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Double Winning St Johnstone FC Thread


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15 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Box to box type i think. Plenty of energy in terms of pressing and seems to have a knack of timing runs into the box well.

Probably wasnt good enough technically for the top flight but didnt seem an issue in League One with Montrose so should be fine in League Two? Dont think he was bad for them defensively either but i dont think he'd stand out much as a holding midfielder, you really want him in/around the box.

Sounds ideal, we already have a decent quality holding midfielder in Ray Grant, so a more attacking option would be welcomed.

Will need to hit the ground running, but sounds better than what we have at the moment (which wouldn't be too difficult !). 

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5 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

Cammy Ballantyne away to Clyde on loan.

We really have wasted about 3 years of his career, fingers crossed he stands out there and gets a good move in the Summer.

Ach I'm not so sure. It's not like he wasn't given a chance, especially in the doomed league cup campaign. He just failed to capitalise on his chance, which is a shame.

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7 hours ago, GorbalsMags said:

Ach I'm not so sure. It's not like he wasn't given a chance, especially in the doomed league cup campaign. He just failed to capitalise on his chance, which is a shame.

I think three years is a tad strong but I don’t think we handled things brilliantly. That third loan to Montrose particularly stands out. 

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14 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

Cammy Ballantyne away to Clyde on loan.

We really have wasted about 3 years of his career, fingers crossed he stands out there and gets a good move in the Summer.

Not sure we've wasted his career.  He's had three years of earning top flight wages and I'd be surprised if he ever does that again.  He's a bit like Steven Doris, Liam Caddis etc. Not quite good enough for Saints. 

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I'm kind of fascinated to see how this works out with Sibideh and Kimpioka, the main thing we keep hearing about is pace, and of course we are crying out for some in the team, but is that the trait we really should be looking for in a striker?

I've had a bit of a fascination over the years between our leagues and the English leagues, from the point of view of which players thrive in one setting but look honking in another, and often come back to interviews where English players talk about the relentless pace of the game up here. Of course it's overly simplistic, but I do think there's something to the theory that the Scottish game is played at a crazy pace and a lot of physicality is nullified as a result, so players who have that bit of composure and footballing intelligence to find and understand space are the ones who thrive. On the flip side, a lot of English football is very "samey" these days with players clearly coached the same way in academy sides and technically solid, so anyone with extra physicality tends to stand out because they break the cycle of sideways passing by using their physical traits and a lot of players aren't used to that.

Thinking back over recent years in terms of Saints and the players who have really stood out are the ones with footballing intelligence, the composure to actually take a second to think and see the space in the chaos around them. For me that's players like Wotherspoon, Swanson, McCann, MacLean, Jody Morris, Chris Millar etc. In this current team, Carey isn't on their level, but he's the one who stands out because he tries to think on the ball rather than just relentlessly running.

The only exception for us that really comes to mind is Michael O Halloran, his footballing intelligence and anticipation was nonexistent but his pace was incredible, yet once he was figured out and lost some of his quickness he offered nothing very quickly. In his prime he could've been a genuine mid-Championship level striker down south, it's also why I think Dan Phillips will probably end up moving for 1-2 million in the future once he goes back down there because his physicality will allow him to bully a lot of players and he'll look outstanding. 

Working as a scout for a team down south for a while, when it came to strikers, the management team were obsessed with guys like Innih Effiong who was genuinely rotten for Ross County but was unplayable at a decent level down there because of his physicality, it's also how carthorses like Ikpeazu got big moves as well.

Looking at some of the more prolific strikers outside the OF over the years, the vast majority were particularly average at best when it comes to physicality:

Adam Rooney, Billy McKay, Lewis Moult, Kevin Van Veen, Liam Boyce, Lawrence Shankland, Michael Higdon,   Stephen Dobbie, Kris Doolan, Greg Stewart, Steven Fletcher, Nadir Ciftci (not the imposter that we saw). There will be more, and not all of them are star names but all good strikers at this level. Even looking back through the list of top scorers earlier in the center to guys like Riordan, O'Connor, McFadden, Goodwillie, Stephen Thompson, weren't thought of as pacey players either and players like Boyd, Stokes, Naismith etc probably fall into a similar category.

The only out-and-out pace merchant who's consistently good that I can think of is Martin Boyle, so honestly I'm excited to see if what we have now makes a difference. It also makes future recruitment interesting, because if we're signing players from down south who aren't overly prolific then they'll get a lukewarm reception at best, but maybe there's something to recruiting strikers who fit the model of player who have had success here rather than looking at raw stats. It probably also means nothing if the rest of the team is slow and can't string any passes together in fairness

 

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23 minutes ago, SJFCtheTeamForMe said:

That was horrific. 

Max is the new Gary Macdonald. 

So much over coaching and over complicating things. The right wing back going narrow etc. f**k off. 

Also the pitch? Looks a mess already.

We didn’t have a right wing back playing i’m afraid. 

Edited by DavidReid01
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1 minute ago, SJFCtheTeamForMe said:

You can call it a right back. I called it a right wing back. 

Missing the point though regardless of what you're calling it. 

I agree with your point re Max.

If fans want us to be more attacking and creative, that requires movement off the ball and creating space for others. 

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An improvement on the Motherwell performance at least.

Robinson passing backwards at every opportunity and max giving the ball away are become trademarks.

Thought Benji had a good first half, faded in the second.

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We were saying exactly that about Max. Technical ability but he’s turning into an absolute nothing of a footballer. Pass it sideways or backwards at all costs. He did well to set up Adamas chance late on but that was it. 

Our first thought should be can we move the ball forward?   If no then go back and start again. But it’s the opposite every time we’re in possession, it’s total shitebag football. We do it without looking or thinking to the point hearts players were anticipating it.

McGowan and Considine are about our best players just now, turning out some good performances thought the goal looked a bit of a mess.

Carey has some nice touches but when he’s the only player in the team that can create, we probably miss him higher up the park.

It was bizarre watching Olufunwa in that first half desperate to go inside and stand beside our other 3 marked players in there rather than go into the acres of space on the wing.  He was surely told to go inside to create space for Franz to run wide (who didn’t. Was that why he was subbed?) as it happened too often just to be a poor decision.

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Just now, Bonksy+HisChristianParade said:

A win against Dundee would be absolutely massive for our season tbh. Huge game if we have any top six aspirations whatsoever.

Yep - game against County imo was the decider whether we would be in real trouble relegation wise or whether we'd likely just be 8th-10th makeweights. This game is the decider as to whether we have any hope of achieving anything more significant this season or if it's just another season of survival and hoping to build next season again.

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I’m not convinced yet.  Just need county to make a sensible appointment and they’re only a couple of wins away from leapfrogging us, with us still to play post split.

We just don’t win enough games to pull completely clear of trouble.  We should draw our way to safety though.

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Hold on - County are only 5 points back, have a game in hand and there's a good chance they'll benefit from a new manager bounce now as well. We are far from safe and, given the squad, the priority has to surely be scraping enough points together to stay out of the play offs. Tonight we played against a team miles better than us and we could've nicked a point. Not great performance wise and pretty eye bleeding though it was.
 

It's pretty clear the management team just don't rate Sprangler. We're electing to play 3 attacking midfielders who can't tackle to save themselves over him when it looked pretty clear to me we'd benefit from someone with dig in midfield. Even when he came on he played more advanced than Carey. 
 

Robinson has been pretty poor since coming back IMO. I'd be tempted to drop him once Gordon is back and give Gallacher a run to see if he's worth giving another year to. Still feel we are crying out for a wide player. Never been Drey Wright's biggest fan but we are absolutely crying out for him right now. 

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4 minutes ago, Kyle said:

Hold on - County are only 5 points back, have a game in hand and there's a good chance they'll benefit from a new manager bounce now as well. We are far from safe and, given the squad, the priority has to surely be scraping enough points together to stay out of the play offs. Tonight we played against a team miles better than us and we could've nicked a point. Not great performance wise and pretty eye bleeding though it was.
 

It's pretty clear the management team just don't rate Sprangler. We're electing to play 3 attacking midfielders who can't tackle to save themselves over him when it looked pretty clear to me we'd benefit from someone with dig in midfield. Even when he came on he played more advanced than Carey. 
 

Robinson has been pretty poor since coming back IMO. I'd be tempted to drop him once Gordon is back and give Gallacher a run to see if he's worth giving another year to. Still feel we are crying out for a wide player. Never been Drey Wright's biggest fan but we are absolutely crying out for him right now. 

Teams on their third manager of the season generally don't get bounces (see also: Agent Goodwin last year), especially when said new manager doesn't have a window to get any decent talent in

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5 hours ago, Kyle said:

Hold on - County are only 5 points back, have a game in hand and there's a good chance they'll benefit from a new manager bounce now as well.

Their game in hand is, thankfully(?),  at Ibrox, but 5 points isn’t insurmountable. There’s still 14 games left to play, and we’ve likely still got to play Ross County once and Livingston twice. Bonkers to be thinking Saturday’s win took us anywhere near out of it. 

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6 hours ago, Kyle said:

give Gallacher a run to see if he's worth giving another year to

Hes not. Hes completely shit scared of taking people on and ive filed him beside Max in the "passenger" category, except Gallacher tops that list. Both would happily spend 90 minutes playing 3 yard passes to CBs amd hoping someone else creates something. The amount of time Gallacher shits out a physical bump and instead shafts someone else by underhitting a pass to them is unreal, just terrified of being hit.

Im no James Brown fan but i struggle to see why people think hes miles from good enough but still think Gallacher is worth playing.

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Brown has played about 80 games for Saints, Gallacher I suspect will be on around 20 and before his leg break did show something, so for me it's about the body of evidence for them both.  Not saying he's any great shakes and I'm not convinced he's up to it either but he's at least our player and your description of him could just as easily be applied to Robinson over the last few weeks. 

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