Teddybear123

forrester in midfield or not at all imo.

Well if you looked at the match thread you would've been a minority. IMO the front 3 wasn't the problem. Fair play if we're getting into good areas but then the front 3 aren't producing the final ball/finishing the chances, but that wasn't the case; we were pinned back into our own half for at least two thirds of the game.

Tbh mate that's all very well in hindsight, but not many people's teams for that game were all that different to the one that was picked.

Think it's got a lot to do with the fact that we've always had niko or barton playing at CAM and neither of them have the pace/fitness to do the pressing to the extent that holt and zelalem did last season.

Does anyone actually know a rough figure for how much he's put it in that's gone towards things other than players?

Really don't agree with people blaming Davie Weir for our defence, we don't know who coaches what and if we even do any defensive drills. Far too many people come to conclusions with this based on nothing more than assumptions.

Depends how you look at it. From one angle, it shows just how badly we are playing at the minute. However, it also shows that all we need is our players to gel, a run of good performances for confidence and a couple of January signings (over to you Mr King) before we are in a position to challenge them again. At first glance this result makes it look like we are a few years away from 55. I think it will happen next season.

There were plenty that had Senderos in their team for todays game without ever seeing him play. Bates has been in the matchday squad most games since he's been here which shows MW rates him. as I said nothing can be worse than Hill or Sendderos.

Is his contract not up at the end of the season?

SURELY this boy can't be worse than Hill or Senderos. Anyone else think he's worth a try next week seeing as Kiernan, Wilson and Senderos are all potentially unavailable? We've got to eventually give him a chance before his loan ends.

It scares me that in a season where my expectations where to win the title, I'd be scared if anyone other than Kiernan and WIlson were starting

I think this is the key word here. I think there were very few people that were unhappy with our business (other than the obvious centre half issue). People who were worshiping the signings of barton and krancjar are now slaughtering MW for signing them, even though all of us (including the media) thought they would be massive hits. Bottom line is, no one is performing up to standard (granted people may argue that it is warburtons job to get the best out of players). I genuinely do believe we still have a special manager in charge and our team are still gelling and gaining fitness. Imo we will at least be going toe to toe with celtic come the end of the season and next season we will get 55.

Garner will be quality once we start dominating games and giving him chances- which we will btw.

Yes everyone would, but our possession game of last season was not passing the ball around in our own half for 90 minutes. Last season we were so effective because we would constantly have large spells of possession in the other teams final third, not just against the diddy teams either!

fuck me maybe you should take over MW in all seriousness, what you said definitely makes sense, perhaps we will see slight tweaks like this, as we did last season with our fullbacks.

definitely, any idea why that is? I cant bloody work it out.

Agreed. In fairness to Kiernan, he was outstanding with the ball in the semi final, I'm one of the few that believes he's capable of playing with the ball and has potential to be a player. Don't forget today he was forced to play left centre back.

I'm not saying that's hould become our style of play, I'm saying that if it's 30 mins in and it's not working, then we should try putting it long and then play possession in the better areas from the knock downs. This would also make us far less predictable.

obviously if he does then yes, there is no goal. However, he should not have to do this. If you look at the Killie game, we played so many long balls from the defenders, but these balls are going to be less accurate than if we play it long from the goal kick. This is why I think if we are being forced down this route within the course of the match then imo we might aswell ask wes to put it long anyway as we have more chance of winning the ball back than if the centre backs are forced to pump it forward.

going by that logic, you'd rather 80% possession with the game finishing 0 0 than 55% possession with us winning 3 1

I agree with the principle- the semi final last year we were excellent at playing out when put under pressure, but today most of their attacks came from our defence misplacing passes when under extreme pressure and risking giving away sloppy goals.

Why? Having the ball in our own half without building an attack from it does absolute fuck all other than get our possession stats up.

This is something that I really liked about our team last season. However, today, and most of the games this season, we just end up having all of our possession in our own half. When we are failing to play it out effectively, why do we not put it up to the striker from the goal kick?- especially on a day like today when garner has the beating of the centre half in the air. By no means am I saying we should abandon our possession based style, I just think that we should get it into better areas in a direct fashion before we start playing if carving out the attack from the back isn't working.

Makes Warburton's team talk bloody easy.

Wouldn't complain if that's in fact what it turned out to be. There are about 10 different variations on team selections that I'd be happy with, major selection headache for Mr Warburton on Saturday imo. Usually I'd say that was a good thing but tbh I think it's more down to no one really standing out. Let's hope everyone that gets picked on Saturday performs in a manner that nails them down a starting place. Lets get right fucking into them WATP.