East Fife vs Dumbarton

[the snudge]

We're going down

[squeezebox-son]

That wasn't very good at all. Even with the changes the players didn't turn in good enough performances against a poor team.

Have to say, if I can't make the next game away to East Fife I'll not bother paying £15 for the awful camera work and dreadful commentary. 

[Silverton End]

Keeper cost us a point at Airdrie last week, and potentially another today.

Minter of the highest order 

[FifeSons]

1 minute ago, squeezebox-son said:

Have to say, if I can't make the next game away to East Fife I'll not bother paying £15 for the awful camera work and dreadful commentary. 

I'd like to say the same, but I know I'll end up paying for that pish anyway. Will just mute it next time and have paracetamol on hand for the camera.

[squeezebox-son]

Said it last week on our thread but Ramsbottom is costing us a goal a week at the moment and over the last 2 weeks that has meant 2 defeats rather than 2 draws.

Dreadful.

[Ignoramus]

15 minutes ago, the snudge said:

We're going down

Don’t be silly, you play us next week

[Forest_Fifer]

42 minutes ago, FifeSons said:

This East Fife team are utter garbage, too.

Tell us something we didn't already know.

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

First off, well done East Fife, you punished a dreadful makeshift Sons team today and were well worth your victory.

As for us I don’t even know where to start. Our captain is fucking hopeless and has been for a long time now. Normally when he’s shifted to centre back he’s fairly good but Kyle Connell made him look like an idiot at times today. Lynch and Boyle weren’t much better. Ramsbottom is a total bombscare of a goalie, he rushes off his line for absolutely everything and gets nowhere near it, Faz has signed dreadfully in that position and we have absolutely no one to replace him despite him costing us goals right left and centre. The midfield are non existant, McKee looks a shadow of his former self and young Wilson needs a spell out of the team, he’s massively went off the boil. I’d probably only give pass marks to Schiavone who once again caused defenders problems, he needs to work on his finishing but the rest of his game has impressed me so far. If only the manager had signed a striker who can score a goal in the summer, another position I think he signed poorly in.

As for Farrell, he needs to sort this form out quickly. His formation today was a disaster and the fact he stuck with it for 60 odd minutes is slightly concerning, it should’ve been changed far earlier. He got all the credit for building a decent squad in a fairly short time frame and a month ago he had us in great form but since Peterhead away we have been absolutely awful (Airdrie wasn’t a bad performance but we still lost and ended up minus 3 players). We are leaking goals and don’t have the firepower to score more than we are leaking. He seriously needs to think about making a move for a striker when he can and he needs to do something short term to sort out that defence. 

[cedrick1]

I’ve never seen Dumbarton post well with a 3-5-2 formation going back to a 5-1, defeat at east Stirling when Ben Gordon was made to look very poor. Agree with previous post our formation today was awful.

id give pass marks to schiavone too and also Paton .goals aside our defence wasn’t that desperate but goals we lost were.

too many players offered nothing of use

Also east fife should be embarrassed by coverage at £15 . Awful in terms of quality of stream and commentary. 

 

[fifer67]

Was easy to see how Dumbarton have only picked up one point from the last 15 available.Thought East Fife we’re well worth the win without getting into top gear. Wallace and Connoll always looked like they could create a goal threat when they got on the ball. Both teams can point to injuries and suspensions. Dunsmore, Murdoch ,Swanson, and Davidson still to come back in from injury for East Fife. The league table now settling down to how I thought with the bottom four playing in a mini league to avoid the bottom 2 places. Clyde and Dumbarton on a poor run just now with East Fife and Peterhead picking up points. Only a third of the season played and that was a big win today just to stay in touch with the teams above us. If we can get those 4 players back fit I’m sure their experience will be a big help in a relegation battle. 

[WhoAmI]

You really are a bunch of whinging gits having a go at volunteer fans giving up their time to provide a service to nuggets that can’t be bothered to follow their team. Have you ever heard Liam McLeod, Paul Mitchell et all on sport scene. Maybe it’s the case that the moaning from the terracing travels to the players and affects them getting them cautioned/red carded. It was there again today with players constantly moaning at the referee.

[Cosmic Joe]

I think we were well worth the win. Okay, it wasn't the complete performance and Dumbarton were struggling through suspensions and injuries; but the injuries part of that, we've had to  cope with all season. 

We should have really killed the game at 2-0 but it all got rather jittery when Dumbarton grabbed a goal back in the last minute. 

Of course the real talking point is the disallowed Dumbarton goal in injury-time. The referee, who had an otherwise okayish game, seemed happy to give the goal. The goalie looked like he had been impeded from where I was sitting and there were shouts of handball. Thankfully, from an East Fife point of view, the far side assistant (who appeared to be struggling throughout with the low sun) had a word in the ref's shell-like. That would have been a sore one. 

 

[George Parr]

In the end today too many of our better players were sitting in the stand, including arguably our three main goal threats. We were also crying out for a proper central defender to put their fucking foot through the ball at their first goal and a competent goalkeeper in the events leading up to their second.

We were left with an abysmal performance and a number of players who didn’t appear to understand what role was being asked of them. 
 

Edited October 30, 2021 by George Parr

[cedrick1]

41 minutes ago, WhoAmI said:

You really are a bunch of whinging gits having a go at volunteer fans giving up their time to provide a service to nuggets that can’t be bothered to follow their team. Have you ever heard Liam McLeod, Paul Mitchell et all on sport scene. Maybe it’s the case that the moaning from the terracing travels to the players and affects them getting them cautioned/red carded. It was there again today with players constantly moaning at the referee.

You take money off people you need to provide a proper service especially when it’s dearer than other teams

[microdave]

You really are a bunch of whinging gits having a go at volunteer fans giving up their time to provide a service to nuggets that can’t be bothered to follow their team. Have you ever heard Liam McLeod, Paul Mitchell et all on sport scene. Maybe it’s the case that the moaning from the terracing travels to the players and affects them getting them cautioned/red carded. It was there again today with players constantly moaning at the referee.[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]

I have no problem with biased or overexcited commentators but the visuals on today's game weren't worth the £15. And the point you make about anyone not being prepared to travel to the game, I would absolutely have been there today but my personal circumstances mean I can't go to games more than an hour's travel from home. Please don't make assumptions about stuff like that. It's brilliant that the games are streamed now but there is a minimum quality that should be expected (considering there is a charge for it) and East Fife don't do it imo.

[squeezebox-son]

2 hours ago, WhoAmI said:

You really are a bunch of whinging gits having a go at volunteer fans giving up their time to provide a service to nuggets that can’t be bothered to follow their team. Have you ever heard Liam McLeod, Paul Mitchell et all on sport scene. Maybe it’s the case that the moaning from the terracing travels to the players and affects them getting them cautioned/red carded. It was there again today with players constantly moaning at the referee.

Already been covered but when others are all charging £10 and £12 for the much criticised pixellot system and you pay £15 (a fair bit more) then you expect at least the same service. Why are there guys doing it for free when you charge more than every other team in theleague and provide a lesser quality of service?

I'm pretty sure last season there was chat about how East Fife had a superior setup which was followed by many issues on the day too.

ETA: we now have a 1 year old and I can't commit to all the away games due to partners work etc so don't assume folk just don't bother. Prior to COVID I missed very few games over the course of each season for 15 years, many times taking the car as I also gig most weekends.

Edited October 30, 2021 by squeezebox-son

[Jan Vojáček]

That was as poor a performance as I feared it might be when I saw the team. Yes we had selection issues (which Faz refused to say played a part in the result fwiw) but, for probably the first time, I thought he got his starting lineup and shape badly wrong.

Our bizarre 3-3-2-2 would be a gamble without our strongest team out. Let alone the patched up side we had today. And, to be honest, it looked as if the players weren't fully sure of their roles at all. McKee was like a quarterback, always looking for the ball, usually in space. But often about 40 yards further back than we want him. Paton patrolled the midfield well (as always) but then looked up and had 30 yards to hoof it before he found anyone.

Callum Wilson was bullied and barely got a touch on the ball. For just about the first time he looked like an 18-year-old kid, so fair play to East Fife for that. They bossed him.

Our biggest problem by some distance was the left hand side however. Paddy Boyle was very deep. And very tucked in. Sam Muir was very high. And very wide. So East Fife played into the huge gap between them time and time again. Left-back is an issue. We know that. But today highlighted it big time. Muir is nowhere near the level required and Boyle, although largely okay at the basics of defending, doesn't look to have the pace and sharpness for League One anymore.

It was massively frustrating watching us for the whole 90. And even more frustrating when we started to look like a team again from the 91st minute.

Defensively we were wobbly and the midfield had nothing ahead of them and were far too deep. But, on the odd occasion where we did manage to string together a coherent attacking move, we looked threatening. Conner Duthie missed an absolute sitter in the first half and Ryan Schiavone (our best player again) was unlucky to see a shot blocked after a barnstorming run.

Schiavone aside though there was very little to be positive about. Kyle Connell ran riot against Stuart Carswell and Edin Lynch, who looked terrified to go near him for fear of looking like a mug, Sam Ramsbottom will question his role in the second goal and we threatened all too rarely against an East Fife defence that we looked like we could cause problems.

The goals we lost were an absolute car-crash. The first comes from our own throw-in. The second (an admittedly wonderful finish from Connell) was a hopeful ball forward that was defended hopelessly by a mixture of Carsy and Sam. There was no communication at all. Sam came flying out to the corner of his box and Carsy hovered around Connell without actually doing anything useful. Defend like that and you won't be winning many games.

It feels as if we've gone full circle from last season. Now we look a threat offensively but cannot defend for toffee. Last year we could defend fairly resolutely. But struggled to cross the halfway line. The task is now on Faz to find a balance between both (spoiler: It does not involve today's formation...).

As for East Fife. Well I thought Jude Smith looked a very commanding goalkeeper and took a lot of pressure off his defence by coming for high balls. Connell and Wallace were a threat all game, and Connell especially is the sort of player I'd probably kill to have in our side. That aside they didn't make the amount of the ball they had in threatening areas count and, defensively, I thought there were cracks we should've exploited. Fair play to them though. Nobody could argue they didn't deserve all three points today and, if we had snatched a draw at the death, it would've been a travesty. 

There's next to nothing between most of the teams in this league. So we really cannot afford a mixture of comical defending and wasteful finishing. In the first nine games we, by and large, nailed both those aspects. In the most recent four we've not received pass marks on either.

Edited October 30, 2021 by Jan Vojáček

[fifer67]

6 hours ago, FifeSons said:

This East Fife team are utter garbage, too.

People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones springs to mind 

[Cosmic Joe]

19 minutes ago, Jan Vojáček said:

That was as poor a performance as I feared it might be when I saw the team. Yes we had selection issues (which Faz refused to say played a part in the result fwiw) but, for probably the first time, I thought he got his starting lineup and shape badly wrong.

Our bizarre 3-3-2-2 would be a gamble without our strongest team out. Let alone the patched up side we had today. And, to be honest, it looked as if the players weren't fully sure of their roles at all. McKee was like a quarterback, always looking for the ball, usually in space. But often about 40 yards further back than we want him. Paton patrolled the midfield well (as always) but then looked up and had 30 yards to hoof it before he found anyone.

Callum Wilson was bullied and barely got a touch on the ball. For just about the first time he looked like an 18-year-old kid, so fair play to East Fife for that. They bossed him.

Our biggest problem by some distance was the left hand side however. Paddy Boyle was very deep. And very tucked in. Sam Muir was very high. And very wide. So East Fife played into the huge gap between them time and time again. Left-back is an issue. We know that. But today highlighted it big time. Muir is nowhere near the level required and Boyle, although largely okay at the basics of defending, doesn't look to have the pace and sharpness for League One anymore.

It was massively frustrating watching us for the whole 90. And even more frustrating when we started to look like a team again from the 91st minute.

Defensively we were wobbly and the midfield had nothing ahead of them and were far too deep. But, on the odd occasion where we did manage to string together a coherent attacking move, we looked threatening. Conner Duthie missed an absolute sitter in the first half and Ryan Schiavone (our best player again) was unlucky to see a shot blocked after a barnstorming run.

Schiavone aside though there was very little to be positive about. Kyle Connell ran riot against Stuart Carswell and Edin Lynch, who looked terrified to go near him for fear of looking like a mug, Sam Ramsbottom will question his role in the second goal and we threatened all too rarely against an East Fife defence that we looked like we could cause problems.

The goals we lost were an absolute car-crash. The first comes from our own throw-in. The second (an admittedly wonderful finish from Connell) was a hopeful ball forward that was defended hopelessly by a mixture of Carsy and Sam. There was no communication at all. Sam came flying out to the corner of his box and Carsy hovered around Connell without actually doing anything useful. Defend like that and you won't be winning many games.

It feels as if we've gone full circle from last season. Now we look a threat offensively but cannot defend for toffee. Last year we could defend fairly resolutely. But struggled to cross the halfway line. The task is now on Faz to find a balance between both (spoiler: It does not involve today's formation...).

As for East Fife. Well I thought Jude Smith looked a very commanding goalkeeper and took a lot of pressure off his defence by coming for high balls. Connell and Wallace were a threat all game, and Connell especially is the sort of player I'd probably kill to have in our side. That aside they didn't make the amount of the ball they had in threatening areas count and, defensively, I thought there were cracks we should've exploited. Fair play to them though. Nobody could argue they didn't deserve all three points today and, if we had snatched a draw at the death, it would've been a travesty. 

There's next to nothing between most of the teams in this league. So we really cannot afford a mixture of comical defending and wasteful finishing. In the first nine games we, by and large, nailed both those aspects. In the most recent four we've not received pass marks on either.

I thought it was a lovely ball through from Liam Newton for our second. Nicely weighted, with just a wee bit of backspin on it to invite the goalie's charge into no-mans' land. 

Good summary of the proceedings though. 

[Jan Vojáček]

4 minutes ago, Cosmic Joe said:

I thought it was a lovely ball through from Liam Newton for our second. Nicely weighted, with just a wee bit of backspin on it to invite the goalie's charge into no-mans' land. 

Good summary of the proceedings though. 

It may well have been to be fair. But there's no way when he pings that ball that we should be conceding five seconds later regardless of its quality.

Apologies to Liam if he's been cutting about feeling like Xabi Alonso tonight only for some jobber on a forum to take down his crossfielder