The Pride of Ayrshire v The Pride of the Highlands

[Squirrelhumper]

What a day yesterday was.

[Nutz_the_Squirrel]

What a day yesterday was.

How was the bowling club? Trust you stayed sober? What did you have to eat?

Sounds like a good day TBH. If you remember (Clancy- you too), send me a PM next time this is happening.

[C4mmy31]

Josh Magennis will not score in this match as he is bad at football. ICT would propbably have put about 6 past the Greece side that he scored against. I think we will win narrowly with Miles "He's got style - miles and miles - so much style that it's wasted" Storey scoring hundreds.

Next you'll be telling me that everything else in that post was intended as a serious pre-match analysis.

So you didn't really think your team would win ?

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Well that was my first venture since the trip to Romania. Have to admit that Kilmarnock ain't Bucharest and the Portmann ain't the Old City but at least I remembered the game this time. Another enjoyable Juanjo Awayday, only spoilt by a tepid performance and a very disappointing scoreline. It wasn't that we actually played that badly but it was a case of looking good but with no end product. That was Killie's first clean sheet of the season and no wonder Jamie McDonald had a wry smile at the final whistle as he applauded the away support who had been goading him most of the afternoon. "You won us the cup" ditty evidently fell on deaf ears. The possession stats were 50/50 and only eight shots with five on target throughout the game pretty much sums it up.

But it really could have been so different if we had pressed home our domination of the first 20-25 minutes. There was a lot of possession but of the tippy-tappy, Ray Wilkins variety. Killie threw seven men across the pitch and limited us to chances from crosses or dead ball situations. Perhaps it might have been different if either Devine, Draper or Meekings had placed their headers in the back of the net - but as was the case throughout the game - our final touch or attempted pass was atrocious. I haven't really criticised Yogi too much but I felt that he was at fault this time. Why he allowed Draper to stay on the pitch until half-time baffles me. Sure Draper is determined and did not want to go off but he was a passenger for the last 20 minutes and all that was probably accomplished was to make his injury worst. Yogi should have hooked him and took Vigurs on earlier. And then Mutombo for Williams was a strange decision. I thought Williams was having a good day and his pace was worrying Killie. Mutombo to me is a forward version of Djebi-Zadi. And the introduction of Sutherland was also too late. To me the difference in the sides was Magennis. I have never really been impressed by him but his mere physical presence appeared to upset Devine and Meekings. The second half felt far longer than 45 minutes and we appeared to rely on big punts looking to capatilse on the pace of Storey who had little if any support.

So perhaps it was just a bad day at the office. Perhaps the Tannadice farce left its mark. At least ours wasn't the only surprise scoreline. And I ended my time in Kilmarnock visiting a hostelry whose name resembled some of the players on show earlier.

Fon Williams 6/10 - Never really had that much to do. Thought that he could have done better with the first goal, sadly in added on time.

Raven 4/10 - Thought that he had a shocker - was he fit ? Watching trying to chase a ball down the wing in the second half reminded me of Marius Niculae at Motherwell.

Tremarco 4/10 - He was fit so he has no excuse. Sooner we get Williams ensconsed in that position the better.

Devine 6/10 - Actually looked the best of the defence which sadly was not too difficult to achieve.

Meekings 5/10 - Bad day at the office. I always feel that he is not as good without Warren beside him.

Polworth 6/10 - Didn't really do anything particularly wrong but did little to impress either.

Draper 4/10 - Well you simply cannot perform with an injury but you can come off when you have one.

Tansey 4/10 - Again 2-3 lovely touches but otherwise anonymous. Played far too deep

Christie 7/10 - The only one who actually looked like changing the game.

Williams 6/10 - Not sure why he was hooked as he was beginning to look like a danger, especially if we had pushed him forward.

Storey 7/10 - Full of running and determination but he is simply not a target man or a centre forward. Let him play off somebody and we have a real winner.

Vigurs 8/10 - My MOM for his 45 minute contribution. He may look lazy and he may not be all action but he has a head for the game and some of his passing was one touch and inspirational.

Motombo 3/10 - Headless chicken impersonation

Sutherland 4/10 - No time to make any type of impact

Yogi 4/10 - Tactically his poorest selection and poorest tactics - 4-5-1 with what looked like 3 holding midfielders played right into Killies' hands.

[Quitongo's Left Peg]

Draper 4/10 - Well you simply cannot perform with an injury but you can come off when you have one.

Vigurs 8/10 - My MOM for his 45 minute contribution. He may look lazy and he may not be all action but he has a head for the game and some of his passing was one touch and inspirational.

For me, Draper was the reason why you controlled the game early on. Thought he was excellent and can barely remember a time when Vigurs did anything in a second half that Killie dominated.

[Stephen Malkmus]

So you didn't really think your team would win ?

I hoped we would win. Expecting wins in this league is idiotic.

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

Well I expected to win !! And I would have to concede that Draper probably was the pivotal player in the first 20 minutes but was struggling as soon as he got the injury. I was hoping that Tansey would step up to the plate but he is another who has been inconsistent. Vigurs goes quietly about the game but some of his touches are class and he is a thinker.

[RiG]

Lazy copy and paste from CTO:

Quite surprised at the number of posters who think we should just 'move on' and forget about the result. That wasn't a great performance at all and there's a lot of work to be done ahead of our next couple of homes games which are winnable but are still against teams who will be pretty tough to defeat.

We were decent enough in the first half although our only real chances came from set pieces we struggled to create anything of note from open play. Perhaps the best chance was Christie's long range effort in the second half which had MacDonald scrambling. Storey, as AM says, seemed to be asked to create something from nothing. You could see he was getting frustrated with a lack of support. No idea why Draper stayed on whilst injured. Maybe Hughes asked him to, maybe Draper himself wanted to stay on but when you see the first goal we conceded a fully fit Draper (or indeed any other player) would have been all over Kiltie and I don't think he would have gotten that shot away. That wasn't smart from us.

Later on when the game was getting increasingly congested in the middle of the pitch we strangely took off Williams who was playing quite well and at least gave us some kind of width to our play as an alternative to trying to force it through the middle of the pitch where Christie was struggling to impose himself and Storey was getting no change out of the excellent Killie centre backs. It seemed a very odd decision.

Unlucky for Devine I think for the second goal. No way was that Magennis shot going in without the deflection of Devine's leg. Just a bit unfortunate but overall we didn't deserve anything from that game. Too few chances created and, more importantly, we didn't take them whilst Killie did. Overall a very subdued and somewhat lethargic performance compared to recent weeks.

What happened to Vincent? I didn't see any news about him being injured. And were are players like Sho Silva?

[ICTJohnboy]

Lazy copy and paste from CTO:

Quite surprised at the number of posters who think we should just 'move on' and forget about the result. That wasn't a great performance at all and there's a lot of work to be done ahead of our next couple of homes games which are winnable but are still against teams who will be pretty tough to defeat.

We were decent enough in the first half although our only real chances came from set pieces we struggled to create anything of note from open play. Perhaps the best chance was Christie's long range effort in the second half which had MacDonald scrambling. Storey, as AM says, seemed to be asked to create something from nothing. You could see he was getting frustrated with a lack of support. No idea why Draper stayed on whilst injured. Maybe Hughes asked him to, maybe Draper himself wanted to stay on but when you see the first goal we conceded a fully fit Draper (or indeed any other player) would have been all over Kiltie and I don't think he would have gotten that shot away. That wasn't smart from us.

Later on when the come was getting increasingly congested in the middle of the pitch we strangely took off Williams who was playing quite well and at least gave us some kind of width to our play as an alternative to trying to force it through the middle of the pitch where Christie was struggling to impose himself and Storey was getting no change out of the excellent Killie centre backs. It seemed a very odd decision.

Unlucky for Devine I think for the second goal. No way was that Magennis shot going in without the deflection of Devine's leg. Just a bit unfortunate but overall we didn't deserve anything from that game. Too few chances created and, more importantly, we didn't take them whilst Killie did. Overall a very subdued and somewhat lethargic performance compared to recent weeks.

What happened to Vincent? I didn't see any news about him being injured. And were are players like Sho Silva?

Good post.

Who did you copy it from?

[IMMORTAL HOWDEN ENDER]

And according to an "unofficial official" view Vincent was not risked because of the surface and both Williams and Raven were injured, And apparently we cant do without Draper - which is why he should have been hooked.