St Johnstone v Greenock Morton, Saturday 18/01/20

[Valentino Bolognese]

@PauloPerth balanced as usual, think I'm less so. 

To me we were probably quite thankful to be in at half time wiith a lead, we looked incredibly rusty were lucky Morton were so shockingly poor, particularly up front. Zander had saves to make today but not one of them was a test. We didn't look up for it at all, reminded me of the same time last year coming off the winter break when the team looked like they lacked energy. Morton have a lot of heart and a high workrate but are woefully short on quality all over the park. 

I'm not buying this 'soft goals' stuff from Morton though. Booth's goal was not soft, it was an absolute peach of a strike. Murray's goal was as well placed a header as you'll see from a long way out - it would have needed and exceptional save. Maybe should have done more to block the run, not really a soft goal. You could say that you should have closed down May earlier, I'll give you that one. 

 

[tonup9]

The defence was total pish as usual.we had chances and didn’t take them,best of luck to the saints in the next round.nice ton support up here today,just what we need to push the team on for a playoff slot.

[PauloPerth]

1 hour ago, Valentino Bolognese said:

@PauloPerth balanced as usual, think I'm less so. 

To me we were probably quite thankful to be in at half time wiith a lead, we looked incredibly rusty were lucky Morton were so shockingly poor, particularly up front. Zander had saves to make today but not one of them was a test. We didn't look up for it at all, reminded me of the same time last year coming off the winter break when the team looked like they lacked energy. Morton have a lot of heart and a high workrate but are woefully short on quality all over the park. 

I'm not buying this 'soft goals' stuff from Morton though. Booth's goal was not soft, it was an absolute peach of a strike. Murray's goal was as well placed a header as you'll see from a long way out - it would have needed and exceptional save. Maybe should have done more to block the run, not really a soft goal. You could say that you should have closed down May earlier, I'll give you that one. 

 

I get what you're saying, we certainly rode our luck at times at 1-0.  I just think the lack of match sharpness is a really big deal, and it was always going to be a dodgy fixture. We haven't even played as much as a friendly since the Ross County match 3 weeks ago.

We got a competitive match under our belts, hopefully came through it unscathed injury wise, kept a clean sheet, scored a few goals and, most importantly, are through to the next round.

I'll take it!

[Broon_100]

3 good quality goals but not a lot of quality elsewhere. The odd flash from an improving Wright, nice interplay on the left from Spoony but these moments all too rare. As often the case when we go 4-4-2 we skip the midfielders and batter it long. Unfortunately neither May and particularly the very very poor Kane have great link play. I'm amazed that we continue with  Kane as our number 9. Particularly with a better quality striker warming the bench. 

Anyway, was worth it for the 3 goals and a wins a win in the cup!

[vikingTON]

Davidson was for all intents and purposes unmarked and there was no pressure on Booth at all before shooting - that goal came because we made an utter c**t of it down our left hand side, were forced to block a shot from May (?) in the penalty box and didn’t push out at all. The third is Brian McLean being Brian McLean at the dinosaur stage of his career. They’re all extremely poor goals to concede from a defensive point of view regardless of how well taken they were.

[Valentino Bolognese]

9 minutes ago, Broon_100 said:

3 good quality goals but not a lot of quality elsewhere. The odd flash from an improving Wright, nice interplay on the left from Spoony but these moments all too rare. As often the case when we go 4-4-2 we skip the midfielders and batter it long. Unfortunately neither May and particularly the very very poor Kane have great link play. I'm amazed that we continue with  Kane as our number 9. Particularly with a better quality striker warming the bench. 

Anyway, was worth it for the 3 goals and a wins a win in the cup!

2 better quality strikers. MOH is a striker, or so I'm informed. 

@PauloPerth yes I'll take it too, and willing to write the performance off as match rustiness. 

@virginton defences can always find something they could have done better. Yes, Booth had space and time for his shot but 9 times out of ten that's in the garden of rememberance at the crematorioum, and yes Muzz could have been picked up better but it's a very long range header. Neither are as bad as a lot of the absolute howlers that pitch has seen this season from the home team. 

You had a flavour of it when Duffy came on. 

[RandomGuy.]

Glad Hopkin brought him on to get some appreciation. 

[vikingTON]

It’s really not nitpicking to expect a professional football team’s defence to close down a shot at the edge of their own box or to mark a six foot plus player at a set piece. The Championship is of a bad standard but it’s not that bad. Those are goals that even with the likes of Brian McLean playing today could have been defended had the team simply been better organised in those situations.

[akuram]

2 better quality strikers. MOH is a striker, or so I'm informed. 
[mention=52884]PauloPerth[/mention] yes I'll take it too, and willing to write the performance off as match rustiness. 
[mention=11540]virginton[/mention] defences can always find something they could have done better. Yes, Booth had space and time for his shot but 9 times out of ten that's in the garden of rememberance at the crematorioum, and yes Muzz could have been picked up better but it's a very long range header. Neither are as bad as a lot of the absolute howlers that pitch has seen this season from the home team. 
You had a flavour of it when Duffy came on. 

Thought Wallace Duffy did well in his short time on the pitch.

[RandomGuy.]

5 minutes ago, akuram said:

Thought Wallace Duffy did well in his short time on the pitch.

Can't wait to see him start there against Celtic 

[Valentino Bolognese]

Just now, akuram said:

Thought Wallace Duffy did well in his short time on the pitch.

Really? He did make one decent tackle but as far as I could see the rest of the time he looked like a scared wee boy to me and pretty sure I remember him making a couple of quite bad mistakes. 

Hoppy to be wrong about his performance today if that's what the replay shows, but the thought of using him in any capacity against Celtic (as hinted at in Tommy's post match) because we can't play Ralston is lunacy. 

Can Booth possibly play RB? 

[tree house tam]

Bombscare Ralston replaced by Wallace Duffy, both punting balls up to Chris Kane, cherish these times lads, cherish these times. 

[AyrshireTon]

1 hour ago, RandomGuy. said:

Glad Hopkin brought him on to get some appreciation. 

That really annoyed me. We were 2-0 down and still pressing. The game was not crying out for Millar to come on in any shape or form. Next thing you know, it was 3-0. Hopkin then decided that Lyon needed to come on - about 20 minutes too late.

[RandomGuy.]

10 minutes ago, AyrshireTon said:

That really annoyed me. We were 2-0 down and still pressing. The game was not crying out for Millar to come on in any shape or form. Next thing you know, it was 3-0. Hopkin then decided that Lyon needed to come on - about 20 minutes too late.

Youre surely not trying to blame Millar for the 3rd goal?

[tree house tam]

5 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Youre surely not trying to blame Millar for the 3rd goal?

Or for getting beat?

Saints playing poor and still pumped them 3 zip. Let you boys into a wee secret,  It's because Morton aren't very good.

[AsimButtHitsASix]

1 hour ago, RandomGuy. said:

Youre surely not trying to blame Millar for the 3rd goal?

More like blaming the manager for trying to press a tiring St. Johnstone team while, at the same time, putting the slowest midfielder in the professional game to do the job. 

[tree house tam]

Morton seem to have a fair amount of delusional fans on Twitter,  I include whoever runs their official account in this. Lads, apart from a 5 minute spell in the second half you did not outplay St Johnstone. At no point other than that time did you actually trouble Saints. St Johnstone played like a side who haven't had a game for a month, kept 2 of our best attacking threats on the bench(letting 1 get 8 minutes at the end) and had our 2 best ballers out "injured". It was by no means anywhere near a vintage Saints performance but yet we still pumped you 3-0. It seems we are Perth St Johnstone and are just so much better than you.

[Dunning1874]

Yeah, a lot of people seemed to have taken ‘having a lot of the ball’ as ‘controlling the game’ when we only had a lot of the ball in the first half because St Johnstone were happy to let us have it knowing they had a lead and we’re a soft touch who were unlikely to hurt them. They’re not quite strong enough defensively themselves to limit us to no chances playing that way, but they were right to do so seen as we failed to hit the target with any of the three real chances we had.

That was a much better team in control of the game and happy to let us have the ball knowing they’d get chances to finish us off, not us being in control but failing to find the breakthrough, and that’s exactly how it went. You can say it would be different if we’d managed an equaliser with one of those chances but we didn't so their gameplan worked perfectly.

The first 10 minutes of the second half we had genuine momentum and it was the one period of the game where their defence wasn’t coping, but we failed to create any real chances with it then they buried us the first time they got out of their half.

If we’d played exactly that game against a League One or Two side no one would be saying 3-0 flattered us.

[AyrshireTon]

11 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

Youre surely not trying to blame Millar for the 3rd goal?

No. The response below sums it up.

9 hours ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

More like blaming the manager for trying to press a tiring St. Johnstone team while, at the same time, putting the slowest midfielder in the professional game to do the job. 

This. Someone at the back summed it up when Millar came on by telling Hopkin that “this is just birthday card pish”.

[RandomGuy.]

9 hours ago, AsimButtHitsASix said:

More like blaming the manager for trying to press a tiring St. Johnstone team while, at the same time, putting the slowest midfielder in the professional game to do the job. 

Fair dues, I dont know enough about your squad to discuss any more tbh.

2 hours ago, tree house tam said:

Morton seem to have a fair amount of delusional fans on Twitter,  I include whoever runs their official account in this. Lads, apart from a 5 minute spell in the second half you did not outplay St Johnstone. At no point other than that time did you actually trouble Saints. St Johnstone played like a side who haven't had a game for a month, kept 2 of our best attacking threats on the bench(letting 1 get 8 minutes at the end) and had our 2 best ballers out "injured". It was by no means anywhere near a vintage Saints performance but yet we still pumped you 3-0. It seems we are Perth St Johnstone and are just so much better than you.

Aye. If they'd equalised we would maybe have brought our top scorer off the bench earlier, or even given O'Halloran a run out.

Needs to sink in that a team that hasnt played for 3 weeks, who were set up in a way they have barely played this season, purely to help the two strikers get some game time, and hopefully goals, won that 3-0. It was so comfortable we could afford to sub our right back off for a centre back, and pur left winger off for a left back, simply to get minutes in legs.

Also worth mentioning we're one of the worst top flight sides this season, and that was a poor performance. Seeing the quality of Morton is even more reason for us to fight off relegation, if that's the quality of player you end up with.

Edited January 19, 2020 by RandomGuy.