Bobby Madden (cheating hvn bas) plus game thoughts

[shedboy71]

its clear we are going to play two holding mids and one up front again. i feel its like waiting for the inevitable - sacking of csaba in November (as they will give him that long regardless). Hope im wrong but this shouldnt have been a friendly

[Chick A Saw]

its clear we are going to play two holding mids and one up front again. i feel its like waiting for the inevitable - sacking of csaba in November (as they will give him that long regardless). Hope im wrong but this shouldnt have been a friendly

Feel cheated in a way after seeing 4-4-2 at Brechin! Was because Murdoch was in the defence that it required extra protection through the middle? I didnt see that until their young no15 came on. And does Shabba actually have faith in his players to allow them to secure his long term future? If not then 4-5-1 it is for the foreseeable!

There could be the very dangerous game of getting out this cup early and not giving too much away to the league opposition, but i would rather at least one knock out round to make a wee bit o money!

Still need a left sided CB and a target man, and going by peopled opinions of them, a new winger!

[darrenshedtastic]

the keeper looks ok without overly impressive
wardrop looked good going forward but abit lightweight
murdoch solid enough but dont want him to be key player
frans solid enough needs someone decent beside him
robson still cant believe we gave him a new deal. ok today but still defensively poor
Rabsitch will be this years gilliespie does alot off the ball but when hes on the ball hes not great
stanton still plays too deep for my liking but normal from him
aird good in 2nd half but invisible in 1st
glass=class!
mcmullan frustrating as always
clark how many times can a boy be offside?

hopefully with a guys like booth, barton, keatings and curran coming back itll give us more because today wasnt great and didnt do much to give us optimism for the season

[TerryTheTerror]

Got a good view of the first penalty and never a foul for me. Second was too far away to see really. I can't imagine that'll be our starting line up for league matches so I'm not getting too excited one way or the other at the moment. Csaba said a while back he was going to use these matches as pre-season games and, to be honest, we have bigger fish to fry this season anyway.

[Arab 8010]

Another game when we've been struggling and there's no strikers on the bench to throw on. I know we have a couple out injured atm but it happened too often to us last season which was/is frustrating. 442 with at least 2 out and out 1st team strikers on the bench please

[stokearab]

the keeper looks ok without overly impressive
wardrop looked good going forward but abit lightweight
murdoch solid enough but dont want him to be key player
frans solid enough needs someone decent beside him
robson still cant believe we gave him a new deal. ok today but still defensively poor
Rabsitch will be this years gilliespie does alot off the ball but when hes on the ball hes not great
stanton still plays too deep for my liking but normal from him
aird good in 2nd half but invisible in 1st
glass=class!
mcmullan frustrating as always
clark how many times can a boy be offside?

hopefully with a guys like booth, barton, keatings and curran coming back itll give us more because today wasnt great and didnt do much to give us optimism for the season

Lot of sense in there Darren.
However if he thinks 2 defensive mids in a 4231 is the right way to go v Arbroath that's really concerning. A lone striker who is decent will get off sides but that's much reduced if he has a partner. For the life of me one up front in this division is mental and might end up getting him a P45

Sounds like we've made a discovery with Glass though, great news there. Did he come through the youths anyone?

Would be nice to think that the player budget might have had a wee boost since Friday and we might be able to land a player to make a real difference. Also I hope he's not relying on Fyvie being back and fit because that could be a gamble that backfires. We need a creative mid, a striker and a CB, get them and it's a different picture

[darrenshedtastic]

completely agree with the point about 2 up top. clark doesnt look like he can play that role himself tbh he needs someone alongside him. maybe keatings and curran werent ready yet so forced us to play 4231? but certainly need to have someone else higher up.

thats whats also frustrating aswell to do with stanton. hes the closest thing to armstrong weve had since he left. hes good a making runs and hes energetic. i want to see him pushed forward almost as a no.10 so he can hurt the opposition. when hes playing deep he doesnt hurt teams. Glass looked good but still too early to pin hopes on him surely so possibly another creative midfielder is required

id take 4231 away from home most weeks as your wanting to keep it tight and not be too open but at home we should be looking to put teams on the back foot and put them under real pressure. hopefully today we only played 1 up due to lack of available strikers and when curran or keatings comes back then we can go 442

[Sutherland Arab]

Beautiful sunny day, pitch looked fantastic. Then the new announcer says "captain Stewart Murdoch" and I realised it was back to the grindstone. £20 for me and the kid to sit in practically the away end (smokies were about 20 yards away and our fans never sang)
Turgid football, really flat. Didn't see the 2nd pen but the 1st was soft as phuck. Arbroaths best chances all came by errors from us (2 pens and a dodgy backpass) Sums it up for me, we need to be far stronger as a team.
Aird, Clark, Glass and Frans did well in spells, the rest were off the pace. Big improvement needed already.

[ClashCityRocker]

This was neither a pre - season game or a friendly - this was a League Cup match ( United having won the League Cup last in 1981 ). Celtic take the League Cup seriously as they are aiming for the treble and clubs such as Aberdeen and Rangers also want to win this cup - today's game was no friendly.

Also, there is good funding for the teams who do well - the winners of the League Cup get £250,000 ( which is more than funding than the Scottish Cup ). The runners up get £115,000.

If United were to make the quarter finals they would get paid £60,000, plus TV money.

United need to do well in the League Cup to earn funding, but also to give the player's confidence for the league campaign.

Also, I actually thought that United's goal was a mile off side ( Arbroath's first penalty was also very soft ).

Overall, Arbroath defended really well, McMullan and co struggled all day to get past Arbroath's defence, who were winning almost every tackle outside the box.

I thought a 1-1 draw was a fair result, but Arbroath missed a great change to score in the last 5 mins on normal time.

Hope that both United and Arbroath go through to the next round, but United will need to raise their game based on today's evidence.

Well done to Arbroath, they are part time, but as we seen today, they are capable of giving almost any Scottish team a run for their money. Arbroath also had 3 of their first team players missing today, along with their main striker out injured.

A win on Wed night against Ross County will get us in a good position to reach the next round - but we need to up our game.

[TangerineDream]

Hun Madden , enough said. Never a penalty for the first ain and as for Jamie Robsons brain fart to gie them another ain FFS.

Some positives , McMullan and Wardrop , especially young Glass who was excellent. Good goal fae Clark, I am hopefull for Aird this season.

Too many negatives, one up front against Arbroath FFS , joke tactics. Overall performance not good enough for DUFC. Need height in that squad, especially in defence and for goal threat. At least the new lad fae Partick is taller.

Sort it out Csaba.