Red 'N Yellow Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 Considering our brutal start to the season and the fact that our budget meant that we couldn't get quality replacements for departing players, I'd say that being 3 points ahead of where we were last season is a decent achievement. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vinnyjag Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 Can't believe people are saying we are shite to watch, when the board give Archie a budget worth talking g about then we can have a discussion about how we play. In the meantime he has to "pee with the cock he has" which means he needs to adapt as he sees fit, if your looking for sexy football on a champagne budget your watching the wrong team. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rednyella Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 Can't believe people are saying we are shite to watch, when the board give Archie a budget worth talking g about then we can have a discussion about how we play.In the meantime he has to "pee with the cock he has" which means he needs to adapt as he sees fit, if your looking for sexy football on a champagne budget your watching the wrong team. I absolutely agree. You cannot get annoyed at us not playing entertaining football when the management has bare thread finance to play with. The fact is Archie is told every year "do the best you can to keep us up, and here's how much you have to do it!" I do believe Archie wants to entertain the punters but sometimes it's not possible. We have to grind out results especially when the backlog of games and injuries comes along as it will in next couple of months. We really don't play poor unentertaining football. We've had some great games and moments under Archie and Shaggy and I believe we stay in this division with a solid defense and strong spine of players which I think is what they are trying to build. The chances of us with the budget we have of reaching a cup final is very slim. Folks think county have a slim budget. I don't think so. Their owner has been flashing wages, houses and cars at players for a couple of years. Fox certainly was 'wooed' by it even if you have to live in the Inverness area. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snakebite Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 I don't think we are that bad to watch. I just completely don't understand that setup yesterday. It was fucking farcical. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hammer Jag Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 Can't believe people are saying we are shite to watch, when the board give Archie a budget worth talking g about then we can have a discussion about how we play.In the meantime he has to "pee with the cock he has" which means he needs to adapt as he sees fit, if your looking for sexy football on a champagne budget your watching the wrong team. It was just an observation on my part. I certainly don't demand that we play a particular style of football or anything. I couldn't care less if we continue to progress whilst playing more conservative football. I still maintain that we were however, poor to watch yesterday and against Motherwell. I can't remember us creating many chances. I dare say the Inverness game was much the same despite not being there. Hopefully we'll create more when Dumbaya comes back into the team. Miller hasn't put a foot wrong but he's limited in an attacking sense as I'm sure he'd admit himself. Oh, and Sean Welsh surely has to be dropped now. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P45 Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 I see that Bannigan has won the player of the month award. Did his entire family vote for him? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuctifano Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 I'm sure there was a stat that we've failed to score in more games this season than anyone else. To me it's not about having the budget to sign exciting players or pushing for top 6, it's that we've played for almost all of the season with 3 defensive midfielders, and added to that yesterday by playing 5 defenders. We were doing quite well shitfesting it recently with just the 7 defensive players, not sure there was a pressing need for an 8th. The one game we did cut loose and score 5, we played with Muirhead, Fraser, and Lawless in the team, and no Welsh. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
professor challenger Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 Can't believe people are saying we are shite to watch, when the board give Archie a budget worth talking g about then we can have a discussion about how we play. In the meantime he has to "pee with the cock he has" which means he needs to adapt as he sees fit, if your looking for sexy football on a champagne budget your watching the wrong team. So that excuses yesterday's team and formation? There was no discussion about how we play when we saw the team the manager put out. We knew what we were in for. If you're going to come out with platitudes about needing to adapt as he sees fit explain why he put that team out against a team bottom of the league and certs for relegation. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nizzy Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 a team...certs for relegation. I'm not buying that. That's in no way a criticism of the rest of your post, but anyone who went up to Tannadice in December knows they've improved. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ad Lib Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 I'm sure there was a stat that we've failed to score in more games this season than anyone else. To me it's not about having the budget to sign exciting players or pushing for top 6, it's that we've played for almost all of the season with 3 defensive midfielders, and added to that yesterday by playing 5 defenders. We were doing quite well shitfesting it recently with just the 7 defensive players, not sure there was a pressing need for an 8th. The one game we did cut loose and score 5, we played with Muirhead, Fraser, and Lawless in the team, and no Welsh. This is precisely it. Playing with Osman, Bannigan and Welsh, all of whom play as a holding midfielder, leaves a massive gap between the midfield and the front three. You need a player in-behind Doolan in addition to the two wingers, not instead of them. This role was played in the past by, variously, Muirhead, Stevenson, Erskine, and sometimes but to a lesser extent, Fraser. The shitfesting of three holding midfielders can be concealed a bit if your wing-backs are bombing up and down all the time, allowing the wingers to cut-in a bit. O'Donnell, for example, used to give Lawless a lot of freedom to do this, Dumbuya has occasionally made this easier for Amoo, and Booth was good at it when we had Higginbotham. It doesn't happen at all when we have Miller on the park and it's tantamount to playing a back 7. Bannigan is a good player, but hardly ever tries to have a go at teams and play the ball forward unless it is also out wide. Osman similarly is obsessed with playing the ball back to the full and wing backs. Welsh is too slow at this level right now to pull off his attempts to get the ball up to the front three in central positions or in space. We need someone who's willing to run at other teams, who isn't easily pushed off the ball like Lawless, whose second touch isn't a tackle like Amoo, and who's willing to have a crack at goal. Put simply, we are missing Kallum Higginbotham. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snakebite Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 (edited) I'm not sure what is so defensive about Welsh and Bannigan, infact I've seen folk describe them as attacking, so I have no bloody clue what their role is, whilst everyone seems to be clear what Osman's role is. The Dundee game and being overrun by 10 man Hamilton without Osman shows me there is nothing defensive at all about the midfield in his absence. If anything I'd have liked to have seen another defensive midfielder come in. Edited February 7, 2016 by Snakebite 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ad Lib Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 There is a difference between being a holding midfielder and a defensive midfielder. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Arch Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 I do wonder if the defensive midfield three is just a tactical decision from Archie. Maybe he's decided it's worth losing the attacking threat to crowd out the midfield and keep more clean sheets. We definitely are less maverick a team than we've previously been. I think it's partly down to the standard of wing play dropping as much as anything else. Lawless has been decent, but nobody else has really contributed enough. Amoo doesn't match up to even a below par Higgy imo. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ad Lib Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 I do wonder if the defensive midfield three is just a tactical decision from Archie. Maybe he's decided it's worth losing the attacking threat to crowd out the midfield and keep more clean sheets. We definitely are less maverick a team than we've previously been. I think it's partly down to the standard of wing play dropping as much as anything else. Lawless has been decent, but nobody else has really contributed enough. Amoo doesn't match up to even a below par Higgy imo. We are feeling the loss of O'Donnell. People forget just how quick he was. Even when his crossing wasn't great, he was so far up the park half the time that the right winger could either overlap or cut in before defences had repositioned themselves. Miller doesn't get as far forward, as quickly even as McMillan used to, and Dumbaya cuts-inside quite quickly when he enters the opposition half. It completely changes the dynamic up-front and exposes wingers that are, shall we say, slightly more mediocre. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuctifano Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 Stats since promotion: Welsh, 40 games, 0 goals Osman, 62 games, 1 goal Bannigan, 95 games, 4 goals Welsh's last goal was in October 2012- that half season he looked really good playing behind the striker as well. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
professor challenger Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 I'm not buying that. That's in no way a criticism of the rest of your post, but anyone who went up to Tannadice in December knows they've improved. Agreed, but they're still a poor team who in no way deserved the respect that Archibald' s team formation gave them. I'm still of the opinion that the main reason for yesterday's debacle was our manager fine tuning his tactics for Tynecastle. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vinnyjag Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 Guys please get real, my earlier point was that with the resources Archie has at his disposal we are punching above our weight and people still find something to moan about i.e. our style of play. I agree that Archie got his tactics wrong yesterday and shouldn't have been trying to adapt to Utd's new style of play, however some of the utter Shite that some people are posting today is over the top. Get real guys and stick to your day job 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pie Of The Month Posted February 7, 2016 Share Posted February 7, 2016 (edited) If you think anything posted on this last page is 'over the top' then the internet isn't for you. It's little to do with resources that Archie chooses to play the style of football he has done this season. It matters to the extent that we don't have as big a squad as others but team selection suggests it's not down to restrictions placed on the budget. We start most games with 8 defensive players out of 11, 7 if you want to be generous and pretend Welsh is meant to be more attacking than whatever it is he actually does. If it was down to resources instead of a conscious choice of the management then we wouldn't have had Muirhead and Fraser on the bench for the 1st half of the season with the more conservative 3 of Bannigan, Welsh and Osman playing week in week out. Even when another more attacking option was used it tended to be in place of Lawless or Amoo rather than breaking up the midfield 3 whereas in previous seasons we were far more likely to play with 2 central midfielders, the usual 2 attacking wide players and a more attacking player in behind the striker. We've went from being a team where defensive responsbility was left pretty much to the keeper, the 2 central defenders and a holding midfielder whilst the full backs and the rest of the midfield bombed on to 1 where yesterday anything attacking wise was left to 3 players, there's probably an answer to our problems somewhere in the middle of the 2. The current system makes the team much more difficult to beat but much less easy on the eye. It's hardly sacrilege for pointing it out and discussing what level of progress is required in order to accept a decline in the quality of football. Edited February 7, 2016 by Pie Of The Month 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bad chad Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 Let's not forget that Archie is still basically a novice in the managerial stakes. He took over the team halfway through the season, and got us promoted by grinding out the results that Jackie Mac wouldn't have managed. The first season in the Premier we played some amazing attacking football, and constantly shot ourselves in the foot defensively. Last season, we were a bit more pragmatic, and therefore satyed up a little more comfortably. This season, even more pragmatic (esp after the start we made), and are at present even better off. HOPEFULLY, this is a temporary consequence of an evolution in the playing style. Getting Erskine back next year looks as though some of the issues highlighted here can be addressed. Only worry is have is that we seem to be getting rewarded for (relative) mediocrity. Archie may then become even more pragmatic, as it's been proven to work! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrcat1990 Posted February 8, 2016 Share Posted February 8, 2016 Guys please get real, my earlier point was that with the resources Archie has at his disposal we are punching above our weight and people still find something to moan about i.e. our style of play.I agree that Archie got his tactics wrong yesterday and shouldn't have been trying to adapt to Utd's new style of play, however some of the utter Shite that some people are posting today is over the top.Get real guys and stick to your day job Absolute telt from POTM. What is it with some of Thistle's online presence that veers wildly to the side of ARCHIEOOT, to the happy clappy pish? The only real thing I find a tad concerning about yesterday is Archies post match comments seem to suggest we are going to persevere with that formation. I understand things can take time to work but in a business that demands instant results you don't really have room for letting this develop. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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