Walking Down The Halbeath Road

[CallumPar]

1 minute ago, 101 said:

Burst under soil heating turning the pitch on the stand side into a bog really hasn't helped post December. Generally in the second half it's virtually impossible to play good football on it.

Come on, that’s not an excuse for results. The pitch is the same for both teams. Both teams struggle to play football on our pitch, but somehow everyone else can adapt better than the team playing on it every other week (or almost every week, currently). 

[101]

3 minutes ago, CallumPar said:

Come on, that’s not an excuse for results. The pitch is the same for both teams. Both teams struggle to play football on our pitch, but somehow everyone else can adapt better than the team playing on it every other week (or almost every week, currently). 

I said it hadn't helped...

Which it hasn't.

The injuries and the pitch are factors but the significant factor is not scoring enough goals. We seem to have found a way now to keep things reasonably tight at the back but aren't carrying much of an attacking threat going forward.

[CallumPar]

1 hour ago, 101 said:

I said it hadn't helped...

Which it hasn't.

The injuries and the pitch are factors but the significant factor is not scoring enough goals. We seem to have found a way now to keep things reasonably tight at the back but aren't carrying much of an attacking threat going forward.

Nah, the pitch isn’t a factor in results imo. As I say, it’s the exact same for both teams and everyone else is managing to score goals and win games on it. Using the pitch as an excuse would be like Arbroath fans saying they lost a game at Gayfield because it was windy.

Injuries haven’t helped, I think we can all agree on that. But neither has the manager’s game plan. We know the condition of the pitch, why haven’t we got a game plan to suit the conditions? Everyone else seems capable of adapting.

[Wacky]

I’m hearing rumours of £28 a ticket this weekend? 

[CountryBumpkin]

6 minutes ago, Wacky said:

I’m hearing rumours of £28 a ticket this weekend? 

Na, £24 as per usual for this one. 

[101]

36 minutes ago, CallumPar said:

But neither has the manager’s game plan. We know the condition of the pitch, why haven’t we got a game plan to suit the conditions? Everyone else seems capable of adapting.

I think we did try and appropriate tactics yesterday just didn't have the players to do it effectively. And don't have the players on the bench to do it.

I think on our pitch just now you have to go long and it was so easy for Airdrie to defend against yesterday. Things got worse when we dropped Matty Todd into the deep midfielder especially when Paul Allan was having a decent game.

Trying to get KRH to dribble with the ball through a bog was just never going to work.

McPake has to do better, last year I felt he changed tactics well to suit the matches but hasn't replicated that this year.

[CallumPar]

55 minutes ago, 101 said:

I think we did try and appropriate tactics yesterday just didn't have the players to do it effectively. And don't have the players on the bench to do it.

I think on our pitch just now you have to go long and it was so easy for Airdrie to defend against yesterday. Things got worse when we dropped Matty Todd into the deep midfielder especially when Paul Allan was having a decent game.

Trying to get KRH to dribble with the ball through a bog was just never going to work.

McPake has to do better, last year I felt he changed tactics well to suit the matches but hasn't replicated that this year.

100% agree with you on this. Despite their height, Holmes and McCann aren’t actually that good at winning headers - at least not in open play. McCann somehow attacks set pieces well, but can’t judge a header in open play.

I would have expected more from the 3 in behind Jakubiak/Holmes last night. Logic would suggest the second ball would be in the gap between Jakubiak and the midfield, regardless of who won the header - more often than not anyway. But none of them were attacking these areas or anticipating a knock-down. Todd was early on, then we moved him back and nobody was clever enough. Quite often, we had nobody else within 20 yards of the man the long ball was aimed at. A lot of our good play early on came from getting to these loose balls, but we just stopped doing that and I’m really not sure why the mentality just seemed to switch.

The KRH sub frustrated me. Why bring him on, to play on that side of the park? He’s clearly not going to be great there. He moved more centrally when MOH came on, but didn’t look comfortable in that 10 role, he needs space out wide to get running at players. Putting him on the left and aiming balls in behind their RB/getting him the ball deep so he could run at the RB would have made more sense.

[The Toun Clock]

1 hour ago, Wacky said:

I’m hearing rumours of £28 a ticket this weekend? 

Depends how old you feel on the day... 

[101]

29 minutes ago, CallumPar said:

McCann somehow attacks set pieces well, but can’t judge a header in open play

Really frustrating that his timing seems to be constantly out.

I have no idea but it wouldn't seem to be that difficult a thing to work on.

[Wacky]

2 hours ago, CountryBumpkin said:

Na, £24 as per usual for this one. 

Cheers neebs. 

[Wacky]

1 hour ago, The Toun Clock said:

Depends how old you feel on the day... 

guid joab I’ll,

A- forget you posted that,

B-don’t get it

C- forget what it was aw aboot again? 

Edited March 6 by Wacky

[The Toun Clock]

1 hour ago, 101 said:

Really frustrating that his timing seems to be constantly out.

I have no idea but it wouldn't seem to be that difficult a thing to work on.

Going forward, we can't look at McCann being a striker. He's a wide player who happens to be quite physical.

[HoBNob]

3 hours ago, CountryBumpkin said:

Na, £24 as per usual for this one. 

Christ. 

[Salvo Montalbano]

It was so annoying that our early play - first ten minutes or so - was full of zip and passing and movement, but as soon as we didn't take advantage of that early pressure and Airdrie got back into it, we started looking long. Absolutely pointless "tactic" and played into their hands. At least on the plastic pitch at Starks we don't need to avoid any boggy or marshy areas but I worry what Raith will do to us, especially if we don't score first.

[The Toun Clock]

Being back on plastic for the first time in a while might be decent, think our last game on plastic would have been Airdrie (a) in December. Hopefully our pitch get's a good wee break ahead of the Dundee Utd game a week on Friday, little bit warmer weather, sun etc would do it the world of good.

[AirdrieFanTV]

Great to finally get the win over you - it's taken us long enough!  Tuck those early chances away you had and another ref gives a red card, it would've been a very different story.  I think you'll avoid the relegation battle for sure.  

Hope you can see the fun side! All the best!

[VinnyPar]

Few thoughts on Tuesdays game and looking ahead:

- Goals change games, 3 great chances fall arguably to the one player in the team you'd want in Matty. Got to be working the keeper. Then there's the Miles header off the line followed by Hammy shanking it wide and then the Jakubiak chance second half

- Good to have options again, I'd be gob smacked if Bene wasn't in from the start on Saturday. Wouldn't even be against a back 3 with Walcott and Hayes either side of him.

- I thought it was a bit naive bringing KRH on, he's not played any football since November and that showed. Even more so when Moffat who had a brilliant game against Ayr was on the bench ready to go in the same position.

- MFW was my MoTM. IMO he's improving every game, hardly lost a header and is very composed on the ball. I hope we can convince him to sign a permanent deal. Likewise I thought Hayes had another good game and as he gets match fit will be an import player for the run in.

- We are clearly going to be very reliant on Chris Kane for these last 9 games as it's quite obvious how important he is for carrying us up the pitch and bringing other forward players into things, don't mind McPake doing his best to make sure he's as fit as possible for the last games.

- I really can't get my head around starting Summers in front of Moffat, I actually think McPake was expecting Airdrie to persist with the common playing from back and eye catching football so was trying to crowd the midfield maybe? Either way it clearly backfired as we lost that spark that Moff gave us to get high and wide and get balls in the box.

- How frustrating is Mehmet, the last 3 home games I've noticed Josh screaming at him to come out. Even seen him saying stop being so hesitant which describes him perfectly. He's a good shot stopper but that decision to give him a 3 year deal is really backfiring. I doubt the club will be happy with that sort of wage sitting on the bench so reckon we'll have to persist with him for next season as well.

- If we have Kane back on Saturday I still think we can get something from the game, we really need to be looking at 4 points from the next 2 games to give us a cushion on the bottom spots.

I do think we've got enough about us to keep ourselves in the league but if and when we do the summer will be very important and we have to get it right.

[Stellaboz]

Is the squad better or worse than when Hughes got us relegated?

I'm feeling like it's better, certainly moral wise but it's so similar on that we've so many loan players in key positions. 

Seleriously if we stay up, wholesale changes are needed even if we find cash to somehow bump off a few passengers. 

[VinnyPar]

2 minutes ago, Stellaboz said:

Is the squad better or worse than when Hughes got us relegated?

I'm feeling like it's better, certainly moral wise but it's so similar on that we've so many loan players in key positions. 

Seleriously if we stay up, wholesale changes are needed even if we find cash to somehow bump off a few passengers. 

Trouble is that some of those players that probably need moving on were given new deals by McPake. Those that come to mind are Wighton, Chalmers, Mehmet. Maybe even add Breen to that list tbh.

Edited March 7 by VinnyPar

[Wacky]

1 hour ago, VinnyPar said:

Trouble is that some of those players that probably need moving on were given new deals by McPake. Those that come to mind are Wighton, Chalmers, Mehmet. Maybe even add Breen to that list tbh.

Wighton never reached the potential I expected him to reach. I don’t know if the way he is being utilised is an issue for him, but I really thought we’d get better out of him.