St Johnstone v Kilmarnock Friday 6/11/20

[nelsjfc]

Same home performance, different (and deserved) result.

Same problems - Wotherspoon and in particular Conway constantly being let down with their final balls. Not getting May involved enough.

Rest very good though. Thought Tanser was excellent both combining with McCart to keep Burke quiet and looking dangerous going forward. McCann looked back to last season form helped by a typical Murray Davidson performance beside him. The two of them really controlled the game. Bar looking shaky at set-pieces, a really comfortable clean sheet too.

Good to see our exotic foreign signing come on and show off a few Cryuff turns and cheeky nut-mugs too....

[RandomGuy.]

Are Power and Dicker just done, or was that a bad night for them?

McCann and Davidson are good, but the PowerDick combo has been one of the strongest for years it feels. Surprised how simple it all turned out to be in there.

[superkillieaway]

Arguably one of our worst performances of the season. Fair play to Saints who learned from the last game we played. Pressed us high up the park and made us punt it long to a lonely Kabamba. He got battered about by the defence and really had no chance of holding it up against 3 centre backs.

The dynasty of Power and dicker looks like it might be coming to an end. Both very slow on the ball tonight and lacking legs. Dont think we can continue playing both.

Absolutely mental that we have signed Mulumbu and he has played so little minutes. Got to be some underlying issue there because why the f**k wouldnt you bring him on there.

Dyer seems to lack any ability to change a game and has no plan B or A for that matter. The boys being left out (brophy, haunstraup, mcgowan, mulumbu, mckenzie) will surely be chapping the gaffers door asking why they arent getting a chance. Would love to see Dyers record against teams playing a 3-5-2. We always struggle against wingbacks - as Burke and kiltie get no space.

Big week for Dyer. We need a performance next week. That was utter guff. 2 pretty untested managers before the season. Davidson seems to be aware of how to change tactically. Dyer didnt change a thing for our last 3 games.

Congrats to St Johnstone - going for a whitewash in the Meh Derby. 

[Widge]

To be fair we don’t actually play 3-5-2, it’s more a 3-4-3 which teams don’t know how to deal with yet.

[PauloPerth]

19 minutes ago, superkillieaway said:

The dynasty of Power and dicker looks like it might be coming to an end. Both very slow on the ball tonight and lacking legs. Dont think we can continue playing both.

I was wondering about this .. a lot of your key players are well into their 30's, are there good enough players at the club to step in and keep things going, or can we expect a bit of a decline for killie over the next couple of seasons?

Reminds me a bit of the way a number of our cup winning side all started to slide -or pack in altogether- within a relatively short period of time.

[Kyle]

Feel like I’ve watched the same match in every home game other than Celtic. At least this time we found a way to win. 
 

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by Kyle

[RandomGuy.]

9 hours ago, Valentino Bolognese said:

Also, credit to Callum Davidson. 

This, and not just in terms of last night.

Watched some of our first game of the season again last night (don't ask), and its noticeable (this is perhaps unfair) how nervous he was that day, and how nervous the players seemed to be. First half was a bit of a mess as everyone put in a lot of effort, but it seemed to just be nervous energy.

Since then he's faced some harsh results, criticism, and problems with his set up etc., yet he's stuck to what he believes is right, clearly worked on it with the players, and we're now at a stage where we've got a working system that sees us dominate most matches, and players capable of stepping into the squad and straight into that set up without a hitch. If we stop making daft decisions in the final third, then better chances should arrive, and more goals too, and then who knows where we could end up.

There's a lot of analysts down south/at clubs, who talk about the "process" being the most important thing at the start of a managers career. Results aren't guaranteed to come, but if the manager, and squad, both believe in something and work on it, then you will get your rewards 9 times out of 10. Think there's hints we're starting to see that.

[perthsaint1977]

From speaking to some of the players they are loving the training sessions. They are very high tempo etc. Players were also fit but believe they are fitter this season also which is interesting and noticeable. I remember a few Scotland players commented on the quality of Callum's training sessions when with the Scotland squad.
One thing that stands out to me watching them is all players bar Zander are very comfortable receiving the ball anywhere. Although we are not scoring I am enjoying watching the team just now. Still think the formation will be perfect away and just needs a little tweak at home

[Radford]

When TW was in charge, the old line about Saints being well organised was always rolled out out. That was maybe true early on but latterly, I didn't think that was so much the case and certainly struggled to see how we were trying to play a lot of the time. 

He knew how to win football matches but it wasn't done with much style. 

Very early days but we are both organised under Davidson and have a clear style of play. Like most instances of change, it took a few weeks to settle the apprehension but I'm really enjoying watching his team play at the moment and relieved they finally seem to getting the results they undoubtedly deserve. 

We were criminally underrepresented with our points total in the first round of games, so good to match our total from Killie and United games in second round as it sets us up well to boost our total. 

[stevieKTID]

We were rotten last night, really flat, no energy, time for a few changes to the line up i reckon. 

Glad the fog obscured my view. 

[Widge]

I felt Dyers comments were a little strange last night, basically saying Kilmarnock were flat after playing 2 tough opponents and that they should be getting something at saints. He also said we were flat, which I don’t get either, we were running rings around Killie at times, with the high press and all we had to face was long balls to Kabamba for 90 minutes. Maybe the fog made it tough for him to see his own team, but Killie are a bit of a shadow of the Steve Clarke side that Dyer is unfortunately going to get compared to. In the same way Davidson has to compete with Wright.

I think the difference is, Davidson has an identify as a manger and has changed the team. I’m not sure Dyer has changed Killie from back when Clarke was in charge and as a result it doesn’t look like a team with a clear game plan half the time.

[Kyle]

1 hour ago, perthsaint1977 said:

From speaking to some of the players they are loving the training sessions. They are very high tempo etc. Players were also fit but believe they are fitter this season also which is interesting and noticeable. I remember a few Scotland players commented on the quality of Callum's training sessions when with the Scotland squad.
One thing that stands out to me watching them is all players bar Zander are very comfortable receiving the ball anywhere. Although we are not scoring I am enjoying watching the team just now. Still think the formation will be perfect away and just needs a little tweak at home

I can definitely believe the players are fitter. They were relentless with their pressing last night and didn’t seem to tire at all. 

I think Jason Kerr has really grown in stature this season. He’s looked a good player since breaking through, but he’s stepped up a level this season and he’s grown into the captain’s role. His form should put him in contention for a Scotland call, especially given the fact that our defensive shape is similar to Scotland’s. He gives us an extra attacking option up the right wing, something that McCart is starting to do on the other side now too. 
 

My biggest (only at this point)  concern with this shape is it doesn’t seem to get the best out of Hendry and McCann. Hendry looks lost at times and last night is really the first time I’ve seen McCann dominate a midfield in the way he did in games last season. 
 

Kane’s performance off the bench last night was sensational. He’s always had his uses and is probably the best striker we have to defend a lead, but if there was any justice he’d have scored after that delicious turn and curved effort and then had an assist when he picked out MOH in the box in the last minute. 

[PauloPerth]

1 hour ago, perthsaint1977 said:

 Although we are not scoring I am enjoying watching the team just now. Still think the formation will be perfect away and just needs a little tweak at home

Agree with all the positives about Davidson, i think he has the potential to take us on even further than Wright, obviously need to get the luck along the way.

 But I also agree with what you are saying about a tweak to the formation at home.  It can't just be bad luck we've only scored 2 league goals at home in 7 matches.  As Kyle said above, bar the Celtic game, pretty much all the other matches at McD have had the same pattern.  The only difference being which team scores the only goal of the game (or not in the Utd 0-0).

Last night we played excellent upto the final third, but how many folk were saying in the match thread "here we go again, same old story, dominate the game then lose to a sucker punch" ?  Such a fine line, and if it had gone against us last night would we be sitting here dissecting what's wrong with us this season as we can't score goals.

The two creative players in the formation, Spoony and Conway, had stinkers which probably didn't help in the final third, though I felt Conway looked better later on when he got moved over to the left, and May was fairly quiet with minimal service.

If Chris Kane is going to come out every game and show that kind of ability and swagger then that gives Davidson a great selection headache.

[Radford]

I'm sure Dustin Hoffman can tell us what the xG has been in home games this season.

Do teams like Saints usually perform to their xG over the course of a season?

If the answers to those questions are quite high and yes, then I'm hopeful the goals will come.

If not then maybe a tweak needed. He showed against St Mirren that we can play with two strikers.

@RandomGuy.

[RandomGuy.]

8 minutes ago, Radford said:

Do teams like Saints usually perform to their xG over the course of a season?

According to WyScout.

15/16 - xG: 56.19 - Goals scored: 58 - Difference: +1.81

16/17 - xG: 45.6 - Goals scored: 50 - Difference: +4.4

17/18 - xG: 41.89 - Goals scored: 42 - Difference: 0.11

18/19 - xG: 44.86 - Goals scored: 38 - Difference: -6.86

19/20- xG: 32.9 - Goals scored: 28 - Difference: -4.9

xG fairly similar in 16/17 and 18/19, yet a 12 goal swing.

xG per shot?

16/17 - 0.107

18/19 - 0.118

You're at the mercy of the players taking the shots really. xG seems fine for trying to find trends etc., but still relies on the basic fact you need someone to actually score that chance.

Edited November 7, 2020 by RandomGuy.

[PauloPerth]

Greenie for the Rain Man reference!