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vs Partick; 28/02, 3pm
Topic Started: Feb 26 2015, 10:15 AM (1,359 Views)
Setenza
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Knitting with only one needle
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Days like today it does really hit you. Taking Ciftici out of the side, as will be the case for a few games, it's a pretty average side in with no confidence or organisation.

I know it's going over old ground, but if anyone did doubt Armstrong's importance to the team, couldn't show more in games like today. For 75 mins we were awful and couldn't break down a poor defence.

On comes Bilate and with a little bit of movement and incisive forward passing and we start to open them up and create changes. Shame we've no-one to put them away. Had we had just one player capable of doing that from the offset, could have gotten something from the games. It's a shame Telfer was a little quiet.

Playing Dow or for some reason Spittal in the central role behind the striker isn't really going to create much or cause them problems.

Playing Erskine and other random player sort of wide but never really wide isn't going to open them up or stretch them.

Looking at the two sides - compare Osman and Paton. Osman isn't a great player, but no-one gets past him easily, he protects their back four, keeps the passing simple and keeps them organised. Paton was pretty much the opposite.

Defense is just terrible at the moment. Any long ball is catching us out, Dillon was brutal in his passing (and combo's with Paton were soul destroying). Fojut was decent in the air but isn't going to pass the ball effectively when there's no simple balls.

First time I've seen the ref, he was decent. Partick played him for the subs, killing about 3 mins, but to his credit, the ref played 6 mins added time at the end.

Overall, lets hope Celtic fans riot against Aberdeen and get suspended from UEFA from all competitions. In that case, we might scrape a draw.
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Barca87
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Gordon Chisholm
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This is starting to confirm a trend with McNamara - and its not about some sort of reactionary anti-McNamara thing - but I don't think he has much clue how to get the team out of a funk. We've had too many of then, and when we've had better players. End of his first season. The big post-Christmas funk last season. The St Johnstone funk and now this. And my worry that surely is the real test of his management, finding ways when it isn't working like clockwork.

I thought he lucked out on the wonderful team last season, but fair play, it worked and he went with it. But I suspect even McNamara didn't realise just how much this team was utterly dependent on Armstrong. Well he knows now.

As Cob says, post three Celtic humpings, he's going to be under pressure. And rightly so.
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zico
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Ivan Golac
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If he thought Armstrong wasn't a big deal then he is no manager..the guys talent was obvious.
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Micky
Gordon Chisholm
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Well, my lad's mascoting went well. For those at the game, he was the smallest one.

As soon as the mascots got let on the pitch in the warmup he robbed a ballboy of a yellow ball, ran to the ET stand goal and buried it.

Only player in tangerine today to score in the right end... Thankfully as he's three he couldn't make it from 1230 past half time, so I got to avoid the second half. Wish he'd needed to go home after kickoff.
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Tom_Boland
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Ivan Golac
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Totally dejected by that today. 1 point from 4 games.

How many shots on goal had we taken by halftime? ONE FFS.

Shifty was getting jeered at near the end, after he played a poor bavk pass, and he gesticulated at the GF when it happened. He setup a couple of good balls into the Thistle box TBH, but was marked by 3 defenders the whole game, so had hardly any chance. Even when tried getting by one of them, there was no chunt there to help him.

For me Paton today gets the poorest Man of the Match award. Whenever we got a break up the park, and he got the ball, the break came to a stand. He really slowed the play right down to a stop. He shouldn't have been on the park, and he should've been subbed by Connolly. Never been a favourite of mine.

Midfield totally outplayed by Thistle. How many times did we have a string of passes.

Rest of the team were average all round.

Best player for me was Jarek, with numerous good headers, and one good run down the left wing, which came to nothing due to a mix-up with him and Erskine, which led to, a bad pass. Why did he no stop and cross into the middle).

Game upped a bit when Mario came on. He was involved in 1 or 2 no bad moves.

Anier missed a sitter in one our best moves of the game.

Game coulda wrnt on for anoyher 2 hours and United wouldna scored.

In a matter of weeks we've gone from being 2nd and maybe a Cup win, to 4th if we're lucky and phuck all else. If we play like we did today, we'll be lucky to concede less than 9 goals against the Tics.
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TheDean
ALLEGEDLY CALICO
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It truly was a performance as miserable as the 2nd half weather. Absolutely nothing went right, and McNamara's mettle is really going to be tested hard over the next month, because his back up team are just plain useless.

I can accept the notion that we've lost four key players this season because of the compelling attraction of huge quantities of cash and player ambition, but in the full knowledge of that there is no excuse to try and radically alter the system of play- but that is what has happened. Today was a tactical mess with the transition from defence to attack and defensive out letting stifled by the need to route it through Paton, whose one footed ness ensured that it took an age for his over-hit pass forward to be delivered or for the outlet ting recipient to be faced with a fizzer from short range that was a nightmare to control.

When that didn't work, it was up to the defenders to go direct back to front and when they weren't giving Ciftci, Erskine and dow lost causes to chase they gave away possession with alarming ease; with Dillon and Fojut particularly guilty. Combined with his increasingly chaotic level of balance and athleticism Dillon is in free fall, and a player struggling with so much with his game can't deliver leadership on the park- and there lies another problem. No leader to keep the midfield together, organise the defensive four and make sure Ciftci stays out of trouble and in a position where the attack pivots round his strength and subtlety.

Instead, Nadir is wasting a lot of time racing down channels trying to win possession and make chances for the invisible man in the middle ( where he should be). It doesn't help of course when you get crap passes and Erskine and Dow are both having total nightmare matches and I'm afraid Spittal wasn't really up to much in his RM role at all. I'm assuming butchar was injured because he should have played alongside Paton with Telfer further forward instead of Dow. We will surely also see Connolly on next week instead of Spittal.

As for our subs, well it took ages to get them on because McNamara seemed shell shocked to the point of paralysis by the shocking display. When they did appear, Anier was inept in both his general control of the ball and the execution of his two clear cut chances that never endangered the goal. So far he has offered virtually nothing to the attack and, much to my surprise, Bilate showed better balance, more aggression and a turn of Pace that had me actually fearing for that glass hamstring of his before the end. He may have played himself onto next weeks sub bench at Anier's expense.

Finally a word about Dixon. On his 150th game for United, he was abject. He was out of position for the thistle break that got them their well worked opening goal and struggled to get a decent delivery into the box when attacking. So we still have no full backs who can overlap effectively or cut out crosses defensively.

It's not just in midfield where we've got a lot of rebuilding to do, and that's why McNamara, if he can survive the spit roasting he's heading for in March, is going to need proper help on the training field to prepare for next season- and if he doesn't see it, the chairman is going to have to make the decision for him.
Edited by TheDean, Feb 28 2015, 11:24 PM.
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TheDean
ALLEGEDLY CALICO
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Just one more point- officials really should have insisted on clear distinction between playing kit today. Instead we had 23 pairs of black shorts on the field of play. No wonder there were so many misplaced passes.
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Naebody
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Twat
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So before January 31st we averaged two points per game. Since January 31 we've averaged 0.2 points per game. We've become 90% worse overnight.
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Tom_Boland
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Ivan Golac
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Naebody
Mar 1 2015, 09:35 AM
So before January 31st we averaged two points per game. Since January 31 we've averaged 0.2 points per game. We've become 90% worse overnight.
No quite as bad as thst Naebs. Since 31/01 our average is 0.25 Points per League Match, which means we're only 80% worse. So there.

(thought that would make abody feel better but it didnt)
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vvhatsthatonyourback
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wild eyed
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Naebody
Mar 1 2015, 09:35 AM
So before January 31st we averaged two points per game. Since January 31 we've averaged 0.2 points per game. We've become 90% worse overnight.
The good news is we only need to get our average up to 0.4 pts per game to show a 100% improvement.

90 steps back, 100 steps forward. Everyone would be delighted with that, wouldn't they?!
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zico
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Ivan Golac
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Hey who wants to win when a big team offers big money for our players, we don't want success at this club the balance sheet is the only thing thats important, now let's get on with raising the new crop of players to flog...
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