Steven Gerrard backs Josh Windass to respond to Ibrox jeers

[buster. 4,808]

10 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

When you throw in the 10 day trip to Spain I don't think there was any time for friendlies. He had barely around 4 weeks or so including Spain to get this together and that's a severe time limitation. At the end of the day lack of goals aside they never looked in danger of losing the Shkupi tie.

Given the lack of games beforehand i'm just glad they got through and expect further improvement to develop. The management know the issues and openly concede it. I'm confident they will be working on it. 

You are right, there wasn't much time and tbh it serves little purpose to go over it.

SG&Co have to look forward and quickly work on improvements.

 

Is there a game (closed doors) this weekend ?

Edited July 18, 2018 by buster.

[JFK-1 1,677]

8 minutes ago, buster. said:

You are right, there wasn't much time and tbh it serves little purpose to go over it.

SG&Co have to look forward and quickly work on improvements.

 

Is there a game (closed doors) this weekend ?

All I know of is Wigan a week on Sunday. Obviously not closed doors.

[buster. 4,808]

Just now, JFK-1 said:

All I know of is Wigan a week on Sunday. Obviously not closed doors.

I think we could do with a closed doors game this weekend.

 

Work on things Thursday and Friday, game on Sunday to put it into practice then it'll be the European tie on the Thursday.

[craig 5,199]

19 minutes ago, buster. said:

You are right, there wasn't much time and tbh it serves little purpose to go over it.

SG&Co have to look forward and quickly work on improvements.

 

Is there a game (closed doors) this weekend ?

I think we all would have preferred more friendlies.

 

However, given SG felt the squad wasn't fit enough it is easy to see why the backroom team decided to focus on fitness in pre-season.  They can still all work on the formation and tactics whilst in pre-season as they played inter-club games.  The only thing lacking from pre-season would be the competitive nature of games - and footballers are competitive by nature so that piece would be natural to them, or should be.

 

I don't think that SG & Co made any mistakes in pre-season preparations.

 

Sadiq had been on the radar for a while and, it could be, he was the preferred option up front - but we can't dictate how quickly other clubs allow players to leave.

 

I think SG has done a very good job thus far - he has rebuilt the defence which we all knew was clearly needed.  And in that regard it looks very successful right now - though as you rightly pointed out previously, only sterner tests will tell just how successful that will be.  But it certainly looks stronger than last year at this point.

 

We have been creating tons of chances IMO and only composure in front of goal has prevented us from having a 10-0 (or more) aggregate (plus some decent McGregor saves to keep the "nil").  We knew that problem and I am sure SG knew that problem.  The issue is that getting a prolific striker is likely to cost a fair bit of money, so it could well be that SG has decided to wait till the EPL clubs determine their 25 man squads and then looks to the loan market - not ideal, but probably cheaper to get a loan for the quality desired.

 

We need to be more composed up front, that much is for sure.  However, I would be far more concerned if we weren't creating chances.  I would also be more concerned if we were looking disorganized at the back, but we don't.

 

Gerrard may not be the messiah... but this early in, he already looks a cut above our previous two managers IMO.

[craig 5,199]

15 minutes ago, buster. said:

I think we could do with a closed doors game this weekend.

 

Work on things Thursday and Friday, game on Sunday to put it into practice then it'll be the European tie on the Thursday.

They could easily do this as an inter-club exercise.

[craig 5,199]

16 minutes ago, buster. said:

I think we could do with a closed doors game this weekend.

 

Work on things Thursday and Friday, game on Sunday to put it into practice then it'll be the European tie on the Thursday.

The Wigan game is AFTER the European tie.

[Gonzo79 13,764]

36 minutes ago, craig said:

The Wigan game is AFTER the European tie.

I think buster means this Sunday coming.

[Tannochsidebear 2,321]

Yes, we should definately be having another game this weekend. The core fitness has been done, the matches are going to start coming two a week, so it is sharpness we need, which is exactly what friendlies can give you, if the right opponent is selected.

 

The issues we are having is our forward players look off-form, or some may call it (politely) a lack of sharpness. This doesnt usually get better by doing more training sessions, this usually works out by getting more competitive match time under the belt.

 

 

[compo 6,220]

Some of our players first touch in last night's game was deplorable 

Some of the passing was much the same .

Edited July 18, 2018 by compo

[Ser Barristan Selmy 222]

23 hours ago, craig said:

 

 

 

Your first assertion was about players going missing in one of Europe’s worst leagues.  

 

Darthter responded with with an example of a player that couldn’t go missing as he isn’t even getting games.

 

your follow up bore no resemblance to your initial assertion.

My response made perfect sense based on what he said. I'm glad you're paying such close attention to my posts though.