v. the Accies | Vital Football

v. the Accies

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welch47

Vital Football Hero
So we have dominated possession and gotten a few good shot but nothing through. It's a typical domestic match. They have everyone behind the ball and looking to score on the break. That makes for a sticky match. We're getting closer.

The lineup is similar to midweek except Guidetti is in over Tonev and playing up front with Stokes, Commons and Wakaso just behind.
 
The second half starts brightly and then one moment of slack defending and we're down 1-0.
 
Wakaso assumes the role of professional idiot by taking a stupid shot, which is blocked. Then he tackles his opponent who gets the break of the ball.
 
Tonev brought down in the box. Hamilton player yellow carded but no penalty. Insane no-call.
 
Piss poor! Too many missed chances. Not organized in attack. Johansen is just chronic. Awful player. He reminds me of Lee Naylor the last season we had him. Great effort but awful passes. He is the worst playe I have ever seen in Hoops.

Stokes and Commons both missed many chances. Guidetti was AWOL. Griffiths came on and showed skill. So did Tonev. But too late to make a difference. Tonev should be starting over Johansen. Fuck sake, Tic should be starting over StoJo.
 
Haven't seen any highlights and didn't see the game but that is a poor result! I didn't think Hamilton was going to be an easy game because they've continued last season's form into this season and are doing well! But I expected a difficult game if we were away, for us to be at home and lose and apparently play so badly is just not right!

We can't even use the excuse of the European game in midweek, we were at home so had no travel....so what's the excuse? Were the players just tired from trying so hard in midweek? Or are our current crop of players just unable to go this many games and keep up the consistent level of performance required? Or at least this early in the season.....

I know Deila is trying to get a settled team but at the same time I wonder whether he will need to be making more than just the one change between these sorts of games? Should Bitton or Kayal have been brought in to replace Johansen (I know welch's answer to that anyway)? Perhaps this was the sort of game where Griffiths really should have started as well? Stokes put in a real shift in midweek so you could excuse him for being a little bit tired, so why not replace him with Griffiths and then bring him on as a sub if needed?
 
Stokes did not look tired. He was just way off. He had several clear headers and missed. COmmons also fanned at a few chances. We'd have been better served by starting Tonev, Bitton or Kayal over Johansen. Also, the lone striker with three in support is not working when opponents put 10 men behind the ball, which is what all league opposition does.
 
Agree about the formation, it's struggling to work in the SPFL but it looks like it could work fairly well in the Europa League. As you say, it only works if teams come out and try and play against you which doesn't happen in the SPFL generally. Equally, not putting enough players into the attack doesn't work either. That's why I personally think a 3-5-2 can still work in the SPFL.
It allows us to send the majority of our players into attack but also leaves that extra player back as cover so that if the opposition break down the wings, we still have another defender waiting in the middle. It also allows us to play with 2 wingers for pace out wide, 2 strikers to open up defences, it would still allow us to have the Commons role as well!
 
Scott Brown has summed it up quite well, there aren't enough characters coming out on the pitch. Not enough leaders. He said everyone is waiting for someone like Commons to score a wonder goal and that's it. It's something I think we need to fix in January, get a bit more experience into the team mainly in midfield and attack.

Deila says he still sees improvements and the fact we had 10-15 chances is good, it means we were playing quite well.....it's just that the result was poor. Deila looked really disappointed after the game!

Apparently some fans are calling for him to be sacked. I'm not going to go down that route yet. I believe you need to give a new manager time and 3 or 4 months is not enough time. He'll at least be given to next summer but he knows as well as anyone that the results need to improve. We're not going to win the league by a country mile, I still believe we will win it but it will probably be a new record low points total.

Deila said he wasn't going to make many changes for the Hamilton game because he'd learned his lesson from the Motherwell game........I think he learned the wrong lesson. The lesson wasn't that you can't make as many as 6 changes, it was that you can't take out such big players as Brown and Commons. You can make other changes though!
 
Brown is right and I like that he is laying into the team. There aren't enough players stepping up. But I still think the tactics, which are the same every week, are just not working. You have three men lined up behind one striker and two midfielders in brown and Johansen laying pretty deep. That means we never have enough passing lanes to penetrate. When Guidetti gets to the box, he has no one in there because every hooped player is behind him. Commons was trying to drive into the box against two or three defenders all day.

Worse, the three men behind the forwards are trying so desperately to find a way through, that there are acres of space behind them to run at the defenders. So the team is subject to the occasionally break.

I think Deila should be sacked. Sure, three months isn't long but we should not be this far down in the table after eights games. We have 14 of a possible 24 points. There has been one decisive victory. The only difference this year versus last year is Forster and one can argue that Gordon has replaced him quite nicely. This club ran riot over the league last year and now we can't even count on home victories. Lennon had this same crew scoring goals, turning up clean sheets and winning the league at a canter. That was five months ago.

The biggest reason he should go is that he never should have been hired in the first place. And the early returns are terrible. How long do we wait? Until we're nine points adrift in a league that we should be nine points ahead? The guy subbed too many and cost us a game. Then he subs too few. Well, Ronny, now you have it completely surrounded. Make the right call! It only cost us six points for a professional manager to learn something the three of us could have told him. I know 'em when I see 'em. He's not it.
 
It's a very good point you make about the team. With the exception of the GK, we could put out the same team as Lennon could have won with last year. So what's wrong? He's trying to make the players fitter and I like that, some of what he's doing I also like in terms of being able to counter-attack (only works if teams move out from the edge of the penalty box) and I think at times we are actually playing some nice link-up play.

The problem seems to be the tactics. It seems he is overly concerned with the points I just mentioned above rather than getting the team winning with the players at his disposal and taking a season to change things. It's as though he's trying to do it too quickly. I totally agree about the work ethic and diet etc, 100% he's right, but it can be done over the course of the season so the players are ready for next season. In terms of counter-attacking football, again it can be developed over time and the big thing we missed to play that way in the first place was pace because Forrest and Boerrigter were always injured. Now we have new wingers in and they give us that pace.
Defensively it just seems as though we have no shape and structure, especially in the midfield. Brown and Johansen are constantly swapping round and playing anywhere rather than one playing and patrolling the left side of the pitch and one on the right.

BUT, here's the big question.......who would we get to replace Deila? Owen Coyle? Still not convinced by that option. Malky Mackay? HUGE question marks over his ethics during his time at Cardiff. Moyes? He won't do it. Who else is there?
 
I like Coyle. Who is the Spanish coach we had on the line when Deila landed the job? What about Slaven Bilic? I'd rather see a coach with scouting connections to E. Europe than Scandinavia. Dalgleish, though the powers that be don;t like him.
 
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