First Quarter Thoughts

[Jacky1990]

Dont think theres much between the teams, but IMHO I think Thistle have the best attack in the league so that should see us win more games than we dont.

Tighten up at the back and we should be top 3 or 4 pretty comfortably. With this looking like a fairly weak Championship overall, anything else would be a bit of a failure tbh.

[TheScarf]

8 hours ago, PB1994 said:

What makes you think that the wheels are going to come off? Obviously I don’t think we can sustain the sort of results we have had from the first quarter over the rest of the season but I don’t really see how a total collapse is going to happen.

Given 75% of the teams in the league are utter shite.

[Broken Algorithms]

Given 75% of the teams in the league are utter shite.

I feel like every match thread has a degree of "you were shite, but we were more shite". I've been guilty of it myself. There's no standouts this season for the first time since about 2014.

[Dunning1874]

I think there's actually a pretty clear gap between teams. ICT, Raith, Kilmarnock, Partick and Arbroath are all varying degrees of competent without any being a flawless side who'll routinely hammer teams or run away with the league by 10 points. Queen of the South, Ayr, Hamilton, Morton and Dunfermline are all varying degrees of shite, with the latter three all being genuine candidates to capitulate to a 30 points or lower complete disaster of a season.

If there's a candidate to not sit in either of those groups it's probably Queen of the South who may win enough games to be comfortably clear of the bottom two but aren't getting near the top four. Ayr might also comfortably tick along with wins but that defence still makes me think they're destined to stay among the shite at the bottom. Unlike the rest of the relegation pack, Dunfermline at least have a very obvious way out of the mess by sacking their dud manager.

For Morton, the writing is on the wall for MacPherson already. A run of two points in seven games, failing to score in five of them and giving him a poorer record than any Morton manager in the last 35 years says it's a matter of when not if he goes. With a massive week of three games coming up I can easily see us ending up winless in 10, and he surely can't survive that regardless of being given a two year deal for no apparent reason. Even if we win one and lose two that shouldn't be enough to keep his job.

The squad isn't good enough to do more than battle relegation and we were always the favourites for tenth, but even at that there's no doubt MacPherson is abjectly failing. On current form we're not going to be in a relegation battle, we're just going to be miles adrift in 10th with relegation inevitable by Christmas.

 

 

Edited October 17, 2021 by Dunning1874

[Slipmat]

We've assembled arguably the biggest squad we've had since the days of Ian McCall, which has resulted in our esteemed manager tinkering with formations and playing players out of position.  Our good run last season came when his options were limited by injury and the team basically picked itself so he stumbled upon a winning formation through circumstance rather than by design.  The more choices he is presented with, the more he tends to make an arse of things.

Four players have been given 2 year deals - one a 17 year old keeper who is still very much at the development stage, one a "marquee signing" who hasn't come on to his game, one who has constantly been played out of position and now is struggling for game time and one who seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth after one brief 10 minute cameo sub appearance.  AJ has also been given a 2 year deal - the less said about that the better.

Of the new signings, Connelly and Nditi have become vital players for us who the team should be built around, Roy has been an unexpected goal machine and Rae, Cooper and McKay have been solid if unspectacular when fit.  Junior is tricky and good in the air but has no composure in front of goal and can't hit the proverbial barn door, Paton has continually been played out of position and Debayo is overcombative regularly giving away needless fouls.  Johnston Jnr isn't up to this level yet but is shoehorned into the team at every available opportunity (Thanks Dad!) and for some inexplicable reason we have lumbered ourselves with Fitzpatrick for another year just when we thought we had got shot of him.  We have played last season's player of the year in five different roles to date.

My big worry is we've lost more games than any other team in the division, and that includes the most honking Dunfermline team in memory, a Hamilton side which are in freefall and a team managed by Gus.  This does not bode well, especially as we have mastered the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of a draw.  If we can learn to win on our own mess of a pitch, stop parking the bus, and put in two decent halves together in one game we should be alright.  Should be...

Best teams I've seen against us?   Arbroath & Killie.

Worst?  Dunfermline by a country mile.

[Manwithnoball]

6 minutes ago, Slipmat said:

We've assembled arguably the biggest squad we've had since the days of Ian McCall, which has resulted in our esteemed manager tinkering with formations and playing players out of position.  Our good run last season came when his options were limited by injury and the team basically picked itself so he stumbled upon a winning formation through circumstance rather than by design.  The more choices he is presented with, the more he tends to make an arse of things.

Four players have been given 2 year deals - one a 17 year old keeper who is still very much at the development stage, one a "marquee signing" who hasn't come on to his game, one who has constantly been played out of position and now is struggling for game time and one who seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth after one brief 10 minute cameo sub appearance.  AJ has also been given a 2 year deal - the less said about that the better.

Of the new signings, Connelly and Nditi have become vital players for us who the team should be built around, Roy has been an unexpected goal machine and Rae, Cooper and McKay have been solid if unspectacular when fit.  Junior is tricky and good in the air but has no composure in front of goal and can't hit the proverbial barn door, Paton has continually been played out of position and Debayo is overcombative regularly giving away needless fouls.  Johnston Jnr isn't up to this level yet but is shoehorned into the team at every available opportunity (Thanks Dad!) and for some inexplicable reason we have lumbered ourselves with Fitzpatrick for another year just when we thought we had got shot of him.  We have played last season's player of the year in five different roles to date.

My big worry is we've lost more games than any other team in the division, and that includes the most honking Dunfermline team in memory, a Hamilton side which are in freefall and a team managed by Gus.  This does not bode well, especially as we have mastered the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of a draw.  If we can learn to win on our own mess of a pitch, stop parking the bus, and put in two decent halves together in one game we should be alright.  Should be...

Best teams I've seen against us?   Arbroath & Killie.

Worst?  Dunfermline by a country mile.

Totally agree with your summing up of AJ. But wait and see he will go with same team next week because we played well in the first half but did not score. Play the best players in their best positions. That means Wullie to the right Paton or Roy supporting Cameron. Junior works hard but is not the answer. Hopefully Connelly injury is not to bad and came off as precaution. Debayo has to many errors in him for CB I think he would be better on the left. But Chima is unfit and we only have East who I thought done really well.

[AUcal]

As of right now, I'm happy enough. Under Duffy we have played all of Dunfermline, Hamilton, Morton and Queens - all of whom I expect to be teams around/below us - and we've taken 10 points. The Partick game was awful and I can only hope Duffy has learned from that set up and performance.

Still, the awfully imbalanced squad that Hopkin managed to build still troubles me, we could be a couple of injuries in certain positions away from a total collapse. The lack of options at CM is especially worrying. We still don't look a great team, not by any means but we do look capable of dragging out wins when we need to, yesterday being the prime example.

Tbh, I'm still surprised we managed to get rid of Hopkin as early as we did and it might just prove to be vital. Under him I have no doubt we would have been relegated, under Duffy we look marginally better than a couple of other teams in the league and have the potential to be a mid table side finishing below the play offs (while still putting in some absolute horror show performances along the way).

[Skyline Drifter]

21 hours ago, virginton said:

Bonus mewling point for mentioning how young your team is, as the rest of the division of course resembles 92/93 Serie A in having seasoned international veterans all over the park.

 

21 hours ago, D'Jaffo said:

I wasn’t aware QOS were that young? They’ve got loads of players that have been in around this level for at least a couple of years and Cooper and Gibson a few years more.

In fact the team that started against us only had 2 players under the age of 21 and one of them was Harry Cochrane who was been about for a few years now. As VT says they’ve got a couple of seasoned guys over the pitch so I wouldn’t say they’re working with a much younger team than the rest of us.

 

19 hours ago, Trogdor said:

There's no doubt its a young team.

The Ayr team that started today had an average age of 23.6. With 6 who were 22 or under (19,20,21 & 3 x 22) Our oldest is Muirhead at 31 who pulls the average up a smidge but not to the same extent as Gibson will. Of the other 4 they are 2 x 25, 26 & 27.

Intrigued by this I decided to waste my meal break at work today looking at the average ages of the teams to play in the division yesterday. We are the youngest on average. Ayr are 2nd youngest. At the other end of the scale Arbroath are comfortably the oldest side with Inverness 2nd oldest.

I checked a straight average and then re-measured having removed the oldest and youngest extreme in case that skewed anyone significantly. It didn't really change that much. By far the biggest difference is us as removing Wullie Gibson effectively drops our average by a whole year even with also removing Max Johnston (17). Doesn't change anybody's position although Raith and Killie would both join Partick on exactly 26 as joint 3rd oldest.

23.2 QoS (22.3 without extremes)
23.6 Ayr United (23.3)
23.9 Hamilton (24.0)
24.5 Morton (24.1)
25.5 Dunfermline (25.1)
26.1 Kilmarnock (26.0)
26.3 Raith Rovers (26.0)
26.5 Partick Thistle (26.0)
27.9 Inverness (27.9)
29.3 Arbroath (29.2)

Caveats - Based on first 11's yesterday so makes no allowance for older or younger players to play regularly who missed out for one reason or another. Also based on whole number ages only. Didn't look into months. Our will change this week with two of the team having birthdays.

[Broony88]

5 hours ago, Slipmat said:

We've assembled arguably the biggest squad we've had since the days of Ian McCall, which has resulted in our esteemed manager tinkering with formations and playing players out of position.  Our good run last season came when his options were limited by injury and the team basically picked itself so he stumbled upon a winning formation through circumstance rather than by design.  The more choices he is presented with, the more he tends to make an arse of things.

Four players have been given 2 year deals - one a 17 year old keeper who is still very much at the development stage, one a "marquee signing" who hasn't come on to his game, one who has constantly been played out of position and now is struggling for game time and one who seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth after one brief 10 minute cameo sub appearance.  AJ has also been given a 2 year deal - the less said about that the better.

Of the new signings, Connelly and Nditi have become vital players for us who the team should be built around, Roy has been an unexpected goal machine and Rae, Cooper and McKay have been solid if unspectacular when fit.  Junior is tricky and good in the air but has no composure in front of goal and can't hit the proverbial barn door, Paton has continually been played out of position and Debayo is overcombative regularly giving away needless fouls.  Johnston Jnr isn't up to this level yet but is shoehorned into the team at every available opportunity (Thanks Dad!) and for some inexplicable reason we have lumbered ourselves with Fitzpatrick for another year just when we thought we had got shot of him.  We have played last season's player of the year in five different roles to date.

My big worry is we've lost more games than any other team in the division, and that includes the most honking Dunfermline team in memory, a Hamilton side which are in freefall and a team managed by Gus.  This does not bode well, especially as we have mastered the art of snatching defeat from the jaws of a draw.  If we can learn to win on our own mess of a pitch, stop parking the bus, and put in two decent halves together in one game we should be alright.  Should be...

Best teams I've seen against us?   Arbroath & Killie.

Worst?  Dunfermline by a country mile.

I thought I had written this, absolutely spot on. Nditi and Connelly have been absolutely outstanding and we have absolutely zero chance of seeing either in a queens shirt next season. 

[Raithie]

Can't grumble at being 2nd at the end of the first quarter BUT it just makes me more frustrated at that opening game of the season and how better off we might have been had we not had a monumental collapse against a team that's now sitting 3 pts off bottom of the league. 

 

[Otis Blue]

Well, 9 points from the first quarter - if we maintain that form for the other three quarters then we could well be in trouble (11 points a quarter usually seems to guarantee safety).  Our saving grace at this stage is that (apart from a Nouble inspired Arbroath) we are only losing games by a single goal margin so we seem hard to beat ..... plenty time for that to change though, and we need to pray that Lee Connelly and Gibson stay fit.

Also, the Pars ain't gonna stay shit for the next three quarters (either with Grant or with a replacement) which will be a problem for all "strugglers".  As usual the January window will be key for most clubs in danger.

[Otis Blue]

On 17/10/2021 at 13:41, Slipmat said:

My big worry is we've lost more games than any other team in the division, and that includes ....... a Hamilton side which are in freefall

Agree with a lot you've said in your post Slipmat.

On the Hamilton thing, could it be that we were unlucky to face Accies on their first game with the new manager in charge?  New manager bounce and all that stuff?

[Slipmat]

2 hours ago, Otis Blue said:

Agree with a lot you've said in your post Slipmat.

On the Hamilton thing, could it be that we were unlucky to face Accies on their first game with the new manager in charge?  New manager bounce and all that stuff?

Could easily be that, although the bounce seemed to wear off quickly!

If I recall Accies roasted us first half because we were sitting too far back and we couldn't hold onto the ball, or at least when we did have it we were immediately pressed and gave it away or lumped it into an Accies half where QOS were severely lacking.  I also seem to remember Debayo being at fault at Accies winner when he failed to track his man who then scored from outside the box.

It all sounds depressingly familiar doesn't it?

[Skyline Drifter]

9 minutes ago, Slipmat said:

Could easily be that, although the bounce seemed to wear off quickly!

If I recall Accies roasted us first half because we were sitting too far back and we couldn't hold onto the ball, or at least when we did have it we were immediately pressed and gave it away or lumped it into an Accies half where QOS were severely lacking.  I also seem to remember Debayo being at fault at Accies winner when he failed to track his man who then scored from outside the box.

It all sounds depressingly familiar doesn't it?

The winner in the Accies game was Connelly's fault for me. Left the boy in too much space and didnt react quickly enough. I'd need to see it again but given Debayo plays left centre half in a three usually its hard to imagine tracking a runner from midfield who scored with a shot from outside the box was his responsibility.

[Double Jack D]

Got to be reasonably satisfied with the Rovers first quarter. 

Don't think there is much between the top 4 or 5 sides, could be a fantastic title and playoff battle incoming. I would say no team looks capable of running away with it but if ICT continue their first quarter form (and there's no reason to suggest they wont) they could be home and hosed with games to spare.

I'd be genuinely content with anywhere in the top 4 given the quality we have lost from last seasons squad. If the footballing gods shine on us we may have a wee title tilt but I think our squad depth will mean we fall a bit short as the season goes on. 

[Fide]

Very disappointing from us. Tommy Wright seems impervious to trying new things. He says the right things in post match interviews and identifies what needs worked on, but that rarely carries over into the next game. He has to change his dinosaur tactics and field his best team and formation based on who we’re playing against. The fans can see it. If he does, there’s no reason why our squad (which has to be, on paper, the strongest in the league) can’t start performing to their potential. 

[Monkey Tennis]

On 18/10/2021 at 19:07, Otis Blue said:

Our saving grace at this stage is that (apart from a Nouble inspired Arbroath) we are only losing games by a single goal margin so we seem hard to beat ...

...yet six sides out of nine have managed it.

I do get what you're saying about narrow margins, but traditionally, sides that are "hard to beat" seldom lose.

[Guest Flash]

2 hours ago, Monkey Tennis said:

...yet six sides out of nine have managed it.

I do get what you're saying about narrow margins, but traditionally, sides that are "hard to beat" seldom lose.

We keep seeing and hearing that “We’re not far away” because we’re only losing games by one goal, most of time. And there is the notion that we could have more points if only we could turn the single goal defeats into draws. Nobody seems to mention that all three wins were by a single goal as well and those games could just have easily have finished as draws. So we could be on 3 points. But, no - all three wins were fully deserved. We only don’t get what we deserve when we lose.
I never understand the claim that “We deserved more out of the game” as if it is some form of divine intervention that is causing the dropped points. I’m not sure whether I’m more fed up with getting beat 2/3rds of the time or with the excuses that get made afterwards.

[true_rover]

Was it not last season that Sheffield United broke a record for most 1 goal defeats in a season. They finished bottom so it doesn't necessarily suggest a turnaround is coming.

[TxRover]

On 17/10/2021 at 12:47, Skyline Drifter said:

 

 

Intrigued by this I decided to waste my meal break at work today looking at the average ages of the teams to play in the division yesterday. We are the youngest on average. Ayr are 2nd youngest. At the other end of the scale Arbroath are comfortably the oldest side with Inverness 2nd oldest.

I checked a straight average and then re-measured having removed the oldest and youngest extreme in case that skewed anyone significantly. It didn't really change that much. By far the biggest difference is us as removing Wullie Gibson effectively drops our average by a whole year even with also removing Max Johnston (17)…

26.3 Raith Rovers (26.0)..

Amazing how one player or two can skew the numbers…remove MacDonald (36) and Berra (35) and we drop by 2.1 years…but MacDonald and Tait (19) and we only drop 0.3. I guess it shows how almost all the Championship starting sides are full of players predominantly in the 23-27 range, as the young talent gets bled off quickly and the older players slide down a league or two. It also makes the achievements of players like Gibson and Berra all the more impressive.

I didn’t look, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the starting keeper is, on average, the oldest player in the league.