have got something from the game had Coyne not been sent off. From then they went on a run, and they finished the season in second place, only 4 points behind a very good Bonnyrigg side and 8 points clear of third placed Penicuik. That was an unthinkable position from previous season when we finished 29 points behind second-placed Bonnyrigg, and even that was after we'd had a good end to the season and Bonnyrigg had wilted.

This season we started with two big problems; an injury crisis, and the loss of Colin Leiper in defence. Injuries meant we were fielding weirdly uneven, unbalanced teams and we had poor results in the early cups. Confidence crumbled and guys like Ruari, on whom we depend, were playing well within themselves. Luckily we had a relatively easy start to the league campaign, with only one tough tie until November (which we lost away at Camelon), so the damage wasn't as bad as it could have been. Even when the injured players came back, they were coming into a team that had lost a lot of confidence.

I think Leiper is a ridiculously underrated defender. He just does right time, right place. On top of that he's a talker and he organises the defence, and is tall and physical enough to be commanding. He also has a sweet left foot and ca start moves with raking cross-field passes. In the two season up until this one he has been, IMO, clearly the best and most important player at the club. The hole he left was always going to be difficult to fill. The players Bradley used to replace him ought to have been able to do so.; it wasn't a bad judgement call that he thought they would. 

Bradley couldn't sign a whole team to cover the injuries and deficiencies, but he signed two players that have improved the team significantly - Ovenstone and Barbour. Ovy is an old war horse who definitely helped shore up the defence, especially through organising those around him. He's why we went from losing 4 against the likes of Dunbar, to beating teams at that level reasonably comfortably. He got found out against better opposition like Beith and East Stirling, but I'm sure Bradley's only looking to use him until he can get someone better in the summer.

Barbour is probably the technically best player in the team. He sits in front of the defence and can both break up attacks and starts moves by spreading it to Ruari, Roddy, Ronald and Batchy. We're immediately a much, much better team with him in it.

Your contention that "the buck should always stop at the managers [sic] door" is obviously, logically wrong. Should Spurs sack Pochettino because they lost at Watford and aren't top of the league??? The team Bradley sent out today should have won without difficulty. There's nothing about the man, as a player or a manager, that tells me he's prone to complacency or not preparing his team properly. Maybe Auld Heid will tell us that the team weren't set up right today, in which case, fair enough, slag Bradley. But if not, it was the sloppy attitude of the players that cost it. Shit happens.

And where are we now? Probably the fourth best team in the EoSFL. Given where we started this season, I can more than live with that. We need to see a response from the team, and I think we'll get one, because today would have hurt them like f**k.

Debate time. I know thoughts of individuals on P&B are just opinions and sometimes no one can positively argue about these,

However, I sometimes laugh with comments like ‘Probably the fourth best team in the EoSFL’, cause you have no chance to test this, this season.  Linlithgow are in a 13 team league, so you will not meet the other 26 teams home and away. Maybe if Linlithgow were invincible in cup competitions,  your thought may have held more power.

Yes Linlithgow have won majority of matches this season. But, in the league, you have won/lost against both Broxburn and Cameron and drawn against Ormiston. Your team still to play Jeanfield home/away and it is feasible Linlithgow could lose both of these. If so, your team may only be fourth best team in Conference C.

In cup competitions, Linlithgow have been beaten by Dunbar and Sauchie, while drawing with Crossgates and Penicuik - hardly credentials of 4th best out of 39.

[GordonS]

25 minutes ago, surely not! said:

If the manager sent out a team of players with the wrong attitude then it’s on him. If spurs players weren’t at it attitude wise they’d blame poch. At no point do I say ‘sack
Bradley’, I merely point out the manager must take the more of the blame when the team underperforms- even if the fans believe is the players fault ( because he signed/chose them and set them up that way).

 

He can do his best to motivate them, but I saw him scream at them in a match they strolled through, didn't play well in, defended very poorly and won 6-1. Week after week of that, and most players will find it hard to dig out their best performances. Managers can only do so much.

He can only sign what the club can afford, and his signings have mostly been very good - Ronald, Owen, Barbour, Ruari, Roddy, Turnbull and Strickland. He also moved out a load of dead wood.Only at centre half has there been a miss. For any manager at any level, that's a decent strike rate on transfers.

[Sheep77]

3 minutes ago, GordonS said:

He's been there less than two years, returning on 27 May 2017. At the tail-end of 16-17 we immediately went on a run to avoid relegation by 10 points, having been circling the drain with a few weeks to go; 2017-18 was a massively better season than could have been hoped for (as I said); and this season, which started with problems that weren't the manager's making, which he has done a decent job of fixing.

If he doesn't bring in at least one central defender with the ability to play LL level than I'll criticise Bradley, but it seems to me that the criticism is coming from fans of other clubs (natch) and a shower of barely-literate haufwits. 

Rose stuffed Camelon and Broxburn at home this season, our two biggest home games so far, so no, I wouldn't agree they've "failed" in the big games. 

Most posters on PaB that rose fans think the sun shines out Bradley’s arse am taking the point of a Rose fan who has watched them for 60 years and he ain’t happy  

[Sheep77]

2 minutes ago, GordonS said:

He can do his best to motivate them, but I saw him scream at them in a match they strolled through, didn't play well in, defended very poorly and won 6-1. Week after week of that, and most players will find it hard to dig out their best performances. Managers can only do so much.

He can only sign what the club can afford, and his signings have mostly been very good - Ronald, Owen, Barbour, Ruari, Roddy, Turnbull and Strickland. He also moved out a load of dead wood.Only at centre half has there been a miss. For any manager at any level, that's a decent strike rate on transfers.

He let leiper go 

[GordonS]

2 minutes ago, Casey Jones said:

Debate time. I know thoughts of individuals on P&B are just opinions and sometimes no one can positively argue about these,

However, I sometimes laugh with comments like ‘Probably the fourth best team in the EoSFL’, cause you have no chance to test this, this season.  Linlithgow are in a 13 team league, so you will not meet the other 26 teams home and away. Maybe if Linlithgow were invincible in cup competitions,  your thought may have held more power.

Yes Linlithgow have won majority of matches this season. But, in the league, you have won/lost against both Broxburn and Cameron and drawn against Ormiston. Your team still to play Jeanfield home/away and it is feasible Linlithgow could lose both of these. If so, your team may only be fourth best team in Conference C.

In cup competitions, Linlithgow have been beaten by Dunbar and Sauchie, while drawing with Crossgates and Penicuik - hardly credentials of 4th best out of 39.

OK, I'll give you the attention you crave. Once.

Firstly, statistically, Linlithgow ARE the 4th best team in the league. And it's fair to compare across the conferences, because they were seeded based on last season's finishing positions. Also, did you spot the word "probably"? Do you have an actual genuine argument against that, or do you just generally have the hump at nothing?

Secondly, yes, Lithgae may finish 4th in the conference. Well done on stating the obvious. Equally, they may finish first, win the play-off and go up as Champion. When I said they're fourth best, I mean right now. 

Finally, those four cup matches you talk about... when was the most recent of them? Would it by any chance be in the middle of the injury crisis I was talking about? Go on, I'll wait for you to check.

[superbigal]

So today was not a st Andrews moment ?
I was on coaching staff at rec that game and it was surreal seeing him interviewed on park after game.

[GordonS]

2 minutes ago, Sheep77 said:

He let leiper go 

Leiper wanted to move for family reasons. Only a c**t would have refused. Would you have refused?

3 minutes ago, Sheep77 said:

Most posters on PaB that rose fans think the sun shines out Bradley’s arse am taking the point of a Rose fan who has watched them for 60 years and he ain’t happy  

Not sure exactly what that sentence means, but the second part of it, the fact he's watched Rose for 60 years makes absolutely no difference to whether he understands football or not. 

[surely not!]

Did leiper play a lot in the really shite season? Saw him a couple of times that year but no idea whether he missed a lot of it.

[th1stleandr0se]

Give credit to Ormiston today.  Right from the start they closed down on Rose players and from the manager's shouts that seemed to be the game plan.  They also broke well and the two wingers (brothers?) were impressively fast and skillful.   However, the Rose twice shot over from point-blank range and had a good few efforts just the other side of the post.  In terms of actual chances we had plenty but only put three away. Ormiston had about four and took three.  You could say it was just one of those days but there are plenty of those same days.  Even so,  scoring three would normally have won that game so the defence has to be looked at.  We are using the backs as wingers so effectively we only have two defenders plus normally Barbour as cover.  Maybe we need to think of three at the back with one an out-and-out stopper of the Leiper/Ovenstone type.  I do like Thom and McKenzie and they would always be my first-choice defenders but, as mentioned earlier, they do seem to get caught out of position from time to time. It's the system rather then the players that seems to be the problem.

Also, where is Plan B when Plan A is clearly not working?

 

[GordonS]

13 minutes ago, surely not! said:

Did leiper play a lot in the really shite season? Saw him a couple of times that year but no idea whether he missed a lot of it.

He did - I genuinely believe we'd have been relegated without him. We drew a lot of games we could/should have lost, and he also popped up with important goals, like the only goal away at Broxburn when we were nearing Shit Creek sans paddle.

ETA - Our biggest problem that season wasn't defence, we were actually quite stingy at the back and ended the season with the fourth best defensive record in the league. The problem was that, if TC didn't pull something out of the bag, we didn't score.

Edited February 16, 2019 by GordonS

[GordonS]

6 minutes ago, th1stleandr0se said:

Give credit to Ormiston today.  Right from the start they closed down on Rose players and from the manager's shouts that seemed to be the game plan.  They also broke well and the two wingers (brothers?) were impressively fast and skillful.   However, the Rose twice shot over from point-blank range and had a good few efforts just the other side of the post.  In terms of actual chances we had plenty but only put three away. Ormiston had about four and took three.  You could say it was just one of those days but there are plenty of those same days.  Even so,  scoring three would normally have won that game so the defence has to be looked at.  We are using the backs as wingers so effectively we only have two defenders plus normally Barbour as cover.  Maybe we need to think of three at the back with one an out-and-out stopper of the Leiper/Ovenstone type.  I do like Thom and McKenzie and they would always be my first-choice defenders but, as mentioned earlier, they do seem to get caught out of position from time to time. It's the system rather then the players that seems to be the problem.

Also, where is Plan B when Plan A is clearly not working?

 

Ta - actual analysis!

I think Thom & McKenzie get caught out of position so often because they lack an understanding between them, and because Gary Thom has a poor grasp of where a central defender should be. I watched them very closely at Stirling and it was really alarming. There was regularly 20 yards between them, and a forward in the middle. Anything over the top to a better player in that position and it would have been an immediate 1-on-1. They don't look at each other much, and centre halves should be constantly aware of where their partner is. Maybe McKenzie should be nominated the heid bummer, and Thom should go where he is told. Whatever, it's not a combination we should have next season.

From what you say Ormiston played the way Dunbar did when they beat us 4-1. It's definitely the way to play Rose if you can get away with it. Several times this season we've just smothered the opposition with a bucketload of goals, we've got so many different threats from different parts of the pitch. But all it takes is one bad day in front of goal, like today, and you're in trouble. 

[AlanCamelonfan]

18 minutes ago, GordonS said:

Leiper wanted to move for family reasons. Only a c**t would have refused. Would you have refused?

 

Not sure how going to another club a few miles along the road can be for family reasons? Do they train dinferent nights