Walton
Stephenson Gallagher Graham ferry
Thomson docherty Sevelj Middleton
VDS moult

Craig Napier is the ref, get the mortgage on Killie, and at least one massive shitey wrong call going against us despite VAR being in place.

The little raft faced useless bastard
 

Was Napier the ref in the Rooney kicking debacle a couple of weeks ago?

kdyteejay wrote:

Was Napier the ref in the Rooney kicking debacle a couple of weeks ago?

 
He was the ref when we drew at home with St Mirren when Main threw himself over and he awarded a pen. He’s a shit ref.

Still united have never commented on this apparent audio from the pen…

Finn Seemann wrote:

It will be the usual physical battle with Killie.  Might sound unpopular, but I'd start the same team as we started against Motherwell with the same tactics.  I'd be telling Bubunski, Trapa and VDS to hold on to the ball a little longer and draw fouls.  I'd also make the same forward position subbies around the same time (assuming the tactics have succeeded in no goals) but would go for Thomson rather than Meshack.

There will be no prizes if we ignore the physical threat and their pace down the wings.  I'd happily take a point now.

Currently not going, but Rugby Park, the new St Mirren ground and County are the only grounds i've not been to in the league so will tick off this season.

 
Decided to go for it. First trip to Rugby Park

RogerTheAlien wrote:

Finn Seemann wrote:

Finn Seemann wrote:

It will be the usual physical battle with Killie.  Might sound unpopular, but I'd start the same team as we started against Motherwell with the same tactics.  I'd be telling Bubunski, Trapa and VDS to hold on to the ball a little longer and draw fouls.  I'd also make the same forward position subbies around the same time (assuming the tactics have succeeded in no goals) but would go for Thomson rather than Meshack.

There will be no prizes if we ignore the physical threat and their pace down the wings.  I'd happily take a point now.

Currently not going, but Rugby Park, the new St Mirren ground and County are the only grounds i've not been to in the league so will tick off this season.

 
Decided to go for it. First trip to Rugby Park

 
This is about my 10th time down there and like the other 9 i’m not that arsed. Shite away day at a shite stadium in a shitehole town.

Not quite sure how I have missed Rugby Park up til now.  I even lived in Newton Mearns for 4 years which is pretty close!  Kilmarnock is a shithole right enough.  I think I have avoided recently as we are generally shit on plastic.  Anyway it ticks one of the missing league grounds off my list up to 27 out of 42.  Still a few to go, but thankfully we don't play League 1 and 2 teams that often... just 4 missing in top 2 leagues.  Two in each - County (will sort this season), St Mirren (not been to new ground, maybe following weekend); Airdieonians and Ayr United.

RogerTheAlien wrote:

 
This is about my 10th time down there and like the other 9 i’m not that arsed. Shite away day at a shite stadium in a shitehole town.

I'm guessing your day job isn't as a motivational speaker? 

Tek wrote:

RogerTheAlien wrote:

 
This is about my 10th time down there and like the other 9 i’m not that arsed. Shite away day at a shite stadium in a shitehole town.

A bit unfair imo.

I actually like Rugby Park. You get an excellent view of the game from that stand behind the goal. In the old days of the terracing there it used to be a very cold, open terrace. Not always an enjoyable experience.

The town has bad areas (like most town and cities), but some nice parts too. 


 

 
Yeah the away end is excellent but it’s just a trip i have never marked out as a great day out. Much prefer going to Ayr (thankfully we don’t have to this season).

redford_must_score wrote:

David_Blunkett wrote:

Craig Napier is the ref, get the mortgage on Killie, and at least one massive shitey wrong call going against us despite VAR being in place.

The little raft faced useless bastard
 

 
Horrible incompetent useless ref. I hoped he had been binned 🙁

 
Was getting Napier mixed up with someone else. Was ok today, handled the VAR decisions correctly.

Quoting myself here from last week's Motherwell thread.

Canadian Arab wrote:

He (Goodwin) now has a pretty good idea of exactly what we've got in the squad, and I'm guessing he has decided that our best chance of taking something from any game is to focus on being hard to score against, and hope that the one, maybe two goals we could score will get us a point or three reasonably often. The alternative is going to a formation with two up top where we're probably going to score one, have a reasonable chance of two and might score three, but we'll probably concede an average of between 1 and 2 per game from open play.

Over the piece, the two approaches might see us finish up with a similar number of points. The second approach is more likely to see us taking a pumping from Celtic and losing by 2 or 3 to a few others. It also might be more entertaining for the fans. Maybe Goodwin thinks the first approach, based on the squad we've got, is the approach that might see us finish up with an extra 3 or 4 points in the season, compared with "going for it". As Tek pointed out, this more risk-averse thinking might make him unpopular with a few fans.

I agree Goodwin needs to do something to give us more threat going forward, but I don't want it to be at the expense of conceding more often.

Today's game was pretty much what I was concerned would happen. We had more threat going forward, but a team that hasn't won all season repeatedly found space in and around our box, and scored three. With hindsight, had Goodwin reverted to our usual formation at half time, subbed off Dalby (who was doing okay) and stuck Sevelj (or even Holt) as a CDM, we might have had a better chance of taking 3 points. But we were playing quite well and causing them problems, so I can understand why he left it.

That said, at half time I knew McInnes would try something different in the second half. He's an experienced manager. And I hoped Jim would also know that and would be ready to counter whatever McInnes changed. By the time we were 3-1 down, 15 minutes later, I thought to myself "Goodwin is being completely out-coached here", and I didn't see that comeback happening. Credit to him for making major changes that got us a point in the end.
 

CCX2 2010 wrote:

I think it's only fair to call these things out when they fall for us but that's never a penalty, we will rip the arm if you for it but again that guy was miles away from it and it was of the very very soft variety.

.

I thought it was very soft too, but tbf Killie's 3rd definitely looked offside.

So, a draw probably fair in the end as you said.
 

Well that was some rollercoaster.

Would have taken a point a KO.
Agree with pretty much everything said above but special mention needs to go to the character of these players. From 1-0 we shot ourselves in the foot but woke up just in time to fight and claw our way back to a point. McInness outfoxed Goodwin with his changes (thought we should have changed at that time as Dalby and Moult had run their race) but credit to Goodwin he threw the kitchen sink at it and we got the draw.

Massive pressure on Ross Graham there at the end but he slotted that pen away no bother.

A very strange game. I thought it turned in their favour when Gallacher meekly conceded a throw when he could have blootered it closer to Ayr. Quick throw, 1-1. Then we just lost all composure.

But if you had been offered our league position and results so far when the fixtures came out I suspect most of us would have happily taken it. Not losing the derby, a win at Tynecastle and a point at a very tricky Kilmarnock venue. Taken altogether it's maybe been a bit up and down but could have been so much worse as well.

As Tek says we need to be more offensive more proactive in getting a second goal when 1 ahead. The number of crosses they put into our box was ridiculous. Derek's team talk must be get as many crosses in as possible or you're getting dropped for next week. Very old school but statistically (Canada) maybe proved effective. Did my head in watching that.

Other observations we struggled at times with the bounce on that surface you can see why they get so many points at home. Get it to fuck. It's an unfair advantage.
And I didn't think the ref was as bad as some have said, seen plenty worse officiating at some of our games.

Delighted for the players, happy that Goodwin's kitchen sink did the trick and delighted for the travelling Arabs who must have mostly thought we were dead and buried after our shocking 20 minute disaster.