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Dundee United 2019/2020


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3 hours ago, Hursty said:

You guys really need to sign Michael Moffat before it's too late. 

 

 

Don’t listen to him, Arabs. Stay well clear of the Moff. We don’t want to see the unsung hero of Shanklands success working with him again. 

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First goal is schoolboy defending from Watson, diving in in the centre circle and making it easy for the attacker. Sporle then has the choice to go to the man or follow the runner and pretty much does neither, again making it too easy for EF. The 2nd, I'm all for full backs pushing forward but we can't be ending up with McMullan defending one on one with a player in the 18 yard box.

Both goals were in keeping with the general shiteness of that performance. Listless, ponderous, unimaginative etc etc. I think we can all blether about formations on here till we're blue in the pus but if players are out there looking like they don't want the ball, looking like they don't know where they should be going or what they should be doing then formation is largely superfluous. 

I'm not on the Neilson out bandwagon yet but he's undeniably put himsel and the club under pressure to get off to a good start in the league now. On the bright side, I still wouldn't swap our squad for any other in this league. They'll need to be used more effectively though. 

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18 minutes ago, coppola said:

First goal is schoolboy defending from Watson, diving in in the centre circle and making it easy for the attacker. Sporle then has the choice to go to the man or follow the runner and pretty much does neither, again making it too easy for EF. The 2nd, I'm all for full backs pushing forward but we can't be ending up with McMullan defending one on one with a player in the 18 yard box.

Both goals were in keeping with the general shiteness of that performance. Listless, ponderous, unimaginative etc etc. I think we can all blether about formations on here till we're blue in the pus but if players are out there looking like they don't want the ball, looking like they don't know where they should be going or what they should be doing then formation is largely superfluous. 

I'm not on the Neilson out bandwagon yet but he's undeniably put himsel and the club under pressure to get off to a good start in the league now. On the bright side, I still wouldn't swap our squad for any other in this league. They'll need to be used more effectively though. 

Pretty much my thoughts. 

United needed better passing and showing from the players last night, woefully short on both fronts there. 

The tapping between the centre backs needs to be limited and the outcome most certainly shouldn't be a hoof up the park. Even a simple pass out wide or to the middle would get us moving up the park. Absolutely bypassing the midfield every time is getting sickening. 

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1 hour ago, coppola said:

The 2nd, I'm all for full backs pushing forward but we can't be ending up with McMullan defending one on one with a player in the 18 yard box.

 

I'm not sure it was the full backs who were too far forward as much as Watson was far too deep, playing the East Fife boy onside. Wouldn't have happened if he'd been up in line with the rest of the back four.

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32 minutes ago, Pull My Strings said:

I'm not sure it was the full backs who were too far forward as much as Watson was far too deep, playing the East Fife boy onside. Wouldn't have happened if he'd been up in line with the rest of the back four.

Had a wee watch of it again there and I think it's a bit of both. Watson is definitely too deep but there's also a gaping hole on the right which McMullan is left trying to get back into. Either way, Watson had a mare last night and probably underlined that we'll need a new centre half in when Bouhenna goes. 

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We might as well have been playing one man in midfield last night, Stanton was so bad, ran about like a headless chicken and seems unable to control the ball or play simple forward passes, then when opposition gets possession they just plough right past him- he needs to go.
That was the main worrying thing for me, besides maybe butcher occasionally Reynolds and Appere when he came on it looked like men against boys all over the park, for all the long balls we played I can’t remember many headers that we won and most times we ran the channels or tried to move through midfield we were muscled off the ball.
I’ve been sympathetic to Neilson but on the back of that I’d say we need about 4 or 5 starting outfield players- which really is pretty poor given our outlay so far.
Biggest disappointment of last night though were those pies- inedible piping hot disks of grease

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1 hour ago, ArabianKnight said:

Pretty much my thoughts. 

United needed better passing and showing from the players last night, woefully short on both fronts there. 

The tapping between the centre backs needs to be limited and the outcome most certainly shouldn't be a hoof up the park. Even a simple pass out wide or to the middle would get us moving up the park. Absolutely bypassing the midfield every time is getting sickening. 

Herein lies the problem. A problem we’ve had for years btw. We have no midfield. Butcher for all his fans is simply a ball-winner. When we have the ball, he doesn’t want it.

So then you have either Stanton or Harkes, and neither is good enough.

I had hoped King had been brought in to give another option, but his arse seems pinned to the bench for now.

So what does a centre-back do when he’s fed up passing it back and forth to his fellow centre-back? He either gives it to a full-back, who’ll probably pass it back, or he launches it.

This is how we play.

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27 minutes ago, dregs 83 said:

I’ve been sympathetic to Neilson but on the back of that I’d say we need about 4 or 5 starting outfield players-

I think 4 or 5 is over egging it a bit. I dont know what King is like or what he's been signed for but a centre midfielder who isn't Butcher, Harkes or Stanton is a necessity for me. A centre half and another out and out winger would also be nice but I think we could get by without.

Neck on the line, I actually think we'd win the league with the squad as is but it wouldn't be comfortable or much fun to watch. As of right now, the teams most likely to challenge us have far more glaring weaknesses than we do imo.

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I think 4 or 5 is over egging it a bit. I dont know what King is like or what he's been signed for but a centre midfielder who isn't Butcher, Harkes or Stanton is a necessity for me. A centre half and another out and out winger would also be nice but I think we could get by without.
Neck on the line, I actually think we'd win the league with the squad as is but it wouldn't be comfortable or much fun to watch. As of right now, the teams most likely to challenge us have far more glaring weaknesses than we do imo.


Yeah, I’d say more like 1/2, the big thing is utilising the boys properly.

and that’s detrimental.
and it might be the thing that has us with McCulloch in the dugout come October.
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5 hours ago, coppola said:

First goal is schoolboy defending from Watson, diving in in the centre circle and making it easy for the attacker. Sporle then has the choice to go to the man or follow the runner and pretty much does neither, again making it too easy for EF. The 2nd, I'm all for full backs pushing forward but we can't be ending up with McMullan defending one on one with a player in the 18 yard box.

Agreed. As much as I’ve criticised Connolly at points, I’d much rather see him haul someone down and take a booking rather than see us carved open as easily as we were last night time and time again.

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11 minutes ago, Szamo's_Ammo said:

He wasn't great but every manager will now know to attack our left side.

Hopefully Sporle suddenly looks like a defender. 

They knew to do that when Booth was playing there too.

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Herein lies the problem.
So what does a centre-back do when he’s fed up passing it back and forth to his fellow centre-back? He either gives it to a full-back, who’ll probably pass it back, or he launches it.
This is how we play.

I think we can all recognise what you describe, it gets on my tits.

Also a recurring theme for me is the lack of hunger/passion in the team. We should be physically imposing ourselves on teams and showing real desire for every chance of the ball- more often than not it’s the opposition that plays this way against us. Our style becomes ponderous if plan A doesn’t work. And I’ve also get a nagging feeling that Neilson doesn’t know what his strongest team is.

Don’t think anyone is looking for miracles, just a sign that there has been some improvement and consistency.

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