A Case For The Defence...

[StaunchLondonGer 1,651]

Just watched the game back this morning and without question our midfield yesterday looked incoherent and vulnerable and therefore our strikers became almost redundant. Our defence (which actually became most of the team) was under relentless bombardment for vast periods of the game.

No one can argue we don't need to improve as a team but yesterday's tactics made us look worse than we are. I have no pedigree for analysis - just the eyes of a fan - but having scrutinised the individual performances with a sober mind, I would argue that we ALREADY have the makings of an SPL winning defence.

Shagger we hardly need mention. He has been literally world class and worthy of a place in the great Rangers teams of old.

Katic and Barisic are quality. They read the game well and are very seldom are out of position. Time and time again they make the vital tackle cleanly and calmly, neutralising the threat (often in the box when the stakes are high given our shite refereeing standards). They also have excellent fitness and intimidation factor - hard cunts defending like lions when under the cosh (again, Thurs and yesterday). Also of note, several times again yesterday Barisic went bombing off down the left wing trying to create an attacking opportunity and emulate what Tav does on the other side (I haven't seen this given much credit so far but it has the potential to be effective). Goldson doesn't instill quite so much confidence (the odd lapse in concentration or look of uncertainty) but he still shows quality and will only improve with time.

In short, our first choice defenders are solid, skillful and not to be bullied (Barisic gave Griffiths a choice mouthful when the ugly wee cunt tried to harass him yesterday).

Tav is also skillful (though inconsistent defensively as we all know) and it make sense that he sits a little further forward than he tends to at the moment (it will keep his energy levels up and allow him to make more runs cutting into the box).

Flanagan I don't like the look of but - his facial features notwithstanding - I'd like to think his performances will get better. I'm also not sure how Wallace will perform coming back in but I think he'll have a point to prove and he deserves the chance. As cover along with McCrorie (who is a real prospect and better for me in midfield) you've got to feel satisfied they will add the squad depth necessary to support our campaign over this season and possibly beyond. 

We can dwell all we want on our poor points tally in the league so far and the conceding of 3 goals to Motherwell. But it's worth remembering that any defence will inevitably concede when its coming under constant pressure for sustained periods. Our main frailties are what is going on IN FRONT of our defence where we lose the ball too easily before mounting a proper attack. THAT is the reason we are lying seventh, not our defence which has taken shape very nicely under the new manager imo.

We have just started this new era. Hard training, continual improvement and another transfer window to address the midfield and our outlook will surely be more positive.

[Burts91 427]

If you make yourself difficult to beat you'll always have a chance to win games.

[RFCRobertson 11,790]

The key to a league winning team is always the defence and how they hold up. Last season we scored a lot but we conceded a lot as well. 

I am extremely happy with how our defence operates and it’s soon getting bolstered further as well so there is a bit of rotation and battle for places.

midfield is a worry still, I wouldn’t worry about forwards because Morelos, Lafferty, Candieas etc are quite capable of getting the job done. However they can’t do their job if they don’t get service.

Ryan Jack is the main stand out in midfield, Ejaria looks a good prospect and I suspect he was just tiried following Russia, he’s a young lad and he’s been a start for most games. Arfield seems good though am not sure what he does sometines. Couilbally needs to come back into it. 

But yeah I’d say midfield is the weakest part of the team right now and needs addressed in the January window but for what we have currently there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be getting 3 points from most teas in the league and making good exhibitions in the cups.

[Lloyd 10,756]

Barisic got roasted a few times by Forrest yesterday, apart from that I’m quite happy with our defence in general. A back 3 of Worrall Goldson Katic with Barisic and Tav Wingbacks will be what we have going forward.

[ForeverAndEver 71,736]

No defender got pass marks yesterday though

[DeanMK 4,684]

The midfield let us down for sure yesterday. Whether that was down to tactics, or just general performance, who knows.

On the other hand, I thought we defended quite well actually. They can make the claim that they should have scored 5 or 6 into us but the facts are, they didn't. Barring a counter attack directly following an ungiven foul, they couldn't score into us. We gave them too much respect in midfield. I would expect a much better showing at Ibrox. Still feeling pretty positive about our chances this year. 

[BlueMe 25,327]

7 minutes ago, RFCRobertson said:

The key to a league winning team is always the defence and how they hold up. Last season we scored a lot but we conceded a lot as well. 

I am extremely happy with how our defence operates and it’s soon getting bolstered further as well so there is a bit of rotation and battle for places.

midfield is a worry still, I wouldn’t worry about forwards because Morelos, Lafferty, Candieas etc are quite capable of getting the job done. However they can’t do their job if they don’t get service.

Ryan Jack is the main stand out in midfield, Ejaria looks a good prospect and I suspect he was just tiried following Russia, he’s a young lad and he’s been a start for most games. Arfield seems good though am not sure what he does sometines. Couilbally needs to come back into it. 

But yeah I’d say midfield is the weakest part of the team right now and needs addressed in the January window but for what we have currently there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be getting 3 points from most teas in the league and making good exhibitions in the cups.

Not really, celtic have won the league for years with a pish defence.

A strong midfield is important. If you can control the middle of the park then your can dictate the pace of the game, take pressure off your defence and link the play to your forwards. 

[StaunchLondonGer 1,651]

12 minutes ago, Siwel said:

Barisic got roasted a few times by Forrest yesterday, apart from that I’m quite happy with our defence in general. A back 3 of Worrall Goldson Katic with Barisic and Tav Wingbacks will be what we have going forward.

Keen to see Worrall. Barisic did lose out to Forrest a couple of times but Katic covered one of them instantly which is what you want. Defensive unit.

[Courtyard Bear 41,357]

Thought the defence got bloody lucky yesterday, lost a lot of headers from corners/set pieces, Katic lost his man completely only for the scum muppet to head it straight at McGregor. 

A good defence in my eyes means we don’t let many attempts on goal happen. 

[backup 4,724]

Needs repeating until it sinks in, McGregor has been star man in defence and MOM on more occasions than not since his return. There is a reason for that, quite apart from him being last line of defence. 

[MARK92GERS 808]

It’s amazing how much we have missed Coulibaly imo 

[StaunchLondonGer 1,651]

10 minutes ago, Courtyard Bear said:

Thought the defence got bloody lucky yesterday, lost a lot of headers from corners/set pieces, Katic lost his man completely only for the scum muppet to head it straight at McGregor. 

A good defence in my eyes means we don’t let many attempts on goal happen. 

mate it was absolutely relentless that first half. totally dominating open play plus set piece after set piece coming into the box so they were always going to win some of the headers and create chances.

I was pleasantly surprised watching it again how well we defended and cleared over all. Just a fucking shame we had so much of it to do.

[LaudrupsPatrickBoots 13,537]

Tav is brutal and in all honesty Barisic didn't look too clever yesterday either.

[SeparateEntityMyArse 53,882]

A successful team starts from the back, concentrates on the spine, then improves the rest of the 1st team quality to match, and finally develops the depth of squad so that if a sub is made the quality on the pitch doesn't decrease.

We're a million miles from that, as is to be expected, given our starting position. Quite simply it was never going to be addressed in one window, in which we've actually achieved better turnaround than I thought likely with 27 players moved along.

New manager, new squad, new mentality, a fucking hard opening schedule. A tiring trip to Russia and a game endured with 9 men.

The scum have an established squad and tinker rather than overhaul. Their midfield 2 of Rogic and Nitcham are a level far above typical for the spl. Their CF cost more than we spent on our squad.

Of course we should be aspiring to win the league, but realism is needed.  As is time, transfer windows and investment.

Those shouting and moaning loudest are those who don't look at the big picture. They just work up to a frenzy, expect us to smash them (saying the double treble winners are shite tends to be the basis of why they expect us to), then go crazy blaming everyone at the club when it doesn't happen.

As shite as we were yesterday, and we were, even our best teams have struggled there previously. As some posters on here pointed out pre match to be largely shouted down. 4-nil type predictions. Getting a result there is fucking hard even for a great team in form.

We as a support NEED to stop focusing on the league, remove that pressure / anxiety, and look at the short term. Win the next game. And the next. Develop, improve, keep doing so and keep winning. Then see where it takes us. There's already talk of pulverising them in December ffs, it's mental.

We are better than we were, not nearly as good as we need to be, but are on the right path. We need to push on as a team to get there, and to be a strong 2nd best this season at least, as a stepping stone to subsequent investment, new players etc to take on the scum on a prolonged basis. Realistically next season. If like me you believe in realism....

[gmcf 34,381]

Just concentrating on the defence here , on the whole , defensively they did quite well . What wasn't so good was the lack of composure , at the back , after winning the ball . Instead of looking for a pass and passing the ball out of danger , all too often we just gifted the ball back to them by hoofing it up the park , thus putting us back under pressure again . 

[Bluenose-11 196]

Forrest beat Barisic with ease more often than not. He certainly was not quality 

[coopsleftboot 5,512]

3 minutes ago, gmcf said:

Just concentrating on the defence here , on the whole , defensively they did quite well . What wasn't so good was the lack of composure , at the back , after winning the ball . Instead of looking for a pass and passing the ball out of danger , all too often we just gifted the ball back to them by hoofing it up the park , thus putting us back under pressure again . 

That's what stood out for me...perhaps that was the tactics though, look for Lafferty?

Generally a pet hate of mine, even in my boys team!

[gj923 1,457]

5 minutes ago, Sportingintegritymyarse said:

A successful team starts from the back, concentrates on the spine, then improves the rest of the 1st team quality to match, and finally develops the depth of squad so that if a sub is made the quality on the pitch doesn't decrease.

We're a million miles from that, as is to be expected, given our starting position. Quite simply it was never going to be addressed in one window, in which we've actually achieved better turnaround than I thought likely with 27 players moved along.

New manager, new squad, new mentality, a fucking hard opening schedule. A tiring trip to Russia and a game endured with 9 men.

The scum have an established squad and tinker rather than overhaul. Their midfield 2 of Rogic and Nitcham are a level far above typical for the spl. Their CF cost more than we spent on our squad.

Of course we should be aspiring to win the league, but realism is needed.  As is time, transfer windows and investment.

Those shouting and moaning loudest are those who don't look at the big picture. They just work up to a frenzy, expect us to smash them (saying the double treble winners are shite tends to be the basis of why they expect us to), then go crazy blaming everyone at the club when it doesn't happen.

As shite as we were yesterday, and we were, even our best teams have struggled there previously. As some posters on here pointed out pre match to be largely shouted down. 4-nil type predictions. Getting a result there is fucking hard even for a great team in form.

We as a support NEED to stop focusing on the league, remove that pressure / anxiety, and look at the short term. Win the next game. And the next. Develop, improve, keep doing so and keep winning. Then see where it takes us. There's already talk of pulverising them in December ffs, it's mental.

We are better than we were, not nearly as good as we need to be, but are on the right path. We need to push on as a team to get there, and to be a strong 2nd best this season at least, as a stepping stone to subsequent investment, new players etc to take on the scum on a prolonged basis. Realistically next season. If like me you believe in realism....

Stop making sense and allow us to ready the pitchforks!

People do forget where we were last April after the 2 games against them and I for one did not expect us to get to the group stages. This will allow us to invest in a few additions to the squad either in January or June.

 

[gmcf 34,381]

1 minute ago, coopsleftboot said:

That's what stood out for me...perhaps that was the tactics though, look for Lafferty?

Generally a pet hate of mine, even in my boys team!

It could have been ,because he did have some knock ons but being outnumbered he wasn't going to win many . 

I don't know , it could just have been being unused to the occasion and thinking they are playing safe,  when in actual fact it's having the opposite effect  and putting us under constant pressure.  

[Big Al 55 9,281]

Did we show them too much respect...probably.

It was obvious SG didn't think we had the legs for the high press and so we deliberately sat off them and were hoping to keep it tight and hit on the break.

Bad luck our best player so far this year was out, bad luck we had a particularly punishing Euro trip on Thursday night.

While we rode our luck at times but for yet more poor refereeing decisions the plan may just have worked.

[NitshillBear 1,461]

Humping the ball from back to front constantly gifted them possession. We seemed scared to hold the ball. Was crying out for a bit of confidence to just move the ball on and keep it for a while. Thumping it at Lafferty or Morelos and expecting them to fight for it isn't good enough.

[Brackley Bluenose 4,479]

3 minutes ago, NitshillBear said:

Humping the ball from back to front constantly gifted them possession. We seemed scared to hold the ball. Was crying out for a bit of confidence to just move the ball on and keep it for a while. Thumping it at Lafferty or Morelos and expecting them to fight for it isn't good enough.

This. People that are hammering the midfielders are completely forgetting the fact that the defence was lumping the ball down the park, completely by passing them. We let them have so much possession (76-24 first half) that it wasn’t even a game it was attack v defence. It was almost like we weren’t interested in attacking. The midfield were clearly instructed to sit in front of the back four and protect, nobody pressed high because that clearly wasn’t the game plan. We lost yesterday because the game plan was poor. 

[cushynumber 25,178]

I thought the centre of defence were excellent. 

[rayq81 231]

1 hour ago, ForeverAndEver said:

No defender got pass marks yesterday though

It was only a goal they won by so I don't really get how no defender gets pass marks? 

[ForeverAndEver 71,736]

2 minutes ago, rayq81 said:

It was only a goal they won by so I don't really get how no defender gets pass marks? 

That is the reason McGregor gets pass marks