Queen's v that lot down the road

[HighlandQueen]

2 hours ago, qos1990 said:

Aye getting beat by alloa first game of season was promising…

Yes but looked like just a crazy result at 3-4.  Getting good away results at Edinburgh City and Cove looked encouraging but it all fell apart. 
 

Let’s see what happens but we look to have a more solid manager and a physically stronger team.

[HighlandQueen]

2 hours ago, Otis Blue said:

But the reaction from the fans this season after just a few games (versus where we were at this stage last season) is about more than just comparing the results.  Watching the two teams (Bartley's and Murphy's) is like night and day - it's about the organisation, the enthusiasm, the drive, the will to win all across the park, each being confident in their roles - yesterday was a breath of fresh air and you could see the effect it had on the faces of the fans - can't remember seeing as many smiling faces at Palmy for ages.  At my age I'm not daft enough to say we'll steam roller this league like we did in 2012 or whenever it was, but this team will be solid and hard to beat.  I liked what I saw yesterday.

I wasn’t there yesterday but from what you say sounds encouraging. 

[HighlandQueen]

32 minutes ago, 19QOS19 said:

Wee bit of revisionism here. I was going to put some quotes in from the match threads from the first 3 games last season but there's too many that it'll clog up the post tbh. Suffice to say, it wasn't as promising as you're remembering. 

 

I can absolutely remember saying I'd give Bartley at least until we've played everyone before starting to write him off. My take so far is I'll wait until the same time before I start to get optimistic a title challenge is a possibility - that's my point. It's night and day feelings from last season.

 

 

 

See above. There's no doubt Mimnaugh was a big loss but he was available for the first Annan game but for some reason Bartley never started him (surprised?) and he played in the awful game against Montrose. I don't think we'd have been that much better off last season if he was fit. The whole system was the problem last season. 

I'd argue Murphy has had worse luck with injuries so far (and to important players as well) and we've still managed to gather up points. 

No way of telling if Mimnaugh would have made a difference or not. I think his presence and that of Brydon would certainly have given us more options. I think we have been injury blighted last year and this with key players affected so I don’t really buy this year is particularly worse. What I do utterly agree with is that Bartleys tactics didn’t work across the season and he proved incapable of getting the players to play for him. Too early to call yet but the points we have garnered this year probably wouldn’t have been gained last year. Grittier, stronger team with a more balanced manager gives me real hope, even at this early stage. 

[19QOS19]

1 minute ago, HighlandQueen said:

No way of telling if Mimnaugh would have made a difference or not. I think his presence and that of Brydon would certainly have given us more options. I think we have been injury blighted last year and this with key players affected so I don’t really buy this year is particularly worse. What I do utterly agree with is that Bartleys tactics didn’t work across the season and he proved incapable of getting the players to play for him. Too early to call yet but the points we have garnered this year probably wouldn’t have been gained last year. Grittier, stronger team with a more balanced manager gives me real hope, even at this early stage. 

As I said, I liked Mimnaugh and he was one of the better (if not best) performers in the games I saw him in. But he wasn't that good that he could have single-handedly lifted that side further up the table. We may have been less shite to watch had he featured more often but as a collective unit we still wouldn't have been reaching the top 4 with a fit Mimnaugh. 

 

[Monkey Tennis]

4 hours ago, qos1990 said:

Aye getting beat by alloa first game of season was promising…

That defeat by one goal wasn't so vastly different from this year's opening draw, in which the consensus was that we were the poorer side, and were a little fortunate on balance, to get a point.

Following it up with three straight victories was certainly promising.

[19QOS19]

11 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

That defeat by one goal wasn't so vastly different from this year's opening draw, in which the consensus was that we were the poorer side, and were a little fortunate on balance, to get a point.

Following it up with three straight victories was certainly promising.

If you simplify it that it was a poor performance then aye. But lets not kid on it wasn't in fact vastly different. Last season we had a strong side out with 9 subs and were beaten on our own patch. This season we had 5 players out and a bench of 4 - that's before we mention we had two young boys in the starting 11. We absolutely weren't fortunate to get a point this season btw. The defending warranted a point. 

I appreciate not wanting to get carried away (especially being a QoS fan) but I genuinely can't believe folk haven't seen an improvement so far given the circumstances. FWIW, my brother-in-law commented yesterday that we were far better than when he watched us last season (the games he attended last season were vs Annan). 

[Monkey Tennis]

3 hours ago, 19QOS19 said:

Wee bit of revisionism here. 

There sure is.

Take a look at the Queens thread for the late August spell last year.  You've got fans praying that Hibs don't swoop for Bartley.

[19QOS19]

33 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

There sure is.

Take a look at the Queens thread for the late August spell last year.  You've got fans praying that Hibs don't swoop for Bartley.

Looking back I think everyone knew it wasn't a serious possibility at that time tbh. 

It doesn't change the fact that we weren't in fact blown away by Bartley at this stage last season. 

 

[Monkey Tennis]

1 hour ago, 19QOS19 said:

It doesn't change the fact that we weren't in fact blown away by Bartley at this stage last season. 

 

...and I don't think we've seen enough to be blown away by Murphy yet either, but here we are.

[19QOS19]

12 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

...and I don't think we've seen enough to be blown away by Murphy yet either, but here we are.

Fair point and I don't think anyone is suggesting it. I've seen enough so far to think we'll fair better than last season though. 

[Monkey Tennis]

6 minutes ago, 19QOS19 said:

Fair point and I don't think anyone is suggesting it. I've seen enough so far to think we'll fair better than last season though. 

We're bound to be better than last season - it was terrible, historically terrible.  I'd be astonished if it was that bad again.

I'd have been astonished last August to learn that we'd only win once more between then and December too though.

 

I'm not going on in this way as some sort of warning or anything.  I'm just responding to the idea that we're so much better off than this time last year.  I don't think we particularly are.

 

 

[19QOS19]

4 minutes ago, Monkey Tennis said:

We're bound to be better than last season - it was terrible, historically terrible.  I'd be astonished if it was that bad again.

I'd have been astonished last August to learn that we'd only win once more between then and December too though.

 

I'm not going on in this way as some sort of warning or anything.  I'm just responding to the idea that we're so much better off than this time last year.  I don't think we particularly are.

 

 

We're going to go around in circles now. I think for the sake of the thread we'll leave it at that and see how it goes over the next few games. 

[Monkey Tennis]

5 minutes ago, 19QOS19 said:

We're going to go around in circles now. I think for the sake of the thread we'll leave it at that and see how it goes over the next few games. 

Never!  Stand and fight Man.  I much prefer flogging such things to death.

I will sign off by saying that there was optimism last August, based also on the fact that Bartley had already had half a season with us and it had been a success.  There really were no indications at that stage as to where we'd soon start heading.

[Katboy]

From what I've seen so far we are definitely a better team than we were last season.  It looks as if our players are actually being encouraged to play football, and there seems to be a bit more togetherness.  Early days yet though, lets see how the next few games go.

Far removed from the shambles over which Bartley presided.

[HighlandQueen]

5 hours ago, 19QOS19 said:

As I said, I liked Mimnaugh and he was one of the better (if not best) performers in the games I saw him in. But he wasn't that good that he could have single-handedly lifted that side further up the table. We may have been less shite to watch had he featured more often but as a collective unit we still wouldn't have been reaching the top 4 with a fit Mimnaugh. 

 

That’s not my point. I said that with him and Brydon fit all season it would have given us some more options. No point guessing where it would have left us but still likely short of 4th. This year looks more promising than last but early days. Fingers crossed it all works out for us…

[Otis Blue]

Thought it was quite telling that in his post match interview wee McKechnie described the dressing room atmosphere as much better than last season with more togetherness and no rotten apples ... or words to that effect. You can see that on the pitch.

Also, re the Mimnaugh debate, whilst the lad was a decent player he was quite lightweight in a midfield of relative lightweights. Compare that to this season where we now have physical presence and power brought by the likes of Benji, Dickenson and Lyon. No wonder that benefits the likes of Cochrane who now can play some fitba. Yesterday, Todd (from our midfield of last season) was a poor shadow compared to the drive of Benji and Dickenson.

If we can keep enough of our key players fit we'll be solid and should do well. Of course, I always start new seasons optimistically ... it's what I do.

[19QOS19]

3 minutes ago, Otis Blue said:

Thought it was quite telling that in his post match interview wee McKechnie described the dressing room atmosphere as much better than last season with more togetherness and no rotten apples ... or words to that effect. You can see that on the pitch.

Aye that was interesting - "dressing room full of good guys and no bad guys". I don't suppose it matters now but my first thought was Connelly

[HighlandQueen]

11 minutes ago, Otis Blue said:

Thought it was quite telling that in his post match interview wee McKechnie described the dressing room atmosphere as much better than last season with more togetherness and no rotten apples ... or words to that effect. You can see that on the pitch.

Also, re the Mimnaugh debate, whilst the lad was a decent player he was quite lightweight in a midfield of relative lightweights. Compare that to this season where we now have physical presence and power brought by the likes of Benji, Dickenson and Lyon. No wonder that benefits the likes of Cochrane who now can play some fitba. Yesterday, Todd (from our midfield of last season) was a poor shadow compared to the drive of Benji and Dickenson.

If we can keep enough of our key players fit we'll be solid and should do well. Of course, I always start new seasons optimistically ... it's what I do.

[HighlandQueen]

7 minutes ago, 19QOS19 said:

Aye that was interesting - "dressing room full of good guys and no bad guys". I don't suppose it matters now but my first thought was Connelly

Sadly I suspect you are right…..

[Frankie S]

48 minutes ago, Otis Blue said:

Thought it was quite telling that in his post match interview wee McKechnie described the dressing room atmosphere as much better than last season with more togetherness and no rotten apples ... or words to that effect. You can see that on the pitch.

Also, re the Mimnaugh debate, whilst the lad was a decent player he was quite lightweight in a midfield of relative lightweights. Compare that to this season where we now have physical presence and power brought by the likes of Benji, Dickenson and Lyon. No wonder that benefits the likes of Cochrane who now can play some fitba. Yesterday, Todd (from our midfield of last season) was a poor shadow compared to the drive of Benji and Dickenson.

If we can keep enough of our key players fit we'll be solid and should do well. Of course, I always start new seasons optimistically ... it's what I do.

Yes, agree entirely with that. I have a distinct memory of watching the teams warm up before the away game at Edinburgh City in August last year, and thinking that the Queens team looked like a boys team - absolutely tiny, with many players also quite skinny and scrawny. It was hard to  believe that some of them weren’t mascots. It’s been a feature of Queens squads for a few years, but it seemed to ‘peak’ last season.

Over the years, whenever we came up against Ross County in the Championship, or the cups, I always felt like we’d strayed into the Land of the Giants - they always fielded huge, physically-imposing teams who looked like they’d been hand-reared in a genetics experiment, compared to our diminutive squad. Last season we had a few skillful players, but we were far too easily bullied all over the park. Without coming over all Greenacres, strength and size does make a difference at this level (and indeed at most levels) of football.

We look like a much more physically dominant team this year with the acquisition of the likes of Douglas, Hewitt, Dickenson, Lyon and Luissint. I can’t see any team at this level bullying us. At our second goal yesterday, Dickenson used his strength to shrug off a challenge, and purposefully strode through the middle of the park before picking out McKechnie. Annan were good in midfield for most of the game (they’re a decent team), wrestling back control in the 15 minutes either side of half time, after our initial period of ascendency, but Dickenson presented them with an entirely new challenge that they weren't able to match. I’m looking forward to seeing Dickenson operating in tandem with Lyon, who is another strong, imposing player with the ability to drive through the heart of the midfield.

With Hewitt, Douglas and Brydon in defence, and Lyon, Dickenson and Luissint in midfield, it will be a real challenge for any team in the division to impose themselves upon us physically. But it’s not just a matter of size and brute strength, these guys can play too.

Edited August 18 by Frankie S