St Johnstone v Ross County Sat 17/9/22

[monkfish]

First half decent, second half County took Wright out the game and we had no answers, as the manager is incapable of changing things.

Totally agree with Radford that with a 30+ player squad, only having Davidson (crock) and Philips (?) as 'proper' sitting midfielders is a nonsense. Hallberg was rubbish in there once again.  

Gordon's distribution is woeful and just means we gave up possession time and again. The amount of pointless punt ups over Clark's head... I would have McGowan back in there.

[Radford]

Touch map shows how much of our threat we lost in second half, and how focused down the right we were in opening 45 mins. That isn't a necessarily a criticism but probably did make it easier for Malky Mackay to tweak, whilst Davidson twiddled.

First half:

Second half:

Edited September 18, 2022 by Radford

[RandomGuy.]

Saints with the better chances, County the better team, for me.

You could see County had multiple plans. Go direct to White with Callachan coming on to the knock downs, get it wide for the two direct, pacey, wing men to create something. Samuel came on to add a runner in behind White as knock downs weren't working. Dhanda came on to try and dictate play in the centre as Cancola was just recycling play instead of doing anything risky. Changed RB as Watson wasnt exploiting the space.

It didnt work for them but theres variety there and you can see either the players fit how they want to play or they play around their players strengths.

We still, 3 seasons in, rely entirely on crosses for chances no matter whos on the park. Chucking these in while having an attack of Clark, May and Murphy on the park seemed daft, but it was still happening after 90 minutes of Countys CBs winning literally every header. Not sure what Crawford was meant to be changing, but the McLennan one had an idea behind it at least. Although it came far too late (Countys RW had zero interest in defending and Watson was there to be run at).

We're better than last season through nothing more than Mitchell and Considine being better CBs than McCart, Muller and Dendoncker (yet both new players will likely be out our starting 11 this time next year), but we now seem to actively hold the 3 CBs in our own half these days rather than trying to push them forward which also helps us look better defensively, at the cost of attacking play. Drey Wright has looked good but hes still a downgrade on Rooney for me, and hes still remarkably easy to take out the game due to him needed to go down the wing and there being no overlap/underlap coming from the RCB. Teams will have us sussed out pretty quickly again this season and i dont know what answers we'll have.

[Pete the Jakey]

11 hours ago, Theyellowbox said:

County never really looked liked scoring to be fair. 

Apart from when we rattled the crossbar obvs.

[bunglebonce]

Whoscored has Liam Gordon with a 39% pass completion rate yesterday. I thought Keith Watson’s hoofing was bad. 

Edited September 18, 2022 by bunglebonce

[SJFCtheTeamForMe]

4 hours ago, bunglebonce said:

Whoscored has Liam Gordon with a 39% pass completion rate yesterday. I thought Keith Watson’s hoofing was bad. 

His distribution was honking yesterday. Multiple times under no pressure whatsoever he just shelled it up the park. 

In the second half he was the main culprit of it turning into a head tennis mess.

[Center half]

12 minutes ago, SJFCtheTeamForMe said:

His distribution was honking yesterday. Multiple times under no pressure whatsoever he just shelled it up the park. 

In the second half he was the main culprit of it turning into a head tennis mess.

Yesterday did show me anyway the difference in players ability! McGowan for example played with a calmness and was always looking to pass or cushion his headers to our players! Liam just fucking hoist it up the park! Mitchell a bit in between these two and Considine has probably been  our most consistent player so far this season apart for being left for dead a couple of times he can read the game pretty well!   

[Widge]

On the evidence of yesterday, Liam Gordon gets dropped from the defence once we’ve a fit midfielder back, with Mitchell playing centrally and McGowan going right and being asked to play a little more like he did in midfield. Guess the issue with that, is Wright gets caught and you’re totally exposed down that side. I thought we looked ok yesterday with some neat play and touches, but as others have alluded to, it broke down all to easily at the 18 yard line. I think Carey would have helped and I’d liked to have seen Max on for Murphy a lot earlier rather than Crawford. 

[SJFCtheTeamForMe]

2 hours ago, Center half said:

Yesterday did show me anyway the difference in players ability! McGowan for example played with a calmness and was always looking to pass or cushion his headers to our players! Liam just fucking hoist it up the park! Mitchell a bit in between these two and Considine has probably been  our most consistent player so far this season apart for being left for dead a couple of times he can read the game pretty well!   

Pretty much identically to how I've been seeing it!