Cove Vs Sons

[peternapper]

Glad to see Rory helping us out as we cant help ourselves just.

[squeezeboxson]

56 minutes ago, peternapper said:

Glad to see The Ref helping us out as we cant help ourselves just.

FTFY.

Obviously we were poor today, again, but that is so frustrating.

[Jan Vojáček]

After a period of reflection, I've decided that I can't actually be bothered going into too much detail about that performance - because we've seen it all before.

Defensively Sons are good. Of that there is no doubt. We got into shape very well today, looked well drilled and well organised - and against a team with plenty of firepower like Cove, really restricted their opportunities until the final 10 minutes or so. Sam barely had a save of note to make and it wasn't until the introduction of the very lively Connor Smith that Cove started to drag us about.

But, once again, one goal absolutely kills us off. I've no idea how the assistant could be "100 percent certain" the ball crossed the line, and it obviously derailed our gameplan entirely, but that's not really good enough. What if someone had made a huge mistake in the opening seconds and gifted Cove a goal? What if they had scored a perfectly good goal early on? We'd have been beaten right away - because we don't seem to have a plan B. We keep things very tight until we concede, then gradually throw on all our subs and lump as many up top as possible late on - hoping we can score.

East Fife match aside, what are our attacking tactics? Cove, today, used the wings a lot with Scott Ross and Leighton McIntosh having a lot of the ball and getting a decent number of crosses in. Our tactics going forward seem to consist of lumping it, or hoping someone like Frizzell or Forbes can come up with a moment of quality. 

Assuming that everyone gets to 18 games and the split goes ahead, we need to attack teams. We can't play on the counter or sit back all match when someone like Forfar, Cove or Clyde come to the Rock again. We have good players going forward - but we need to sacrifice some of the no-nonsense defending for a bit of attacking flair. Get wee James Wallace on the park as much as possible, play to Frizzell's strengths and get Layne fit and we have a chance. 

Good luck to Cove for the promotion push. As I said previously they were hugely welcoming today and everyone was really friendly. Even Paul Hartley said 'alright' to me when he wandered by whilst I was waiting for Jim. They've not done much against us in either game this season, but I certainly saw flashes today of a good team - when they play at a high intensity. I'm sure more open matches will see them score a good few goals.

[fifer67]

2 hours ago, Jan Vojáček said:

After a period of reflection, I've decided that I can't actually be bothered going into too much detail about that performance - because we've seen it all before.

Defensively Sons are good. Of that there is no doubt. We got into shape very well today, looked well drilled and well organised - and against a team with plenty of firepower like Cove, really restricted their opportunities until the final 10 minutes or so. Sam barely had a save of note to make and it wasn't until the introduction of the very lively Connor Smith that Cove started to drag us about.

But, once again, one goal absolutely kills us off. I've no idea how the assistant could be "100 percent certain" the ball crossed the line, and it obviously derailed our gameplan entirely, but that's not really good enough. What if someone had made a huge mistake in the opening seconds and gifted Cove a goal? What if they had scored a perfectly good goal early on? We'd have been beaten right away - because we don't seem to have a plan B. We keep things very tight until we concede, then gradually throw on all our subs and lump as many up top as possible late on - hoping we can score.

East Fife match aside, what are our attacking tactics? Cove, today, used the wings a lot with Scott Ross and Leighton McIntosh having a lot of the ball and getting a decent number of crosses in. Our tactics going forward seem to consist of lumping it, or hoping someone like Frizzell or Forbes can come up with a moment of quality. 

Assuming that everyone gets to 18 games and the split goes ahead, we need to attack teams. We can't play on the counter or sit back all match when someone like Forfar, Cove or Clyde come to the Rock again. We have good players going forward - but we need to sacrifice some of the no-nonsense defending for a bit of attacking flair. Get wee James Wallace on the park as much as possible, play to Frizzell's strengths and get Layne fit and we have a chance. 

Good luck to Cove for the promotion push. As I said previously they were hugely welcoming today and everyone was really friendly. Even Paul Hartley said 'alright' to me when he wandered by whilst I was waiting for Jim. They've not done much against us in either game this season, but I certainly saw flashes today of a good team - when they play at a high intensity. I'm sure more open matches will see them score a good few goals.

So normal service resumed today Dumbarton 0 . Told you not to get in a frenzy about beating East Fife reserves. All that bunting will have to come back down again. 

[squeezeboxson]

10 minutes ago, fifer67 said:

So normal service resumed today Dumbarton 0 . Told you not to get in a frenzy about beating East Fife reserves. All that bunting will have to come back down again. 

Once again... maybe if you lot turned up it would've been 0 on Thursday.

[the snudge]

How can the officials give that goal if they are not 100% confident that it crossed the line?

[The Moonster]

8 hours ago, fifer67 said:

So normal service resumed today Dumbarton 0 . Told you not to get in a frenzy about beating East Fife reserves. All that bunting will have to come back down again. 

Bunting might be a popular celebration decoration in Fife but the rest of the country moved on from the 80s.

[O'Kelly Isley III]

11 hours ago, Jan Vojáček said:

After a period of reflection, I've decided that I can't actually be bothered going into too much detail about that performance - because we've seen it all before.

Defensively Sons are good. Of that there is no doubt. We got into shape very well today, looked well drilled and well organised - and against a team with plenty of firepower like Cove, really restricted their opportunities until the final 10 minutes or so. Sam barely had a save of note to make and it wasn't until the introduction of the very lively Connor Smith that Cove started to drag us about.

But, once again, one goal absolutely kills us off. I've no idea how the assistant could be "100 percent certain" the ball crossed the line, and it obviously derailed our gameplan entirely, but that's not really good enough. What if someone had made a huge mistake in the opening seconds and gifted Cove a goal? What if they had scored a perfectly good goal early on? We'd have been beaten right away - because we don't seem to have a plan B. We keep things very tight until we concede, then gradually throw on all our subs and lump as many up top as possible late on - hoping we can score.

East Fife match aside, what are our attacking tactics? Cove, today, used the wings a lot with Scott Ross and Leighton McIntosh having a lot of the ball and getting a decent number of crosses in. Our tactics going forward seem to consist of lumping it, or hoping someone like Frizzell or Forbes can come up with a moment of quality. 

Assuming that everyone gets to 18 games and the split goes ahead, we need to attack teams. We can't play on the counter or sit back all match when someone like Forfar, Cove or Clyde come to the Rock again. We have good players going forward - but we need to sacrifice some of the no-nonsense defending for a bit of attacking flair. Get wee James Wallace on the park as much as possible, play to Frizzell's strengths and get Layne fit and we have a chance. 

Good luck to Cove for the promotion push. As I said previously they were hugely welcoming today and everyone was really friendly. Even Paul Hartley said 'alright' to me when he wandered by whilst I was waiting for Jim. They've not done much against us in either game this season, but I certainly saw flashes today of a good team - when they play at a high intensity. I'm sure more open matches will see them score a good few goals.

Whilst there is a deal there I agree with Jan, I take issue with your assessment that 'we have good players going forward'.  Without going thro them individually we simply don't; we have guys who at best can perform in fits and starts, and Jim Duffy's regular grim gameplan is a damning confirmation of this.

And again whilst I concur on the need to to attack from now on, is it realistic to expect a team which has had only one tactic all season (and much of last season) to suddenly start playing it out from the back and thro the midfield ?  If it were that straightforward then why have we not attempted it before now ?

No, I don't expect other than more of the same, other than the manic schedule to have eased a bit, possibly allowing a more settled team.  As things stand we have six games left and I'm finding it very hard to make a case for our survival.  And if Sons fans are being painfully honest, based on what we've seen so far do we actually deserve to to stay up ? 

Edited April 11, 2021 by O'Kelly Isley III

[George Parr]

22 minutes ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

.  And if Sons fans are being painfully honest, based on what we've seen so far do we actually deserve to to stay up ? 

If we collect more points than 2 of the other teams then yes, absolutely. Otherwise no.

What I will say is that if we end up in a playoff our shitfesting is going to reach a level Stevie Aitken can only dream of.  Could be extremely embarrassing.

[Jan Vojáček]

24 minutes ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

Whilst there is a deal there I agree with Jan, I take issue with your assessment that 'we have good players going forward'.  Without going thro them individually we simply don't; we have guys who at best can perform in fits and starts, and Jim Duffy's regular grim gameplan is a damning confirmation of this.

And again whilst I concur on the need to to attack from now on, is it realistic to expect a team which has had only one tactic all season (and much of last season) to suddenly start playing it out from the back and thro the midfield ?  If it were that straightforward then why have we not attempted it before now ?

No, I don't expect other than more of the same, other than the manic schedule to have eased a bit, possibly allowing a more settled team.  As things stand we have six games left and I'm finding it very hard to make a case for our survival.  And if Sons fans are being painfully honest, based on what we've seen so far do we actually deserve to to stay up ? 

Maybe a better way of putting it would be that we have better players going forwards than our stats suggest. There's no way that eight goals in 16 games is the maximum we can get out of the players we've had at our disposal this season. They aren't exactly David Goodwillie and Mitch Megginson. But are we really so much worse in that department than every other side in the division? Peterhead for example have scored five more league goals than us. They don't have a free-scoring superstar striker. In many ways their squad is fairly unremarkable like our own. But they find a way to score enough goals to keep their heads above water.

I remember similar things being said towards the end of Aitken's tenure when Ross Forbes occasionally pinged one in from range/the spot, Calum Gallagher barely ever found the net and Bobby Barr could seemingly hit the first man every single time he touched the ball anywhere on the park. Now, admittedly, Aitken only had one game with Dom Thomas - but Duffy pretty quickly got those players around him performing. Gallagher got 14 goals, Forbes 13 and 10 assists and Bobby Barr six goals and six assists. I'm not saying those numbers are possible again, but a change of ideas can get more out of players who are struggling to have an impact. Adam Frizzell said as much when he was speaking on Tuesday night; he felt the reason he had his best game in months was that we got on the ball more in midfield. Duffy said the same. He said the wind forced us to play on the deck...And that clearly worked.

I think our survival chances will hinge on Isaac Layne's fitness. He's the only player we have who can make our current tactics work. And even then we haven't actually seen if that;s the case this season.

Do we deserve to stay up? I've really no idea. In 2017/18 we deserved to be relegated. No question. This year? If you don't score goals then you deserve to go down. But I'd have sympathy for the defence who, under relentless pressure every week, have only really had a couple of off-days all season.

[GordyBrow]

23 minutes ago, O'Kelly Isley III said:

And if Sons fans are being painfully honest, based on what we've seen so far do we actually deserve to to stay up ? 

This is an interesting question. We have been bad, there is no doubt about that. However I’m increasingly of the opinion that the league is filled with bad teams and it would take a very modest improvement in our attacking output to see us a lot higher in the league. Falkirk huffed and puffed against us last week, we have beaten Cove once and it took a ghost goal to lose to them yesterday, Partick looked bad when we played them and have struggled all season, East Fife, Airdrie, Forfar and Peterhead all looked average at best. Montrose I will concede looked good in both our games against them. We aren’t world beaters but given the opposition I would like to think we can finish above at least Forfar and Clyde, with some semblance of an attacking gameplan we should have been looking at grabbing a promotion playoff spot.

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

1 hour ago, GordyBrow said:

This is an interesting question. We have been bad, there is no doubt about that. However I’m increasingly of the opinion that the league is filled with bad teams and it would take a very modest improvement in our attacking output to see us a lot higher in the league. Falkirk huffed and puffed against us last week, we have beaten Cove once and it took a ghost goal to lose to them yesterday, Partick looked bad when we played them and have struggled all season, East Fife, Airdrie, Forfar and Peterhead all looked average at best. Montrose I will concede looked good in both our games against them. We aren’t world beaters but given the opposition I would like to think we can finish above at least Forfar and Clyde, with some semblance of an attacking gameplan we should have been looking at grabbing a promotion playoff spot.

Partick absolutely fucking battered us. Us getting out of Maryhill with a point that day was a miracle and was by far our flukiest result in a long time and was mostly down to a heroic goalkeeping performance. I thought they looked lightyears ahead of us that day and should realisticly have put about 6 past us. 

We have played Falkirk 3 times this season. They have won 2, we have drawn 1. The goal difference across those 3 fixtures is +7 to Falkirk. They are far better than us, despite their recent sticky spell.

Cove are another team who are better than us across the park. Even in the game we won 1-0 I thought they looked far superior than us and they were missing their 2 starting strikers that day. Yesterday they outplayed us from start to finish.

Perhaps Forfar, Peterhead and Clyde look much of a muchness when it comes to being a similar standard to ourselves but everyone else posseses far, far more quality than we do. The difference between us and the other shite teams is that we can’t score goals.

Edited April 11, 2021 by Bring Back Paddy Flannery

[squeezeboxson]

[Boghead ranter]

3 hours ago, squeezeboxson said:

Given the angle caused by the camera, that looks in to me. Not by much, but in.

[squeezeboxson]

15 hours ago, Boghead ranter said:

Given the angle caused by the camera, that looks in to me. Not by much, but in.

It looks pretty close to me. Can't be too harsh on the ref/linesman for giving it, in my opinion.

[The Moonster]

1 hour ago, squeezeboxson said:

It looks pretty close to me. Can't be too harsh on the ref/linesman for giving it, in my opinion.

I think you can. They need to be certain and I don't see how he or the linesman can be certain it crossed the line, neither have a clear view of it.

[Nowhereman]

1 hour ago, squeezeboxson said:

It looks pretty close to me. Can't be too harsh on the ref/linesman for giving it, in my opinion.

There is no way that the linesman could be sure that was over the line given the goal and body (ies) that are in the way and the referee will be looking from an angle that would make it impossible to tell as well

[squeezeboxson]

1 hour ago, Nowhereman said:

There is no way that the linesman could be sure that was over the line given the goal and body (ies) that are in the way and the referee will be looking from an angle that would make it impossible to tell as well

I agree with this to be honest and maybe my post came across as just saying, "it is okay they gave it". What I mean is, it looks bery close, from the distance I can see why it was given in the split second with all the playerscalling for it, whilst also disagreeing that I think I is unfair on Dumbarton because he cannot be 100% certain from that distance.

I guess I can almost understand that they gave it. But I use the term loosely.

2 hours ago, The Moonster said:

I think you can. They need to be certain and I don't see how he or the linesman can be certain it crossed the line, neither have a clear view of it.

See above. My post perhaps wasn't as clear as I thought it was.

[rockson]

23 hours ago, Boghead ranter said:

Given the angle caused by the camera, that looks in to me. Not by much, but in.

Given the angle caused by the camera it looks as if not all of the  ball has crossed the line. The  bit that hit the ground , yes, but not the whole ball.