Stillliving wrote:

Another busy week with 3 games in 6 days.
I'm hoping JG keeps the changes for the Celtic match , a game  we're not winning regardless of the starting 11.
Hearts today & StMirren next Saturday are games we could win so play your best players.
Bring the shirt fillers like Fotheringham in at Parkhead.

 
The more I've thought about it the more I think this is what we'll do. It's probably the right strategy but.....these players have been stretched to the limit and the risk is that tiredness delivers a flat performance resulting in a defeat in a game we could have won. Time will tell.

Halftime update from Morphy:

We look very leggy.
The few decent moves we have put together have been broken up by offside.
Applaude Goodwin making the changes, Odada is way too slow to play centremid. Miller Thomson probably slightly hard done as done well as he could with what was given to him which wasn't much.

Last edited by Morphman (05/1/2025 4:05 pm)

The better team won today. Maybe a timely reality check for UTD.
We are so short in many areas. To have 34 pts at this stage of the season is a commendable effort from a pretty limited squad of players.

Shitey gehm the day. We wirna at our best. Thats a cert.

A lot of poor decision making, esp in relation to passing was partly to blame. Passes that shoulda went forward went back, anes that shoulda went left went right etc etc. Odada was the worst culprit, but no the only ane. The goal came no lang efter Adegboyaa made ane oe they passes.

Goodwin played the wrang team fae the start. He realised it, and took Odada aff, but no sure what his thinking was we Thompson. He was thoroughly p1ssed off getting subbied. Middleton shouida been on fae the start.

The hoofba the day jist wisna wprking. Eh, Dalby was getting the ba, but he was isolated we twa or 3 Herts players aroond him. Even winning the ba, he would haed it on or pass, but there was nae chunt there to pass it to.Very frustrating.

MOTM phuck knows.

Today was very flat. We deserved nothing and tbh hearts didn’t really either. They did bully us though.

Said already 10/15 is a very good return but we need Moult, Sibbald and Dave back plus maybe a speedy striker in the window.

On Odada, if someone wanted him back home i would just let him go now, same with Jort. I don’t think Jort is that bad a player but we need goals from strikers and he couldn’t score in a brothel.

Some good points made about today.

It was probably the flattest most insipid performance of the season. Even when we've lost we've done so normally in the right manner (throwing the kitchen sink at it at Fir Park in a classic for example), but boy was that poor today.

Though i did get the feeling it was coming.

As Stillliving said above, we have a pretty limited squad, both in terms of ability and numbers. A lot of supporters (of other teams) have commented that we are a poor team and 'anti-football' and whilst i don't quite get on board with that, our strengths undeniably do lie in organisation and desire, rather than free flowing football and players with outright, natural talent. Unfortunately today there seemed to be nothing in the tank and Hearts did to us what we've done to a number of teams this season i.e outpressed us, outfought us and out ran us.

They thoroughly deserved their win (despite not being that great themselves).

I didn't like the line-up today at all. I felt it was overly defensive and negative, but i also thought it was extremely knee-jerk to double substitute two young players after 35 minutes. That really surprised me from Goodwin tbh, because for all my criticisms of him over the past 2 years i do regard him as a Manager who shields his players from criticism, but i felt that threw them under the bus a bit doing that rather than just wait to half time. Ironically when he made the change i actually felt we were starting to grow into the game slightly. The role Miller Thomson was asked to do was all wrong for him and i actually don't think Odada was quite as bad as is being made out. I actually feel for the lad. It won't happen for him at Utd but i also don't think he's had much of a chance. Can anyone honestly say Docherty was better today? Thought he was very poor. As was Stephenson and even Sevelj (though the latter two have played a lot of football recently).

The most disappointing aspect is NONE of the subs made any impact at all and this further hit home the need to strengthen this squad in this window, particularly in the final third.

I am not singling out Jort Van Der Sande but i just don't get United fans constantly backing the guy and asking for stats when he's on the pitch etc.That all seems like deflection somewhat. The main stat regarding him is he's been at the club 6 months, has played 23 times, zero goals, zero outright assists, and i can't even recall a shot on goal that whole time. When we bring him on it's like bringing a defender on to defend from the front.

I'm actually at the stage where i am wondering if we would be better just playing Owen Stirton ahead of him. He's already scored one in the league after all and i'm pretty sure could have done even more in that time in another 22 appearances. Not that i'm saying the young lad is the answer long term either, but he deserves some more minutes currently.

Looking head to Wednesday i think we're all bracing ourselves for a sore one but i strangely don't worry about these type of games under Goodwin where he can go Ultra-defensive and there's no expectation for him to win. Don't get me wrong i think we will lose but it wouldn't surprise me if it's only a 1-0 loss after a dogged 'backs to the wall' display.

It's more games like the upcoming Cup tie at Dens that worry me, because the squad has shown it's severe lack of depth today and that game is still a further two weeks away, with none of the longterm absentee's due back for that. I can only hope we have signed a player or two by then.

Please, God 

 

Agreed that this result has been coming.  We've been average for long stretches of games throughout the season.  Law of averages has meant that we'd soon get one in which we were average the whole game.  Didn't make this one but sounds like that is what happened.  I thought we were lucky to win by the same scoreline at Tynecastle so I guess it just evens that out.  Hearts are no worse than any other non-Old Firm team so I'm not too despondent but this result has the risk we could go on a bit of an Aberdeen run.  Unlikely to get anything at Celtic Park and were lucky to get three points in Paisley earlier in the season so that one is a toughy too.

I still think we'll finish top 6 as a resurgent Hibs and Hearts will take points off all the other non old-firm teams too and on evidence so far I think we are better than Kilmarnock and St Mirren over the season and despite scores against Motherwell still fancy us to finish above them.

Tek, as for your vdS comment, I'm not convinced by him either, but I do think you can see that he adds something to the team when he plays.  Not a huge amount, but something.

Tek wrote:

Finn Seemann wrote:

Tek, as for your vdS comment, I'm not convinced by him either, but I do think you can see that he adds something to the team when he plays.  Not a huge amount, but something.

He can trap a ball and find a team mate with a pass Finn. So, we can see that he has the basics right and has obviously played the game before.

My issue with him isn't just the lack of any goals, it's the lack of any chances. See if he was getting in the right positions and just not putting them away i'd be more inclined to think 'ach, it'll come when he scores the first'.

But he gets nowhere near the opposition goal. He doesn't even seem to be knocking his pan in to break the duck. 

I just can't shake the belief that he's like a defender, defending from the front. That's all he seems to bring, but that's nowhere near enough.

Give Stirton some more chances imo.
 

 
I think part of the problem is we were told he was a striker.
Signed as a striker.
Described as a striker.

But its quite obvious he isn't a striker and never will be at this level.  He's a support player, a foil for a striker, a link between midfield and attack, but football doesn't have terminology for that.
Tbf I think he's been instrumental in some games coming on and creating a bit of chaos for defenders because he plays in between midfield and attack and that can pull defences out of shape and we've seen us scoring late goals when he's been part of that.

But if we want to add a striker into a game I agree it's Stirton we should be using.