Double Winning St Johnstone FC Thread

[Widge]

He won’t want to do it, but Davidson basically needs to think, what would Wright do. The answer to that, is go more solid double up down the wings and become hard to beat again. Then hit on the break and hold on to leads. 

[The Real Saints]

When last season prematurely ended, our ageing squad looked to be transitioning into one of the youngest in the Premiership with a degree of success. When Jamie McCart joined in January, we changed to the 5-3-2/3-5-2 set-up and it seemed to be paying dividends. It wasn't the style of football which Tommy had been known for, but it was fluid and it was getting results. I was happy with the appointment of Callum Davidson because I thought that it would provide a continuation of this new era. I honestly didn't expect Callum to come in, immediately change this formation and sign two pensioners.

[The Real Saints]

17 hours ago, tree house tam said:

He can talk like a wet wipe to the media all he wants.

I completely agree. If that side of his personality is reserved solely for media interviews, then that's absolutely great. If not, that's when it becomes a concern for me. We have seen tactical managers like Ian Cathro who possess little charisma or gravitas, and it is undoubtedly an issue when it comes to firing up a team of players. I have plenty of faith in Callum's abilities as a coach and his tactical knowledge.

Edited December 27, 2020 by The Real Saints

[Mr Positive, sometimes.]

Was just thinking about the well known fact that we aren't particularly fluid when creating chances and wondered what kind of player would fit into Davidson's system. 

Prime Saints Swanson alongside Spoony in the front 3 . His ability to just knock the ball past a player in a tight space would make such massive difference. 

Edited December 27, 2020 by Mr Positive, sometimes.

[RandomGuy.]

39 minutes ago, Mr Positive, sometimes. said:

Was just thinking about the well known fact that we aren't particularly fluid when creating chances and wondered what kind of player would fit into Davidson's system. 

[Saint Huck]

Wondering what part Steve McClean's role of striker coach is playing in all this.  Not a lot of success there it seems.

[Mr Positive, sometimes.]

2 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

It's the level & age of player we should be looking to sign as well rather than the 34+ year old journeyman we keep signing. 

[Radford]

9 hours ago, PauloPerth said:

Interested to know which opinions it invalidates.

Because if you're going along with the argument that the only difference between last season's team and this is Callum Hendry's scoring rate, then I'm calling bullshit on that one I'm afraid!

It wasn't directed at anyone at all and was more a general comment in reply to his suspicion that folk would call it shite. 

But it related specifically to Hendry. People can talk about about how he's done but when confronted with data covering the whole league over a number of seasons, it's clear he was over performing. 

I really hoped he'd have a huge season but knowing what we do now with these stats, that was never likely. 

The fun in future will come when @RandomGuy. tells fans of other clubs in advance that their striker is going to be shite the next season then can lord it over them when it comes true. 

Edited December 27, 2020 by Radford

[RandomGuy.]

14 minutes ago, Mr Positive, sometimes. said:

It's the level & age of player we should be looking to sign as well rather than the 34+ year old journeyman we keep signing. 

Boys class. Sets the goal up here.

12 minutes ago, Radford said:

The fun in future will come when @RandomGuy. tells fans of other clubs in advance that their striker is going to be shite the next season then can lord it over them when it comes true. 

Nicky Clark the obvious one whos massively overperforming (51.28% xG overperformance, also scoring 80% of his shots on target) so he's the one I'm keeping a wee eye on to see what happens with him.

Currently scoring at a better rate p90 than Nisbet, who is overperforming by 1.08%, so in theory, Clark should fall away in the second half of the season while Nisbet should maintain his goal scoring form.

I'd probably boldly go on their threads and claim this, and then be completely wrong, so just using those players as an experiment to see what happens.

[PauloPerth]

32 minutes ago, Radford said:

It wasn't directed at anyone at all and was more a general comment in reply to his suspicion that folk would call it shite. 

But it related specifically to Hendry. People can talk about about how he's done but when confronted with data covering the whole league over a number of seasons, it's clear he was over performing. 

I really hoped he'd have a huge season but knowing what we do now with these stats, that was never likely. 

The fun in future will come when @RandomGuy. tells fans of other clubs in advance that their striker is going to be shite the next season then can lord it over them when it comes true. 

Was just making the point that there was a lot more to our form last season than Hendry's goals.  Anyway, hoping RG can come up with something on Reagan Hendry of Raith Rovers. Midfielder, 22, was a Scotland international at younger age groups, had 3 years at Celtic before joining Rovers and apparently looking really good this season and last.  Out of contract in the summer...

[RandomGuy.]

14 minutes ago, PauloPerth said:

Was just making the point that there was a lot more to our form last season than Hendry's goals.  Anyway, hoping RG can come up with something on Reagan Hendry of Raith Rovers. Midfielder, 22, was a Scotland international at younger age groups, had 3 years at Celtic before joining Rovers and apparently looking really good this season and last.  Out of contract in the summer...

I'll have a look tonight and see if I can make on of those percentile charts for him this season if you want? Or a radar, depends if you want to see anything specific.

I definitely looked at him this Summer since Raith fans were raving about him, but think I ended up sidetracked by Dylan Tait tbh (whos now out of reach). From memory I thought Hendry was a bit slow and weak for our side, sort of needed to be a "10" in the top flight and have everyone working around him. That was based on him in League One last season, and the idea we'd be playing 4-4-2 a lot tbh, so probably unfair. Its from memory and I looked at an embarrassing amount of players in the Summer when I was just fucking about trying to teach myself to see trends, so I've potentially mixed him up with someone else (Reece Cole comes to mind as someone I didn't think was up to it for those reasons).

This is my life just now...

Working on Saints strikers only to see what trends appear. So far I've discovered MacLean was incredible and Kane is shit, so theres a good half hour of my life wasted to prove what everyone already knows 

MacLean showing perhaps that its possible for players to overperform consistently to a certain level (not Hendrys), which I guess is right as the xG is based around an "average" striker. Kane constantly underperforms as hes a "below average" striker, and MacLean obviously an "above average" striker. Kane really drags some averages down so might exclude him from them to see what happens, but this is now a complete fucking ramble.

[RandomGuy.]

@PauloPerth

Hendry plotted against Championship CMs, minimum of 600 minutes.

[Mr Positive, sometimes.]

His issue is after the disallowed goal and a few poor misses his confidence surely will have dropped. 

Since then he's barely featured and I don't think we've created the same kind of chances he was sticking away last season. Scored a number of backpost inside 6 yard finishes I seem to recall and we've certainly created very few of those. 

[RandomGuy.]

12 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

@PauloPerth

Hendry plotted against Championship CMs, minimum of 600 minutes.

FWIW, actually looked at the numbers and theres some big outliers in that division that make Hendry look worse than he is. So heres it in "percentile" form, to give a fairer reflection.

Added everyones percentile score together to give each player an "overall score", and ranked them by it. Charlie Adam came out as the best CM in the Championship, Hendry came out 2nd.

[PauloPerth]

Cheers, wondered if he was one worth a punt on a PCA in January.

Not sounding good about Tanser. From BBC sport website:

St Johnstone full-back Scott Tanser could be set for a lengthy lay-off, with manager Callum Davidson admitting the knee injury that forced the 26-year-old off against Aberdeen on Saturday "doesn't look good". (Courier)

[Zamora Fan]

Cheers, wondered if he was one worth a punt on a PCA in January.
Not sounding good about Tanser. From BBC sport website:
St Johnstone full-back Scott Tanser could be set for a lengthy lay-off, with manager Callum Davidson admitting the knee injury that forced the 26-year-old off against Aberdeen on Saturday "doesn't look good". (Courier)

Tanser is just about good enough to play as a wingback in this system but I don’t think Booth has been particularly good there tbh. He’ll need cover anyway if Scotty T is out for a while - time to dig into the free agent tombola of shite?

[PauloPerth]

2 minutes ago, Zamora Fan said:

Tanser is just about good enough to play as a wingback in this system but I don’t think Booth has been particularly good there tbh. He’ll need cover anyway if Scotty T is out for a while - time to dig into the free agent tombola of shite?

I think Booth maybe just needs a run of games to get upto speed.  He's not spectacular but I think he's been fairly reliable since he signed a year ago.  Possibly a bit more of a defensive player, maybe better suited to being a left back in a 4 instead of a lwb?

We've been fairly lucky with injuries upto this point, in a small squad we can't really afford to be without players for any length of time.

[RandomGuy.]

3 hours ago, PauloPerth said:

We've been fairly lucky with injuries upto this point, in a small squad we can't really afford to be without players for any length of time.

This is the worry. We're so close to the bottom that any injury crisis could finish us.

John Hughes saying Ross County will be signing "a couple" of players who will go straight into the first team, which is what we're up against here.

We're effectively trying to keep ourselves up, with a tiny squad, to avoid financial problems, while one of the teams below us just chuck money at it without the threat of consequences.

It's got me twitchy.

[The Marly]

This is the worry. We're so close to the bottom that any injury crisis could finish us.
John Hughes saying Ross County will be signing "a couple" of players who will go straight into the first team, which is what we're up against here.
We're effectively trying to keep ourselves up, with a tiny squad, to avoid financial problems, while one of the teams below us just chuck money at it without the threat of consequences.
It's got me twitchy.

You worry too much about what other teams are doing. They might well sign a couple of players, they might well be gash.

[PauloPerth]

Have to admit I'm in the position of hoping a couple of teams stay worse than us.  Win the next two and the future becomes a lot brighter. Fail to win either and we're really up against it.

Yes County might sign players who aren't that great, but they haven't won since the game at McDiarmid in September, so they are hardly going to make them worse.  There is a chance they will improve,and Accies are so unpredictable they'll manage to pull wins out of nowhere from time to time.

Hoping Broon evokes the spirit of 93 and signs a star player from one of our rivals: Declan Gallagher and Obika until the end of the season would probably be acceptable.