Rangers v2.0 (A)

[tHeArAb]

Baffling how Shankland is being brought into this when he wasnt even our top scorer last season, and as much as he is derided on here, TC is on record that he has not played that top scorer Clark in his favoured position this season, more than likely because he has had to play McNumpty when fit!

Is it to TCs credit that we cut 10 players? We got money for Shankland last summer, then Fuchs and Smith in January, but i would expect Asghar is the one to have dealt with that, and all the loan deals.

Not so sure he rectified our poor defence and more than likely landed lucky. Cant help but listen to stories that Mulgrew was inbound before Mellon departed and Mark Reynolds was coming to the end of his time anyway, and we just needed Connolly as far away as possible. Then there is the emergence of Freeman, Nielsen and Graham, and while TC has the remit of giving youth the chance, they have to be good enough to get that chance in the first place. Most disappointing thing now though is i think our best defender has played his last game for the club!

It's not baffling at all. Mellon had a very good striker at his disposal. Tam doesn't. Whether or not Shankland was used effectively is another matter. 8 or 9 goals he scored was it not. That's an 8 or 9 goals striker than we haven't had this season. Those goals/points could've been massive for us this season.

Of course its to Courts' credit. How many other teams can lose 10 players and still finish the season in an equal, if not better position than they were when those 10 departed. Most would go to f*ck imo.

Landed lucky? Come on man. 😂 Some people just do not want to give the manager any credit whatsoever. Courts made Mulgrew his top priority. Personally meeting him and getting it over the line. He also brought in McMann, who, for the first part of the season, when we had our water tight defence, was a mainstay and played a big part. The youth have to be good enough yes, but the manager has to have the balls to play them. An 18 and a 21 year old playing in a 3 man defence vs Rangers at the weekend. Freeman who Mellon wouldn't play being given his chance and taking it. All decisions the manager made rather than sticking with the tried & trusted. Something Mellon was guilty of over & over again.

[GUNBOAT]

How many goals has Tony Watt scored for United since he signed in January?,i honestly don't know.What i do know is he was the top scorer in the league when he arrived but i don't think he is anymore.So Motherwell had a top striker at their disposal but we dinnie?.

[Shedboy1971]

How many goals has Tony Watt scored for United since he signed in January?,i honestly don't know.What i do know is he was the top scorer in the league when he arrived but i don't think he is anymore.So Motherwell had a top striker at their disposal but we dinnie?.

1 (one)

[GUNBOAT]

1 (one)

So he has went from being the top scorer in Scotland's top league in the first half of the season to one of the worst strike rates in the 2nd half albeit with two different teams.I have heard many times the saying it was a game of 2 halves but never have i heard of a player having such a season of two halves.

#Tannadice, strikers graveyard.

[Chick A Saw]

It's not baffling at all. Mellon had a very good striker at his disposal. Tam doesn't. Whether or not Shankland was used effectively is another matter. 8 or 9 goals he scored was it not. That's an 8 or 9 goals striker than we haven't had this season. Those goals/points could've been massive for us this season.

Of course its to Courts' credit. How many other teams can lose 10 players and still finish the season in an equal, if not better position than they were when those 10 departed. Most would go to f*ck imo.

Landed lucky? Come on man. 😂 Some people just do not want to give the manager any credit whatsoever. Courts made Mulgrew his top priority. Personally meeting him and getting it over the line. He also brought in McMann, who, for the first part of the season, when we had our water tight defence, was a mainstay and played a big part. The youth have to be good enough yes, but the manager has to have the balls to play them. An 18 and a 21 year old playing in a 3 man defence vs Rangers at the weekend. Freeman who Mellon wouldn't play being given his chance and taking it. All decisions the manager made rather than sticking with the tried & trusted. Something Mellon was guilty of over & over again.

If Shankland was such a good striker, why did someone who is considered so bad score more than him last season? 8 goals for Shanks against 11 for Clark. To me, there was something else going on along with the way Mellon played the team. This season our top scorer is Clark on 7 where our head coach has said he is using our top scorer in a role he is not suited to, and the football on show is little different! We dont create chances for our forwards and this is borne out by the fact that the leagues top scorer in January has scored 1 solitary goal since he joined when he really should have been that true Shankland replacement! You've made me smile though as with 2 games to go, we have scored 2 more goals and have the same 44 points we finished in 9th with last season!

Im struggling with this 10 players figure that people are banding about. Apparently 12 players(Wiki but no youth loans counted) in total departed through the whole season, and if they were all first team regulars, then yes he had something to deal with, but.......

Summer,
Connolly who had already been replaced by Mulgrew with K Smith and Nielson emerging.
Robson for a fee replaced by McMann(who i believe was playing injured) and Niskanen.
Shankland for a fee and McNumpty in.

January,
Akinola in/out diznae coont!
Fuchs, for a fee and no direct replacement(Does McDonald count?)
Appere, for a fee and replaced by Watt for a fee.
K Smith, for a fee with the latter covered by the revelation that is Ross Graham.

After that, im struggling to see the case that TC had a serious lack of resources to deal with as the following have hardly been missed.
Reynolds (1 appearance), past the end of his time and better youths ahead of him.
Chalmers (2+3),
Carson (4) baffling signing and loan!
Glass (6+4),
Watson (2+3).

In effect, loosing one player in Fuchs is really all TC had to deal with, but he looked to have downed tools anyway so no real loss! If there are other first team player departures i am missing, then please tell me?

Again im struggling to see why Freeman makes a good case to give TC credit and to be critical of Mellon. Since Kieron arrived under Nielson, he has had a solid Liam Smith ahead of him and Mellon quite rightly put him out on loan, a decision that TC reaped the rewards from with Freemans performances when Smith was injured. Was TC right to let Flynn Duffy head out on loan this season? I think both managers have had to deal with very similar situations, and both should get credit for helping improve these players.

[arab777]

If Shankland was such a good striker, why did someone who is considered so bad score more than him last season? 8 goals for Shanks against 11 for Clark.

Of these 11 goals, 2 were penalty kicks and another 2 against the worst team in Scotland Brechin, a game Shankland missed because he was on international duty with Scotland. I am sure there were free kicks in there as well.

The bottom line is there was a total lack of service to our strikers. I would have loved to have seen Shankland play with Watt. Tony would have complemented him very well.

[TerryTheTerror]

I think what tHeArAb is saying is last season we had Shankland, Clark, and McNulty but this season we have the others but not Shanks.

The main issue being we are a striker down but that's more to do with what turned out to be the poor recruitment of signing Biamou.

Regardless the point he makes still stands, we are a striker down and those 8 goals could we have seen us already 4th. Speculation of course but I'd imagine they'd have made some difference.

[tHeArAb]

How many goals has Tony Watt scored for United since he signed in January?,i honestly don't know.What i do know is he was the top scorer in the league when he arrived but i don't think he is anymore.So Motherwell had a top striker at their disposal but we dinnie?.

Or maybe he's proving to be the player a lot of Utd fans feared when he signed?

[shedka]

Yes, every defeat hurts, but accepting the reality that we wont take many, if any points off the ugly sisters is sometimes better for the soul. I find calling out a looser mentality a bit strange when we have taken points off them this season, especially the tributes only getting 7-4 which maybe should have been 5-5?

What hurts and frustrates me more is loosing to some of the worst teams ive seen in the top flight along with the last 2 games v Hearts who i think were there for the taking while mostly playing the same eye bleedingly skite football season after season!

I don't think taking 4 pts and losing 4-2 over the four meetings with them accepting defeat, also its taken a penalty for them to break the deadlock on both meetings at Ibrox, both ganes we have been weakened, at Tannadice we have been much closer to full strength in those meetings

If you look at everyone in the top six results against the rest of the top six, we are only 5 pts less than Hearts and way ahead of Motherwell and County

This means our struggles have been breaking down others in the bottom six, something we already know we need to address in the summer

[offshore_arab83]

i was there yesterday and i dont usually bother with either ibrox or parkhead but they were there for the taking so decided to go and that 6 fingered chunt bottled it with a completely bonkers team selection. boring, slow, uncreative, the same old same old tamball tombola pish

f ucking waste of money and time