The boy Renaud scored a belter on Thursday evening, we just let him have the freedom of tynecastle to hit that ball. The second is stinking from Bennie, ridiculously lazy to pull the man down. I left at the 3rd.

Goodwin needs to answer why Sapsford was dropped & why he took Agyei off for an attacker then went 4-2-3-1 at 2-0 down.

Bad day at the offices.

There’s no way you can tell me that Naamo is any worse than Rawlins.

Think I’d bring sevelj into right back though, eskesen/yoro/camera in to the middle

Tek wrote:

Worst we've played in a long, long time. Don't agree with Goodwin's assessment that 4-0 flattered Hearts or that there wasn't much in it. I thought we were second best all over the park and Hearts had another gear to go up, had they wanted to.

I knew after approx 4 minutes it was going to be a long afternoon. 

From kick off we shell the ball out of play from a long punt to no-one. We do the exact same thing, the EXACT SAME THING just 4 minutes later after we re-take kick off after going 1-0 down. Eight minutes later and it's 2-0 and it's effectively game over.

From that point onwards you learn a lot about the players. Who's up for a fight. Who goes into their shells. What players are willing to roll up their sleeves and give an extra 10%? Sadly, i don't think we seen enough of that from the players.

Defence - Sobering afternoon given the defence was quite so easily ripped apart and there seemed no calmness and leadership at the back at any point.

Midfield - For me the midfield three of Sevelj, Agyei and Tait isn't working. Part of this is because one of the three (normally Tait) is dropping so deep to collect the ball that we are essentially still playing with three CHs, just that one of them is slightly more advanced. This balance isn't working at all and Goodwin has a big decision to make imo if this continues. Particularly with Yoro available as of next week.

Attackers - Not one shot on target all afternoon says it all. Powderpuff today. My worry is that we tried Randall on both wings, tried Bennie, tried Rose, tried Sapsford, tried Metsoko, tried Merghem, tried Farrugia. None of them looked dangerous at anytime. No one wanting to run at a man or take a man on. No one wanting to shoot at anytime. Just tippy tappy shite.

My player ratings on a thoroughly depressing afternoon -

Walton 6 - Didn't do anything wrong and had no chances with the goals.

Rawlins 5 - Poor. Not looking like an upgrade on Strain worryingly.

Esselink 5 - Didn't do anything wrong, per se. But didn't command or lead the back line either.

Forbes 5 - Worryingly bad today. At fault in part for at least one of the goals.

Ferry 5 - First time i've seen him play where i've thought that he's mentally already away. Expect a derisory bid in from Celtic this week to try and turn his head before we play them.

Sevelj 5 - Just not at the races so far this season. As said above i'd play him RB/RWB next week.

Agyei 4 - This is more than a concern now. Why the drop-off in yet another player?

Tait 5 - Wants the ball, yes. But so far i have seen little evidence that he actually does anything significant with it. One good forward pass to Bennie today and that was it. Spent most of the afternoon on the deck looking for cheap fouls. Jury is out for me.

Randall 4 - Very poor. Was shouting at him more than once to use his pace and just get in to the box. Took the easy option of looking to square pass it far, far to often. He's got a lot to work on if he's going to cut it at United.

Rose 4 - Game completely passed him by.

Bennie 4 - See above.

Subs - 

Sapsford 5 - Just not the Zac of this time last season. 

Camara 6 - Was 'ok'. But again, not the player he was. A shadow of that in fact.

Merghem 5 - Quiet.

Farrugia 5 - Ineffectual.

Metsoko 5 - Anonymous.



 

I agree, Tek, and am baffled by the claims that there wasn't much in it. Hearts were first to every ball, and moved forward with pace and intent where we were ponderous and predictable. The midfield trio just didn't turn up, and the front three were completely ineffective.

Had a sleep on it and decided to try take some positives from yesterday. The main one I could find is that it will hopefully be a wake up call to several new players about the standard and nature of Scottish football. I've no doubt after Hearts getting thumped midweek, a few players will have gone to Tynecastle thinking "They'll be knackered, we'll get them moving and come out on top" which absolutely didn't happen. Hopefully this will create a bit of a rebound for the Celtic game with players wanting to prove this was a blip.

The main issue for me wasn't actually the back 4 but the cover given to them by the midfield. Agyei, Sevelj and Tait were all over the place defensively, and taking off a midfielder for forward at half time gave them total control despite the amount of possession. Down our right flank, Rawlins looked absolutely lost, particularly second half when any support he was getting from the midfield vanished with the halftime sub.

One thing I will say is that the amount of poor decision making in the final third was a huge cause for concern. Whilst I'm not agreeing with post-match Goodwin saying there wasn't much in it, he is right that we got in decent positions 3 or 4 times and made some horrendous decisions, and some of the attempts at finishing were worse than amateur football at times.

It's looking like we've filled the forward position with players who are all effort, but very little technical ability and it's hugely concerning. We could've played all day yesterday and not finished. What's worse is I don't think we can play any sort of 2 up top as the ability to control the midfield with 2 midfielders doesn't look possible either. Not that Goodwin would ditch 433 anyway, he showed last season that when he's married to a tactic then that's the one that sticks.

A lot of questions after that performance and not convinced there's many obvious answers.

I think when it's all said and done, we got ourselves a bit over excited after seeing how Hearts played in Europe.

We were expecting more and it never arrived, results like that happen over a season and Hearts, I suspect will be up at least challenging again if maybe not to the same extent. as last season.

And as poor as they looked, they'd had a hard 270 competitive minutes against quality teams, we had one more game where we were never really tested playing against butchers, bakers and candlestick makers.

We absolutely controlled that game and a brain fart handed them the victory, we need to do better in our pre-season planning.

Using the league cup gets you minutes, but it's no real use when you're not facing the standard of opposition you'll face most weeks.

Re it being a big few weeks for Goodwin, when the fixtures came out, we all thought it would be a very tough August, and the way we sauntered about the league cup allowing Montrose the win, has left us in the shitty position of playing Celtic in the cup..

It might be huge in terms of how the season pans out, but I personally don't think he's under any pressure at all from above, and if the odd fee comes in like Hutchison, then a windfall like we'll get for Ferry, I don't think Ogren will rock the boat until as such time we're really looking down a barrel.

redford_must_score wrote:

The reaction from me is twofold. First that we didn't really show fire and passion. And second is that again and again our decision making when in the final third is the worst of any team in the league. By some distance.

The fire and passion issue later but this decision making issue is something that's blighted our sides since Goodwin took over. Even when we stumbled to 4th . To be specific, we look ok playing through the back 4, and we look generally better with Tait trying to pick forward passes. But when players get the ball in those forward positions they almost always make a bad decision about what to do next. To be absolutely fair the blue ar5ehole side of Glasgow had the same problems with far more expensive players. But 3 seasons now no better and it tells me as it always has that the manager doesn't know how to coach that. So he needs to add to his coaching staff someone that can coach it.
But I suspect ego gets in the way of that. And I'll be honest here, I just don't know what these 2 dugout coaches add to Goodwin.

And the ongoing mystery of players losing form under this manager continues.
Manny we need you back.
And if that isn't a wake up call to our new signings it f***ng well should be.

Good post Reddy.


 

Can't defend
Can't control
Can't attack

Bye Jim.