Sportscene pundits were slightly on our side re the pens.
McCann thought the longer the tug was relevant, their boy had a hold of Manny for several seconds whereas Dalby's hold was just for a couple of seconds like everyone does.
But oh the irony...that smarmy little shite Porteous was a master at winning pens with the dead fish dive.

Yeah, we've got to get our game back together & let's not blame the injuries, every team has them & our squad is reputed to be big enough to cope. We aren't troubling opposition goalies nearly enough, it's a day out for some of them.
 

Goodwin is hampering our creative players with this turgid p!sh and he will regress our youngsters progress. FRAUD

Just saw the pen on BBC. For me never a foul. Obviously the guy has a wee tug of the jumper. But just never for me. Also, don’t think it’s clear and obvious for VAR to intervene. Delighted to get a wee bit of luck and also for the hibs one after ours. Haven’t seen it on tv, but unlikely to be softer than our pen.

Slotbadger wrote:

Just saw the pen on BBC. For me never a foul. Obviously the guy has a wee tug of the jumper. But just never for me. Also, don’t think it’s clear and obvious for VAR to intervene. Delighted to get a wee bit of luck and also for the hibs one after ours. Haven’t seen it on tv, but unlikely to be softer than our pen.

Fukn take it mate, are we not due a slice of luck.
 

Finn Seemann wrote:

Ferry did manage to get himself under the ball, but the boy Miller doesn't get that run on him if Middleton does his job.  Was Middleton's man and he just left him.  So I wouldn't blame Ferry 100%.  Didn't think Ferry had a bad game apart from that.  Goodwin got his tactics wrong to start with as both wing backs were getting pegged back with little options in front of them.  Much better second half when we went to the back 4.  The Stain/Stephenson experiment down the right failed.  Strain well off the pace and Stephenson didn't really seem to know what he was doing (although was covering Strain quite a bit).  Sevelj and Babunski are not strong enough to hold centre mid on their own and the only centre half who steps up with any degree of success is injured.  I was fearful when Gallagher went off (injured?) but we actually looked better with 2 CHs and a defensive midfielder in front.  Odada looked OK - not great but given how little game time he has had I would say that it was his addition that made the difference and got us up the park enough for the point.  I thought VDS addition also helped as with him and Dalby up top Hibs suddenly has their hands full.  Dalby worked hard and took his pen very well but other than that a pretty toothless performance (albeit very little service).  Overall I don't think anyone got pass marks.  Goodwin was astute enough to make the changes that got us the point, but he's just not great at getting the starting line up right.  Hibs were gash and there for the taking.  As it was, just as well as that gash team should have been 2 or 3 up before our mini-flurry.  Hoping Sibbald and Docherty are back to fitness ASAP

As for the pen., I don't think anyone in the ground bar VAR and Manny spotted it.  Stupid shirt pull and for me a pen.  The HIbs one can be differentiated in that Manny was clearly being pulled back.  For the Hibs one the United player was goalside and it was more of a 50/50 grapple.  100% a penalty in Glasgow though...

 
Some decent point in here Finn especially about the middle of the park situation we have.

I think that where all of our problems are and it's the one area we urgently need to address, we can't go on much longer with they two in there. Odada will hopefully provide us with an option as we are very weak in the middle and the opposition have sussed it out.

Christoph Rabitsch Is exactly who I thought of when I saw odada, runs wee a limp 🤣

Snacks94 wrote:

Any word on injuries to Gallagher and Trapanovski?


Listening to the dode fox podcast this morning they were saying Trapanovski was holding his hamstring in the warm up before the game….

 
Was Gallagher definitely injured? At the game I thought he was hooked because he was playing poorly and had been booked.

Snacks94 wrote:

Slotbadger wrote:

Snacks94 wrote:

Any word on injuries to Gallagher and Trapanovski?


Listening to the dode fox podcast this morning they were saying Trapanovski was holding his hamstring in the warm up before the game….

 
Was Gallagher definitely injured? At the game I thought he was hooked because he was playing poorly and had been booked.

 
Not sure, he was limping about for a bit in first half but not sure if that was why he was subbed.  As you say he wasn’t having a good game and was also booked.

 
Too much of a gamble if he was to get sent off second half and if we'd already taken off Adegboyega we'd have no one to bring on . I reckon had he not got booked then Jim would have hooked Manny instead to stick with his usual routine.

Standing in the South Stand at Easter Road looking down at Utd in the first half watching players fail to complete a 10 yard pass to a team mate, constantly be on the back foot, either no one challenging for the ball or sometimes 3 players going for the same ball it’s hard to see what they were working on in training!

That's a great effort in post #42 CA.
I hope at the next managerial vacancy at Tannadice you'll get your CV in.

A lot of tactics these days goes over my head but can I just ask what's wrong with 4 at the back?
I've played in a back four over a thoosand times (at a very low level right enough) & it worked swimmingly.
I've also seen well over a thoosand games & can remember Gough/Hegarty/Narey/Malpas - that was good!
The SSB's had McKimmie/Miller/McLeish/Rougvie and that wasn't bad either.
Things are awfie complicated these days, it's all down to Sky & pots of money which has ruined things.
Grown men running over superimposed giant football pitches in giant TV studios talking shite. Pays the mortgage.

Football is inherently a simple game.

 

SlatefordArab wrote:

Rank rotten performance, BUT, they did keep fighting until the end so that's at least one positive for me.

The ref... this boy is unreal.  The freekick he gave Hibs that they got their goal from - fuck me.   We completely switched off there though and allowed the left back to put that cross in.

Would love a forward like the boy who scored the two for Motherwell last week - pace to burn and a handful for defenders.

 

The fighting until the end point is correct.  We have so much more of a team spirit than when the charlatan Mulgrew was best mates with the charlatan Asghar.  The boys seem to want to fight for the shirt, the fans and the manager.  That is key to us staying up.

I booed along with others at half-time given what was a really insipid performance, but I applauded (not wildly) at the end.  Thinking it over I probably shouldn't have booed, but I think they players noted it and came out a bit more up for it second half and it might have convinced Goodwin that he needed to change things up.  I think I shouldn't have booed as I've seen our best 80s teams come to Edinburgh and lose to poor Hibs and Hearts teams so 1-0 down at half-time wasn't the end of the world.  Similarly there were a few boys questioning why most were clapping at the end.  I don't get that either - we rescued a point and the boys certainly put the effort in - far from a good performance, but we did need to show the players that put the effort in and we'll support them.

As for the ref, I'm convinced he's the wee twerp that does the weather on BBC Scotland.  He's very poor, but hopeless rather than biased.  Someone needs to explain that a CH trying to get intimate with our CF is a foul.  Must have happened, without exaggeration, a dozen times and nothing.

As for your final point, pace up front is number one priority in January for me.  We've got 2 players that we can target for knock ons and no players to run on to them.  If we are going to persist with the passing around until we paint ourselves into a corner and have to hoof it up the park then we need someone with pace to make defences think.

United Arab Emarite wrote:

That's a great effort in post #42 CA.
I hope at the next managerial vacancy at Tannadice you'll get your CV in.

A lot of tactics these days goes over my head but can I just ask what's wrong with 4 at the back?
I've played in a back four over a thoosand times (at a very low level right enough) & it worked swimmingly.
I've also seen well over a thoosand games & can remember Gough/Hegarty/Narey/Malpas - that was good!
The SSB's had McKimmie/Miller/McLeish/Rougvie and that wasn't bad either.
Things are awfie complicated these days, it's all down to Sky & pots of money which has ruined things.
Grown men running over superimposed giant football pitches in giant TV studios talking shite. Pays the mortgage.

Football is inherently a simple game.
 

Cheers UAE! But I retired from coaching just before COVID and don't have any desire to go back ...

Nothing wrong with a back 4. I said on twitter during the first half on Saturday that I thought we should move to a back 4 (which he did at half time). I probably wouldn't go with 4-4-2 (which works superbly well if your central midfield is John Holt and Billy Kirkwood with Bannon on the left and Milne on the right, and the opposition rarely have the ball) but in this league it leaves us a bit open to a quick counter through the middle. I'd go with a 4-5-1 where the middle 5 has two wide players and a triangle in the middle. As we get into the attacking third the wide players tuck in (no wider than the 18 yard box) and width comes from full backs getting up the line. So you finish up with (roughly) a 2-5-3 when the ball is in the attacking third. The triangle in the middle can have two deep and one high or one deep and two high, and you can flip it multiple times during a game, if need be. With two high, you are basically playing with two guys behind your main striker, wide midfielders on either side in the box to either side of your main striker, and both full backs wide and pushed up. If there's a turnover, you have numbers and position to go into an immediate high press. You can invert the triangle during the game to having one high and two deep, if you're under the cosh a bit. And you can also vary the type of players in the triangle to determine what the overall approach is going to look like. If we're up against it, the base of the triangle are going to be two "win it and give it" types (e.g. Holt and Kirkwood, Ranks and Paton, Sibbs and Holt/Odada) with Doc at the top of the triangle. More attacking but still being safe could be any two from Sibbs, Doc and Manny at the base and Babunski at the top. Or flip it and have Sibbs at the base and Doc + Sevelj for more attacking but wary of the counter, or Sibbs at the base with Doc and Babunski high, or go for it with Doc at the base and Babunski and Kai high. The shape is consistent but the attributes of the players within the shape create different options.

I think this is sort of what JG went to at the beginning of the second half, with Odada, Sevelj and Babunski in the triangle. Except it wasn't a triangle as Babunski chases guys all over the place and so does Odada. The three in the triangle have to be fully aware of where the other two are at all times, and keep the shape and distances (which will only happen after we've worked on the whole system daily for a number of weeks). But I'd be quite happy to see that formation as Goodwin's official option 2 - though it will take until Christmas for the entire squad to get fully comfortable with both options 1 and 2. If you're miles better than your opponents, the shape really doesn't matter. But when teams are well-matched, some formations are better either at creating chances against an opponent's formation or preventing a particular opponent's formation from creating much against you. Player positions may only differ by 4 or 5 yards between 2 different formations (which is what Robbie Neilson was being flippant about when he joked about moving a guy 5 yards to his left and you've gone from a 4-5-1 to a 4-3-3 (?)) but if one of the opposition's attack strategies tries to create a diagonal channel that allows a pass to be played from near the centre circle towards a corner flag for a blindside run after a fullback has had to tuck in a bit more than they would like, and your formation change means when the ball is near the centre circle you now have someone slightly deeper and wider and taking away that channel, then the opposition might have just lost their most important attacking outlet. But that lad needs to move quickly to that correct position as the opposition is playing the ball in to their CAM near the edge of the centre circle, and if he gets it wrong and gets there too slowly, or doesn't go quite wide enough or quite deep enough by a couple of yards, the opposition exploit that error. This is why it takes 2 or 3 months for the entire team to get comfortable with a formation - they need to make the movements on autopilot, every single time. If one guy doesn't know his job or doesn't do his job perfectly, that's the error the opposition are waiting to punish.

This is also why it's pointless shouting at Goodwin to change to formation X. It's not just a case of moving Jimmy from centre half to the middle of midfield. Sure, when everyone stands still before kick-off, you might now have a 4-5-1 instead of a 5-4-1, but if the shape doesn't respond automatically to what the opponents are doing with the ball, you're dead in the water.