Montrose v Clyde

[broomiesniper]

Ref must have had a draw on his coupon. To hitting the bar to make it 3-0 to fast forward 3 minutes and get a draw was criminal. 2 really soft goals to concede but positives should be taken for how Montrose played for 88 minutes. Waddell was great at the back again and both Masson and Whatley were great in the middle.  Never thought I’d say this but Montrose looked far better when CJ came on and troubled the Clyde defence. Still second and still unbeaten but could have been much better. Actually spoke to SP after the game and he would have rather, instead of Masson hitting the bar, his shot had ended up in the bowling green across the road! 

[Clydeside]

It always produces a tactically interesting match, Clyde versus Montrose. That's certainly been true these past few years and today continued the pattern. Whether it was our newly more stuffy shape and defence minded starting eleven denying Montrose for much of the game, or Montrose's second-half counterpunch in the form of an extra and more physical player being put up front, as well as bringing Ballantyne on to bolster the threat down their right hand side. Or indeed our last few rolls of the dice in bringing on Cunningham, Love and Jones. There was a lot to think about.

Curiously, I'd say that all of the aforementioned decisions were good and effective ones. In the end, each cancelled out the one before to produce the stalemate. We stifled Montrose for a long time; Montrose's changes opened things up enough for their goals to come; and in the end,our introduction of Cunningham's pace, Jones's presence and Love's dig pulled it back.

Interestingly, I think you could make a good case to say that we've been spared some heavy defeats this season because the teams who've beaten us have either taken the lead very quickly and very easily or taken it back in the same way. More than that, they've never had to temper a backlash. Nobody has been itching to bury us because they've never registered us as a threat. Of course, it's not quite as simple as that. Among other reasons, the scarcity of clinical forward players there are at Kilmarnock, Morton, Dumbarton and Montrose has also helped minimise our blushes.

I think Montrose need another good quality striker and probably one more reasonably athletic central defender if they want to be sure of a play-off. Waddell and Dillon are obviously good, solid players but Waddell is on the heavy side and Dillon isn't the most mobile either, advancing as he is in years. Both were menaced by the pace we added when Cunningham came on and by physicality of Jones. While there won't be too many players of Jones's size needing dealt with, there are a few players who can shift like Cunningham in the league. Perhaps a third central defender for those games where you'll come up against quicker attackers could mitigate the weaknesses of Waddell and Dillon as a pair.

For ourselves, although we were much the poorer team for most of the match and were without any menace at all before Cunningham, Jones and Love came on, I think we should be heartened by the fact that we didn't give up. The very visible determination shown by players like Cuddihy, Love, Cunningham and Splaine to get us back level weighs against some worries we had about team spirit. Nonetheless, we still must address the quality deficit with more signings. In a small way, we've done that this week with Munro's return. But we need at least another two centre backs in my opinion. While we're waiting for those, if we can make a habit of lulling teams into a false sense of security before picking them off with sucker punches then more power to us.

About Splaine and Jones. Both deserve praise for sure. Splaine's play to set up the winner was great. And Jones was exactly where we needed him when the ball came in for our first. However, to say Splaine played well generally is stretching the imagination a bit. We can all see what he's good at: beating a man when it doesn't seem possible, playing out of trouble, playing a cute pass. It's rare to see a player at this level be so good at those things. But let's have it right. His yield on those things is maybe one in ten. That's to say that the other nine times he tries them out, he's caught in possession or simply gives it away. That betrays the game of a player who isn't very experienced. We can't carry a lot of players who'll be good with a season or two behind them if we want to avoid the drop. We need to be playing players who're good now. In my opinion that means having Cuddihy play ahead of Splaine in the centre of the park. And on Jones, sure, a lot of his play is awful. But we should surely now see the value of a player with that kind of presence, especially when you've tried everything else. His objective contributions are there for all to see. I don't think we should pile into him for being asked to do things he can't do like play as a lone forward. That's the manager's problem. But give him a half or thirty minutes in tough circumstances, I think we'll get a modest but useful return from him here and there.

Lastly, I worry about about our lynchpin, David Goodwillie. He was absolutely rotten today. Everything from timid to resigned-looking in how went about his game. But it's his diminshed work-rate that's the real worry. It's really fell away in the past year or two. I don't know what's behind it but we better keep a watching brief on it because we need much more going on ahead of our our midfield if we want to win games. I don't think he's shown up well in any game this season.

[SLClyde]

9 hours ago, broomiesniper said:

Ref must have had a draw on his coupon. To hitting the bar to make it 3-0 to fast forward 3 minutes and get a draw was criminal. 2 really soft goals to concede but positives should be taken for how Montrose played for 88 minutes. Waddell was great at the back again and both Masson and Whatley were great in the middle.  Never thought I’d say this but Montrose looked far better when CJ came on and troubled the Clyde defence. Still second and still unbeaten but could have been much better. Actually spoke to SP after the game and he would have rather, instead of Masson hitting the bar, his shot had ended up in the bowling green across the road! 

Ref must’ve had a draw on his coupon think we’ve found the Montrose Twitter admin. 

[The Gable Endie]

12 hours ago, David W said:

The first half we played for a 0-0 and to be fair, Montrose looked completely clueless on how to break us down, with possibly Livingstone the only real weak spot. Indeed, their passing got so sloppy we probably should have carved out a clear effort or two on goal but Cuddihy in particular messed up the final pass. 

At half-time Montrose changed to a 433 and made the pitch as big as possible. The penalty got them in front and from then on, I thought they were terrific. We fell asleep letting them pass the ball into the box at a corner for the second goal and if it wasn't for a couple of terrific saves from Mitchell it would have been a much worse scoreline. 

In truth, the substitutions just left us wide open, they certainly didn't get us a foothold in the game. Jones in particular came on and proceeded to just dive about, whilst Love was unlucky to hit the bar with an overhead, albeit I think he should have laid the ball off. Moments after Montrose clattered the bar from one of their neverending attacks, Cunningham did superbly to run through the pitch and place a cross perfectly onto Jones' head, before Cuddihy picked up a second yellow for stupidly trying to wrestle the ball from Fleming. Somehow we managed to get a late corner with 10 men and Splaine did well to keep the ball alive before picking out a strangely unmarked Love.  A brilliant moment for Clyde supporters.

I can't believe that we are four matches unbeaten against Montrose with perhaps only the first of those being a deserved result. They are a much better team than we are. 

The refereeing was awful. Anyone who knows Scottish lower league football will know that Masson left studs in on Mitchell yet he walked away without a booking. Mitchell, in fairness, had a kick out at him and was perhaps lucky to not see red. The penalty looked soft and I've not seen Rumsby react like that, chasing the Montrose player as he made his way back to centre. For all I criticise him, he doesn't give silly penalties like that away; even the one against EF last season was proved to be a dive on the replay. Then, in between our two goals, Montrose had an absolutely blatant corner kick ignored in favour of a goal kick. Stuff like that isn't important normally but in the last minute, against 10 men, they'd have seen the game out from there I imagine. He didn't even seem convinced about the corner kick that we got ourselves. 

Munro took a bit of stick but he was the best of our back four today by a mile. He dealt pretty well with Lyons. That statement is more a criticism of the other three though. Balatoni is as good a centre half as we've had recently when it comes to heading clear crosses into the box but he always makes a mistake. Rumsby was just all over the place; it is inexplicable that we are still fielding a centre half as poor in the air as he is, he was missing headers all game. Livingstone is as bad a defender as I remember him to be from his first spell, caught under the ball constantly.

Nicoll flew into his usual challenges but you need players at this level to do a lot more than he does. Cuddihy did a lot of running but he was terrible on the ball. His first booking came after he gave the ball away under no pressure and the second was just silly. Gomis, surprisingly, can't play as a box to box midfielder. Splaine had a good game and kept going. Kennedy worked hard but it's a strange set-up to put him into. Goodwillie must be fuming he is running around by himself with absolutely no intention of us trying to score a goal.

From my view it was definitely a penalty. He was holding back CJ for a good 5 seconds. I do think CJ went down to ground to convince the ref though.

[PortyMo]

Can't believe we never won this game. First half was pretty poor from both teams but we were excellent for the next 43 minutes and could have had 2 or 3 more. Then came the mad 2 minutes. Had Massons shot gone anywhere else we would have held on for 2-0. The crossbar was still shaking when Clyde scored their first. Then everyone in the stadium apart from the referee seen that we should have had a corner prior to the second. 

The penalty claim was pretty clear cut. Defender was all over CJ. Clyde keeper had a couple of really good saves that kept the score down.

A harsh lesson learned.  Close games out instead of chasing for more. If we play like that all season we'll be in the mix come May.

[Bullyweeno1]

11 hours ago, Clydeside said:

Lastly, I worry about about our lynchpin, David Goodwillie. He was absolutely rotten today. Everything from timid to resigned-looking in how went about his game. But it's his diminshed work-rate that's the real worry. It's really fell away in the past year or two. I don't know what's behind it but we better keep a watching brief on it because we need much more going on ahead of our our midfield if we want to win games. I don't think he's shown up well in any game this season.

Disagree that his workrate has fell away in the past year or two.  He has been our best player the last 2 years and the only reason we are still in the division.

But agree that he was poor v Montrose but difficult yourself up front when you are playing against 2 quality CBs that Montrose have.

[Clydeside]

28 minutes ago, Bullyweeno1 said:

Disagree that his workrate has fell away in the past year or two.  He has been our best player the last 2 years and the only reason we are still in the division.

But agree that he was poor v Montrose but difficult yourself up front when you are playing against 2 quality CBs that Montrose have.

Aye. No doubt we'd be humped without him. But he's definitely not feeling that lone forward role as much as he was. He plays like he's expecting to lose contests before he goes into them and rarely puts his body on the line. He's stood still watching defenders play around him. I know someone had a go at Jones for falling about but come on... Goodie does that a lot.

Real pity we couldn't get Jamieson back to put pressure on defenders and buzz about up there. It's agony watching it at times.

[TheBigGuy]

You wouldn’t put it past the man to score the winner Saturday versus Alloa. I have often thought being kicked lumps out of every week can’t help. 
 

He will come good again I am sure.

[African Sunset]

I noted that rge Montrose twitter account has apologised for the stream andis offering to reimburse all ppv folk. Was it really that bad?

[LiviClyde]

1 hour ago, African Sunset said:

I noted that rge Montrose twitter account has apologised for the stream andis offering to reimburse all ppv folk. Was it really that bad?

Yes, especially for Clyde supporters with our equalliser pixellated unwatchable.

I'm sure most of us had given up trying to watch before that in any case. A refund or partial refund would certainly be in order.

By far the worst stream I've tried to watch.

[Bully Wee Clyde FC]

Highlights on the Mo website seems to be edited with garden shears.  Little sympathy for the penalty our 2 CB,s getting too close and Rumsby, as is often the case, just clumsy.  The 2nd goal was the sort that my under 10's wouldn't have lost.  Flat footed in the extreme.

Mo goalie was thinking about his Saturday night out for both our goals. Delighted to see some fighting spirit from us at last.

[broomiesniper]

11 hours ago, SLClyde said:

Ref must’ve had a draw on his coupon think we’ve found the Montrose Twitter admin. 

Alas no, your search must continue! 

[SLClyde]

Looking at the highlights I don’t think we can have too many complaints with the penalty, the second goal we just switch off it’s awful defending. 
 

Excellent first goal from us, good play from Cunningham and as much as Jones isn’t great he does give us that something different. Nice play from Splaine at the corner to get a good ball back in. 
 

Montrose keeper looked like he’d taken inspiration from Tom Daley’s diving medal on Saturday morning with that effort. 

[MO7S]

On 07/08/2021 at 17:32, Scorge said:

 Referee seemed all over the place - our penalty looked a touch soft, in fairness, and not convinced about the consistency in who was booked for what severity of foul. 

 

No it wasn't soft.  There were two chances for the ref to award a penalty.  One when the Clyde player tried to pull CJ to the ground and another when the same Clyde player having failed to stop him then pulled his arm.

[DGW9]

 

3 hours ago, MO7S said:

No it wasn't soft.  There were two chances for the ref to award a penalty.  One when the Clyde player tried to pull CJ to the ground and another when the same Clyde player having failed to stop him then pulled his arm.

We deserve to be punished for the absolutely comical defending leading up to it

[FREDDYFRY]

No wonder we get so annoyed with this current situation we have  gifted every single goal we have conceded this year!

Despite being outplayed on Saturday even an average L1 defence might have given us an undeserved win. We 100% need this sorted we cant continue with this defence and at least one decent midfield player.