Next up, Friday night away to Alloa

[darrenshedtastic]

Alot of frustration regarding last nights result which is rightly so as we've been "off it" for last few weeks. Injuries haven't helped but i dont think RN has helped himself with some of the selections he's made. During the first half of the season, he hardly mucked about with team selection or tactics but now he's changed everything that was working before.

Few things i noticed....

Watson should always start
Watson was one of more consistent performers during our good run. solid and reliable. once we took him out the team we started to concede stupid goals again. we bring him back in and we keep a clean sheet? strange that.

Butcher and Powers shouldn't play together.
Both good players and both have good attributes which are needed not only for the championship but for the prem (if we still get there). however when both play we lack real creativity. two guys effectively doing the same job. personally i dont think butcher has looked the same since powers arrival. in recent games, we should have played one of them with someone like Deco Glass who would give us that creative spark.

We can't cross a ball to save ourselves.
The amount of crossing positions we got in and blasted the ball over everyone or into the stand. 1 quality cross would have won us the game i reckon. Shankland looked very frustrated as any crosses that came in were so poor they were easily defended or nowhere near him.

We BADLY miss clark.... like BAD
Ill be honest, I love nicky clark. my favourite player by a mile so i was obviously gutted about his injury. we havent looked the same since. his link up play and experience has been missed. he is the missing link between midfield and shankland and we dont seem to be able to give shankland any service in recent weeks. this could also be because of mcmullan/appere missing but clark i think is a bigger miss.


Overall not acceptable last few weeks. only positives i have is we're still in a good position and that we kept a clean sheet. watson back in was big yes from me. if we can get our spark back for next week a win v ICT will surely sort the league out but we do need to get the finger out

[tHeArAb]

Glass has looked like a lost boy when hes played mate, he isn't the answer right now and certainly isn't going to be the answer next season. I'm not saying he won't be at some point, but he's not ready for the burden of carrying our attacking threat from midfield just yet.

[darrenshedtastic]

Glass has looked like a lost boy when hes played mate, he isn't the answer right now and certainly isn't going to be the answer next season. I'm not saying he won't be at some point, but he's not ready for the burden of carrying our attacking threat from midfield just yet.

I understand that people might be putting too much pressure on young lad but from what ive seen he wants to get on the ball and make something happen which we lack badly in an attacking sense. Also id rather play someone like Glass or even Mochrie than play two DM's who wont do much attacking.

[Noddydog]

Last night definitely disappointing. Delivery in final third definitely poor, but possibly made to look worse because we rarely made the transition into the final third quick enough, so Alloa time pack out defence and make it difficult to find a telling ball. I think in these situations you either need a lot of pace to turn their defence, or players with good close control and good creative passing ability to cut a way though. We fell between two stools. With no McMullan or Appere, which might gave given us more pace, we needed creativity, which having 2 defensive mids failed to give us.

[tHeArAb]

He's a year away from being a serious first pick imo. Would benefit from going on loan to someone in the Championship next year, providing we do actually manage to stumble across the line.

[Bannons boots]

Our crossing has become a real problem. At last game at Tannadice it was unbelievable how many crosses went straight to opposition players. Considering we have a goal hungry player just waiting to tuck one away its an area that needs immediate improvement. If even a handful of these crosses had been delivered better we would probably be winning these games.

[duke_the_arab]

I honestly don't think being part time in this league really matters and I don't think being "near the bottom of the league" matters either as Alloa are only 7 points away from a play off spot and Morton & Arbroath even closer.

I headed through last night not expecting to win and if I'm being honest the game went exactly as I thought it would. It was an improvement on the last time we were there when Alloa pi55ed all over us though but that is the only positive I can take from last night(and the peh on a roll which was surprisingly tasty)

I agree though that we should be doing better v Arbroath and Morton at home.

Totally agree Whitefield with all that and the pie on a roll was definitely my highlight of the night along with a wee stop for a pint in Crook of Devon on the the way home.

[Noddydog]

Our crossing has become a real problem. At last game at Tannadice it was unbelievable how many crosses went straight to opposition players. Considering we have a goal hungry player just waiting to tuck one away its an area that needs immediate improvement. If even a handful of these crosses had been delivered better we would probably be winning these games.

That’s made harder when slow build up means opposition can have 9 or 10 players back in the box.

Forgot to say in last post, there is a 3rd strategy - play more or less the same game as opposition, make yourself difficult to score against, and hope you have enough quality to nick one. Ends up with crappy games for the most part. It seems to be what we’re doing away from home, and if we nab the first goal, play can open up. Unfortunately, of late that hasn’t been happening. It might be why we are all frustrated, but over the season it has got us to where we are. Recent injuries have acted as a bit of a leveller. Still, if we were offered stuffy games but getting up at the start of the season, I think most would have taken it.

[Bannons boots]

Our years in this division have been marked by our inability to go on a long unbeaten run. Going into this season there was no way I was expecting to completely dominate. There have been games esp away that I have thought this will be tough & we won. I expected there to have been more points dropped than there has been. The only problem is that they have mostly been against teams we should probably be putting away. I expected that the derby games & away to places like Inverness & Dunfermline would be our hardest matches.Hopefully this current run of form will be as bad as it gets & with players back from injury we will push on again & get the job done.

[Noddydog]

It’s those “smaller” teams that sit-in more, and we’ve found them difficult to break down. We’ve done better when teams have had more of a go at us, allowing games to open up more.