Stenhousemuir -vs- Edinburgh City

[Neilly]

He was announced as man of the match which was met with derision. That was bang out of order from the crowd if I was on the park I would have called them out as well. Absolute mutants.

Man of the match is always going to be a home player regardless or the result so to react the way the crowd did was embarrassing.

Smith saved us from 7 or 8 and had done on numerous occasions anyone questioning him is beyond me to be honest. One of the few cogs of the team we can be content with.

[Vimto90]

Aye calling out Smith is just daft. The one player I am truly glad we have.

He's playing in league 2, of course he is going to have his moments, the Queens Park penalty case in point but you need to take a step back have some intellectual horizon . Overall he is a superb goalie.

[beaver1]

 The keeper isn't the problem 

[Moonglum25]

Smith has saved us from a good few hammerings during his time with us and is not the problem with the team.  Was happy to see him here again for this season.

[Sarge Bullman]

Criticising Smith for his performances is ludicrous. He's a stand out goalkeeper at this level and is certainly not one of the problem areas in the side. 

That said, his off the ball antics are frustrating and he always seems to be spoiling for aggro. Can certainly understand some of the criticism in that regard.

[VicBlue128]

On 21/08/2019 at 10:22, Hard Graft said:

That was always going to be the worry.

I know Hoppy personally aswell as having worked with him at a previous club. I have no idea where this Mental Health issues rumour has came from but it is very far from the truth. He left Clyde to pursue a different career option and to take a year out which was discussed with Danny Lennon at the time. 

I think we can put this rumour to bed as it is pure lies. In his words, ‘his head wasn’t in football’ which I think people have taken far too literally, he simply wanted a year out to work elsewhere. Anyone who knows him personally will know he certainly does not have mental health issues. 

[Francesc Fabregas]

Fair play, I hope we're able to cause Annan Athletic some damage next weekend.

 

[CEMSFC]

https://www.stenhousemuirfc.com/match/stenhousemuir-vs-edinburgh-city-2/

Highlights and interview with Colin.

[Vimto90]

Fair play he acknowledged the performance on twitter.

However it's concerning he seen nothing wrong with the shape change as per his interview. We were rubbish at 1-0 but he made a weak performance even weaker with that and gave away the tiny chance we had of getting anything as we did still have the lead at this point.

He has made a rod for his own back with the comments, if we don't turn up next Saturday it's a shoogly peg.

[The Mariner]

On 24/08/2019 at 19:14, Francesc Fabregas said:

That was absolutely vile and one of the worst performances I've seen in years. It was so bad that I wanted to leave the ground and go home during the interval, even although we were winning at that point. Other than Mark McGuigan's goal (which was quite glorious) and a Kieran Anderson shot that inexplicably hit the bar, we offered nothing. Edinburgh City are a good side, and looked much better than they did last week in our Challenge Cup encounter, but we played right into their hands - ceaseless long balls towards Liam Henderson and Conrad Balatoni, a failure to put any real pressure on Marc Laird in the middle of the park - and I don't think they'll get a more straightforward three points all season.

Stenhousemuir started the match well and McGuigan's early goal was lovely, with the big striker finishing Alan Cook's low centre after a fine series of passes. The home side could have doubled their lead shortly afterwards when Anderson somehow found himself in on goal but rather than placing his shot, he opted to smash the ball beyond Calum Antell instead and hit the bar. Why did he shoot with so much power from close range? It seemed to me as though he wanted to show he had "arrived" by finishing so empathically; instead he squandered a wonderful opportunity.

From that point on, Edinburgh City took control of the match. They got a grip on the middle of the park and forced our backline into a series of panicky clearances. Andy Munro twice played short, unsighted backpasses to his goalkeeper and Graeme Smith twice bailed him out by saving with his knees. As we've mentioned on this thread and several others, our team isn't really designed to scrap for first or second balls - we're more capable when we try to play football - so it was alarming to watch us bypass the middle of the park and hope something fell McGuigan's way. Yes, for a big lad he could do better when battling with defenders but why do we insist on playing neck-high balls up towards him? What's he supposed to do with that? We've got three central midfielders who are all decent enough on the ball, why aren't we giving it to them?

At half time, I thought we had made the right call to take off Liam Scullion for Chris O'Neil - Scullion had been struggling to keep big Robbie McIntyre in check so it made sense to replace him - but I couldn't believe we changed from the 3-5-2 to a 4-4-2. We were losing territory in the middle of the park since about the 11th minute, so why did we weaken ourselves further? Needless to say it didn't work. We looked ragged and dishevelled and spent the rest of the game trying to repel Edinburgh's attack without ever really getting back into it.

The defending for the first of their two goals was appalling. The ball was allowed to pinball around the box before Blair Henderson hooked in the equaliser and O'Neil failed to deal with a deep cross, knocking it straight to Laird who took his time and planted a neat finish into the net. We briefly rallied at this point and pegged Edinburgh back but we never really look like troubling Antell. Scott Shepherd added a third late on (I didn't see the build up to it because I was reading a tweet) but it prompted some members in the crowd to start shouting at Smith, who argued back. It was all very unedifying.

I can understand why supporters jeered the team off at the end. That was truly hopeless stuff. I saw someone on Twitter saying that if you want to build a team to play long-ball football, then that's fine, sign the appropriate players, but don't punt balls up top when our principle striker isn't all that great at operating as a target man and the midfield don't seem to be capable of pushing up and supporting him. Judging by some of the comments on here already and the views of people I spoke to at the match, Colin McMenamin has a bit of work to do to win the trust of supporters. after that What is his best XI? What formation suits them best? I don't know, and I'm not too sure he does either. Annan Athletic next week will be an interesting encounter, particularly given they were the team that relegated us in May. You know what you're going to get from Peter Murphy's side but are we capable of dealing with it? I don't know.

Fabregas

Just had a gander at the highlights.

Anderson picked up the ball 25 yards out then left two defenders for dead and was still 15 yards out when hitting in all honesty a screamer that was at least 3 Foot over the line  ? It nearly hit the ball boy behind the goals.

If that had been on TV everyone would be talking about a Fabulous goal and 2.0 Stennie.

[Neilly]

11 hours ago, Francesc Fabregas said:

Fair play, I hope we're able to cause Annan Athletic some damage next weekend.

 

Would rather less of the words and get the job done to be honest. We will be better? It's hard to get any worse that's the worst I've seen in 25 years and that's quite a statement.

[Neilly]

43 minutes ago, The Mariner said:

Fabregas

Just had a gander at the highlights.

Anderson picked up the ball 25 yards out then left two defenders for dead and was still 15 yards out when hitting in all honesty a screamer that was at least 3 Foot over the line  ? It nearly hit the ball boy behind the goals.

If that had been on TV everyone would be talking about a Fabulous goal and 2.0 Stennie.

What a fantasist. He went past one defender who was on the half turn going the other way.

I really want him to do well but he's painfully out his depth.

[The Mariner]

1 hour ago, Neilly said:

What a fantasist. He went past one defender who was on the half turn going the other way.

I really want him to do well but he's painfully out his depth.

Out his depth . Aye ok.

 

[Vimto90]

Out his depth . Aye ok.

 

When he was with us years ago I had a run in with a fantasist (his dad) who thought Keiran was on his way to the top, he was advised he would be playing in the juniors very soon, which was obviously correct. I'm afraid this is where he will be heading back to. He has bulked up and is a different player but he's not affecting games. His positioning is so poor, he doesn't know where to be in regards to mcguigan. That's fine playing jobber defenders in the juniors but as Neilly says he is out his depth. Was worth a punt thou and he's here for the year probably so happy to be proved wrong.

 

[Ancient Warrior]

Can't see Anderson being anything other than a benchwarmer unless he realises that he has to show a bit of movement and not just wait till the ball comes to him.

[Burnsythebinman]

dont think its fair to blame smith for the goals. i think some might be doing that cause he shouted back after getting abuse. the only poor part of his game Saturday was launching the ball out rather than distribute it to the backs. its our lack of anything in the midfield that is our problem. defence is under pressure so hoofing it up to front men that don't play that kind of game

[tamthebam]

5 hours ago, The Mariner said:

Fabregas

Just had a gander at the highlights.

Anderson picked up the ball 25 yards out then left two defenders for dead and was still 15 yards out when hitting in all honesty a screamer that was at least 3 Foot over the line  ? It nearly hit the ball boy behind the goals.

If that had been on TV everyone would be talking about a Fabulous goal and 2.0 Stennie.

I know I'm biased but I was standing BEHIND the goals in the away terracing and the shot bounced down a foot in FRONT of the line. As a fair minded b*****d I would have held up my hands and said it was a goal. But it wasn't.

[Vimto90]

At no point did I or anyone around me think it crossed the line. To say 3 foot behind the line from that highlight is just embarrassingly biased toward Kieran. It didn't look to have crossed and the highlight confirms that for me.

[Warrior123]

Wow reading the comments on this you would think we had been beaten 8-0. 

A poor performance yes, however against a very talented Edinburgh side. We can't play well in every fixture. Fans were a disgrace for the most part. Getting on the players backs for every miss placed pass, who thinks that will help this team? You should all have a think about that.

[Ladow]

The manager could have taken the midfield 3 off at half time and not replaced them and it wouldn't have made us any worse. I don't see where the improvement will come from in that department.