18/19 Pre-Season & CL Qualifiers | Page 3 | Vital Football

18/19 Pre-Season & CL Qualifiers

GOAL! James Forrest! 2-0!

Hendry kept the ball alive and after bouncing around in the box it eventually came to Forrest around the penalty spot and he fires it into the back of the net!

Now have a good commanding lead of this tie! Keep it tight until the end of the match!
 
Not seen much of Morgan as I haven't seen much of pre-season but from what I have seen and what he's done in this game so far since he's come on......he really looks like he could be a player! Exciting to watch!
 
GOAL! McGregor makes it 3-0!

Lovely run out of defence by Ajer, passes it to Forrest who cuts back across the box and eventually gives it to McGregor who fires home into the far corner!

This is now a great result!
 
McGregor with an excellent finish. Lovely run up the park from Ajer, who impresses me more every day, and great play across the front from Forrest. 3-0!
 
An excellent result. Three away goals under tough conditions. And we didn;t seem to tax ourselves doing it. Everyone looked comfortable, sharp and match fit!
 
Saturday sees us play a home friendly against Standard Liege which is very good preparation to get us further up to speed and at a better level for the other qualifiers to come. That however will be our final pre-season game, even with another 3 qualifying rounds to go and the league season not starting until August. The only exception is that we're sending a team down to play in the South Shields Challenge Cup, however this is likely to be the fringe players or more likely the Development squad. That will include the youngsters who joined us on the trip to Austria and probably Mikey Johnston, Calvin Miller and possibly Anthony Ralston as well.

It will be interesting to see what Rodgers does both on Saturday and for the home game against Alashkert next week. We need to get more of the squad up to full fitness so those who didn't start last night will probably get a long run out against Standard Liege but equally we might add in a lot of the younger boys there too because we don't want to risk injuring those who at the moment at least are our main starters.
I think Rodgers will put out a strong team to play Alashkert next week but I think we'll see some changes. With a 3-0 lead I think Rodgers can afford to not risk players and may only go with the 1 striker up front to start with and maybe change to a back 4 with Ralston coming in. It's good experience for him and he'll need the minutes. I could also see Kouassi coming into the side and maybe Morgan and Sinclair starting or Ryan Christie being given a chance as well. We have good options but Rodgers will want to see some of these fringe guys in competitive action to determine their fates. Scott Allan may even get on from the bench......I would hope Rodgers will have a few of the younger boys on the bench next week so that if we get another 2 or 3 goals, he can bring them on and give them the experience of playing a European game as it's only going to help their development!
 
I think the Standard Liege team will be:
Bain
Ralston - Welsh - Compper/Ajer - Miller
Regan Hendry - Kouassi - Allan
Morgan - Griff/Dembele - Sinclair

Subs: Hazard, Simunovic, Jack Hendry, Ntcham, Edouard, Christie, Benyu, Henderson, Hill, Aitchison, Johnston, McInroy.

Rodgers might go stronger but after a sapping 90mins last night, I think some of the boys especially in midfield who did a lot of running will be given a rest. The likes of McGregor, Brown, Tierney and Forrest all played the full game and got through a lot of running and I certainly don't see any of them starting the game.
If Compper has recovered from his injury I would imagine he'll feature again and the same goes for Griffiths but those two will need to be built back up to fitness slowly so will probably only play 45mins or so.
 
Standard Liege friendly today. Lovely day at Paradise and our first game on the new pitch that's been put down this off-season.

Brendan has surprisingly named a strong starting XI for the game but he did previously state that it would be two teams playing today. Suggestions yesterday were that Tierney and maybe one or two others would actually sit out the game altogether today.

First half XI (the official website says it's a 4-2-3-1 but Tierney is pushing high up as usual allowing McGregor to push inside):
Bain
Hendry - Ajer - Simunovic
Forrest - Ntcham - Brown - McGregor - Tierney
Dembele - Edouard

Second half XI:
Hazard
Ralston - Welsh - Compper - Miller
Eboue - Allan
Johnston - Henderson - Sinclair
Christie

Subs: Benyu, Church, McInroy
 
A chance in the second half for players to make a point and prove they should be in the squad.

Edouard has opened the scoring with a delightful curling shot from the left of the edge of the box, cuts it onto his right foot after an amazing run from defence by Ajer, he picks his spot and just lifts it over the keeper and into the far corner! Delightful!

Dembele now makes it 2-0! Latches onto a poor touch from the defender and nips in and finishes beautifully over the keeper with his left foot into the far corner.

It's becoming clear that we're further into our pre-season than Liege are!
 
3-0! McGregor! Good pass from Ntcham to play through the on-running McGregor and a good finish into the far corner!
 
welch47 said:
Greetings, Wee Od! So far, we're kicking their ass!
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Hi welch! Indeed we are. We're looking good and the early start to the season has given us an advantage over a lot of other teams we'll need to face at this stage of the season.
I'm expecting them to make changes which will either kill the game or it will open up and give us a chance for more goals.
 
Well that was a good show. The starters looked great and some of the youngsters, like Miller and Johnston, were terrific!
 
Christie looked OK. I really want him to succeed but he had little support up front and was frequently surrounded when he got to the box.
 
Things aren't looking good for Christie or Allan. Allan has looked a different player this pre-season and BR says he likes him but he needed to go on loan last season because of his time at Rotherham the season before. Now that he's had regular football he looks a different player! BR says he's got a great attitude and works really hard but he just can't guarantee him enough game time ahead of other players who have the positions and aren't doing anything to lose them. So for that reason and given that he needs to be playing regular football, he's probably going to end up out on loan again.
The same unfortunately goes for Christie.
 
Punt the pair of them. Neither will make it at the club. Christie had a chance to kick on at the sheep last season and failed miserably. Second season syndrome now applies to loan players :rolleyes:

Tonight's 2nd leg is a sellout - which is surprising!
 
TicV"Establishment" said:
Punt the pair of them. Neither will make it at the club. Christie had a chance to kick on at the sheep last season and failed miserably. Second season syndrome now applies to loan players :rolleyes:

Tonight's 2nd leg is a sellout - which is surprising!
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Agree! Christie hasn't done much in pre-season to impress!

It's a sell-out because of the season ticket holders, most of whom won't be there!
 
I can't see the game but I see we're 1-0 up through Dembele. Scored after only 8mins so that's a great start. However I now see that after 11mins we're down to 10 men as Simunovic has been red carded for violent conduct! What the hell is going on?
 
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