*** The Official St Johnstone vs Rangers Match Thread ***

[cushynumber 25,178]

1 hour ago, jamess said:

If you play for a team like Rangers in a forward position with our possession you score.  The question is...do you score enough considering the service you are given?  Pena looks like someone that will mess up most chances he gets.

Eh?

[The Beast 9,226]

11 minutes ago, jamess said:

If you play for a team like Rangers in a forward position with our possession you score.  The question is...do you score enough considering the service you are given?  Pena looks like someone that will mess up most chances he gets.

That could quite easily have applied to Ally McCoist.

Pena's goal to time played ratio looks pretty good to me for someone who's not a striker.

[cushynumber 25,178]

1 hour ago, The Beast said:

That could quite easily have applied to Ally McCoist.

Pena's goal to time played ratio looks pretty good to me for someone who's not a striker.

It's the best in our squad by a mile.

[jamess 3,429]

4 minutes ago, The Beast said:

That could quite easily have applied to Ally McCoist.

Pena's goal to time played ratio looks pretty good to me for someone who's not a striker.

Quite a few reacted to my comment.  You make a valid point,  but my point is that I don't see goals scored as the only measure.  To me he seams to lose the ball to much and a sharper forward would score more.  I think if he wasn't a big money signing he wouldn't get a game. 

[The Beast 9,226]

14 hours ago, jamess said:

Quite a few reacted to my comment.  You make a valid point,  but my point is that I don't see goals scored as the only measure.  To me he seams to lose the ball to much and a sharper forward would score more.  I think if he wasn't a big money signing he wouldn't get a game. 

Who knows.

He's not a complete player but as I posted earlier, if he was he wouldn't be in Scotland. I think he's got a lot of very positive attributes and if he's only at 75% (at most) just now then I think and hope that we've got a lot more to see from him.

I honestly can't remember a player who had better positional awareness since we had genuine world talents like DeBoer, Wilkins and Cannigia in the team. There's lots about what he's shown so far that's not brilliant but he does offer something we don't otherwise have, and haven't had for some time.

[one cutty young 140]

Pena is frustrating as a player, he moves into great positions (watch him off the ball) but mostly doesn't get the ball (a few times tonight  it was obvious team mates didnt want him to get it - dorrans and Holt, as i dont think they have confidence in him) and most times he does miscontrol it. But his positioning and timing put him in vital area and he gets results from it. First goal was really well taken - instinctive in front of goal, second was a fantastic ball but his movement leading to it was first class. 

But by fuck he's limited everywhere else on the park. Can we carry that as a team? I will take it if he scores every game!

[Swagger 8,011]

Pena seems to make the hard stuff look easy and the easy stuff look hard !!!! 

Two quality finishes, good positional sense and some good first time passing.

Also some clumsy touches and poor passing! 

Really want to stay positive about him. Pleased for him tonight 

[jamess 3,429]

7 minutes ago, one cutty young said:

Pena is frustrating as a player, he moves into great positions (watch him off the ball) but mostly doesn't get the ball (a few times tonight  it was obvious team mates didnt want him to get it - dorrans and Holt, as i dont think they have confidence in him) and most times he does miscontrol it. But his positioning and timing put him in vital area and he gets results from it. First goal was really well taken - instinctive in front of goal, second was a fantastic ball but his movement leading to it was first class. 

But by fuck he's limited everywhere else on the park. Can we carry that as a team? I will take it if he scores every game!

yes,  who can the team carry as a general passenger.  If it was only Pena I wouldn't be overly concerned due to the recent goals,  but their is others who you have to class as passengers - Windass? Manager must sort this out and put  11 on the pitch that are contributing.  We are not their yet and this is obvious areas for improvement.

[KingKirk 25,653]

Am still feeling a buzz from tonight. So happy for the team and the manager. We are on the right path

[Teamgers 1,214]

Fuck me, the doom sayers are in full flow, fuck sake we played pretty well, won 0-3 away from home and still some of our support aren't happy...................

[Blueshoff 11,844]

At the end of fhe day it was a game away from home against a team with the same number of points prior to the game.  We won, scored 3 goals and kept a clean sheet.

Great result and very encouraging.

[Thewhitesettler 2,711]

We beat a top 6 team, who've got a good record at home. I'm delighted with the result, but not the overall performance.

When they went down to ten men, we started playing some decent football, and never looked like losing.

There's still room for improvement. We need to catch up, then overtake the sheep, before we even think about catching the taigs up.

[Blumhoilann 6,712]

For me where Pena is concerned,he's Millers replacement. Can see Pena and Morelos as our front two pairing,you could see lastnight when we were pressing,St J's defence was automatically drawn to Morelos and Pena made the runs in behind,scoring two good goals..........bye bye Kenny.

 

 

[geronimoo 1,474]

Im not a Pedro fan but I thought we played really well tonight. We conceded 15 corners, in the Warbs era we would have lost a good few goals there.

I thought Pena was good and actually looks like he is getting better, we looked more direct which I believe was down to having Pena on the park, to often we fanny about passing side to side in the middle and passing it back to the defence so maybe Pena wanting to go forward is giving the midfield the option to pass forward instead of back and sideways. Thought Holt was good also and added something to the middle of the park.

Windass wasn't bad but I still wouldn't have him in the team. Big thing was made about Kenny Miller but TBH regardless of how his relationship is eith Pedro he doesn't deserve to be in the team in front of El buffalo. I have complained about Tav many times but his crossing was immense. 

[Rosebery1872 78]

great result pena coming good 15 goals out of him this season? Dorrans bombing thru to score happy days

[giffnockger 4,840]

Fucked the day

[soulboy 2,518]

Thought Alves was booked at the same time as Anderson for the pushing and pulling at the corner but according to the SPFL website he wasn't

[donnymac 115]

good result right enough, 2nd half very good.

just me - thought that wee scougall was pretty decent for them

[Smile 26,610]

What worries me is we never took control of the game until they had a man sent off they were camped on top of us winning corners and putting us under real Pressure I thought Alves was Fantastic in that regard.

Plusses another good away win Pena actually doing what he's paid to do, Alves solid at the back.

Negatives too easy to get forward down Windass side and get cross balls in Scougall tore that side apart easily.

[soulboy 2,518]

he reminds me of trying to play football with a balloon the thing can go anywhere.

[HG5 11,134]

On 14/10/2017 at 08:43, Thewhitesettler said:

We beat a top 6 team, who've got a good record at home. I'm delighted with the result, but not the overall performance.

When they went down to ten men, we started playing some decent football, and never looked like losing.

There's still room for improvement. We need to catch up, then overtake the sheep, before we even think about catching the taigs up.

Spot on.

3 away points at a tricky destination is more than welcome, but we only gained any control of the game when they were reduced to 10 men.

To be fair, we handled that situation a whole lot better than when faced with similar at Partick.

Nice to see we defended a huge number of corners, but we can’t rely on getting away with that as a game plan.

[duffy2391 574]

Obviously we looked more threatening against ten men but we never looked in danger against 11. Defence looked settled throughout. 1 game at a time.

[pcbear 10,913]

2 hours ago, HG5 said:

Spot on.

3 away points at a tricky destination is more than welcome, but we only gained any control of the game when they were reduced to 10 men.

To be fair, we handled that situation a whole lot better than when faced with similar at Partick.

Nice to see we defended a huge number of corners, but we can’t rely on getting away with that as a game plan.

"GOALIES" should have been the shout at the corners with Wes claiming them or at least getting a hefty punch on the ball, staying rooted to the line invites drama.

[Billy1984 6,314]

24 minutes ago, duffy2391 said:

Obviously we looked more threatening against ten men but we never looked in danger against 11. Defence looked settled throughout. 1 game at a time.

We did look more solid at the back even against 11, no coincidence it was alves' best game so far. Hopefully more of  the same from now on. 

[siddiqi_drinker 14,635]

12 minutes ago, Billy1984 said:

We did look more solid at the back even against 11, no coincidence it was alves' best game so far. Hopefully more of  the same from now on. 

Pedro has to sort out the left side.  Tav/Candeias look good together on the right and Tav is defending more comfortably than before.  Declan John needs a Candeias type in front of him and Windass is not the answer.  Try Beerman in front of John, both have pace and wee Beerman offers more in defense, though not great than Windass.