League stats under RN

[TerryTheTerror]

As distasteful and unnecessary as it may be it's not personal abuse if it's not directed at any particular individual.

[ranaldarab]

Tiresome stuff.

[Arab_1988]

I totally agree that RN will not have told the team to start slowly but his selections don't help. Friday night he had Watson, Brown and Reynolds whose distribution is very poor, Smith's distribution skills were totally negated by being on the wrong side all this leads to it being harder to get decent balls to the players that we need to get on the ball. Alloa were quite happy to let our defenders have the ball. Given the set up in he's like Friday we need a more direct threat than Pawlett, we need Appere who has the ability to come short and hold the ball, turn and dribble or go over the top. Pawlett needs ball at feet in space facing the opposition goal, something he will get against teams who push forward against us but something that was never likely to happen on Friday night. Yes individually and collectively we were rubbish on Friday but in my humble opinion the set up of our team hurt us more than Alloa did.

Yes but that formation and set up got us the early goals against Morton and had everybody played to the same ability they did that day then i’m sure we could have done it v Alloa aswell. However Butcher was a massive miss in the middle and we didn’t control the game. Everyone is aware that Smith was playing left of a back 3 and not simply left back. It may not be his normal position but for anyone who wasn’t at Tanadice v Morton then let me tell you that Smith, Sporle and Pawlett were brilliant down the left together. I think some people instead of picking holes in what Neilson has done should just accept that this group of players will have off days as like i said before they are playing for us in this league for a reason. Lets hope v QOTS they are back at it.

[Monifieth Arab]

I was giving an opinion on what happened Friday night and the replied with my thoughts on why the Morton game was different. I'm not disputing how good anyone played against Morton but I will say it again we have players who are brilliant going forward given the space of a team coming at us instead of sitting in. I have no doubt that had we gone ahead early against Alloa things would have been the same, the crux of my point is we either set up differently against teams who are going to sit in and let out defenders punt the ball forward by playing Appere up top with Shankland giving teams a different threat or we set up the way we did against Morton and Alloa and rely on getting an early goal or not conceding the first goal, either way has pros and cons but regardless RN has to be able to change things far quicker when things aren't going well. Stevie Wonder could have seen the issues on Friday we should have been 2 or 3 down by half time, we hardly got a kick of the ball never mind creating any decent chances yet we plodded on trying the same lumps up the park and the same formation that clearly wasn't working

[cybershed]

I was giving an opinion on what happened Friday night and the replied with my thoughts on why the Morton game was different. I'm not disputing how good anyone played against Morton but I will say it again we have players who are brilliant going forward given the space of a team coming at us instead of sitting in. I have no doubt that had we gone ahead early against Alloa things would have been the same, the crux of my point is we either set up differently against teams who are going to sit in and let out defenders punt the ball forward by playing Appere up top with Shankland giving teams a different threat or we set up the way we did against Morton and Alloa and rely on getting an early goal or not conceding the first goal, either way has pros and cons but regardless RN has to be able to change things far quicker when things aren't going well. Stevie Wonder could have seen the issues on Friday we should have been 2 or 3 down by half time, we hardly got a kick of the ball never mind creating any decent chances yet we plodded on trying the same lumps up the park and the same formation that clearly wasn't working

I agree with you. Nail on head mate.

[shed-buoy]

I agree with you. Nail on head mate.

Very strange thread, lots of shouting louder and not a lot of listening to each other

Terry the terror I salute you, best contributions by far

[PortugueseFrank]

Just a thought but the setup v Morton keeps getting a mention regarding the Alloa game and it reminds me of something someone told me about two years ago.

Is it possible that other teams don't setup in the same way as Morton for example and therefore you cant expect to just turn up and implement one game plan to beat them all?

We have to remember that Alloa, Morton, Arbroath, ICT, Partick, Ayr, Dundee, Dunfermline and Queen of the South all set up tactically to try and counteract what we do.

It's not a one sided story. We will drop points and that'll be disappointing. But that is sport after all.

I think we are falling into the trap of overestimating how much we control the outcome of games and underestimating the fact that other teams are there to try and stop us from winning and even try to win a game themselves.

[TerryTheTerror]

I've mentioned the Morton match a few times as Robbie was (wrongly in my opinion) being accused of unnecessary tinkering with the team and this was a good illustration of the opposite. FWIW, I agree with you.

[LSArab]

Really good OP.

What that does show is that in the seasons we have been done the team winning the league has not done that well - massive missed opportunities which is heart breaking

It does show that Neilson has done a good job. 61-68% is a high win percentage, even allowing for fact we a big club in the division

What I would like to see is going back more to the 4-4-2 with Appere starting up front

Ultimately though in Robbie we Trust

We have had some great performances this season and the results overall have been very good

[JelloBiafra]

Away from home we have something like 13 goals in last 14 league and playoff games and have only scored more than 1 a couple of times. Only 6 wins.

Home form vastly improved. Too passive and insipid away from home against Alloas and Ayrs and Mortons. Let them loose Neilson. Attack and shut the snipers up. I would love it if you did.