VincentGuerin Posted October 31, 2022 Share Posted October 31, 2022 (edited) On 28/10/2022 at 14:15, Stylish Kid said: Bummer to lose Kingsley, he looked gutted too - could be out for a while. Hopefully though, Sibbick has turned a corner, and he'll probably have some dips but with any luck the fans will be off his back and he's got a bit more confidence. Sibbick was decent again yesterday at times, but the defence was a general shambles and against most other teams in the league we'd have conceded more than once. It's getting old but we need defenders back, it's really simple. Huge run of games coming up now. I think it's hugely encouraging that with everything that's been going on, we're now two points behind Aberdeen and three behind Hibs with a game in hand. If I were a supporter of either of those sides, I'd be very disappointed by those relative positions considering our schedule, fixtures, and injuries. I think what we've seen so far shows we won't have to be great to finish third again. But it's no use unless we go and put points on the board now. I'd take three wins from the next five games. That would leave us in a decent place. Edited October 31, 2022 by VincentGuerin 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tony Wonder Posted October 31, 2022 Share Posted October 31, 2022 Evening News saying Haring and Devlin should be available for Thursday. Halkett, Humphrys & Atkinson are touch and go and should be back for Sunday if not and that Rowles should be in contention for Motherwell. Really encouraging to see players starting to come back, will be a huge lift. Kinglsey out til after the WC break though, obviously we can't be keeping all important players fit. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC92 Posted November 1, 2022 Share Posted November 1, 2022 October was picked out as an extremely tough-looking month even before we knew how injury-ravaged we'd be. It's largely been a grim watch, but we've ultimately come out of it in an ok position. As a rule of thumb you'll usually have a good chance of third if you can average 2 points per game against the teams outside the Old Firm (i.e. 60 points). We're currently pretty close to that on 1.9 PPG from 9 games despite only played 3 of those at home. Another encouraging thing is that nobody's doing any better on that score yet despite all having played 1 fewer OF game and 2/3 extra non-OF home games. Maybe the tough run over September/October has been a slight blessing in disguise in the sense that it's not given us much of an opportunity to drop "bad" points in our weakened state. Our dropped points so far have all come from away from home or against the OF and we've been able to keep them to a respectable level. If we'd had a couple of home results like Killie in the cup then the outlook wouldn't seem so good. It doesn't get much easier with (I'm assuming) still a bunch of defenders missing for Sunday and a trip to Ibrox next midweek but we've got a much nicer-looking run-in than our rivals after the WC, so if we can avoid any more broken bones and fucked knees and stay within 3-4 points at the break I'll be fairly optimistic. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VincentGuerin Posted November 1, 2022 Share Posted November 1, 2022 16 minutes ago, DC92 said: Maybe the tough run over September/October has been a slight blessing in disguise in the sense that it's not given us much of an opportunity to drop "bad" points in our weakened state. I was thinking this as well. It's probably as well to get that run out the way while missing players then hopefully push on with a stronger line-up with more winnable points. If I'd been offered this league situation at the start of October, I'd have bitten your hand off. I think we're pretty well-placed now and reason to be optimistic. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC92 Posted November 1, 2022 Share Posted November 1, 2022 59 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said: I was thinking this as well. It's probably as well to get that run out the way while missing players then hopefully push on with a stronger line-up with more winnable points. If I'd been offered this league situation at the start of October, I'd have bitten your hand off. I think we're pretty well-placed now and reason to be optimistic. That's my thinking, although if we hadn't picked up that couple of wins on the road and Hibs had beaten Dundee United and/or St Johnstone we could have been 10+ points behind by now which would have been a nightmare. We've been a bit lucky no-one else has been particularly consistent so far, but the team have shown a bit of character in this run as well. Of our last 5 post-European games, 4 have been away and we've been missing Halkett plus Rowles and/or Kingsley in all of them, but we still managed to pick up 10 points from 15, with 7 of those coming from losing positions. Playing twice a week with a fucked defence and still grinding out results away from home and against tricky opposition in Europe can't be taken for granted, because we could very easily have been in deep shit just now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VincentGuerin Posted November 2, 2022 Share Posted November 2, 2022 9 hours ago, DC92 said: That's my thinking, although if we hadn't picked up that couple of wins on the road and Hibs had beaten Dundee United and/or St Johnstone we could have been 10+ points behind by now which would have been a nightmare. We've been a bit lucky no-one else has been particularly consistent so far, but the team have shown a bit of character in this run as well. Of our last 5 post-European games, 4 have been away and we've been missing Halkett plus Rowles and/or Kingsley in all of them, but we still managed to pick up 10 points from 15, with 7 of those coming from losing positions. Playing twice a week with a fucked defence and still grinding out results away from home and against tricky opposition in Europe can't be taken for granted, because we could very easily have been in deep shit just now. Looking through Hibs and Aberdeen's results over the same period, they've both done ok. But Hibs lost at Tannadice and at home to the fermers. You'd probably expect them to take four points there, and that changes the outlook a bit. Aberdeen have broadly done fine apart from defeat at Tannadice and dropping points in injury time in Dingwall. The point being that neither of them have set the heather alight (despite having much easier fixtures than us), but they've not had horror runs either. I think the story here is Hearts pulling 7 great points out the bag to stay in touch. Atkinson's equaliser at Killie was a big moment for the team. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gorgie greatness Posted November 3, 2022 Share Posted November 3, 2022 (edited) TF the European campaign is over not sure the money was worth some of the ridders! Suppose we weren’t the only Scottish reps for ridders! Onwards & upwards starting with Motherwell this Sunday fth Edited November 3, 2022 by Gorgie greatness 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingjoey Posted November 3, 2022 Share Posted November 3, 2022 1 hour ago, Gorgie greatness said: TF the European campaign is over not sure the money was worth some of the ridders! Suppose we weren’t the only Scottish reps for ridders! Onwards & upwards starting with Motherwell this Sunday fth Hearts beat the team that they would have been expected to beat, so nothing really embarrassing from them on the pitch, just Neilson off it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VincentGuerin Posted November 6, 2022 Share Posted November 6, 2022 I'm not sure how I feel at the moment. Am I starting to like Andy Halliday? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elixir Posted November 6, 2022 Share Posted November 6, 2022 50 minutes ago, VincentGuerin said: I'm not sure how I feel at the moment. Am I starting to like Andy Halliday? He's always been a solid player for us really. Especially liked him since his two good goals against Hibs last season. Anyway, the shape might take some work, but something like this after the World Cup break would be disgustaaan: Gordon Smith/Atkinson Halkett Rowles Kingsley McKay Beni Devlin Snoddy Halliday/Cochrane Shankland 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC92 Posted November 6, 2022 Share Posted November 6, 2022 Never minded Halliday as a person and gave always found it weird how much vitriol he inspires. Despite obviously being a big *** I think he comes across as a reasonable guy rather than the Lafferty-esque idiot he's painted as. My issue was that I thought he was shite at football. Watching him put in completely ineffectual performances in midfield in the Championship season was grim. I'm happy to say I was wrong though as he's been very good since the turn of the year. He must have played about 5 different positions this season as well. Brilliant squad player to have. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VincentGuerin Posted November 7, 2022 Share Posted November 7, 2022 11 hours ago, DC92 said: Never minded Halliday as a person and gave always found it weird how much vitriol he inspires. Despite obviously being a big *** I think he comes across as a reasonable guy rather than the Lafferty-esque idiot he's painted as. My issue was that I thought he was shite at football. Watching him put in completely ineffectual performances in midfield in the Championship season was grim. I'm happy to say I was wrong though as he's been very good since the turn of the year. He must have played about 5 different positions this season as well. Brilliant squad player to have. Halliday and Cochrane have both responded really well to the situation we've been in. They've both grown into it, imo. Cochrane looks a much more confident first-team player, and his performances just keep improving. Similarly, Halliday has really stepped up and shown a bit of leadership. He's got a great attitude. He kept making runs yesterday to try and help McKay out, and he's coming across as a real calming influence. What's been impressive about the club is that, while we fans have never stopped banging on about injuries, the staff and players are just getting on with it and not making a fuss. There's a long season ahead, but the staff and squad have been impressive so far. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derry Alli Posted November 7, 2022 Share Posted November 7, 2022 12 hours ago, DC92 said: I'm happy to say I was wrong though as he's been very good since the turn of the year. He must have played about 5 different positions this season as well. Brilliant squad player to have. It's crazy, elsewhere there's Sint Mirren fans calling him a championship jobber. It must be extremely difficult to get in their squad, after all Curtis Main (who they wanted punted( in now Christian Vieri and they're mostly raging half their team aren't getting in World Cup squads. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paranoid android Posted November 7, 2022 Share Posted November 7, 2022 Aye, I was never sure about Halliday as a player, but he's been good recently, and seems like a decent c**t overall. Speaks very well about the game as well, imo, despite being a *** b*****d. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VincentGuerin Posted November 7, 2022 Share Posted November 7, 2022 1 hour ago, paranoid android said: Aye, I was never sure about Halliday as a player, but he's been good recently, and seems like a decent c**t overall. Speaks very well about the game as well, imo, despite being a *** b*****d. This is where I am. He's even the fitba player I've heard give the the most anti-VAR view in public recently. I'm very worried about myself. Halliday poster on the bedroom wall soon. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eednud Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 Nathaniel Atkinson and Cameron Devlin off to Qatar with the Socceroos. https://www.socceroos.com.au/news/socceroos-squad-announced-fifa-world-cup-qatar-2022tm 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
topcat(The most tip top) Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 3 hours ago, Eednud said: Nathaniel Atkinson, Cameron Devlin & Kye Rowles off to Qatar with the Socceroos. https://www.socceroos.com.au/news/socceroos-squad-announced-fifa-world-cup-qatar-2022tm FTFY 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
topcat(The most tip top) Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 18 hours ago, VincentGuerin said: This is where I am. He's even the fitba player I've heard give the the most anti-VAR view in public recently. I'm very worried about myself. Halliday poster on the bedroom wall soon. Sure Andy Halliday's great but he's no Neil MacFarlane 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. X Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 2 hours ago, topcat(The most tip top) said: FTFY That should keep the money rolling in for a wee while anyway. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VincentGuerin Posted November 8, 2022 Share Posted November 8, 2022 5 minutes ago, Mr. X said: That should keep the money rolling in for a wee while anyway. I believe we're on 26 grand a day in total for the period they're away. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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