docspiderman

The old adage is that successful teams must have a good spine; keeper, central defender, central midfielder, central striker. We certainly do not have that, no dominant striker, we have no midfield at all, central defence is all over the place. No wonder we have little belief.

Crazy that a few weeks ago we had the best defensive stats and second top goals scored. What has changed? Basically the same back 4 with Borna/ Ridvan, and Balogun/Souttar. Has the introduction of Lawrence and Dowell caused so much disruption to the set up? Something has caused this implosion at the back and at the front.

Even before his injuries I thought the pace of our game was beyond him and his touch and balance were below an acceptable level.

I was going to talk about the striker situation but need to lie down.

Phil it must be obvious that Lawrence and Dowell are way short of the quality, fitness and commitment needed to play for us. Cantwell plays for himself and Lundstram has either downed tools or has some issues. In short our midfield is offering nothing but high blood pressure.

Lawrence is nowhere good enough, Cantwell is a headless showpony , Silva is not dry good and does not care.Lundstram seems to have downed tools. This has been obvious the past games.

Like Walter, Pep and Arteta play a natural centre back at full back, maybe that is an answer and stop both full backs bombing forward at the same time leaving dopey and Goldson exposed.

There was no structure or formation as far as I could see. Dowell played for a few minutes then disappeared. Lundstram was well off the pace and Cantwell ran about playing his own game with no end product. I have never seen a midfield being so dominated as happened to us on Sunday.

I was meaning he has upped his form to get a new deal and looked like he does not have to bother any more.

Look on the bright side; I am fairly confident that we will secure 2nd place this season.

Our midfield was abysmal, second to every loose ball, Miles away from opponents, not interested in winning the ball back and the reason we lost the game. The whole balance and effort was wrong and Lundstram, who had been playing well was completely ineffective in all departments. Dowell looked decent for a few minutes like last week but just became invisible. Cantwell was doing his own thing, some flashy runs but no end product and I wonder if his lack of structure and tactical discipline is causing problems in our set up. Te second bottom strugglers making our midfield look like part time journeymen should never happen.

I thought he was poor in the few games before his injuries. At the time I thought he was maybe trying too hard to make an impression and that was why he would make a poor touch or overrun the ball. Now I realise he is just always off the pace and has poor control.

Actually that would explain his attitude and performance today.

Balogun must replace Souttar and bring some sense of order to the defence. I agree about Dessers, Lawrence, Barasic. We can add Dowell, and Wright who are not and never beup to the task.

14 points lost to bottom six teams, and beaten twice by teams who were 2nd bottom at the time. I think that points a lot towards attitude and over inflated egos.

When you see a regular free transfer player, Murray, looking far better in all areas than Dessers it shows how bad our recruitment has been and how poor our squad is.

Nearly man Lawrence on to get by passed again.

How many points have we lost to bottom six clubs this season

No midfield protection at all , weak and posing.

Running through the centre of midfield again.

Being bossed in midfield and garbage upfront.

Any official notification?

the clear and obvious has been ignored: if it is taking 3 or 4 minutes to review a decision or a non decision then it is not a clear and obvious mistake. In the UK, especially in the SPL every goal, every move and tackle seems to be forensically examined. However, I watched Arsenal v Bayern, 4 goals 3 penalty shouts and almost instant confirmation or denial and the game hardly stopped. It feels that other football authorities implement VAR differently and far more supporter friendly and wonder if it egos causing the problems here which is producing far more contentious debate in Scotland.

Yes predictive text is a right bugler.

Mazda was non existent in the second half because Sima not only made him track back but he tracked back to help Tav or cover his runs. That way of playing is what happens with every team but first half we virtually played with 8 men.