Walking Down The Halbeath Road

[Ludo*1]

Remember McPake's first permanent game in charge for us away to you lads and he tried to play a 5-3-2 that had to be binned at HT because you ripped us apart? Has he seriously not learnt from that? It was almost the exact same style last night.

[Cardle is Magic]

Chalmers was dreadful for the first goal. He’s usually pretty dreadful out of possession and recently he’s not been even close to making up for it on the ball.

I think Hamilton needs to go back into the middle of the park asap. The midfield is a mess and it’s causing issues at both ends.

Mehmet still our best option in goal but that was another concerning performance.

Not even sure what you do up front tbh. McCann is probably the best of a poor bunch at the moment.

[Chubbychops]

Paper thin squad. Play three at the back and have three centre backs in the squad(two injured). The strikers Wighton and Jakubiak are howling. Chalmers without the ball is a man down. 

Above that, I think we have some good young players on long contracts but the problem is the experienced players around them. No leadership outside of Bene. There's a serious lack of investment in ready made championship footballers. Guys like Chalmers, Comrie,  Wighton, Jakubiak and Allan were shown up tonight. Way off it.

There needs to be a bit of investment in good top end championship players the next couple of windows but unfortunately we have some amount of keech on 2-3 year deals now.

 

[da_no_1]

38 minutes ago, Broken Algorithms said:

He's an absolute liability. Hank Scorpio described him as like watching a player in a charity game. In the last match at Starks, he sold the jersey stepping off Easton before our goal. Tonight at the first goal, he looks like he gives up. He's an absolute embarrassment of a footballer and I'm delighted every time McPake plays him.

Christ what a state to get in.

[Chubbychops]

Yup, enjoy it bud. 

Rovers are miles ahead. Canny be bothered going through what's right and wrong with us. Would love to say we'll be back but we've been utter shite for over a decade at this level now. Without proper investment in ready made top end championship players I can see us being run into the ground and fighting relegation for the next couple years.

Spending millions on an academy but running the first team squad down at the same time.  The board have to wake up to what's going on here. Need stop thinking about investments by selling young players and start signing players capable of competing for promotion..

We should be aiming for the top division but the lack of hunger in the boardroom for an achievement like that is worrying.

Edited November 25, 2023 by Chubbychops

[TxRover]

21 minutes ago, Chubbychops said:

Paper thin squad. Play three at the back and have three centre backs in the squad(two injured). The strikers Wighton and Jakubiak are howling. Chalmers without the ball is a man down. 

Above that, I think we have some good young players on long contracts but the problem is the experienced players around them. No leadership outside of Bene. There's a serious lack of investment in ready made championship footballers. Guys like Chalmers, Comrie,  Wighton, Jakubiak and Allan were shown up tonight. Way off it.

There needs to be a bit of investment in good top end championship players the next couple of windows but unfortunately we have some amount of keech on 2-3 year deals now.

 

It’s strange to say it, but that’s not far off how we were feeling last year. The difference is Murray engendered confidence while McPake doesn’t seem to bring that to the table.

[AuldReekie]

5 hours ago, Enigma said:

Nice to get that free weekend in January, eh?

Given the injuries we've been struggling with this season, I'd say so, aye.

[DA Baracus]

8 hours ago, da_no_1 said:

Getting pretty sick of defending Chalmers. Yes he can play a pass but he's too slow & gets knocked off the ball too easy. The difference between him and the likes of Stanton and Easton tonight is massive. 

I've been seeing this a lot as well. Really frustrating. He's so weak in that aspect.

[Salvo Montalbano]

7 hours ago, Chubbychops said:

There needs to be a bit of investment in good top end championship players the next couple of windows but unfortunately we have some amount of keech on 2-3 year deals now.

Problem is that that board don't seem to be interested in that. Two big sagas over the summer involved experienced Championship players - McGowan, who the manager wanted, the player wanted to be here and who played as a trialist during pre-season; and Wotherspoon who was training with us for an age and who clearly wasn't offered enough to persuade him to even join part time. I'm not saying either of them would have necessarily been the answer for us but experience counts at this level and we have very little outwith Benedictus, Comrie and Wighton and even then the latter two are still fairly young.

[DAFC.]

Lots of adjectives can be used for what I watched last night.

That’s got to be a major wake up call for everyone at the club. It was like watching a club a couple flights below a team playing top end Premiership football. 

I genuinely defend the manager and players as much as possible, given it is a project we are trying rather than chucking wads of cash, but players like Allan and Chalmers are miles off it (the experienced players) Chalmers is a luxury player we can’t afford to play in the heart of this squad we have. 

Confidence must be lacking as well. I know we were in League 1, but Mehmet saves that free kick last season. 

McPake has to take the brunt of the blame though for those tactics. Absolute dog shit, and that 5/3 at the back pish is needing punted pronto  

 

[CALDERON]

Mcpake strikes me as the type of manager to get you guys out of League 1, consolidate a Championship position, but ultimately part ways if there's any ambition or intention beyond that.  

[da_no_1]

Not wanting to sound bitter or anything but there were plenty on here questioning Ian Murray towards the end of last season if I remember correctly, before the change in ownership allowed him to strengthen his squad.

There's no need to be shouting for a change in manager. This is his first iffy run of form and he deserves the chance to sort it out.

[The Toun Clock]

That was fuc*ing embarrassing last night. Absolutely gutless from the first the whistle to the last.

Massive week now. I’ll not ignore the elephant in the room, there’s small pockets calling for change. I think that’s trigger happy but a minimum of six points by this time next week or those voices will get louder.

[kdypar]

7 hours ago, TxRover said:

It’s strange to say it, but that’s not far off how we were feeling last year. The difference is Murray engendered confidence while McPake doesn’t seem to bring that to the table.

Let’s be honest. The difference is the Rovers board are pumping in unsustainable amounts of money to get promoted. With the poor crowds you get that isn’t a long term plan. 

[Brashy's Boots]

4 minutes ago, kdypar said:

Let’s be honest. The difference is the Rovers board are pumping in unsustainable amounts of money to get promoted. With the poor crowds you get that isn’t a long term plan. 

Behave yourself.

[HoBNob]

10 hours ago, Ludo*1 said:

Lot of talk about your business and the German owners not having ambition on DAFC.net but a 3 year deal for Mehmet has to be up there with the worst bits of business done by any club in Scotland in the past few year.

Said in the match thread, I know he's been a bit of a bombscare for you lads but if Harrison Sharp can't displace him then he needs to be concerned about making a full time career in football.

We gave contracts to Peter Grant and John Hughes. 

Despite how bad he's been I've seen no one calling for Sharp to come back, Mehmet is bad, Sharp is worse. 

[DAFC.]

6 minutes ago, Brashy's Boots said:

Behave yourself.

It is a bit reactionary that comment, but yous are spending absolute wads on players this season. 

Unless Dundee United bottle it, you won’t win the league, but from what I have seen, Raith have a brilliant chance in the play-offs. 

[DA Baracus]

I think it's far too easy and simplistic to say that the board lack ambition, and also way off. They've committed to a training ground which alone could help attract better players to the club, as well as the youth academy. That shows ambition to me.

It's a long term project though and that will require patience. The big difficulty there is striking a balance between long and short term. Patience will quickly run out when we get nonsense like last night and poor runs of form and it's hard to blame fans for that when they're paying decent sums of cash and getting little for it. It's a very hard balance to get right and of course there will be times when they don't. The crucial thing is ensuring the balance isn't wrong too often and at the moment that's an issue.

I've said before but there needs to be more ruthlessness from certain folk at the club. I think shouts for McPake to be punted are extremely premature, but should this run of form and, more crucially performances, extend in to the new year (2nd January is huge!) then he'll be under pressure and give those in charge things to think about. McPake himself needs to be more ruthless with his squad. There are some players who simply aren't good enough for this level in key positions. Injuries haven't helped but some players are injured too often (I'm thinking of one in particular).

McPake has been backed pretty well by the board (8 signings in the summer and was seemingly trying to get more) but some use of that budget has been questionable.

If we hit some form, get some goals and wins, much of the concerns fade away as we'll be back on the right side of the balance. But the way we're playing just now is very alarming. I don't know what's happened but we create so little compared to the start of the season. I recall the performance at Tannadice for example being really good and, the goal aside, we had quite a few chances and made their keeper make some saves. Now we struggle to make chances and our play just seems slow and almost aimless. We can't be relying on a player like Moffat trying to create his own chances all the time. The manager needs to sort things out quick and find a system that works. Last season we got away with a lot but this season we're playing much better teams and are being punished for things we weren’t last year.
 

[diamond_for_life]

There’s no excusing last nights performance against your rivals that was simply pish and questions do rightfully need asked. 

Having watched yous dominate last season and looking at the start of this season whilst performances might not but where they should be (I don’t know looking in from the outside) don’t you think you are were you probably should be in terms of league position? 

Win your game in hand and you go to 4th behind the likely top 3 before a ball was kicked. Dundee Utd winners, Raith 2nd and Partick 3rd was always the likely scenario. 

Again not trying to bash a club your size but what else realistically was going to happen? If you guys finish this season 4th then it’s job done for your first year back no? 

[DAFC.]

Last night and home to Ayr are the only games I can think of where we didn’t create any good chances. 

We hit the post 8 times last weekend; we created several chances and played well at home to Dundee United; we battered Morton at home and away (first half more so for the latter); we had plenty of chances at home to Raith. I could go on. 

We have a decent young team, but I’m not happy clapping after that performance last night: that was totally unacceptable for any Dunfermline team.