Stenhousemuir -vs- Annan Athletic (Saturday 8 October 2022)

[Francesc Fabregas]

FK5's premium punk-rock soccer side are in action once again as they welcome Annan Athletic to Ochilview on Saturday. The Warriors are in great form at the moment having taken 13 points from their last five matches and have shown their minerals in victories against East Fife and Bonnyrigg Rose Athletic; Annan, meanwhile, have probably been the most disappointing side in the division so far - I expected them to build on last season and win the title but the weekend's embarrassment at Elgin City was the latest in a series of poor showings.

Stenny are a different, better side than the one who meekly surrendered 2-1 at Galabank in August. The back three suits this team and gives it the balance it had been missing earlier in the campaign and a number of players are performing well just now, notably Matty Yates, Mikey Miller and Sean Crighton. I'm not too sure how we're going to line up for the weekend's match - on one hand, there's no need to change a winning side but on the other, the team that started at Bonnyrigg was designed with specific circumstances in mind. If Euan O'Reilly is unfit, we might go with two up top with Tam Orr restored to the starting XI and although Ross Forbes turned in his best performance of the season in the first half at New Dundas Park, Liam Brown can't be far away. A player of his profile wasn't brought to be a reserve.

Nevertheless, it's a good place to be - we have depth and options to change things around if need be, and everyone will need to be at their best because there are players who can easily come in and replace them.

- Matty Yates - Tam Orr

- Callum Yeats - Adam Brown - Nat Wedderburn - Liam Brown - Mikey Miller -

- Adam Corbett - Nicky Jamieson - Sean Crighton -

- Clangers Brennan -

Given how we've been playing in recent weeks, confidence should be high and we should be looking to win this. I don't want to get too carried away but I'd be disappointed if we can't get one over Annan given how things went last time we faced them.

Home win!

[Neilly]

There must be a temptation to keep the same starting team although that may depend on how bad the knock was Callum Yeats got. Philp can replace him of course without weakening us at all.

Although they don't play a back three like Bonnyrigg, Annan are slow at the back and always struggle against pace. Hester bagging four on Saturday should further back that up.

I liked the way we looked on Saturday with Yates supported by O'Reilly and Adam Brown in what looked like a front three for the most part. They all linked together well and caused a lot of bother. I like Orr from the bench just now he's really making an impact on the game which is something we haven't seen when he starts. 

Forbes or Liam Brown is probably the big decision for me. Brown is of course a high quality player but Forbes was very good on Saturday and that goal saving tackle in the first half showed a fire in the belly we haven't seen much in his time here. I'd be inclined to stick with him and have Brown from the bench again.

We do have some serious depth now with those two additions though and the excitement is now there again for everyone connected to the club to go and have a right good season.

Edited October 3, 2022 by Neilly

[TheBigGuy]

Tommy Goss in the goals again. What a story!

[Solway Star]

Maybe Annan are Stenny’s bogey team this season! Well done Annan onwards and upwards!

[Vimto90]

Vile stuff all in but at a very meek positive a point closer to top of league.

We concede too many goals. Unless that improves we won't win anything.

[Nigel Blackwell]

“Liam Brown is unavailable at the moment”- Swift. Means what exactly?

[Dundee Hibernian]

Thought Swift made a clown of himself by getting sent off: getting upset about next to nothing, I think it was someone in the opposition dug out kicking the ball away,  but it doesn't matter what it was. Then, after the warning red card, not letting it lie. 

Maybe I'm tainted by my puzzlement at Swift's selections: Will Sewell's present benching, Euan O'Reilly's earlier in the season, while Ross Forbes must have snaps of Swift with Conor Burns.

 

 

 

[Neilly]

8 hours ago, Nigel Blackwell said:

“Liam Brown is unavailable at the moment”- Swift. Means what exactly?

Hopefully get some clarity regarding that. Hopefully not reading too much into it but did seem strange Liam wasn't just mentioned with the rest of the injured guys in the interview.

Yesterday was a sickener. A real roller coaster of a game and the last couple of minutes pretty much summed up following this football club. A very small moment of euphoria before complete and utter devastation bring us back down to earth. Some laugh.

Need to dust ourselves down and go again. The sun has come up in the morning and we are a point closer to the top of the league. Huge game next week but these are the games we want and not pottering about in mid table.

[Hard Graft]

Took the sending off to get us into the game. We seemed very much out of sorts up until that moment. Did Swift watch the Elgin - Annan game to see how Elgin had unlocked them?

We certainly created chances but took ages to get a goal. Lack of quality on the bench yesterday. Walker does not impress at all and neither does Joseph. Could not believe that we had got into a winning position and yet again failed to hold onto it.   Referee should have dealt with Fleming  for his time wasting. When a team is blatantly time wasting is there a case for the referee blowing for time up on the 90th minute if the opposition have taken the lead?

One thing is certain - we have to be switched on from the start next week.

Can we have an update on Brown?

[Francesc Fabregas]

That was some game of football yesterday. A real rollercoaster from the first kick of the ball until the final whistle. If the season ends in failure, this will be the kind of match we'll look back on, where three points suddenly evaporated to one, and cite as some kind of factor. I simply cannot understand how we, after all the hard work in getting back into the match and taking the lead, allowed Tommy Goss to score at the death from 20 yards. When the ball hit the back of the net and the big man ran towards the home support to celebrate, all I could do was laugh. A real sore one.

Up until Tam Muir's red card, Stenhousemuir were comfortably second best. We didn't really have an answer to Goss, who pushed our backline around and won the majority of his headers, or Benjamin Luissant in the middle of the park, who seemed to get to every second ball and constantly drove us back. Luissant is a pretty instinctive player who appears to be better without the ball than he is with it, but he was a nuisance all afternoon. Goss' first goal was pretty well taken, the big man finishing from a tight angle, but it's disappointing that Annan's most obvious threat was left unmarked at the back post. Who was supposed to be picking him up? Stephen Swift talks about his team losing through "instances" and these instances seem to be happening every week; one clean sheet all season just isn't good enough. We have to continually outscore our opposition if we want to win.

The match turned on Muir's dismissal, with the makeshift centre-back sent off for a rotten over-the-ball tackle on Matty Yates. It was a brainless challenge, with Yates some distance from the Annan goal, and the decision to remove Tony Wallace for Scott Hooper to plug the gap in the back opened the game up for us. Although we saw plenty of the ball, we didn't do much with it - Ross Forbes should have scored with an unmarked header and the same player had the opportunity to put away one of the numerous close-range free-kicks. Everything seemed a little too pedestrian.

Our sterile dominance continued into the second half. I thought the interval might have brought about a couple of changes but we continued with a 3-5-2 system that, bizarrely, saw Sean Crighton operating as a right-winger. How did this happen? The ball was worked out to him so many times and all the big man could do was send it floated crosses that were easy to deal with. Our whole approach, in fact, was pretty straightforward for Annan - get it out wide and chuck it in the box. The only time it worked was when Will Sewell forced Greg Fleming into a stunning reaction save; it might be one of the best I've ever seen in the flesh. We needed to change things and Crighton was eventually moved up front. Annan could have scored when Nicky Jamieson lost possession and Goss put Josh Galloway through on goal but Conor Brennan beat away a poor effort.

With nine minutes remaining, Nat Wedderburn, who'd had a frustrating game, decided to take things into his own hands and rampaged into the box. His shot was blocked but kindly rolled into Crighton's path, who steered it into the net. A second goal seemed inevitable and it duly arrived shortly afterwards when Crighton flicked home Euan O'Reilly's cross. That should have won us the match but Goss had other ideas. Was bringing on Mikey Anderson a negative move that cost the side its edge? Possibly, but if we win the match, it's not an issue.

All in all, that was deeply disappointing. On one hand, the team showed character to pull themselves back into the match and have now gone six games unbeaten but on the other, Annan were there for the taking and a lack of imagination and a collapse at the end saw them tie the match. That's what you get for supporting a team like Stenhousemuir. Next week against Stirling Albion is shaping up to be a blockbuster.