Horrendous.

Said it after the Brechin game I was worried about moult, today has confirmed it, him and Middleton are no where near good enough for the premiership.

Fucking pathetic start to the season

This cup is basically our pre season. All that matters is the league, so I wouldn't worry about today. Play the likes of Gallagher, Watt, Grimshaw and Richards from the start on Tuesday and get everyone up to speed fitness wise.

Last edited by AlwaysUnited (13/7/2024 4:18 pm)

I know it’s the first game and on the plastic and any other excuses that’s can be made but there is know way we should be getting schooled from Falkirk AGAIN.

See your possession football, passing stats, xG and all that other fucking nonsense. Get that in the bin.
Repetitive pish that gets us nowhere as we’re not good enough (never have been since that fandom came about) to fanny about with that and still win.

Couldn’t care if he’s treating this as a pre season, it’s one of 2 domestic trophies we should be aiming to win, with a chance of actually doing something in. Should be treating it with a bit of oomf, give us something to have going for us. Instead of sucking the life out of us from the first fucking game!

Football is an easy game if you play to your strengths, and that for us, is playing it forward.

Hard to take any positives from that.

Defense loomed shaky, right from first minute when a simple long ball caught us out and they hit the bar.

Midfield outnumbered. Miller thompson is a good young player but I don't think playing him in centre midfield worked, too often sibbald was left isolated.

And the strikers, not sure what I can say. Hopefully more to come from number 7 when he is fitter and adapts to scottish football.

You can't win football matches without a midfield. 2 CM starters need to be signed or this is going to be a season long relegation battle.

Schooled by another lower league team in the cup, with us most likely not gonna progress, jim has to get us started positively in the league or he’s in trouble.

Not gonna get too carried away with today, but my biggest concern is how unfit we looked. Even the subs coming on; Watt, Fotheringham etc. looked like they were blowing out their hoop after 10 minutes. We looked extremely one-paced, the players seem to be taking cues from some of the shite that’s been served up at the Euro’s with all the backwards passes they were playing.

I’ve never liked us playing 3 at the back. I think it’s an awkward way to play in terms of your player’s positioning on the park, and while you’d think having an extra defender in there would make you more solid, I often think it actually does the opposite . The wide centre halves don’t seem to know whether to stay in their position or go wide and opposition wingers running at them. Likewise the wing backs seem unsure whether to bomb forward or stay within their own half, and often get caught in no man’s land. Not saying it can’t work, but it requires a lot time and drilling to be successful.

We should also be thinking about making a move for the boy Morrison at Falkirk. He’s a Premiership-ready footballer without even a shadow of a doubt, and a good one I’d reckon. Fast, direct and has the confidence to run at boys. He had Holt for shitty paper all afternoon, he looked totally bamboozled at times when Morrison was running at him. I’m all for us taking a punt on a few foreign players, but we still need to be paying attention to boys closer to home, and he is such an obvious signing for us to make. He’s the sort of player Levein & Houston would’ve snapped up in a heartbeat back in the day,

Tek wrote:

Morphman wrote:

Have to say the lineup immediately set alarm bells off when I saw it. 6 defensive players in the lineup, .

This is entirely Goodwin's side now so unfortunately get used to it.

He will cram in as many defenders as possible. He's still even talking about signing another Centre Half. 

Despite the fact we need 2 Strikers, Right winger, 2 central midfielders first.

In fact they should have been made a priority. 

Huge week coming up on and off the park and there can be no excuses on Tuesday night. None at all.
 

 
I’d still be signing another centre half too to be honest. We’ve only got 4 to play in 3 positions as it stands, and if Goodwin at any point decides to switch to a back 4, I’d be concerned at Sevelj’s lack of height playing centre half in a back 4.

I agree we need players in all the positions you mention, but you don’t always get them in order of importance.

JerryDungle wrote:

Tek wrote:

Morphman wrote:

Have to say the lineup immediately set alarm bells off when I saw it. 6 defensive players in the lineup, .

This is entirely Goodwin's side now so unfortunately get used to it.

He will cram in as many defenders as possible. He's still even talking about signing another Centre Half. 

Despite the fact we need 2 Strikers, Right winger, 2 central midfielders first.

In fact they should have been made a priority. 

Huge week coming up on and off the park and there can be no excuses on Tuesday night. None at all.
 

 
I’d still be signing another centre half too to be honest. We’ve only got 4 to play in 3 positions as it stands, and if Goodwin at any point decides to switch to a back 4, I’d be concerned at Sevelj’s lack of height playing centre half in a back 4.

I agree we need players in all the positions you mention, but you don’t always get them in order of importance.

If there is only budget for another 4 players though say and he uses that on another CH (and one will have to be a CDM) then he's used almost the entire budget on defensive players and Goalies (bar Trapanovski).

It would leave very little budget for the attacking options we badly need. 

If Sevelj is too wee at CH he should just try him at CDM on Tuesday, drop the back 3 nonsense and go back to a back four. He wont though.
 

The only boy who came out of that game with any shred of credit was Ferry.  Thought he played well.  As for the rest, as has already been said I thought they all looked so unfit and one-paced.  Trapanovski looked bright in the first 20 mins then faded badly.

Also thought we looked very unorganised.  We’re all over the place at times.

Playing Miller in central midfield next to Sibbald?  Where did that come from?

Last edited by SlatefordArab (14/7/2024 6:39 am)

Tek wrote:

JerryDungle wrote:

Not gonna get too carried away with today, but my biggest concern is how unfit we looked. Even the subs coming on; Watt, Fotheringham etc. looked like they were blowing out their hoop after 10 minutes. We looked extremely one-paced, the players seem to be taking cues from some of the shite that’s been served up at the Euro’s with all the backwards passes they were playing.

I’ve never liked us playing 3 at the back. I think it’s an awkward way to play in terms of your player’s positioning on the park, and while you’d think having an extra defender in there would make you more solid, I often think it actually does the opposite . The wide centre halves don’t seem to know whether to stay in their position or go wide and opposition wingers running at them. Likewise the wing backs seem unsure whether to bomb forward or stay within their own half, and often get caught in no man’s land. Not saying it can’t work, but it requires a lot time and drilling to be successful.

We should also be thinking about making a move for the boy Morrison at Falkirk. He’s a Premiership-ready footballer without even a shadow of a doubt, and a good one I’d reckon. Fast, direct and has the confidence to run at boys. He had Holt for shitty paper all afternoon, he looked totally bamboozled at times when Morrison was running at him. I’m all for us taking a punt on a few foreign players, but we still need to be paying attention to boys closer to home, and he is such an obvious signing for us to make. He’s the sort of player Levein & Houston would’ve snapped up in a heartbeat back in the day,

Good post and just to address one or two of the points you made.

Firstly on the issue of fitness (or lack there of).

Utd were the first SPFL club to return to training. They have been back 4 weeks. Just how is it possible that they are so unfit at this stage? They had a week down at Mottram Hall in England (at great expense to the club i'd imagine). This seems a very poor excuse for Goodwin to come out with even this early in the season.

On the point about the Falkirk winger Morrison. I recall we were both begging the club to sign him after he ripped us apart in the 4-2 game and indeed we could have signed him in January either on a pre-contract or there and then for a possible modest fee. now if we did try and sign him it would be a good six figure sum, so probably beyond us.

It infuriates me that we see players like Morrison and Scott Tiffoney (remember he similarly ragdolled us with Partick) and can get them for free, but fail to see talent when it's right under our noses. 

As you said, Levein/Houston would have snapped up these type of young, hungry attacking players.

P.s. not great that Holt is again being ripped apart from a player playing at a lower level. Doesn't bode at all well for his Premiership season.
 

 
The lack of fitness excuse doesn’t wash. If we were playing against a team that was halfway through their season then fine. But Falkirk are at the same stage of their pre-season as we are, so it should all be relative.

I don’t want to hear that used as an excuse if we drop points in any of our next 3 games. Every club is roughly at the exact same stage of their pre-season. We’re the biggest club in our group with the biggest resources and the biggest spend on sports science and physios, not to mention on players themselves, fitness relative to other clubs shouldn’t be an issue.

dufc2019 wrote:

any chance our captain can take a bit of time off the drink to actually let his body heal ?

That's not nice, be careful what you repeat.