Jump to content

Annan Athletic -vs- Stenhousemuir (Saturday 6 August 2022)


Recommended Posts

The second game of the league campaign sees two of the early title favourites collide at Galabank as Annan Athletic take on Stenhousemuir. Both sides had mixed fortune last time out - Annan unexpectedly lost to Stranraer, while the Warriors made hard work of putting away a spirited Albion Rovers. This game will act as a barometer to how the season could play out, and I, for one, cannot wait.

Stenhousemuir knocked the ball around well in the first half against the Rovers but they could barely keep get to grips with it in the second and had to endure a seemingly ceaseless wave of attacks. That can't happen this time around because Annan have the tools to punish us. We need to make sure our passing is a lot crisper too - we gifted several chances through our slackness in playing out from the back. I fully "trust the process" but I'm wary about asking players like Nicky Jamieson to do things they're not comfortable with.

I'm not sure how fit Adam Corbett is going into the match but I'm going to assume he'll miss out, so I'd line up with:

- Tam Orr - Matty Yates -

- Euan O'Reilly - Nat Wedderburn - Craig Bryson - Mikey Anderson -

- Callum Yeats - Sean Crighton - Nicky Jamieson - Mikey Miller -

- Conor Brennan -

Will Sewell should be back from suspension and Adam Brown has hopefully overcome his illness, so we have options to bring off the bench, something we probably lacked at the weekend.

We had a great record against Annan last season and I hope that can continue. I'm not sure how to call this one but I'm very excited!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

O’Reilly had a quieter game on Saturday, and if he gets back to his usual imperious best, hopefully Stenny can get the win to support the tag of favourites quite a few have given them this season. Matty Yates could score a hatful in this league, starting with Saturday. He has confidence and a bit of swagger and, not least, this might leave Tam Orr to quietly getting on with adding to his goal on Saturday. A bit of work required on playing out from the back at times - hearts in mouths at times on Saturday against Albion Rovers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Annan need to improve from last week v Stranraer.
Last week played too many long balls looking for Goss to get on the end of and it Didn’t work.
Will be interesting to see if Murphy sticks with Goss or whether Muir gets a start.
It’s not going to be easy but I think Annan will get all 3 points.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Afraid not Stramash Annan good value for win and shoud have had the game dead and buried!
in spite of your hatchet man no.25 best efforts?
Shat ap

We were dreadful till last 20 mins & Annan were worth their lead, Goss was v good 1st half. This diamond needs put to bed & the fact we didn't change till 2-0 down is a real black mark against the manager. On him today overall but the players were also off it. Great goal from Matty Ytes, Sewell looks dangerous all the time. Callum Yeats pass marks. One of those days. Meh.


Link to comment
Share on other sites

Too many had off days today, particularly in midfield - none of them imposed themselves on the game. Of course the crazy 2nd killed it but we pushed hard for an equaliser.

Yates was excellent and his goal was just outstanding.

Annan are a really strong team and could well be the team to beat, but they are difficult to like. From the start of the 2nd half their “game management” was excellent (their coach must be so proud) but we could really have done with a stronger referee today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

First of all, all the credit has to go to Annan Athletic. I thought they were strong all across the park - the backline did what they needed to do against our limited attack, the midfield dominated ours, and Tommy Goss and Aidan Smith gave us problems throughout the match. Their game management, while frustrating, was good too. I expect them to have a successful season and today's result and performance only reaffirms that. Galabank is one of, if not the, best away day in League 2 and the hospitality was tremendous.

Stenhousemuir were poor and a lot of that has to come down to the manager. Stephen Swift has a tendency to overthink and overcomplicate things and that was definitely the case this afternoon. I don't understand why we started with the midfield diamond or why Euan O'Reilly was benched, and I don't understand why we didn't make changes at the interval, when we would have benefitted from them the most. For a quartet of Craig Bryson, Mikey Anderson, Mikey Miller and Nat Wedderburn to all play so shabbily and come off second best against Dom Docherty and Benjamin Luissint is a worry. Bryson couldn't get a grip on the came and spent it chasing shadows while Miller played like he'd just woken up before kick-off; I think that's the poorest performance he's turned in for Stenny. As others have said, we only began to make our presence felt in the closing 20 minutes or so without ever carrying any real threat.

And let's have it, a goal like Annan's second has been coming since pre-season, an embarrassing mess of our own making. We all know Sean Crighton and Nicky Jamieson are uncomfortable playing the ball out from the back but because we don't really have anyone further forward who's likely to challenge for an aerial ball, it's probably the only way we're able to operate. I said in my opening post that we'd have to be a lot sharper with our passing out from defence because a good team like Annan would punish us, and here we are.

There were a handful of positives. Matty Yates was the standout, scoring a sensational goal from range, and generally impressing with his hold-up play and his willingness to carry the ball forward. Will Sewell looked spritely when he was introduced and he should probably start next week ahead of Tam Orr. Conor Brennan made some good one-on-one saves and did his best to keep the game competitive.

That's two back-to-back underwhelming performances now, so there's plenty to think about going into our upcoming meeting with Stirling Albion. If I was in charge, I would simply select our most dangerous starting XI and let Crighton and Jamieson do what they're best at: heading and kicking. But maybe that's just me!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, Francesc Fabregas said:

And let's have it, a goal like Annan's second has been coming since pre-season, an embarrassing mess of our own making. We all know Sean Crighton and Nicky Jamieson are uncomfortable playing the ball out from the back but because we don't really have anyone further forward who's likely to challenge for an aerial ball, it's probably the only way we're able to operate. I said in my opening post that we'd have to be a lot sharper with our passing out from defence because a good team like Annan would punish us, and here we are..

That's two back-to-back underwhelming performances now, so there's plenty to think about going into our upcoming meeting with Stirling Albion. If I was in charge, I would simply select our most dangerous starting XI and let Crighton and Jamieson do what they're best at: heading and kicking. But maybe that's just me!

It has been apparent since the cup games that certain players were uncomfortable with playing it our from the back and you just knew we would get caught out when teams cotton on to out tactics. There were plenty warnings last week and today just affirms it, yet from the after-match interviews it looks like we will be retaining it.

Matty Yates goal was a cracker but apart from that.  Why were changes not made at half-time?

Two league games played, 3 halves where we have been totally underwhelming, things really have to change next week.  We have the players the manager has to sort this out.

Edited by Crazy Days
spelling
Link to comment
Share on other sites

That was absolutely dire. Two games played and we have been a mile off it apart from a 20 minute spell in both games - that's unacceptable for the players we have. 

I didn't have a major problem starting with the diamond and I had predicted as much pre game but it was probably clear after 20 minutes this wasn't going to work in this game. Changes had to be made at half time we were stuck in a rut playing negative football, second to everything and the personnel on the park weren't going to magically turn that round.

I struggle to see how the manager couldn't see that and then waits until we go 2-0 down before making the changes - probably one of the most frustrating things in football for a fan to stomach. Be proactive not reactive.

The second goal is obviously a fluke but it comes about trying to play hospital football for a pass that's never on - it isn't difficult to work out how we play from the back and if you can be quick and cut out that pass to Nat we are going to continue to be in a world of bother. Play it when it's on I've no issue with that but when it's clearly not then get the ball fucking emptied!

We need to play on the front foot with our best attacking players on the pitch. The last 20 minutes they were hanging on but the 70 minutes before that was an over thought game plan of containment, there needs to stop being a big focus on the opposition and concentrate on ourselves - we have some of the best attacking players in the league let's cut out the shite and get them on the park and let the opposition worry about us. 

Win next week and it will put this to bed as you don't want to get too up and down this early in the season about things but we really need a performance as well to show we have the nonsense of these two games out of the system.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Was quite please how we played in the cup games and was confident we would start well in the league.  How wrong can you be, we have had two games where we have played absolute rubbish.  Had Albion Rovers been capable of finishing we would have lost and against Annan we were lucky we did not ship 4 or 5 goals.

Does Swift know how to change a game and when to do it?  It was clear on Saturday that changes had to be made at half time but he waits until we are 2 down. Does he overthink the game and give the opposition too much respect?

Posters have already mentioned the playing it out from the back debacle - it needs sorting out.

Saturday is a big game - we cannot have another start to the season like we had last year.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...