I can't believe there are people out there who still think we have a shot of autos. Absolutely no chance this team under Martin is good enough for that.
Ross Stewart won’t make a difference if we play like we did tonight. You could put Erling Haaland up there and he still wouldn’t have got a touch. Our build up play is non-existent. We create nothing under this system
Preston might be sitting 4th, but they are by no means the 4th best side in this league. Many sides have a nice run of results at some point during the course of the season (you'll often be relegated if you don't) - it just so happened that Preston's good run was right at the very start. They've since picked up two points from five games (which after tonight is now three points from six games), and are at risk of up to half the league overtaking them in the coming weeks if they continue their current form. Tonight's result isn't as bad as drawing Rotherham at home. But at least we played well against Rotherham. 10 points behind Ipswich, with a much worse GD and having played an extra game, is looking like a massive gap right now. Though I would still back us to finish top six.
Defending against us is too easy. Teams always have plenty of time to get organised after losing the ball as we have no urgency to attack. We are happy to control possession and slowly build.
This team do. Under Martin we don't (or at least if we persist with this claggy style of football, which we will...).
And that’s exactly what happened vs Rotherham. 1-0 up, totally dominate but our slow, deliberate, death by, kills it. Can’t really see it improving. RM is RM, it’s on his CV, it’s already written previously. We might make play offs (by a sneak) but we won’t progress, thro or even on. Sorry, he’s a duffer. RM, someone within SFC, read this stuff. It’s fairly intellectual fans posting sensible / logical stuff. We’re not Man City & RM isn’t Pep & never will be. ps. Lovely bloke!
I thought our main problem tonight was midfield. Pne pretty much got through it with ease far too often. Thought shea Charles was especially poor tonight. We also don't seem to know when to speed up play
In fact I'd go as far as saying Nathan Jones would be more likely to achieve promotion with this squad than Martin.
Yeah I meant the combination really. We clearly have one of the most talented squads in this league. And yet we've conceded the joint most amount of goals after more than a third of the season. Let that sink in.
Charles was very, very bad. He was the very epitome of everything you are describing. He was the one most guilty of slowing things down, going sideways. When Stuie plays instead of him, we're much better. Charles' last two games for N. Ireland he got sent off in one, and played San Marino in the other, so it's hard to judge him off that. I'm not RM's biggest fan either, but while we have some great players, we have a lot of mediocre ones too. And still a bit too much youth and inexperience. Charles, Mara, Charly, Sulemana; they all seem to struggle with Championship football, and I don't think blaming that on RM is necessarily fair.
Honestly, I think they struggle with this style more than Championship football. Edit: Charles is a different case, but Mara, Charly, Sulemana are all 'turn and run' footballers. This style is the antithesis of that.
Or alternatively: KWP - relegated last season Sulemana - young but raw, starting his first full season in this country Adams / Armstrong - haven't scored regularly for several years Armstrong - nearing the end of his career, not able to play for full 90 last year THB, Downes, Alcaraz, lots of potential but all 20/21 year olds Manning - not sure how he was in TOTY last year Smallbone - out on loan for the past 2 seasons Fraser - hadn't played for 9 months before the start of this season OK, I'm stretching on a few of them, but your summary is really rose-tinted in my opinion.
Propoganda football. Great for the stats nerds to **** over possession numbers but not great for actually achieving anything
I'll give you Fraser as he will take a while to get up to speed. But the others are all based on their playing experience either this or last season, hard to argue imo.
That to me is the bigger issue. While we seem turgid in attack, we're joint-fourth in goals scored, second in shots taken, second in shots on target, etc. We should probably be better, but it's our defending that is holding us back.
I know but when you think that no team in the league has conceded more goals than us then it seems painfully obvious just how much we're underperforming.
