Clydeside

Queer tactics from Cove at Ibrox to start off with. Made the pitch very big and tried to play out from the back. I thought they done well once they packed that in. Although I expect Rangers' quality and intensity would've come through whatever the case was. Losing 4-0 away to Rangers is nothing to be ashamed about in my opinion. Be a far less cagey affair at Broadwood tomorrow of course. I doubt either team would be happy with less than all three points. Very hard to guess how it'll go because there's such a question mark hung over player selection and fitness levels for both sides.

Showbiz you'd like... Showbiz you'd like... Saints you've got... Saints you've got...

I think that's as impressive a result for us as it was an underwhelming performance from Ayr. And interestingly, it's the first time we've won down there in nigh on twenty years. For a part-time team who've played a couple through the week to go away to a comparably fresh-legged full-time team and win is, on its face, superb. Of course, we have been working a bit of a rota so it's not quite as surprising a result as it might seem. But we still had plenty tired legs out there, make no mistake. I thought we defended well after nicking the early goal and making a very high-tempo start. Perhaps that was calculated. Or perhaps it was simply driven by a bollocking following the no-show over the same period at East Fife. Hard to pick an outstanding individual for either team. Kevin Nicoll did a lot of useful dirty work for us so I'd give him MOTM. Rumsby done some good aggressive defending in the first half too. I think we changed our shape in the second-half in anticipation of our energy levels dropping and no doubt they did. We've rarely done well with a line of three/five at the back but it served a purpose today because it enjoyed good protection from the midfield and we'd a lead to defend so we could sit very deeply, limiting the space for Ayr who seemed hell bent on trying to play through us. They ended up with a few corners but very little in the way of chances bar maybe one or two which Mitchell snuffed out. Unusually, it's a bittersweet thing to win as another fixture is all we need but with any luck it'll be a money spinner with some tele money or the likes. However poorly Ayr performed on the day, it did also strike me that there wasn't a lot of quality through their side, particularly in the final third. And unfortunately for the game, I think there has been a reduction in individual quality and a reduction in the quality gap you see between teams in what is now league one and even as far up as the bottom few teams in the SPL. There are a lot of players kicking around who've lingered not because of their talent or fitness but because of the poverty of alternatives. Put it this way, in the decade from 2000 to 2010, what was then the first division was, in almost every season, a league with more individual quality and better teams leading up the league. I think there's been a real slide since round about then. Roll on the next round.

Think everyone agrees. Really poor, lethargic Clyde side. Nothing going up front to relieve the pressure. Midfielders like McGlinchey taking five or six touches before moving it on. Only Otoo really stood out. But you need to bear in mind his age, levels of natural fitness and the fact he's a full-time player. Celtic don't tend to give out three year deals to young players if they're honking so I think we've done a good bit of business there. He's miles off their first team, clearly, but he's the first good left back we've had since... God. Maybe Scott Linton or Scott McMann. East Fife put in a good shift and looked much quicker about the pitch than we did. I'm not sure we could've done much better in the circumstances, to be fair. Oh well. Roll on the cup and a run out for the young lads and the less used loan players.

Really lacking up top minus Jamieson and Goodwillie too. Not a challenge to the East Fife defenders at all.

Agree with Jaggy Snake. The line up made me worried. Less full-time bods on tonight, no Nicoll and a tired looking backline left to right. Totally bowled over in the midfield too. Lamont anonymous. McGlinchey taking ten touches at one point (counted). Cuddihy and Howie not imposing themselves at all. Credit to East Fife though. They look fresh and they've come out the traps flying tonight. I'd be ringing the changes at half-time: Lamont and McGlinchey off. Bain too if possible. Get the Rangers lads on. Maybe Munro and Nicoll too if they're benched. We need legs, aggression and we need to be much more direct. Launching it in behind and get them turning, not walking into our half.

Not sure how strongly we'll be able to leverage the fresh legs and full-time fitness tomorrow. Unless we pair Howie with Rumsby, we're probably looking at a centre half pairing that will've had two or three games on the trot. I'm less worried about the full-backs as they've shown good fitness levels so far and they've got points to prove. We probably have to keep Nicoll in the middle of the park. He's about the only one that can, if not always perfectly, protect the defence and win us some possession in midfield. It will be interesting to see if he can last out so many games. We did give the boy Thomson a break on Tuesday insofar as he was subbed off early in the second half. And Cuddihy also had a bit of a rest so we can probably mix it up in there if we need to. I think with the younger lads like Thomson, Cunningham and McGlinchey who is of course an older head, we should probably be telling them to move the ball a bit quicker even at the risk of giving it away. Someone pointed out that we weren't very good in possession at Peterhead. I remember Thomson and McGlinchey taking an awful lot of touches. Somewhat understandable as they were never surrounded by options on Tuesday. But with legs as heavy as they are, they should probably just be under instructions to launch into certain areas like Nicoll and Love sometimes do instinctively when they know there's nothing on. Jamieson's quick and can feed off scraps. So can Goodie, if he's back. I would make that trade-off because I think dwelling on the ball is more likely to catch us out more than anything else, the way we're set-up.

Really good performance. Very disciplined. Fresh legs clearly helping. Sensible rotations. Good use of subs. Fill your boots really. As I wrote on the Mo' thread, I'd keep that system going in a rota even though we lost a couple on Saturday. The players know their roles. They're generally playing in positions they've played for a good while. We stood up to a lot of possession without really showing them the goal throughout. Wisely made sure Ferry didn't have an easy time getting turned. A clean sheet without Lang and two goals without Goodwillie. That's the kind of anomaly you can probably only generate with the fitness difference that was evident in the second half. Craig Howie, eh? Cruyff turns in the centre of the park. Rattling them in from all angles. Thought he was a defender...! And Ally Love. What a ball. This is why I'd be giving him a new deal again and again. He's a diamond when it comes to decisions in possession as an attacker. No great pace or strength but plenty dig and he reliably sets them up throughout a season.

Howie is available and was indeed injured beforehand.

Is Howie injured or was he just rested for Montrose like Lang seemed to be rested for Keith? Be interesting to see the team sheets for this one as we'll be moving through our rota so we'll probably have quite a different team out. That is, compared to the one that began on Saturday. I fancy we'll use about as many subs as we can manage too. Hard one to call. Peterhead are great at home. Do you have any full-time loan players - question for the Toon fans? It'll be interesting to see what part fitness plays in things tomorrow and on Thursday.

Yes, with the fixtures being as they are, players won't be doing much training whether they're full-time or part-time. I had in mind that Lang might've gone over to train with Raith for roughly the last month and a half since signing his pre-contract. It would've given him facilities while we were off the tools and got him back into the full-time routine prior to going over next season, and we'd have had a fitter player after the restart. Of course, if he has been a personal trainer he's probably keeping up a good level of fitness anyway, like you say. And thinking about it again, even if the two clubs were at peace with it, the pandemic rules would probably have made it difficult for him to join up with Raith in any event. Hope his injury doesn't mean we've seen the last of him. It's a credit to him that he's throwing himself about like he is, I should say, despite the pre-contract. Other players might dial it down a bit to avoid injuries.

Hasn't he signed a pre-contract agreement with Raith? Given as he was recently full-time with Dunfermline and is about to return to full-time football with Raith, it would make sense for him to get into the habit of full-time training sooner rather than later. It'd be to the benefit of the player and both Clyde and Raith I think. I've no idea if he is in fact training with them of course. *Had a wee look at the press back when he signed; it suggests he won't go over and train with them until the summer. Another reason I'd wondered is because he's always struck me as that bit fitter than the rest of our team.

I've just twigged that it's not Saturday-Tuesday runs we'll be up against, but Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday runs. Should pay more attention. Be a bloody hard thing to manage, but if we've got what... Maybe six or seven full-time boys available, including Lang if he's training with Raith which is just a speculation from me, I'm close to thinking that Lennon's done the right thing in preferring the young loan players to any lowland league guys. Fitness will be such a big thing now that it might even pip experience and ability in the end. I certainly don't envy him the balancing act.

Never looked like winning it in the end. Barely any possession in the last thirty minutes. Goodwillie obviously knackered. Good point I think, in the end. You solve some problems, you create others. Defensively quite tight despite conceding two against a good team. We'll probably get better with games on that front. The midfield is still a bit of a going concern of course. Nicoll can't give you two shifts a week. He's good for 60 minutes a week at best. We don't have anyone in there that can settle things down and we're burning a lot of our energy on the pressing, so will stand to be poorer in possession for that reason. All that said, when we get deeper into the Saturday-Tuesday swing, I can see the full-time boys paying dividends. If we keep a good rota up, we'll get points, even if we're a bit of a patchwork quilt.

Would be getting some fresh legs on now if we want to pip it. Maybe to relieve Nicoll, Jamieson, Cuddihy and/or McGlinchey.

Very finely balanced this one. Montrose keep possession a lot better than we do; they've got the players to do that and they're a more familiar side clearly. We're trading-off a small share of possession against the chance of being able to dispossess or rush Montrose here and there and get goals that way. I've liked the simplicity of our approach today, whatever happens. I'm not sure with the players we have we could do too much better.

Trying something different today which we can't complain about I suppose. Goodwillie has been relieved of the job of chasing their defenders around. That makes a lot of sense. Jamieson's picked that job up and done well. He's got plenty legs and an incentive to impress. Got us a goal just by being tireless. It's the first time in a while that we've had something like, if not exactly, two up. After the first twenty, twenty-five minutes Montrose didn't have such an easy time of getting into our half because we were pressing their defenders. Perhaps the downside of this change has been that Goodwillie is trying to find his feet as the deeper forward, rather than the focal point. But he's good enough come around to that obviously. In midfield, despite the stupid penalty given away by Nicoll, we're better. Reasonably solid down the sides against a team who build a lot of good moves in there with Webster, Ballantyne, Cochrane, Jonhston buzzing around. Still a bit of work to do. Not a lot of communication going on between the full backs and midfielders but it's their first outing in that shape, and they're young for the most part. Nicoll's giving you the usual pros and cons. Pros: heading on first balls, competing aggressively, occasionally playing out of trouble, keeping space closed off. Cons: slow as a week, thinks he has more time than he does, doesn't hesitate to dive in and give away penalties...! Maybe get fresh legs on for him later in the game, see if we lever our full-time players to see it out. Lang's dealt quite well with Russell. But in terms of the overall defensive coordination, we're still lacking a bit in leadership and aggression terms. But I think that's a product of the newness of the side out. I think we can get another. McGlinchey, Jamieson, Thomson, Cuddihy, Goodie. They can all string something together. Be an interesting second half. Always a good game against Montrose.

Job done. Some sensible player rotations in there, flexing the big pool of players we now have. Wise to have Nicoll involved. He's made for games like that one. We still look a team without much of a plan besides giving it to Goodwillie unfortunately. On the positive side, the new lad from Celtic looks solid. Good stature. Good engine. Hopefully he'll stop the rot at left-back. I think if there's a pay off in bringing in so many young, full-time players on loan we'll only start to see it when we get deep into the Saturday-Tuesday pattern. The only Keith player that looked like he could play at a higher level was Dem Yunus. Moved the ball quickly, never dwelled on it. Looked decent technically. Might make a decent sitting midfielder for a senior side. We could use one.

David W has summarised our situation well. Managers that insist on playing a certain way put a ceiling on their success before they've signed a player or picked a team. I think we all hoped that Danny would break character after this long but his recent signing spree suggests he is doubling down on having us play a certain way. That said, supporters that followed his managerial career prior to Clyde would have recognised and accepted the risk in him being so wedded to a style. Both then and now we probably couldn't hope for a manager with a better track record. Clever managers adapt to small budgets and to how football gets played in their league. Walter Smith's second spell at Rangers was a great example of that. And even in Barry Ferguson's second to last season at Clyde, although a goal or two away from being a successful season, it was memorable that we improved when Barry realised that he needed to strike a better balance. I recall a quote from Barry that season in which he said something like he now understood his mandate to be to sign players at six feet and above. That might have been a bit blunt, but you knew what he meant. Having players like Marvin Andrews, John Gemmell and so on. Not superb players. Flawed in many ways. But players that generally done the basics well, were strong and aggressive, and could lean on their experience to deal with failure. Players that could score from set-plays, get you into the other team's half even when you can't pass your way through them. All of that stuff. I think we can survive if David Goodwillie plays out of his skin. But that's a big 'if'. He looks weary being as isolated as he has been for a couple of years now. However we fare, I agree that two year deals for anyone other than players like Goodwillie would be unjustified. We should take a leaf out of Dick Campbell's book there. Best part-time club in the country, Arbroath. And I don't think they hand them out without knowing they've got a real long-term asset on their hands.