[FT] Ross County 1 - 1 Rangers (Hill 8)

[Davie P 4]

Really disappointing performance, imo only Hill and Halliday got pass marks.

If Wes is in the team ahead of Gilks for his distribution, then Gilks must be missing a leg. I don't believe that any GK could distribute the ball worse than yesterday's performance. Terrible passing and lucky not to get caught in possession on a couple of occasions. Was he unsighted with that shot at the end?

Tav defended better than he did last season, but appears to have lost his attacking mojo. His crossing was abysmal to say nothing of his shot that he couldn't even put into the side netting.

Kiernan cannot pass or tackle, must have some compromising photos of the manager to play at this club.

Wallace - could Hodson do any worse? Almost cost us a goal at the end when he passed it square, after taking an eternity with a shy in injury time. Playing for the draw?

Holt, Windass, Garner; - Woeful, Holt doing his best Nicky Law impression; Windass couldn't find a player with a pass if he was three feet away from him and Garner, just can't believe that we spent 1,8m on a player from the English championship. Would have been far better to have taken that money and looked for a hungry young striker from Eastern Europe or Scandinavia. 1,8m will not buy you quality in the English Championship, that's almost a given. If he was 'married' to the 4 4 2 formation, why bring him to a club where we will not deviate from 4 3 3?

O'Halloron appears to be a poor man's Arron Lennon i.e. drop the left shoulder and go past the defender on his right. Nothing particularly wrong with this, (although any decent defender should work you out quickly) but you have to have an end product once you have created the space.

Miller at least worked hard and covered Wallace a number of times, but that cannot be his role surely. After his shot early in the first half, he no longer provided an attacking threat.

From the bench, Waghorn looks like he doesn't want to be here (assume that he has still not signed the contract extension?), Dodoo I think touched the ball once in his 10 minute cameo and McKay just didn't impose himself on the game. However, you can see that there is something special about this boy even when he is not playing particularly well, he has wonderful control and vision, perhaps better as a Number 10 in the absence of Kranjcar? Remember the defence splitting pass to Tav?

 

All in all, very little or no improvement since the 5-1 match. No moving the ball quickly, bullied in the midfield, haphazard at the back and pedestrian up front. The only match where I thought we were unlucky not to get something was against the sheep, but right now, we are where we are because of our lack of quality throughout the team/squad. I just cannot see how this team is going to be good enough for second place this season, never mind laying the foundation for future title challenges. I think Dave King has bigger challenges than Mark Warburton - he needs to find some serious money to bring in the quality that 40 000 season ticket holders deserve.

[calscot 0]

I went back from 2012 to 2000 and not once did the winners have less than 68.4%. The only time this century was 2013 with Celtic sleepwalking to a tainted title without us in the league, at 63.2% with 24 wins.

 

So I would say we need a minimum of 25 wins which is 65.8%, although 26 wins is real bar at 68.4%.

[calscot 0]

In the last four years, 50% win rate would not have got us 2nd place 3 times out of 4. To scrape 2nd in the other we'd need 50% plus 7 draws or 6 draws plus more than 16 goal difference.

 

The average for second without us in the league was 55.9%.

[der Berliner 3,366]

While it is rather predictable that certain media trolls need to have a dig at us and slaughter our players (mainly because they have fallen deeper into the same trap as many of our supporters ... or simply like slagging us off), we should have by now come to a conclusion about the capabilities of our current players (those playing, that is). Maybe we adjust our weekly performance check accordingly, rather than hand out lavish slaughterings on a two week basis. For people are simply not rubbish one week and excellent the other. Similarly, and this is usually a German football reporter disease, we like to forget that we are actually facing different footballers every week too, people who know the game as well and are all seasoned pros. What works against one team at home may (and has) not worked well away from home. And we haven't found a recipe to be in any way consistently decent. It is about time that the players rise to the challenge or their time with us will be shorter than expected. As it was before.

Edited November 7, 2016 by der Berliner

[calscot 0]

I think we were optimistic from last season due to the way we played and won the league pretty convincingly, but what we are waking up to is that the players we thought were good, are of a similar standard to the likes of Hearts and Aberdeen, and obviously Hearts already won the second pretty convincingly, and you would expect Aberdeen to do so too.

 

So where we are is about where we should expect with St Johnstone being the surprise party crashers. Although, personally I think we have the potential to be the top of that lot by a small distance.

 

It seems a lot of the players we enjoyed last season have found their level now, and there are so many that just look pretty ordinary SPL players, although a little bit above the average to be good enough for the top half of the table, outside Celtic. A few of them are actually struggling for even that level.

 

Our summer purchase of a whole team of players was supposed to raise us up a level, but who has made an impact? I think Kranjcar started to look good, and Rossiter had potential, but both succumbed to injury, while Windass had a brief, bright moment before fading.

 

Hill seems just about ok, and better than the two previous bombscares, but he's not even in the league of some of our less well sung heroes of the past. A squad player that's better than two players who shouldn't be in the squad.

 

Barton was a waste of time and money, and I'm not sure what happened with Senderos except that it doesn't look like he's been forgiven for that hand-ball.

 

Garner is an enigma and his transfer fee is looking like it's highly inflated by a rich second tier under a mega rich first tier league - reminding of some similar backup signings we made in salubrious times as mere punts with petty cash. At the moment, I think most fans would welcome a swap for Sebo.

 

So we're relying on quite a few stalwarts from last season with the likes of Foderingham giving us nervous tension and most others vastly under-performing and looking like they are lacking in confidence.

 

We'll have the odd game like Killie, where it all comes together, but teams are learning to press us and harry us, and without using all three dimensions of the pitch, our team just don't seem to have the chops to cope. In the Championship they had time to pick their passes, now they have far less time to think and on a bad day like in Dingwall, the passes are pretty woeful.

 

We sorely need a change or even just a big tweak in the tactics as we're telling the opposition exactly how we'r'e going to play, when we're going to use our substitutes, and have taught them how to nullify our threat.

 

The only unpredictable thing is how well we're going to play plan A.

[the gunslinger 3,366]

I think his kpi is league position. Not a win rate.

[calscot 0]

I think his kpi is league position. Not a win rate.

 

 

Fair enough, but I think they are slightly related, and to me win rate is more consistent from season to season rather than depending on who else is doing what. It makes it a KPI for him rather than how other managers are doing also.

 

For example, you could be just in second place but doing quite badly with win rate as everyone is taking points off each other, which could give a false impression of performance, that could be shown up the next season if one of the teams gets their act together.

 

Also, I don't think second place by a point above Aberdeen but 35 points behind Celtic is the same performance as second, 20 points above Aberdeen and 10 points behind Celtic.

 

Or you could be doing quite well but pipped to second by goal difference by a team having a season of a lifetime.

 

Although, when it comes to first place, I completely agree - I care a lot less about how it was done, and if it's a 50% win rate then fine.

[pete 2,499]

The worst thing we did was beating Celtic in the cup semi-final. we woke them up to just how bad they were, and it gave us a faulty picture of where we were. The only thing I will say is that Scottish teams are far fitter than they were before we woke them up with the 6-2 win against Hibs and that run winning with high scores.

 

One thing I have to say about Foderingham is he is a crapper when it comes to high crosses. there was a few crosses yesterday that were no more than 2 meters from the goal-line and he just stayed rooted to the line. He should be looking to attack most balls in the 6meter box.

 

I am not sure how anyone thought Halliday had pass marks I didn't see it that way. the only player on the park with pass marks was the Dutch substitute that came on for Ross.C. He never let 1 cross get into the box and mopped up virtually everything.

[rbr 1,247]

The sheer level of desperation amongst our own fan base has actually shocked me slightly , we make statements about backing our team and club yet at the first sign of a wobble it's full on panic mode . I am not comparison g MW to freguson but the simple facts are there , he was given 4 seasons to sort out the mess down there and backed by serious money , we have no money and it appears no desire to give him time either, next guy in makes the same mistake it's going to be the same again .

 

The definition of stupidity is repeating the mistakes of the past again and again and being surprised that the outcomes the same, some amongst us would do well to heed it .

 

 

[limeburner 0]

MW would do well to heed your last paragraph.