Tek wrote:

Adrian Sporle definitely travelled with the squad to their Glasgow Hotel.

 
Bet he starts!

SouthWestDundonian wrote:

Well that went as well as I expected.
The team are devoid of confidence, chances and greedy players who want to take shots.
The rebuild needs to come asap, and a lot of dead weight needs gone.
We stayed up and got to the semi finals; that's not bad. Next season is the real test for them all.

I just wish we had those couple of players who inspire the rest.

thats why we signed pawlett for 2 years  

Still missing players that can pass to each other and no one really turned up and put in a performance. We only started creating chances after Hibs scored the 2nd and sat back.

I’m totally split today. Dealt a bad hand in summer and have dealt with it well enough across the year to have an ok season. However, can’t help but think we’ve limited ourselves in our style of play and ability to control a game.

Today is the season in a nutshell. Might work out ok if all goes our way but that’s unlikely. I think there’s more to that squad than we regularly see. However, if we were more open perhaps we wouldn’t have been as safe as early as we were.

So perhaps take it on the chin after 4 pish seasons, accept it and go again next year.

As has happened often this season we look for 20, dinnae score.
Butcher picks up a yellow about 10 mins in, cannae do his thing therafter.
Uncharacteristic mistake by Liam leads to their first.
Basically we're fucked thereafter.
Harkes anonymous, Micky brings on impact player Pawlett  - we're fucked. And Sporle who for a' he tries, he looks clumsy.
Doidge miles offside, we're even more fucked.
Game over.

If ever there was a game for our young boys Chalmers Appere to use wide open spaces of Hampden this was it, but for whatever reason they're left collecting splinters.   Again.

Some cute wee flicks fae Shanks.
McNulty tireless.
MOTM Fuchs.

Edit .. fwiw go to DUTV really good match analysis by Marc McNulty - gutted.

Last edited by Shakey Isles Arab (08/5/2021 10:41 pm)

Tek wrote:

Didn't enjoy any of that today.

The coverage from Premier Sports first off. The pundits were Gordon Strachan, Ally McCoist, Derek McIness. WTF? Only 1 of those have ever played for either club and even McIness has no real affiliation with Utd. Where are the former Utd and Hibs players, coaches or managers of note who could have done some punditry today? They wouldn't pull this shit if it was a Rangers~Celtic Semi Final. Usual disdain shown for provincial teams. Stephen Craigan is so fucking annoying on comms also. I also hate that reverse angle that the telly companies have started to show matches at Hampden. Get it to fuck!

Was dismayed with the same starting XI and formation. We started brightly enough but we continue to look powderpuff upfront and just don't create enough, let alone score enough.

Liam Smith had a terrible first 20 minutes and was badly at fault for their 1st goal. Very poor header from him into a dangerous area of the pitch, when he was under no real pressure. Nisbet finished clinically (unlike our players).

That was about that for the 1st half which was poor.

Thought we started the 2nd half pretty well, but then we get stiffed from the linesman and from that point on the game was beyond us. Though tbf the players never threw the towel in and we created 2 or 3 good chances thereafter (but never really looked like scoring).

We definitely picked up after Sporle, and Pawlett came on and we went 442/343. Having Sporle in front of Robson always helps our shape. That said i was once again disappointed that Mellon snubbed Louis Appere and Logan Chalmers. The lack of any width in this side really is it's undoing. Look what Shankland did the only time we put in a decent delivery (from Pawlett) all day i.e. got in front of his defender and got off a good shot on target. It's criminal that we haven't played to the strenghts of our Strikers this season. There is a very good reason we are the lowest scorers in the Premier League.

All in all it was 'too little, too late' in our efforts late on in the match. Though we, admittedly, had no luck on the day either (Hibs offside goal, Butcher unfairly booked after just 10 mins and having to walk a subsequent tightrope, Robson's shot going half a foot wide at a crucial time in the match etc).

This team needs a big overhaul in the Summer if we want the club to get to the place it wants to be i.e Top 6 and back at Hampden in the near future. I'm not convinced that the recruitment will be of the quality needed and/or the Manager is the man to take us forward. An interesting and important Summer coming up.

Feels like a big, big opportunity missed today and the huge financial carrot of European Football until Xmas time is now very much gone.

Time to bleed the supporters dry again, sadly.

 

I wouldn't say a a major overhaul is needed for the top six. We missed it by one victory with the current squad.

I never thought I would say this but here goes, Shelley Kerr actually made a good point, ( I may never say that again) but she highlited that we are very short in the wide areas.
If we persist with 4,3,3 A decent LW& RW would transform the team. Apperre & Chlamers if they make it I believe are central players a 442 system is what they need for game time.

Meekinson & Fotheringham may turn out to be the wide men we need but reinforcements are needed for next season.

 

I think Tek has summed up yesterday pretty perfectly.   The Butcher booking - a joke, the offside not being seen for the second goal - a joke.  However we were poor overall really.    In saying that things could have been very different -

Shankland gets the ball in the box in the 1st half with a chance to shoot - last season he'd have one thought in his mind - bury it, instead he tries to play Clark in (to be fair it was a good ball and Clark made a hash of it).  His chance in the 2nd half too when it is cut back to him and he completely scuffs it, again - last season that is in the net.  Hibs were not great but they took the chances they got, we didn't. 

Loads on Fb & the forums wanting MM out & scrap the team. Massive rebuild needed.
Yet had we won yesterday MM & the team would have been heros.

LarsErikKjell wrote:

Yesterday summed up our season. Lots of organisation, lots of effort, but tiny errors in conceding goals and zero creativity. The Aberdeen game was the ONLY game this season that Clark, McNulty and Shankland has worked. I understand why he tried it, but Clark should have been benched yesterday with Pawlett or Sporle in his place.

Disappointed as mentioned above we never saw Appere or Chalmers yesterday, I hope to see them in our remaining matches. This team badly needs an injection of pace.

Is Micky the man to keep us in the league again next season and 'challenge' for top 6 - Yes.

Is Micky the man to take us to where we want to be? Challenging for top 4, trophies and Europe - No.

I'm not a MM fan at all. Most of his football makes me want to scoop my eyes out with a fork - but he's landed in the middle of a shitshow for football. His transfers ability has been stumped. I dont think any manager could get us to the top 4 with what we have.

I'd say he needs at least 1 window to be able to mould a team to how he likes to play....then if he's still guff, off ye pop
 

TEK summed Saturday up perfectly and Saturday was our season in a nutshell.

We can play better football than we do, we don't seem to be set up to do so from the off, there's a reluctance from the the manager it would appear to take the game to the opposition.

All factors:- Covid, season curtailed, legal challenge, no fans, the need to stop our recruitment as the manager left, can all be used to allow Mellon some leeway.

We can always  hope for more and if anyone had offered us to comfortably stay up and have a crack at a semi when none of the arse cheeks are left in the competition at the start of the season, I reckon 96.34% of fans would bite your hand off.

However, as the season progressed it was painfully obvious top six was more than achievable, the standard of teams in the league is pretty poor and for us to be up there for almost all of the 33 pre-split games then drop away was pish.

I wouldn't shed a tear if Mellon went and i'm not actively pushing a Mellon out agenda, the biggest question for me is

"Is his safety first, avoid defeat at all costs, dull uninspiring football his default setting or is it a lack of faith in the squad to play more expansive stuff on a consistent basis?"

If it's the former then I hope he goes, if it's the latter then he should get another crack, but I personally feel both parties have agreed it time to move on.