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Central midfield over committing


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This continues to be a problem for us. We have 3 CMs, 3 'forwards' and 2 wing backs committing to nearly every attack. Holt continues to think that he never has to defend and Halliday seems to think that someone is going to cover for him, when they have never done so. It is shocking how many times we only have 2 players to defend long balls and it needs to be sorted before hibs exploit it again in 3 weeks. Our CM is our weakest area IMO and I really hope Warbs sees it the same way for next year.

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2 minutes ago, North Antrim Bear said:

We will not win the Premiership with Halliday in our starting 11. Simple as that.

Why? He may not be the ideal player to play in the DM role but he's easily good enough to play in  one of the other 2 roles. 

Saying we won't win the spl with him in our starting 11 as if the spl is above him is just stupid!

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5 minutes ago, North Antrim Bear said:

We will not win the Premiership with Halliday in our starting 11. Simple as that.

Haliday has handled himself really well when faced with SPFL teams. He's got sturdyness to him, Scott "lego" brown widely regarded as been a hammer thrower was fit snugly into Halidays back pocket. 

I've no doubt in Halidays ability to play in the SPFL, we will still need a full time CDM and a new Centre Halve. 

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Just now, RFCRobertson said:

Haliday has handled himself really well when faced with SPFL teams. He's got sturdyness to him, Scott "lego" brown widely regarded as been a hammer thrower was fit snugly into Halidays back pocket. 

I've no doubt in Halidays ability to play in the SPFL, we will still need a full time CDM and a new Centre Halve. 

Scott Brown is a shite player and has been all season for the tims, so that's not saying much. We need a better player than Halliday in that area.

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Just now, North Antrim Bear said:

Scott Brown is a shite player and has been all season for the tims, so that's not saying much. We need a better player than Halliday in that area.

He still tried to rough him up and Haliday was for having none of it. Brown isn't the best, but he can be rough with players and boss areas of the midfield. He did it last year against us and succeeded. 

Haliday is a great player and SPFL material. He might not see action as a CDM, he can go down the wings (which is his natural position) too. There still is a place for him in the team. 

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Halliday is not a defensive midfielder, he's done his best but he does drift with the play too much and thats not something I think we can blame him for. If Wallace had been injured and ball had to play left back for more than the remainder of the QotS game then is it fair to say he's not good enough when he's played out of position.

There is going to be a lot of difficult departures over the coming years but in order to keep improving you need to replace the current squad players with the current first team players to then introduce new first team players. I don't think anyone be.ieves that the starting 11 we have just now is champions league standard. Halliday will be a valuable member of the squad but I can't see him being a near ever present next year (subject to our signings).

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18 minutes ago, North Antrim Bear said:

We will not win the Premiership with Halliday in our starting 11. Simple as that.

Fuckin clueless , the two CBs and the keeper are where we are losing points , we need replacements for all three in the hope they get better.

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1 minute ago, sassaaaa said:

Fuckin clueless , the two CBs and the keeper are where we are losing points , we need replacements for all three in the hope they get better.

I agree that the problem areas are those you listed and having a natural DM  but they need competition rather than replacing.....I think there are many who feel they can't be dropped because there are no alternatives. With McCoist it was his refusal to drop players but with Warburton it's that he doesn't have options at the back. When everyone is fit and available we have plenty of options in the middle and up top but who is Tav's competition? Who is wallaces competition? Who competes with the centre backs other than Ball who usually gets utilised as the DM.

i am really looking forward to seeing the new additions this summer and how the squad takes shape.

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29 minutes ago, GrandSuckMaster said:

This continues to be a problem for us. We have 3 CMs, 3 'forwards' and 2 wing backs committing to nearly every attack. Holt continues to think that he never has to defend and Halliday seems to think that someone is going to cover for him, when they have never done so. It is shocking how many times we only have 2 players to defend long balls and it needs to be sorted before hibs exploit it again in 3 weeks. Our CM is our weakest area IMO and I really hope Warbs sees it the same way for next year.

Couldn't agree more, been saying it for months, Wilson and Kiernan are continually being blamed but they're being left brutally exposed 

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Do you watch the games? Holt was fouled on their 18 yard line today, nothing given. They had broke in numbers and who wins it back on our 18 yard line? Holt. 

Holt also won us the 4-2 game against Hibs when he covered every blade of grass and more when Halliday was sent off.

Halliday has played all season in a position that is not his own yet made the 'Scottish champions' midfield look like schoolboys. 

Hibs will exploit what exactly?:lol: They've lived off individual mistakes against us all season, not by out playing or exploiting our team:lol:

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People are always quick to slaughter the CBs (Wilson in particular), but I've said all season that they are the most exposed defenders in the country. No other defenders are left that isolated and high up regularly. 

They are left 2 on 2 time and time again, with the fullbacks pushed on and Halliday caught wrong side of the ball so regularly.

I'd agree that Halliday at DM isn't good enough for the top league, but there's a space at worst in the squad or as one of the other 2 CMs. 

A quality DM and our whole defensive unit will be shored up I think. 

 

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Just now, Prso's headband said:

Do you watch the games? Holt was fouled on their 18 yard line today, nothing given. They had broke in numbers and who wins it back on our 18 yard line? Holt. 

Holt also won us the 4-2 game against Hibs when he covered every blade of grass and more when Halliday was sent off.

Halliday has played all season in a position that is not his own yet made the 'Scottish champions' midfield look like schoolboys. 

Hibs will exploit what exactly?:lol: They've lived off individual mistakes against us all season, not by out playing or exploiting our team:lol:

Watch the game and tell me how many times Holt dropped back when Halliday was going forward. It is a natural thing for a CM to do, but he never does it. By the time he has got back to defend the opposition already have a goal or a corner. He is valuable for his runs in to the box but has little else to his game. He has been shocking for weeks, but never gets criticised. I rate Halliday over holt and I don't particularly rate Halliday.

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Could be quite a squad rebuilding job to be done over summer (if there is enough money that is to get the first choice players and not those much further down the list because not enough transfer dosh to get the top targets),

Seems to me there needs to be a GK addition / home grown alternative to Wes.   Can you imagine the nerves we'd have needed if we had needed to call on Bell for games leading up to winning the Championship this season?   Doesn't bear thinking about.  

Unless they can raise their game the CB pairing risks being caught out big time with counter-attacking play which will be higher quality in the Premiership.  So presumably MW is looking to add an experienced CB or 2 to bolster things.  Oh, and ones who are a darn sight better at defending corners and free kicks and who don't allow the ball to bounce over them.

Defensive midfielder or two.   Didn't get who he wanted last season despite waiting ages, and ages and ages and ages.    No option for the coming season.  Its a must.

Do we have enough creativity in midfield to generate more goal scoring threat?    Probably not.   Since Law isn't getting games the assumption must be he will be off.  Ditto Shiels.   Ditto Clark.   Zelalem will have returned to Arsenal.  MW clearly rates him as he keeps getting games.   But I cant remember the last time he had a game where he made telling creative contributions to goal scoring.   He certainly can't shoot yet (but I accept he is uber-cool at taking penalties).    Creative midfield might need bolstering too - but where do you get gems to fill that role if they are not already at clubs which offer more than Rangers. 

Goal-scoring strikers.   Goals win games.  Possession of itself doesn't.  Intricate passing of itself doesn't..   Goals win games and I reckon we need to add to the goal-scoring talent.

We have 2 incoming from Accrington S.   There are bound to be releases or sales (Law, Shiels, Clark, Bell, Ball, Zelalem for starters).   Could be a rebuilding of the entire spine of the team for next season with some additional bolstering in wing back positions.   In other words MW and DW created a team to get out of the Championship (to 'smash' it was the term MW was using recently).  Job done.   A team to be very competitive in the Premiership may have quite a few changes to the team we've been used to seeing this season.   A team to win 55 at first attempt (or maybe 2nd attempt) would, imo, take a lot more money that the c£5m that was being talked about earlier this week. A lot more.   Double maybe bearing in mind that around £30m of talent went out the door and that's not been replaced.   Even a magic hat may have more than its work cut out to plug a £30m talent gap with up and coming pros from lower English leagues and from the development team. 

Close season outs and ins will be one of the most vital series of transfer transactions we have seen for very many a long year.    The outcome will go a very long way to determining how quickly we can win 55.       

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