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St Johnstone v Motherwell, 21/11/20


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7 minutes ago, PauloPerth said:

 

The overplaying it at times is one of the more frustrating things about the way we play.  I think we are over-cautious in the set up and way we play at home. We very rarely get in behind teams because we are slow in our build up and rarely get players beyond the ball.

Possession with no end product means very little.

Don't you think it's the systems fault we don't get in behind as much? This preferred system is a keep possession, keep solid, pressing game. For all the good play and possession we have it's pretty powderpuff.

Flatters to deceive imo, pleases folk who think having the ball is entertainment.  I'd rather we had 35% possession and winning 2 or 3 nil.

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Looking at the way the game went I suppose the difference between us drawing yesterday and our win up there last season is we had Gillespie routinely saving pens last year and the difference between the loss earlier this year is that Chris Kane skies the ball over the bar in injury time.

Fine margins and all that.

Spoiler

St Johnstone 0 - 1 Motherwell - 28/09/19

1397905455_ScreenShot2020-11-22at14_55_27.png.2f4c25680326e71c59a1d21936ec8d35.png

St Johnstone 2 - 1 Motherwell - 12/02/20

1879373314_ScreenShot2020-11-22at14_56_23.png.a153ad9d029f3c91c55fc2f840f3713b.png

St Johnstone 1 - 1 Motherwell - 21/11/20

55739722_ScreenShot2020-11-22at14_52_55.png.ef29a55c35d135ea08d4bac7bae97552.png

I've absolutely no issue with us winning and picking up draws by "doing enough" but it did get me thinking when was the last time we objectively "played well" and won at McDiarmid Park?

This one?

 

Edited by capt_oats
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4 hours ago, Yorky said:

Jeez when did St Johnstone fans get so sensitive. It was in poor game in pretty poor conditions, on a pretty poor pitch. I thought Saints were very lucky to finish the game with 11 men and yes we’ve had our share of “tough guys”, you can though still comment on poor tackles. Don’t think there is that much between the two teams with both capable of finishing top six dependant on injuries. A game though to forget.

Yes very lucky considering that your hammer throwing players had already put two of our players in hospital..Has your manager ever thought of trying to take us on at football for a change ?

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6 minutes ago, Lang Toon Saintee said:

Yes very lucky considering that your hammer throwing players had already put two of our players in hospital..Has your manager ever thought of trying to take us on at football for a change ?

Oh dear, you did not see the game did you.

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2 hours ago, tree house tam said:

Don't you think it's the systems fault we don't get in behind as much? This preferred system is a keep possession, keep solid, pressing game. For all the good play and possession we have it's pretty powderpuff.

Flatters to deceive imo, pleases folk who think having the ball is entertainment.  I'd rather we had 35% possession and winning 2 or 3 nil.

This is exactly how I feel as well Tam. 

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43 minutes ago, Lang Toon Saintee said:

Yes very lucky considering that your hammer throwing players had already put two of our players in hospital..Has your manager ever thought of trying to take us on at football for a change ?

If Davidson went to hospital that would be 3, who were the other two?

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3 hours ago, tree house tam said:

I'd rather we had 35% possession and winning 2 or 3 nil.

How often did we manage that in the past two seasons?

This was my worry for Davidson, he's not being compared to TW last season, he's being compared to TW at his best.

Home games have, in general, been absolute slogs to watch for years now.

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Draw about right for me to be honest. 
 

The system allows us to dominate possession and territory but we don’t really make anything of that. The team is clearly well organised, they seem to know and understand their roles and we play pretty football at times but I don’t feel like teams are ever in much danger against us.  We need to find a way to commit players forward or this won’t improve. 
 

3 goals (1 a penalty) in 9 games against top flight opposition at home is just shite.

motherwell did what they had to do and got a point. They loaded the box at times and looked more likely to score even if the stats say otherwise. 

Also felt Bryson was very lucky to not see red. I have no idea why he felt the need to scrape down the back of the goalies leg in the way that he did. 

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9 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

How often did we manage that in the past two seasons?

This was my worry for Davidson, he's not being compared to TW last season, he's being compared to TW at his best.

Home games have, in general, been absolute slogs to watch for years now.

I'm not comparing anyone. I've merely said I'd prefer if we had less possession and be more clinical. 

Double edged sword when you have the players we have though, I'd love to see less of Chris Kanes 3 touches to bring the ball under control and like to see him being for once, clinical. Not going to happen I'm afraid. 

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5 minutes ago, tree house tam said:

Double edged sword when you have the players we have though

This is it.

We regularly have players in acres of space around the box, yet they either just got ignored because nobody has the vision to see them, the pass isn't good enough, or they fluff it when they do get the ball.

A huge chunk of our goals last season seemed to come either through a cross, or in the aftermath, and we're regularly getting players free around the box when crosses are coming in. You can see the idea, it's not just being executed.

Edited by RandomGuy.
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4 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

This is it.

We regularly have players in acres of space around the box, yet they either just got ignored because nobody has the vision to see them, the pass isn't good enough, or they fluff it when they do get the ball.

A huge chunk of our goals last season seemed to come either through a cross, or in the aftermath, and we're regularly getting players free around the box when crosses are coming in. You can see the idea, it's not just being executed.

This tactical stuff is a bit dull for a match thread, can we get back to who kicked who?

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On 21/11/2020 at 09:16, welldaft said:

I will sit on the fence with a 1-1 draw. 

Called the result sadly.

Given the run up to kick off and last minute changes I think that is acceptable. Frustrating to concede such a self inflicted goal. And a reason why Mugabi has yet to win me over. Tbf he has been better than I expected but he is a bombscare tackling in the box. A good defender has awareness to simply not make a challenge like that. Not forgetting OHara being dispossessed far too easily. 

Now another 2 weeks before next league game.....season is in slow motion. 
 

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14 minutes ago, welldaft said:

Called the result sadly.

Given the run up to kick off and last minute changes I think that is acceptable. Frustrating to concede such a self inflicted goal. And a reason why Mugabi has yet to win me over. Tbf he has been better than I expected but he is a bombscare tackling in the box. A good defender has awareness to simply not make a challenge like that. Not forgetting OHara being dispossessed far too easily. 

Now another 2 weeks before next league game.....season is in slow motion. 
 

Mugabi is a constant “ accident waiting to happen” in my view, he frightens me every time the ball goes near him. I’m not one to criticise players in general but as it stands he’s not good enough for the first 11 in my view, I would rather see OHara there if we are desperate.

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4 minutes ago, Yorky said:

Mugabi is a constant “ accident waiting to happen” in my view, he frightens me every time the ball goes near him. I’m not one to criticise players in general but as it stands he’s not good enough for the first 11 in my view, I would rather see OHara there if we are desperate.

To be fair there was every chance Mugabi would not have started if Campbell and Maguire were allowed to play. Then that goal might not even happen ! All that said I prefer OHara in midfield and had he not been we may not have scored our goal. Swings and roundabouts. I actually think Mugabi has been decent but that may be because I had such low expectations. But u kind of know that if an opposition player gets in front of him in the box with any speed or change of direction it is almost odds on a penalty. Which is why he is with us I guess. 

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17 hours ago, welldaft said:

To be fair there was every chance Mugabi would not have started if Campbell and Maguire were allowed to play. Then that goal might not even happen ! All that said I prefer OHara in midfield and had he not been we may not have scored our goal. Swings and roundabouts. I actually think Mugabi has been decent but that may be because I had such low expectations. But u kind of know that if an opposition player gets in front of him in the box with any speed or change of direction it is almost odds on a penalty. Which is why he is with us I guess. 

 

17 hours ago, ropy said:

Mugabi played better with a 3 man central defence where he had more protection and less responsibility for distribution.  He is slightly more exposed in a 4. (Tactical stuff).

I think it's fair to say if the Covid 2 had been available we'd have kept the Mark O'Hara: Centre Back experiment going and tbh, even though it's a small sample size you saw the difference when you took him out and replaced him with Bev - purely in terms of 'on the ball'.

I mean, I'm not about to pile on - we signed Bev because he's a unit and offered cover not because we were expecting Rio Ferdinand. He's also been out for over a month.

As @ropy says we saw an improvement in Mugabi at the centre of a back 3 because it mitigated the areas of his game that aren't his strong suit. If we're sticking with a back 4 then at the moment IMO O'Hara's probably still better value at CB complementing Gallagher than he is in midfield with Campbell, Maguire & Crawford available.

Having said that, I thought the fact he took Campbell's position rather than revert to the holding role and scored from the sort of area we've seen Campbell get into suggests that he's more suited to that sort of role...but I think we all knew that anyway.

@Desp mentioned it in the general thread but considering it was his first start Crawford showed up pretty well and apparently his numbers were alright - if you care about that sort of thing.

 

Edited by capt_oats
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Honest to god, the stats absolutely kill the soul of football for me. 5 ‘accurate long passes’ could just as easily be 5 lucky punts that found Tony Watt’s head.  :lol: 

Not a go at you @capt_oats or indeed anyone else, other than maybe our manager. He’ll see the same stats that show how much we dominate games as RandomGuy will. It could be what’s stopping him from making the changes that are so obviously needed for us to be an effective team in the final third. We give full backs and holding midfielders a tough time with a lot of our play but centre halves have it easy against us really. If they mark May there’s not really any other danger and it seems to be crosses into the box are all we muster in an attacking sense. 

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