capt_oats

Fucksake 4122 posts in this thread? That's...sobering. Anyway Alexander's still looking to add to the squad and it seems O'Hara and Grimshaw might be around the squad tomorrow.

I only remember him for stamping of Said Chiba's head. Bob Malcolm a truly loathsome c**t of a man.

Aye because Watt being sat in his spare room with two screens up tweeting about a former club is definitely the same thing as getting caught on camera looking absolutely seething at Ibrox with 40,000 other ****. Ironically Tony doesn't mention the team he does support in that Tweet.

I see that's the bold Jon Obika saying we made a "late" bid for him. In terms of timeline he was announced at Morecambe on 29th June, we announced van Veen on 2nd July although the Scunthorpe fan-site Iron Bru who first mentioned he was up here published their 'exclusive' on 23rd June. In that respect it doesn't feel an either/or situation. If it's the choice between Obika or big Kev then give me Budget Bergkamp all day, every day. However do I think the squad, as it stands, could use an Obika-type? Absolutely.

The bold Tony's raffling off his match worn shirt from Sunday. Proceeds going to a local foodbank on the off chance anyone fancies chipping in.

Twitter dot com is a trip.

We are massive.

"Freedom day" f**k right off.

I don't, I'm sure the figures will be available on a platform like WyScout or whatever. But aye, I can't imagine his completion rate is particularly good and I agree it kind of feels like that's where he falls down. It's also why I caveated my post by saying I don't know if he's maybe being hung out to dry by tactics. Like, if he was under instruction to clip the ball into the channel or the tactic is to land on 2nd balls but it's just being constantly mopped up by McCart or Gordon is it really his fault? It felt to me that we were getting most joy when Slattery was getting on the ball in midfield and we were progressing it through the middle of the park. The goal being an excellent example of it working a treat. The point at which we seemed to fall out of the game after the St Johnstone goal felt like it coincided with us stopping trying to do that.

On Lawleff, it's not the first time he's been caught on camera there. It's happened before back when he was with either Thistle or Livi. He's never hidden the fact that he's a raging ***. However, if in the current climate he doesn't have enough about him to just buy a fucking subscription to Premier and watch it in the house then I'm all for getting the c**t launched tbqh.

Pretty sure the game against us was the only time they wore it in the league as well.

Is that real? They're really paying homage to that one?

On sale, online at 5pm

On the SOD chat, anyone who's blaming him for the OG is at it. The ball clears 2 Motherwell heads and deflects off him with a St Johnstone forward behind that he has to deal with. Defensively I think he was fine, the clearance he made at the back post was an excellent bit of defending. However I don't know if in a broader sense he's just uncomfortable with what he's being asked to do or being hung out to dry by the tactics or if it was just a natural result of the team still being a work in progress but it felt like we were seeing turnovers of possession when he was on the ball but again, he's far from the only one in our XI where that was the case and in this essay I will show...he was on the ball a lot more than others in the team. To that point @Desp's post above is very much a concise version of where I am. Could he have been better? Absolutely. It doesn't stop it being weird that he's become so a sort of lightning rod for people getting bent out of shape. Ultimately, I don't think our performance on Sunday was much different to any other time we've went away to Perth recently, it was bitty, scrappy...attritional. A lot of that is down to the way St Johnstone play and they're very good at it. We're not the only team who find it "a difficult place to go" and equally there were plenty instances where Saints forward passes were running straight through to Kelly or in the case of Liam Craig put a diagonal straight out the park. Anyway, according to WhoScored? SOD had more touches of the ball (74), made more interceptions (5) and attempted more passes (58) than anyone else on the park:

Cheers. I thought that was the case.

Only 2 of our starting XI are still at the club.

Is the story not that Kennedy actually played better for St Johnstone as a #10 or was that Drey Wright? Or neither and I've just totally made that shit up? Tbh, I'd say our priorities are another midfielder (or two if there's a chance of some movement out) and a centre forward.

Aye, I didn't see your game yesterday other than the highlights. I was just going by the tweets that were thrown up when I did a 'Motherwell' search earlier today. I've no opinion on yer man's analysis but I'm assuming the heatmaps are accurate. Tbh, there seemed to be a lot of chat last season about him being a successor to Christie or Rogic, I've honestly never seen that. Based on watching him through our 20s and into our first team he's always looked to be far closer to a McGregor type.

Having just listened to the Terrace Patreon with Thom and Duncan having a laugh at folk getting bent out of shape over 'Team of The Week' lists I'll not lie, this tickled me.

Turnbull basically played as an #8 for us, it's his natural position (IMO). Tbh, I've been confused as to why Celtic seem to have been trying to turn him into a #10. It really shouldn't be a surprise that he'd look more comfortable playing further back.

I mean, it's a nice change to chucking Jordan White on and seeing what happens. It's been a long time since it's been a shape we've gone to and probably even longer since we've used a 4231 effectively but aye, it seems to answer a few questions in so much as it gets Watt central (which we all know is his preference rather than nominally being stuck wide) if he's playing as a #10 or off Van Veen. The opening couple of games feel like they've at least shown what #Grezzaball might look like, which is something. Strong work-in-progress vibes but If nothing else you can take plenty positives from the approach and general performance in the Hibs game and while we may not have been particularly good yesterday we still created more than enough chances and it was a really well worked goal (as was the opener against Hibs). It was interesting that Alexander referenced the bounce game with QoTSA last week and implied that we'd need more of those because (I'm paraphrasing) of the different stages of fitness players are at and there seems to be a general sense that we've not been able to work on things during pre-season on account of the time it's taken to get players in and also the LC group meaning the competitive games limited how much we could reasonably experiment - trying out a 343 against Annan springs to mind.

It really was a smashing goal, build up and everything especially when you realise that Watt originally picked up the ball in his own half and it's worked up the park. As @Casagolda says earlier in the thread, it's a good progressive ball from Slattery and tbh, it's just an all round nice goal. Watt's finish has a very pure training ground energy to it. To the points about Van Veen having been low key compared to last week (he clearly was) this St Johnstone analysis Twitter account highlights that it's KVV's run that drags the defender with him and creates the space for Watt (although watching it back their big #6 just leaves Watt completely). Also mildly interesting that our Plan B at the moment seems to be a switch to a 4231...that's new.

To that point when was the last time we actually played well in Perth. Like, not we won the battle, did enough to win and pick up a good result but rather we were actually good? I'm guessing you probably have to go back to the early 10s McCall era for a performance that wasn't attritional.