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St Johnstone vs Dundee United - 5 February 2022


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We really needed to win this game. 

Ever expanding list of unavailable players/players CD refuses to pick: 
Sang (CD refuses to start him)
Hector-Ingram (CD refuses to start him)
Mahon (CD refuses to start him)
Gallacher (CD refuses to start him)
Vertainen (CD repeatedly refused to start him/now loaned out?)
Bair (not cleared yet, CD will probably refuse to start him)
Gordon (suspended yet?)
Hallberg (suspended)
Rooney (injured)
Wotherspoon (injured)
Ciftci (injured)
Bryson (injured)
Kucheriavyi (injured)

If all of this squad was available to us at the start of the season and we had a manager inclined to actually start players he signs, I suspect we'd be challenging for the top six. 

Just a touch melodramatic declaring the manager “refuses to start” players who’ve been here about a week.
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2 minutes ago, invergowrie arab said:

Who thinks that?

Tam Courts.

I think he's the only one, mind you.

Does he do the 2 subs and complete reshuffle every game or is it just against us? 

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8 minutes ago, ArabianKnight said:

Tbf to United there was a bit of improvement in their attacking play today. 

Much better than some of the turgid pish that's been on display. 

Still not there though and a puzzling line up. 

Credit to Courts he made the changes needed at half time. 

Didn’t watch so can’t argue too much, but didn’t we play most of the second half against 10 men and do f**k all?

Also - 2 CMs off and a LB and LW on? Who was playing midfield second half?

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17 minutes ago, ArabianKnight said:

CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TELL LIAM SMITH IT'S OKAY TO HIT THE BYELINE AND GET A CROSS IN. 

If Freeman is actually out for any extended time I'm hunting Smith down and smacking f**k out of him until he promises not to cut inside and do a stupid short pass ever again. 

Smith is pish. Especially going forward. But our forwards (bar Watt) are also pish going forward.

But when the manager sets up the way we did (which was what, exactly?) then no wonder its eye bleeding to watch.

Toothless, aimless and ultimately, totally shite.

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Just now, Zamora Fan said:


Just a touch melodramatic declaring the manager “refuses to start” players who’ve been here about a week.

I agree, it would be melodramatic if we were at the start of the season and could afford to throw away points. 

However, that's not where we're at. We're in a relegation battle and every game matters. 

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2 minutes ago, ArabFC said:

Didn’t watch so can’t argue too much, but didn’t we play most of the second half against 10 men and do f**k all?

Also - 2 CMs off and a LB and LW on? Who was playing midfield second half?

Butcher, Harkes and Pawlett

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2 minutes ago, mishtergrolsch said:

Smith is pish. Especially going forward. But our forwards (bar Watt) are also pish going forward.

But when the manager sets up the way we did (which was what, exactly?) then no wonder its eye bleeding to watch.

Toothless, aimless and ultimately, totally shite.

At one point, Niskanen took on their left back, cut back and instead of just laying it back to Smith, dribbled back towards him then passed. By this point, our two guys who had been almost inside the box were back 5 yards outside it, and the Fermers had 2 more defenders back between Smith and the cross.

There is no fluidity to what we do at all. Now, I'm not for a second suggesting that Smith would have produced something resembling a reasonable attempt at a cross, but we keep making it even harder for ourselves with shite like that

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Tam Courts interview on radio Scotland was hilarious. “The one thing that went against us today was St Johnstone going down to ten men.” 🤣

The red seems like nonsense to me. The laws of the game say it’s a yellow if you commit a foul and “interfere with or prevent a promising attack.” The foul - soft as it was - doesn’t prevent or interfere with anything, the attack continues and United get a good attempt away from the centre of the box. Nobody was looking for a yellow there.

That’s a good point in the circumstances. I’d like to see Sang start the next game as Brown clearly doesn’t offer anything going forward but beyond that the selection was correct today.

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23 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Progress is progress for us, with the bonus of taking points on the way. No complaints with the performance and result was probably fair tbh, we clearly had the best chance of the match and I'm still bemused it didn't go in.

Red card was a farce. A tiny tug on a player who continues with the ball and has a chance, the yellow in those situations should only be if you actually stop the counter IMO, not wee touches that don't even impede anyone. Killed our chances really since the manager can't change from a back five, got the point though so fair dues.

United are woeful, and have the hilarious trait of thinking they're not. Presumably Courts watches videos of Man City breaking deep blocks down with patient play and assumes Callum Butcher and Marc McNulty can replicate it 😂 Tony Watt reverting back to "do lots of pretty looking things nowhere near the goal" mode was handy too, he was your only threat yet spent his game passing back to full backs.

Might be having some sort of meltdown but have to agree with Random Guy. Ref sends a player off for minimal contact but let’s Watt away with blatant pull back . It’s the inconsistency that drives you daft.

Overall thought we at least forced Siegrist into a couple of saves so deserved at least a point. Ironic that the sending off saw us falling into 2 defensive lines which probably didn’t suit the Arabs. They are much happier when teams come on to them allowing them to counter. As no score draws go though I quite enjoyed it.

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9 minutes ago, Mark Connolly said:

At one point, Niskanen took on their left back, cut back and instead of just laying it back to Smith, dribbled back towards him then passed. By this point, our two guys who had been almost inside the box were back 5 yards outside it, and the Fermers had 2 more defenders back between Smith and the cross.

There is no fluidity to what we do at all. Now, I'm not for a second suggesting that Smith would have produced something resembling a reasonable attempt at a cross, but we keep making it even harder for ourselves with shite like that

Agree. 

Its the same under Courts as it has been under a few managers.

Laboured. Unimaginative. Boring. Toothless.

 

Courts, imo, is rubbish and is on par with the likes of Csaba, McKinnon, Brewster, Chisholm in the "Jesus Christ don't fucking remind me about that era" bracket. 

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Thought saints were the better team and if we had nicked it I’m not sure any Utd fan could complain. 
 

Courts’ subs at half time cost them - our game plan was to stop levitt - if he was still on the field when we were down to 10 it could’ve been different. 
 

Our subs didn’t help us either especially McPherson, who excluding one nutmeg was brutal. 
 

Hendry and May looked like they worked well together. 

 

All in all good performance for us

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Well on the one hand, it’s another point and we’re looking much more of a team than the debacle that’s been the first half of the season. And plenty of new players to still come in.

However I can’t help think if we’d been more positive after the red card we could still have won as it was pretty obvious United weren’t up to much. We dropped back into survival mode as if we were two or three players down rather than one which is a bit baffling really. I’d rather have seen Middleton on instead of MacPherson who is still honking. 

Finally, sad times if that’s a red card. The guy committed two fouls in the game and neither were bad fouls. You’ve got other players committing more fouls in the game and escaping without bookings. Ridiculous and ruined a half decent game. 

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Think we would have gone on to win that with 11 men. Never really thought United would score. Just a pity Ali Crawford didn't bury that chance however that's us on a little run and we should be ok if we continue to pick up points and must beat the teams we have a chance to catch. It really is a funny league this year.

Edited by akuram
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The problem is whatever I/we think, Colin Steven obviously feels the first foul merited a booking, so he doesn't feel the need to show the sort of discretion I/we believe he should for the shirt pull. 

It's frustrating as Saints are penalised more than anyone in the league for fouls and it is hard to feel we aren't getting a rough deal this season. 

Really liked Hallberg again before the red and he'll be a huge miss on Wednesday. Disagree with what a couple of others have said recently as I've taken to Butterfield a bit more in the past couple of games.

On the flip side, I worry with Cammy MacPherson that he doesn't really know what is being asked of him at times. 

Obviously take the point but we a teetering here. If we don't pick up anything at St Mirren, I think we'll need 3 wins from 8 games before the split just to keep in touch and that includes two Old Firm games, Hearts and away at Aberdeen and Hibs.

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