Morton v Ayr

[ayrmad]

3 hours ago, madton said:

Yeah no point in not going for it tonight with your strongest line up. Even if you were to lose to us on Sat, it is not going to have any real affect on your overall league campaign.

I'm sure most Ayr fans would rather win tonight and get to a Semi than beat us. When was your last semi final?

Good luck, hope you pump them!

 

Not me, if we were only allowed to win one I'd take a league victory, I'm a greedy b*****d,  I want 2 wins.

[Squirrelhumper]

3 hours ago, Edmond Dantès said:

2012. Don't remind us though, it was an awful and boring football match and we played WAY too defensively

Understatement of the century!

 

3 hours ago, Edmond Dantès said:

 

Thank you. I even know some Kilmarnock supporters who are Ayr fans tonight lol.

I don't know a single Killie fan that wants Rangers to win. As long as you don't win the Final I don't care!

[Richey Edwards]

1 minute ago, Squirrelhumper said:

I don't know a single Killie fan that wants Rangers to win. As long as you don't win the Final I don't care!

My driving instructor (who is a Killie fan) said the same thing about not wanting us to win the final, because the WFAANW songs would be out the window. 

I said that youse could always just sing about us only winning one trophy to your four.

[Squirrelhumper]

8 minutes ago, Edmond Dantès said:

My driving instructor (who is a Killie fan) said the same thing about not wanting us to win the final, because the WFAANW songs would be out the window. 

I said that youse could always just sing about us only winning one trophy to your four.

5......

[Richey Edwards]

1 minute ago, Squirrelhumper said:

5......

Three Scottish cups? I stand corrected. It was he himself who told me it was two.

[Squirrelhumper]

1 hour ago, Edmond Dantès said:

Three Scottish cups? I stand corrected. It was he himself who told me it was two.

Aye. Get him telt

[vikingTON]

2-0 to The Famous. 

[The Ghost of B A R P]

Oliver is only really effective in a 4-4-1-1...

3-5-2 gives me the fear and I hope Johansson isn't tempted by it as a way to get three in the centre and two up front; Tumilty and McKeown just don't look like wing-backs to me and I doubt the centre-halves have spent even five minutes in training in that set-up.

4-3-3/4-5-1, with Telfer on the left for the moment...

2-1 to the Ton.

(Finnish people like to describe themselves as 'stubborn', though, so no surprise if we see another shuffle around a 4-4-2.)

[D'Jaffo]

Not really sure what our team will be now after tonight. Wasn’t expecting Kerr to start tonight but he did so will he play Saturday? I think we will be mostly unchanged apart from a few tweaks unless there’s any fitness concerns.

Doohan

Smith
Adams
Rose
Harvie

Forrest
Murdoch
Kerr/Docherty
Crawford

Moffat
Shankland

As I said on the other thread if we pass the ball on Saturday like we did tonight we’ll be fine. We’ll also create more chances on Saturday against what is a weaker defence.

[AYRSHIRE_ANGUS]

No place for Bell? I thought he was solid on Saturday.

[D'Jaffo]

No place for Bell? I thought he was solid on Saturday.

He was but unless you’re dropping Adams or Rose (who haven’t put a foot wrong so far) then where do you play him?

Unless either Bell or Adams plays in midfield in place of Kerr but I think that severely hampers the way we play.

[Finlay21]

I would play Bell in middle of park and Geggan out left , IMO Crawford needs a rest, in last 3 games ( including tonight) he has not performed anywhere near his capability 

[Superhursty7]

Doohan
Smith Bell Rose Harvie
McDaid Murdoch Kerr Crawford
Shankland Moffat

Can't see McCall playing both Geggan and Adams twice in a week I would even say may be Kerr would drop out but he's been so good I think he will play, even though Forrest has been great by all accounts he was off the boil tonight even though playing a different position McDaid has looked impressive coming off the bench time to give him a start IMO

[Dunning1874]

18 hours ago, MarkoRaj said:

3-5-2 seems to stand out as the formation that suits most of our players. No wingers, lets tumilty play with less responsibility, we have 3 good centre halves and centre mids and lets someone play off Denny.

It might be a longer term plan and allows us to put more effective attacking players on the parkzbut I'm really not comfortable with switching to it from a defensive perspective here. The one time we've played it from the start this season was against Ayr, they hammered the gaps behind the wing backs and ran riot from exploiting that space, scoring four in 45 minutes which could easily have been six or seven. Yes, we also used it in the second half at Tannadice, but that was when we already had 10 men behind the ball defending a lead and it functioned more like a back five.

Admittedly Ayr was before we brought McKeown and Tumilty in so we may be less exposed down the wings than we were that day, but you can be sure Ayr will be looking for that again and I fear we'd only be inviting them to double up on the wing backs and kill us down the wings again, dragging the centre backs out to them then leaving massive gaps in the middle for midfielders to break into. That's what they did at Somerset when we switched to 3-5-2 on a whim without giving the players the proper time to learn the role, and it's not a  formation you can expect players to take to a shape in easily.

You're completely changing the role of the centre backs in having to cover behind the wing backs, they can't have any doubts about which one of the three pushes up to the man with the ball, the central midfield three can be more prone to being dragged out of position and leaving runners through the middle themselves as well. All of those factors with players not knowing their role in a 3-5-2 contributed to us being a shapeless mess and getting pumped at Somerset as McCall saw all of it and exploited it ruthlessly. If we revert to it with only four days of training to prepare for the players for the shape, I fear we're inviting all of those problems again.

I'm not opposed to 3-5-2 in general and maybe if we do use it it'll turn out that Johansson is capable of getting the players ready for it whereas McKinnon just didn't do his job properly before Somerset, but for me it's not a good idea for this Saturday.

[BishopLenBrennan]

Can we get this dungaree derby shite off this thread please?

4-3-3 and a 2-0 win will do nicely.

[jm86]

After what had the feel of a glorified training session at Ibrox, we should have plenty of energy to blow Morton away on Saturday. All McCall's talk pre the Rangers game about going for it, with 2 up front, turned out to be mind games. Not complaining, mind you. This is by far the more important of the two games this week. Just mildly miffed at my own mistake of forking out £15 plus travel to be there on Wednesday.

[JJ Fae The YY]

Both teams leaky at the back, both capable of playing nice football and scoring goals.

0-0

[Superhursty7]

Both teams leaky at the back, both capable of playing nice football and scoring goals.
0-0

I wouldn't say we are leaky at the back, yeah 4 conceded at Ibrox 5 in a Steven Dobbie master class at Palmerston but apart from 2 gifted goals against Falkirk we have looked pretty solid at the back.

[The Ghost of B A R P]

15 hours ago, Dunning1874 said:

It might be a longer term plan and allows us to put more effective attacking players on the parkzbut I'm really not comfortable with switching to it from a defensive perspective here. The one time we've played it from the start this season was against Ayr, they hammered the gaps behind the wing backs and ran riot from exploiting that space, scoring four in 45 minutes which could easily have been six or seven. Yes, we also used it in the second half at Tannadice, but that was when we already had 10 men behind the ball defending a lead and it functioned more like a back five.

Admittedly Ayr was before we brought McKeown and Tumilty in so we may be less exposed down the wings than we were that day, but you can be sure Ayr will be looking for that again and I fear we'd only be inviting them to double up on the wing backs and kill us down the wings again, dragging the centre backs out to them then leaving massive gaps in the middle for midfielders to break into. That's what they did at Somerset when we switched to 3-5-2 on a whim without giving the players the proper time to learn the role, and it's not a  formation you can expect players to take to a shape in easily.

You're completely changing the role of the centre backs in having to cover behind the wing backs, they can't have any doubts about which one of the three pushes up to the man with the ball, the central midfield three can be more prone to being dragged out of position and leaving runners through the middle themselves as well. All of those factors with players not knowing their role in a 3-5-2 contributed to us being a shapeless mess and getting pumped at Somerset as McCall saw all of it and exploited it ruthlessly. If we revert to it with only four days of training to prepare for the players for the shape, I fear we're inviting all of those problems again.

I'm not opposed to 3-5-2 in general and maybe if we do use it it'll turn out that Johansson is capable of getting the players ready for it whereas McKinnon just didn't do his job properly before Somerset, but for me it's not a good idea for this Saturday.

All of the above.

[callum-ayr]

Would like to see Bell come back in at centre back after putting in a strong performance last week. Maybe the right time to bring McDaid back into the starting 11 and give Crawford a rest. With Moffat coming back in it freshens things up from Wednesday night and gives the likes of Bell and McDaid, who deserve a chance, an opportunity to show what they can do.

                                Doohan

               Geggan Rose Bell Smith

         McDaid Kerr Murdoch Forrest 

                      Moffat Shankland

Subs: Hare-Reid, Harvie, Adams, Docherty, Crawford, McGuffie, Moore