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The Official Airdrieonians Thread - 2019/20 and beyond


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4 hours ago, ShineOnYouCrazyDiamonds said:

No mention of Robert in the match preview but I'm sure his two week trial at Burnley should be finishing this weekend so it'll be interesting to see if he's involved.

Genuinely hoping he does one at this stage. Bit of money and shot of him.

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17 minutes ago, G_H said:

odd team selection and only 4 subs, start of this season is looking a bit strange already.

I guess at least some of it is injury related as Easton, Frizzell and now McCabe must all be unfit but it is a concern that we’re so light in numbers already. Doesn’t say much for Murray’s opinion of Dean Ritchie if he can’t get a game ahead of Watson (presumably) in midfield. Although we already knew he wasn’t good enough. 

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I missed the game but nice to get the bonus point. Although a pity Salim had his penalty saved in the game itself. What’s clear though is that we really need some more bodies in as that lineup was pretty desperate and it’s only the second game of the season. Much like last week you can’t really be too analytical or judge the team yet. Especially as a midfield of Agnew, McDonald and Allan(?!) is obviously not what we’re going to be going with. But we just badly need some more players. A proper holding midfielder would make the balance of our midfield better IMO. And we desperately need another attacking midfielder and/or wide option as with Easton and Frizzell (and McCabe) out we’ve literally got no options there at all. Gal and Salim will come good but I think we’ve been needing another forward anyway, both to add some depth and because I’m still not convinced by Allan or Pyott.   Hopefully we’ll see some loans or further business done before the start of the league. Great effort from Max Currie in the shootout by the sounds of things. 
 

Looking forward to Wednesday night. 

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1 hour ago, cb_diamond said:

FOUR subs. If I've said it once, I've said it a dozen times. Our preseason business has been absolutely STINKING!!

Only three really, no idea where McCabe is but he’s certainly not sitting with the subs and wasn’t warming up before the game. 

Walker seemed to pick up an injury over the two friendly games, despite not being involved, as he was on the bench for the first game and in the stand for the second. McCabe and Easton being injured early on is unfortunate. Frizzell does seem to be quite injury prone which is a bit concerning, while Pyott is permanently injured and was a bizarre signing. 

We definitely still need a couple of players but I’d rather we went with a smaller squad, knowing the risk of a few injuries leaves us in this situation, than waste money on four or five young guys who will barely be involved and will only make the bench in an emergency like we had with Moore, Hughes, Burke etc last season.

Anyway, much better performance today. A draw was probably fair overall but I felt we had the better chances, Currie made more saves but most of them were shots from outside the box. Defensively we were pretty solid, Lyons was much more comfortable in the middle and Watson was excellent. Same issues in midfield as usual, no real attacking threat from the wing backs and we struggled to control the game. Agnew was ok but McDonald struggled positionally and Allan clearly isn’t a midfielder. We were far too open in midfield in the second half, Agnew and McDonald sat very deep with Allan staying quite far forward, on another day that could have cost us. It doesn’t say much for Dean Ritchie that Allan and Kerr were played out of their natural positions ahead of him. Gallagher and Kouider-Aissa struggled up front, not much service and the latter doesn’t look match fit yet, but early days for them. Both teams still have players to come in but that felt like a good test for us today, I doubt there will be too many points between the teams at the end of the season.

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Queen's Park were probably the better team but not by a distance, and Gal missed a great chance with a free header before the penalty save so on another day we might have won comfortably. It's quite clear that whenever Salim or Gal get the ball they have very little support, particularly out wide and I think they seemed quite frustrated by that fact. Not a great show of football from either team but QP looked quite dangerous from long range shots. Before he went off injured I was actually very pleased with Lyons who looked much better than he did as a trialist or last weekend, and I think him and Watson were a lot better than Fordyce today. Clearly we need more bodies in but what we have looks pretty decent and should hopefully be improved with additions in the right areas (still need a defensive midfielder, a couple of wingers/attacking midfielders, and a striker imo). Quitongo defended very well but I'm not convinced by either him or Wardrop as our main attacking threat out wide so I'd prefer we switched to a back 4.

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18 minutes ago, ShineOnYouCrazyDiamonds said:

Queen's Park were probably the better team but not by a distance, and Gal missed a great chance with a free header before the penalty save so on another day we might have won comfortably. It's quite clear that whenever Salim or Gal get the ball they have very little support, particularly out wide and I think they seemed quite frustrated by that fact. Not a great show of football from either team but QP looked quite dangerous from long range shots. Before he went off injured I was actually very pleased with Lyons who looked much better than he did as a trialist or last weekend, and I think him and Watson were a lot better than Fordyce today. Clearly we need more bodies in but what we have looks pretty decent and should hopefully be improved with additions in the right areas (still need a defensive midfielder, a couple of wingers/attacking midfielders, and a striker imo). Quitongo defended very well but I'm not convinced by either him or Wardrop as our main attacking threat out wide so I'd prefer we switched to a back 4.

Agree, Salim missed a sitter inside the first minute when he screwed wide and later the penalty,  Lyons and Watson kept Murray and co quiet, Lyons s was much better in the middle. ,  thought Fordyce struggled in the first halfmainly due to rico s lack of awareness...

 

on paper we have 20players, in reality 4 of them will see very little game time, Ca ntley, Walker, Pyott and Ritchie,   Ritchie came on when Lyons went off injured (arm injury) and was horrendous,  another legacy from our departed DOF.

 

McDonald is a decent player, ran out of gas in the second half,  unlucky that our most creative players are injured,  Frizzell and especially Easton who has the potential to be the best player in this league...

 

A slim chance of qualifying out the group, not too fussed to be honest...  Need at least 2 new player s of a better quality than our current bench warmers..

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Hopefully we have some trialist coming in,  although they can't play in the league Cup.

Also hoping for a couple of loan signings , would imagine a lot of youngsters will be farmed out after this silly league stage is finished.  

We do badly need reinforcements,  can't imagine Murray is looking at that squad and being happy with it. Hopefully Robert is away freeing up wages and maybe even some cash.

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I enjoyed Fordyce being put up front towards the end. Between a forward starting in midfield, a centre back being sent up front for the last few minutes and everyone being played out of position ahead of Dean Ritchie (not that I’m complaining), there was some real classic Murrayball today. 

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This was a most peculiar game. Knew before the game that we were struggling to fill the bench due to that long list of injuries ( a few duff signings?) but it was a real surprise to see Jordan Allan as our creative attacking midfielder-he sent a super pass through for Salim in first minute but his lack of pace/fitness saw him send it wide-a bit like Thomas Muller in the Euros! Thereafter it was the QP versus our back three and Max Currie. Their movement was so much sharper but it was mainly long distance shooting after loads of possession. I would expect Max to deal with most of them but he did keep us from getting humped. We id have some corners and the last 5 minutes of the first half saw lots of blocked shots by the QP solid back 4-a giant no 19 mainly. . They played a back 4 with loads of attacking intent and their no 10 was really good whilst Simon Murray did give our back 3 a fair challenge. He must have thumped in at least 5 shots and Currie saved them. The 2nd half was very similar in how the play went and once again it was headed chances that we had whilst their open play was more attractive. One good pass saw us get the penalty but Salim 's short run up was predictable to the moaning faced Willie Muir. It looked like penalties and so it proved. Dyce missed the first and it looked like a repeat of Annan but they hit a post/Simon Murray continued his inability to beat Max. somehow they panicked and we won 4-3 on the 6th go. Salim did score in the shootout which is a good sign and Callum Gallagher made up for last week so Max had the hero's cap as he saved again.  On the actual game I also don't like this 3-5-2 and whilst Quitongo was good in first half Wardrop hardly broke through on the other side. Watson was excellent but the inexperienced midfield of Mcdonald /Allan with Agnew never really got going. IF QP have their shooting boots on and we give them that amount of possession it will be us looking up at them in the L1. A neutral would have enjoyed the game and it was good to get free Highland spring on the Costa Del Canal , to rehydrate! Strange that all the players got water at the breaks but Currie never went over. The poor old officials had to stand forlorn as this happened. All 70 of us did applaud the team at the end and we remain undefeated over 90 minutes!  Roll on the 'Well.

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12 minutes ago, Mr November said:

I enjoyed Fordyce being put up front towards the end. Between a forward starting in midfield, a centre back being sent up front for the last few minutes and everyone being played out of position ahead of Dean Ritchie (not that I’m complaining), there was some real classic Murrayball today. 

Given all that you have got to be happy with 2points,looks like it's going to be a tight league, got a strong thinking that Falkirk  could be the team to finish above, 

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