Mid-term report card

[Disco Duck]

How would you rate your team’s performance for the first half of the season?

As far as Falkirk are concerned, it’s a definite improvement to watch.  Up front is a lot more dynamic with Burrell and Alegria as genuine pacy threats and miles better than previous offerings.  Morrison and Kennedy are both entertaining and infuriating by turns.  McGinn was a massive improvement early doors but has gone off the boil a bit.  Nesbitt is no world beater but much more consistent.  Donaldson is a great signing and McCann our player of the season so far for me.

However, we are shipping far too many goals.  Any combination of Henderson/McKay/Williamson/Yeats are all accidents waiting to happen and McGinn seems to have become very iffy, and that will only get worse if Hogarth goes.

McGlynn is a manager I trust to get things right, much more so than the series of inexperienced random punters we’ve had over the last decade (Houston excepted).  He seems to have stopped the rot, and made us better to watch.  Next step is consistency and solidity.

Overall, I’d say a B- for us.  Room to improve, but compared to the Fail of previous years we’re in much better shape than before.

[BFTD]

We were doing better than I'd feared at the start of the season, but we've only had one win in the last six (I believe), so we've slipped back a wee bit at a point where we could've been cementing a spot in the play-offs. The manager likes to put players in different positions, and we'd surely do better using them where they're more effective and bringing in a couple of guys who actually play there.

I'd have been a bit more positive a month ago, but I'd say it's a solid C season so far. Still plenty of improvement possible, and I don't think there's a lot of strengthening necessary to challenge for 4th, at least.

[HoBNob]

Very content, I moaned allot during Grant's and Hughes tenure that I don't care for pointless passing football, just get me results. And we've got that, we are a thoroughly unpleasent side to play against, and we seem to be extremely consistent, good traits for a title winning side. 

Silly points dropped against Peterhead make us an A- I'd say. 

 

It might be worth another thread but does anyone have a team of the half season from players they've watched? There will obviously be biased towards your own side. 

From Dunfermline I'd say that Edwards and Benedictus are a shoe in, there's not a better left back in the league, while Benedictus will sweep our pots awards. 

I'd argue that Mehmet and Chalmers deserve a place, two much maligned players from previous seasons however both have really stepped up this season.

 

Ourwith that I've been impressed with Scougall at Alloa, Burrell gave us out toughest half this year, Frizzell looked good for Airdrie and I'd imagine they'd be in a better place if he wasn't injured for so long. Wilson played well against us, I'm still a big fan. 

I'd go for

Mehmet

Comrie-Benedictus-Donaldson-Edwards 

Scougall-Wilson-Chalmers-Frizzell

Burrel-Allan

 

I'd imagine they'll be a bit of laughter about Allan, however he was a right pest a few weeks ago and scored a double against us, I actually struggled for a right back,i don't think any have impressed against us so Comrie gets thrown in on account of being a part of such a miserable defence. 

[peternapper]

Have to hope its a season of two halves, the first part has been a nightmare, we were unable to put a squad together after losing 14 players from last year, found ourselves having to sign players to be able to field a team in the league cup with no trialists allowed we were down to 8 players and only got a keeper the day before the first game. This obviously led to a poor start which we have not recovered from. Davie Robertson has come in and identified our shortcomings and will try to turn things round. Think the best we can hope for is to beat Clyde in the 2nd half of the season and get ourselves a chance in the play-off to stay in the league.

[19QOS19]

[BFTD]

A better second half to the season could see Queens in the play-offs. In a league featuring Falkirk and Dunfermline, where only one side are guaranteed promotion, that's not a total disaster. Whether or not that turnaround seems possible is another matter.

We've been in Peterhead's position of waiting too long to assemble a squad; the nightmare of instantly realising that all these long-shots brought in at the last minute are way out of their depth  

[Disco Duck]

9 minutes ago, BFTD said:

We've been in Peterhead's position of waiting too long to assemble a squad; the nightmare of instantly realising that all these long-shots brought in at the last minute are way out of their depth  

You’ve just summed up every Falkirk season since the end of 2016/17.

[Kelheart]

We were not at the races at the start of the season just coming up short despite not playing that badly at times , picked up points but squad is a bit light in good options off the bench so I’m going for a B- so far trying hard but could do better 

[Monkey Tennis]

Pretty dreadful.

Very poorly placed in the league.  We are incredibly brittle and seemingly incapable of withstanding setbacks, crumbling frequently to heavy defeats in matches that had been reasonably close.

We're already out of the big Cup and are currently without a permanent manager, as the last one oversaw poor form, and now faces charges for racially aggravated behaviour.

I suppose a silver lining could be found in the fact that we got through our League Cup group and landed a lucrative tie.  That feels like a long time ago though, and we've yet to see a benefit.

Some of us were hopeful that dropping a division would at least see us winning more frequently, particularly at home.  That's barely happened though and our gates are understandably dwindling.

Grim right now.

[Dougie Mills]

Absolutely shite.

[Chapelhall chap]

Given how close we came last season, it has been a realisation that it's just as tough again when so many sides could make the top four. Does look as if Dunfermline will take the top spot although we have three games still to come.

We are three points fewer than this time last season so it's not too bad.

We've lacked a large enough squad, had several goalies (5) and the best one went back to Hibernian. Having a player manager has had its good and bad vibes but largely down to late recruitment.

Up front in theory we have good strikers and once Callum Smith hits his chances we could be in a run. Frizzel is a joy to watch but we did miss the individual differences that Easton brought. In defence Fordyce has maybe been less sure this season but Watson has improved. Been dissapointed at the various cards for Ballantyne but he remains a hope for better times in 2023. All we need to do is somehow beat Edinburgh who have really impressed me each time we lost. The only poor side I've seen are Peterhead but who knows what Robertson can bring.

I'll settle for a top four place

 

 

 

[BFTD]

1 minute ago, Chapelhall chap said:

Given how close we came last season, it has been a realisation that it's just as tough again when so many sides could make the top four. Does look as if Dunfermline will take the top spot although we have three games still to come.

We are three points fewer than this time last season so it's not too bad.

We've lacked a large enough squad, had several goalies (5) and the best one went back to Hibernian. Having a player manager has had its good and bad vibes but largely down to late recruitment.

Up front in theory we have good strikers and once Callum Smith hits his chances we could be in a run. Frizzel is a joy to watch but we did miss the individual differences that Easton brought. In defence Fordyce has maybe been less sure this season but Watson has improved. Been dissapointed at the various cards for Ballantyne but he remains a hope for better times in 2023. All we need to do is somehow beat Edinburgh who have really impressed me each time we lost. The only poor side I've seen are Peterhead but who knows what Robertson can bring.

I'll settle for a top four place

What happened to you guys in October? Looking like title contenders, then dropped like a fucking stone!

[latapythelegend]

Pretty shite but marginally less shite than previous seasons. Last 6 or 7 weeks have killed us with 2 league wins since the clocks changed.

Play-offs will be our realistic aim and then hopefully we get lucky.

 

Edited December 26, 2022 by latapythelegend

[Slipmat]

Our defenders can't defend, our goalkeeper is a liability, we have around 6 players who look capable at this level and a host of charlatans.  Our recently departed manager often behaved like a child in a man's body and was quick to blame the fans when things crashed and burned around him.

A total binfire of a season.

In school report card parlance: 

Grade E minus.

Unless our next headmaster addresses our wayward behavior we deserve to be excluded or expelled.

 

[Mr November]

13 minutes ago, BFTD said:

What happened to you guys in October? Looking like title contenders, then dropped like a fucking stone!

To be honest looking back we probably didn’t play that much worse overall than we have at times either side of it, it just showed us at our worst without many of the good points. Conceding ridiculously soft goals through defensive mix-ups, not dealing with crosses and notably conceding a lot of goals from just outside the box. The MacIver goal in the Alloa game was a good example, a great finish but he gets so much time to control the ball and shoot. We were also without Adam Frizzell, who most fans would say is our best and most important player, for most of the month as well as a couple of other injuries which left a small squad very stretched. 

As you say, title contender form before and after and relegation form in between. We’ll have bad spells again but hopefully nothing quite as extreme.

[Fae_the_'briggs]

9 minutes ago, Slipmat said:

Our defenders can't defend, our goalkeeper is a liability, we have around 6 players who look capable at this level and a host of charlatans.  Our recently departed manager often behaved like a child in a man's body and was quick to blame the fans when things crashed and burned around him.

A total binfire of a season.

In school report card parlance: 

Grade E minus.

Unless our next headmaster addresses our wayward behavior we deserve to be excluded or expelled.

 

Thanks for that, was in the middle of typing something almost identical so saved me the bother. I wasn't as generous with the grade though, it's an F- for me. 

 

[Chapelhall chap]

2 hours ago, BFTD said:

What happened to you guys in October? Looking like title contenders, then dropped like a fucking stone!

Squad size mainly and poor away form with a weak midfield but hope springs eternal that the Stones are not done yet.

[Rjc-1988]

11 hours ago, Slipmat said:

Our defenders can't defend, our goalkeeper is a liability, we have around 6 players who look capable at this level and a host of charlatans.  Our recently departed manager often behaved like a child in a man's body and was quick to blame the fans when things crashed and burned around him.

A total binfire of a season.

In school report card parlance: 

Grade E minus.

Unless our next headmaster addresses our wayward behavior we deserve to be excluded or expelled.

 

A very accurate summary of things - continuing to sign squad player after squad player also compounds the misery. We have a huge squad and for once actually have some decent young local players who sadly have rarely featured because the Manager stayed loyal to under-performing players that he brought in. Losing Willie’s services as a player (for some inexplicable reason) had  disastrous consequences as it meant that this truly dreadful defence became a permanent feature. No matter the cost some of these contracts need “ripped up” asap and replacements have to be found from somewhere - it would take a monumental error of judgement for any newcomers to be worse than the defenders we currently have.

[Fae_the_'briggs]

46 minutes ago, Rjc-1988 said:

A very accurate summary of things - continuing to sign squad player after squad player also compounds the misery. We have a huge squad and for once actually have some decent young local players who sadly have rarely featured because the Manager stayed loyal to under-performing players that he brought in. Losing Willie’s services as a player (for some inexplicable reason) had  disastrous consequences as it meant that this truly dreadful defence became a permanent feature. No matter the cost some of these contracts need “ripped up” asap and replacements have to be found from somewhere - it would take a monumental error of judgement for any newcomers to be worse than the defenders we currently have.

Agreed. Our problem over the past few seasons has been the defence, a few managers during that time have failed to correct it, let's hope the next appointment addresses the issue. Having a couple of decent midfielders and forwards is all very well but building a solid base should be the priority of any manager. 

[FFC 1876]

16 hours ago, Grant228 said:

Very content, I moaned allot during Grant's and Hughes tenure that I don't care for pointless passing football, just get me results. And we've got that, we are a thoroughly unpleasent side to play against, and we seem to be extremely consistent, good traits for a title winning side. 

Silly points dropped against Peterhead make us an A- I'd say. 

 

It might be worth another thread but does anyone have a team of the half season from players they've watched? There will obviously be biased towards your own side. 

From Dunfermline I'd say that Edwards and Benedictus are a shoe in, there's not a better left back in the league, while Benedictus will sweep our pots awards. 

I'd argue that Mehmet and Chalmers deserve a place, two much maligned players from previous seasons however both have really stepped up this season.

 

Ourwith that I've been impressed with Scougall at Alloa, Burrell gave us out toughest half this year, Frizzell looked good for Airdrie and I'd imagine they'd be in a better place if he wasn't injured for so long. Wilson played well against us, I'm still a big fan. 

I'd go for

Mehmet

Comrie-Benedictus-Donaldson-Edwards 

Scougall-Wilson-Chalmers-Frizzell

Burrel-Allan

 

I'd imagine they'll be a bit of laughter about Allan, however he was a right pest a few weeks ago and scored a double against us, I actually struggled for a right back,i don't think any have impressed against us so Comrie gets thrown in on account of being a part of such a miserable defence. 

I'm being greedy and going with a 20 man squad from the league that have impressed me this season.

Murray Johnson

Scott Taggart
Sam Fisher
Coll Donaldson
Leon Mccann

Chris Mochrie
Stephen McGinn
Adam Frizzell
Callumn Morrison

Juan Alegria
Ruari Paton

Bench:

PJ Morrison
Kyle Benedictus
Josh Edwards
Iain Wilson
Nicky Low
Kai Kennedy
Callum Smith
Lewis Jamieson
Alfie Agyeman