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Relegation Decider - EF-vs- DFC


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Couldn't have put it better. He's club captain. We've watched potentially the worst football imaginable in the past 3 years and he has been a constant in that. Let him go and stink another club out for next season.

So he’s deliberately abused the ref in the last minute because he can’t be bothered and doesn’t fancy playing next week? Give it a rest
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52 minutes ago, FifeSons said:

I’m so fed up hearing Farrell’s interviews trotting out the usual cliches. He takes responsibility, today was a cup final, et cetera…

It was actually quite funny to hear the passion of the commentator on the stream today, as I doubt there was any Dumbarton fan watching who expected anything other than a defeat, even to a depleted East Fife team.

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1 minute ago, Nowhereman said:


So he’s deliberately abused the ref in the last minute because he can’t be bothered and doesn’t fancy playing next week? Give it a rest

Perhaps he'd have been better venting his frustration afterwards to the team management instead of the referee.  

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1 hour ago, NilNil said:

Maybe I'm watching a different team to several others on here.  But I don't see a team full of folk who've given up or don't care or are going through the motions. 

 

If you think that looked like a team who were giving their everything today then football probably isn’t the sport for you. I definitely think you must be watching a different team to several others because several others are watching a team of utter shitehawks who look defeated before a ball is kicked.

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52 minutes ago, Bring Back Paddy Flannery said:

If you think that looked like a team who were giving their everything today then football probably isn’t the sport for you. I definitely think you must be watching a different team to several others because several others are watching a team of utter shitehawks who look defeated before a ball is kicked.

Defeated before a ball is kicked, very possibly so.  Down to lack of confidence, direction, form, a system or a natural forward in the starting line-up, definitely.

But all of that is completely different from a team not trying. Which I believe is what you’re suggesting. And is what I’m suggesting isn’t the case here.  There’s a lot of issues with our side I grant you, but they’re not a side that’s downed tools.

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1 hour ago, NilNil said:

Defeated before a ball is kicked, very possibly so.  Down to lack of confidence, direction, form, a system or a natural forward in the starting line-up, definitely.

But all of that is completely different from a team not trying. Which I believe is what you’re suggesting. And is what I’m suggesting isn’t the case here.  There’s a lot of issues with our side I grant you, but they’re not a side that’s downed tools.

It’s absolutely what I’m suggesting. I saw enough shiting out of tackles from Greg Wylde and Joe McKee today to confirm that this mob have completely chucked it. Compare our performance today to East Fife’s, they were by no means perfect but their players gave absolutely everything for the win. Our mob looked like they were playing in a pre season friendly. They are without a doubt the biggest bunch of ill disciplined shitehawks I’ve witnessed in a Sons shirt.

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Joe McKee has always been a shitebag midfielder who gets posted missing in difficult circumstances. I'm pretty confident Greg Wylde is similar, given his wild career arc.

Having those two shite out of tackles is probably not a statement about your manager either way. It's just what they do in any relegation six-pointer. That's why they're at the bottom of the third tier. 

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2 hours ago, NilNil said:

Defeated before a ball is kicked, very possibly so.  Down to lack of confidence, direction, form, a system or a natural forward in the starting line-up, definitely.

This, word-for-word could've been written about East Fife a little over a month ago.

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6 hours ago, Nowhereman said:


So he’s deliberately abused the ref in the last minute because he can’t be bothered and doesn’t fancy playing next week? Give it a rest

You explain to me why he's done it? He's a shitebag that's why, rather than direct his anger and frustration at those that deserve it he's directed it at the 1 person who can ensure he spends next week in the stands. You can have your opinion I'll have mine. Maybe I'd give him the benefit of the doubt earlier in the game, but in the 92nd minute when the game has gone there is no need for it, and just sums up his, and our teams mentality.

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Carsys not a shitebag, that much is evident having watched him today.  He's lost self control and that has become a recurring theme in our games with his being the 3rd unnecessary red in recent weeks.

Comments about McKee and Wylde not making tackles are spot on too, but Joe's picked by the gaffer to do a certain job.  Today it appeared to be to sit deep and help put crosses and forward balls into the box so our short strikers can compete for them in the hope that Carsy picks up a loose 2nd ball.  Paton was there to try and win the ball back, those were our tactics and the roles the players had.  

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14 hours ago, WhoAmI said:

I have to admit I was panicking when I saw the team for today. Could not believe that for such a vital game our 3 first choice central defenders ie Higgins, Steele and Dunlop all out injured/COVID. We had two full backs Murdoch and Slattery in central defence and then Murdoch goes off injured replaced by Daniel Higgins who hasn’t played for weeks due to injury. But although at times it wasn’t pretty the defence cleared their lines when it mattered. A great shift put in by Slattery ably backed up by Millar, Wallace, Mercer, Smith and Watson(who arguably had his best game for us).

A big shout to the Young ones from the Community Club who really got into the game supporting the team and more than nullifying the young Dumbarton fans and their drum. Good to see players go to them at the end for photographs etc. Let’s do that again.

👏👏- As you say for us to win a critical game like that with so many first team starters missing, is well, remarkable .!

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1 hour ago, sonsanorak said:

Comments about McKee and Wylde not making tackles are spot on too

I’m not meaning they weren’t running around tackling folk, I’m meaning that they were shiting out of 50/50s and when they HAD to tackle opposition players they half arsed jogged in their direction to avoid having to do it. I appreciate it isn’t their job but every player has to make tackles at some point, or challenge for 50/50s. They weren’t the only ones, just two of the most obvious examples. 

The players have completely chucked it.

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I said if we lost that game we'd finish bottom of the pile. And, if anything, our performance actually only resulted in me feeling even more certain about that.

There's not a lot between the teams in this league, especially the bottom five. So it comes down to desire. And East Fife wanted it yesterday. They played like they were fighting for survival. We played like we'd secured a mid-table finish and were just seeing things games out until the summer.

The whole body language of the squad wasn't right from the off. Far too many players were hiding - and making it obvious. Nobody wanted the ball from Kieran Wright on countless occasions, leaving us to just hoof it long and gift it back to East Fife. Something about us just isn't right.

Confidence has, undoubtedly, played a huge part. But when you're on a run of 3 wins in 20 odd games it's not going to be high, and we have a squad of experienced players who need to back themselves. Paton, Carsy, McKee, Wylde, Paddy Boyle. Their confidence might be low, but they have played at a far higher level than this. They have to know what it takes to rebuild that confidence and grind out results.

Since our mini-Josh inspired revival in January/February we've gone from putting in good performances, but shooting ourselves in the foot with kamikaze defending, to putting in performances where we don't merit anything. We've taken zero points from our last four games. You could, at a push, argue we maybe deserved a point against Alloa or Peterhead. But we haven't done anywhere near enough to win those four. And three of them were against direct rivals.

Teams now look like they enjoy playing against us, because they know we're mentally weak and if they can get their noses in front then they'll win at a canter. It also feels like they've got wise to playing against us.

Kieran Wright being mentioned on the Sons thread is an interesting one. I've got concerns about him too. He's excellent at dealing with high balls. Absolutely fantastic at it. So teams have stopped putting high balls in against us, instead getting efforts away. And his shots to saves ratio can't be too great at all. He's like the reverse of the 'good shot stopper' cliche. I think he's a good player. But I don't think he's a good shot stopper, and I also don't think his long distribution is up to much. There were two young goalkeepers on the pitch yesterday, and the one who isn't on loan from a big Glasgow club looked by far the better player.

In Wright's defence he's not being helped by those in front of him. Stephen Bronsky in particular yesterday was absolutely all over the place, and nearly stuck the ball past Wright twice with crazy backpasses. I think George Stanger looks like a centre-back being asked to do something he isn't comfortable with, and I think Paddy Boyle is definitely far better playing more centrally than at full-back. Which leaves me wondering if we could try (yet another) CB pairing of Boyle and A.N Other.

In midfield, I could see the idea when McKee dropped deeper to ping balls around. That's definitely far more his role than playing as #10. But he didn't really have the options ahead of him - other than pinging it long for Duthie or Stokes. Nobody was running off the shoulder or making any form of incisive runs at all. I also couldn't get my head around hooking Stokes (who was one of better players imo) and moving Carsy forward. Carsy was clearly not comfortable in that role, and for the second week in a row kept popping up on the wing. Where he looked completely lost.

His red card obviously wasn't a deliberate ploy to miss the next week's game. Show me a player who wants a fine for being sent-off above all else. But it was sheer stupidity, and I hope Faz and a few of his teammates pulled him up about it. The referee yesterday was absolutely fine. He made a few iffy decisions, but absolutely nothing major - and he kept his cards in his pocket. To be sent off for swearing as the club captain in injury time of a game that you've already lost is dire stuff. 

The only player who can hold his head up after that performance is Conner Duthie (and, to a lesser extent, Eoghan Stokes). We needed Duthie to stay as a focal point in attack. He didn't. But he did just about everything else. He didn't shirk a challenge, he worked his arse off and he actually looked like he cared. Tracking back 40 odd yards in the final minutes after he lost the ball to dispossess someone and then go on the attack again is exactly the sort of hunger his teammates lacked.

Duthie might not have an end product a lot of the time. And he can be frustrating as hell. But the guy has been one of very few players this season who deserve to be picked up by another club at this level if we go down. With a run of games in a settled position and in a settled team, I'd fancy him to be very effective.

Clyde, Alloa, Queen's Park, Peterhead and East Fife was a kind run of fixtures. We managed three points from them. It's now going to be a massive ask for us to avoid the drop. Falkirk are a shambles, but have breezed beyond us twice. We've never had an easy game against Montrose. Alloa will likely know a win at the Recs should keep them up, Peterhead have taken 9 points from 9 against us, and Airdrie and Cove are miles ahead of everyone in the league. That takes us up to Clyde on the final day - by which point we could be sunk.

Of course if we win next week then I'll suddenly be confident again. And anything could happen. Especially if we have Josh and MacLean back. But as it stands, and having had some time to reflect on yesterday, that run of fixtures just fills me with dread. 

I've focused totally on us, so I'll drop a wee line for East Fife. Who thoroughly, thoroughly merited that win yesterday. Even with a patched up squad, they were better than us from 1-11 and their players looked to thrive under the pressure of knowing they couldn't afford to lose. I wouldn't be totally surprised to see you guys complete a great escape and finish 8th. Jude Smith is a terrific goalkeeper, defensively you seem to have strengthened and up top Kyle Connell is absolutely everything you'd want from a League One striker. Ninth and winning the playoffs is certainly achievable imo, but as is eighth. It's totally in your hands, and it feels like Stevie Crawford has built a really good team spirit there - with everyone pulling in one direction.

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That looked very much like East Fife March 2022 vs East Fife Nov 2021.

Stevie Crawford has slowly transformed us from a team who utterly lacked any kind of confidence or cohesion into a team who, at very minimum, are going to display organisation and fight. What a difference it makes.

in terms of 9th, yesterday's result means it's very much game on between us and Dumbarton. Hitting 8th would still be a big ask. How we do in the next two weeks, against Clyde and Alloa, will be extremely important as we've got a pretty tough tail end of the season.

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3 hours ago, Jan Vojáček said:

I said if we lost that game we'd finish bottom of the pile. And, if anything, our performance actually only resulted in me feeling even more certain about that.

There's not a lot between the teams in this league, especially the bottom five. So it comes down to desire. And East Fife wanted it yesterday. They played like they were fighting for survival. We played like we'd secured a mid-table finish and were just seeing things games out until the summer.

The whole body language of the squad wasn't right from the off. Far too many players were hiding - and making it obvious. Nobody wanted the ball from Kieran Wright on countless occasions, leaving us to just hoof it long and gift it back to East Fife. Something about us just isn't right.

Confidence has, undoubtedly, played a huge part. But when you're on a run of 3 wins in 20 odd games it's not going to be high, and we have a squad of experienced players who need to back themselves. Paton, Carsy, McKee, Wylde, Paddy Boyle. Their confidence might be low, but they have played at a far higher level than this. They have to know what it takes to rebuild that confidence and grind out results.

Since our mini-Josh inspired revival in January/February we've gone from putting in good performances, but shooting ourselves in the foot with kamikaze defending, to putting in performances where we don't merit anything. We've taken zero points from our last four games. You could, at a push, argue we maybe deserved a point against Alloa or Peterhead. But we haven't done anywhere near enough to win those four. And three of them were against direct rivals.

Teams now look like they enjoy playing against us, because they know we're mentally weak and if they can get their noses in front then they'll win at a canter. It also feels like they've got wise to playing against us.

Kieran Wright being mentioned on the Sons thread is an interesting one. I've got concerns about him too. He's excellent at dealing with high balls. Absolutely fantastic at it. So teams have stopped putting high balls in against us, instead getting efforts away. And his shots to saves ratio can't be too great at all. He's like the reverse of the 'good shot stopper' cliche. I think he's a good player. But I don't think he's a good shot stopper, and I also don't think his long distribution is up to much. There were two young goalkeepers on the pitch yesterday, and the one who isn't on loan from a big Glasgow club looked by far the better player.

In Wright's defence he's not being helped by those in front of him. Stephen Bronsky in particular yesterday was absolutely all over the place, and nearly stuck the ball past Wright twice with crazy backpasses. I think George Stanger looks like a centre-back being asked to do something he isn't comfortable with, and I think Paddy Boyle is definitely far better playing more centrally than at full-back. Which leaves me wondering if we could try (yet another) CB pairing of Boyle and A.N Other.

In midfield, I could see the idea when McKee dropped deeper to ping balls around. That's definitely far more his role than playing as #10. But he didn't really have the options ahead of him - other than pinging it long for Duthie or Stokes. Nobody was running off the shoulder or making any form of incisive runs at all. I also couldn't get my head around hooking Stokes (who was one of better players imo) and moving Carsy forward. Carsy was clearly not comfortable in that role, and for the second week in a row kept popping up on the wing. Where he looked completely lost.

His red card obviously wasn't a deliberate ploy to miss the next week's game. Show me a player who wants a fine for being sent-off above all else. But it was sheer stupidity, and I hope Faz and a few of his teammates pulled him up about it. The referee yesterday was absolutely fine. He made a few iffy decisions, but absolutely nothing major - and he kept his cards in his pocket. To be sent off for swearing as the club captain in injury time of a game that you've already lost is dire stuff. 

The only player who can hold his head up after that performance is Conner Duthie (and, to a lesser extent, Eoghan Stokes). We needed Duthie to stay as a focal point in attack. He didn't. But he did just about everything else. He didn't shirk a challenge, he worked his arse off and he actually looked like he cared. Tracking back 40 odd yards in the final minutes after he lost the ball to dispossess someone and then go on the attack again is exactly the sort of hunger his teammates lacked.

Duthie might not have an end product a lot of the time. And he can be frustrating as hell. But the guy has been one of very few players this season who deserve to be picked up by another club at this level if we go down. With a run of games in a settled position and in a settled team, I'd fancy him to be very effective.

Clyde, Alloa, Queen's Park, Peterhead and East Fife was a kind run of fixtures. We managed three points from them. It's now going to be a massive ask for us to avoid the drop. Falkirk are a shambles, but have breezed beyond us twice. We've never had an easy game against Montrose. Alloa will likely know a win at the Recs should keep them up, Peterhead have taken 9 points from 9 against us, and Airdrie and Cove are miles ahead of everyone in the league. That takes us up to Clyde on the final day - by which point we could be sunk.

Of course if we win next week then I'll suddenly be confident again. And anything could happen. Especially if we have Josh and MacLean back. But as it stands, and having had some time to reflect on yesterday, that run of fixtures just fills me with dread. 

I've focused totally on us, so I'll drop a wee line for East Fife. Who thoroughly, thoroughly merited that win yesterday. Even with a patched up squad, they were better than us from 1-11 and their players looked to thrive under the pressure of knowing they couldn't afford to lose. I wouldn't be totally surprised to see you guys complete a great escape and finish 8th. Jude Smith is a terrific goalkeeper, defensively you seem to have strengthened and up top Kyle Connell is absolutely everything you'd want from a League One striker. Ninth and winning the playoffs is certainly achievable imo, but as is eighth. It's totally in your hands, and it feels like Stevie Crawford has built a really good team spirit there - with everyone pulling in one direction.

It was me who mentioned Wright in the sons chat. And was swiftly shut down. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
 

But when we pass back to the keeper and you grip your seat in anticipation of what might go wrong there is a problem. I wasn’t saying ramsbottom is streets ahead of Wright just that he is far more vocal, and seems to have more fight.  Totally agree that he (Wright) isn't helped by the four (or three) in front of him, and you are spot on that we seem to have been “worked out”.  Lots of shots from outside the box from opposition strikers show that they fancy their chances at range against him. 

As a side note I thought Connor Duthie showed grit and determination yesterday. Character beats ability and we are short of the latter

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It was me who mentioned Wright in the sons chat. And was swiftly shut down. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
 
But when we pass back to the keeper and you grip your seat in anticipation of what might go wrong there is a problem. I wasn’t saying ramsbottom is streets ahead of Wright just that he is far more vocal, and seems to have more fight.  Totally agree that he (Wright) isn't helped by the four (or three) in front of him, and you are spot on that we seem to have been “worked out”.  Lots of shots from outside the box from opposition strikers show that they fancy their chances at range against him. 
As a side note I thought Connor Duthie showed grit and determination yesterday. Character beats ability and we are short of the latter

I am saying Wright is streets ahead of Ramsbottom. Wright’s biggest strength is his distribution and play with his feet, he scuffed 1 kick on an awful pitch and all of a sudden there’s people in the stand saying he’s dreadful at kicking and they’re terrified every-time the ball goes near him. It annoys me a lot how reactionary people are.
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8 minutes ago, SANDYSON said:

It was me who mentioned Wright in the sons chat. And was swiftly shut down. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
 

But when we pass back to the keeper and you grip your seat in anticipation of what might go wrong there is a problem. I wasn’t saying ramsbottom is streets ahead of Wright just that he is far more vocal, and seems to have more fight.  Totally agree that he (Wright) isn't helped by the four (or three) in front of him, and you are spot on that we seem to have been “worked out”.  Lots of shots from outside the box from opposition strikers show that they fancy their chances at range against him. 

As a side note I thought Connor Duthie showed grit and determination yesterday. Character beats ability and we are short of the latter

Wright isn’t greaf but Sam Ramsbottom is an absolute fucking liability. Anyone claiming Ramsbottom is a better option is kidding themselves on. The guy was practically chucking them into the net on a weekly basis.

Edited by Bring Back Paddy Flannery
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