vs Ross County | Vital Football

vs Ross County

wee_od_88

wee_od_88

Vital Football Hero
Away to Ross County this afternoon and back to domestic action after our big European night in Turin.

After the disappointment of Wednesday night, we have to re-focus and get up and go again for what will be a tough challenge from an on form Ross County team who are 4th in the SPL!

We are missing some 6 players for today's game. Brown and Lustig are still injured while Wanyama and Matthews went off injured in Turin midweek. Samaras and Izzy both picked up knocks in that game as well and so are both missing today.

Tony Watt returns to the squad after recovering from a bruised foot.

Lennon needs to decide how much to change the team. Full scale changes or just minor to cover those who are missing.

We are left without a recognised RB although Ambrose can easily cover there......with the way he has been playing and Lennon's comments suggesting he is mentally fatigued at the moment, I wouldn't be keen to start him today! However we are also missing Marcus Fraser who picked up an injury in an U20 game.

I think it means going with 3 at the back and use Wilson as a RCB, Rogne at CB and either Mulgrew or Gershon at LCB. McGeouch could play as a RWB as he has done it before and either Gershon or Mulgrew as a LWB (probably more likely Mulgrew).

Ledley and Kayal in midfield, Forrest in front of them and Hooper and Stokes up front.

Forster
Wilson - Rogne - Gershon
McGeouch - Kayal - Ledley - Mulgrew
Forrest
Hooper - Stokes
 
This is the worst performance I have seen since Mowbray was coach. Ambrose was awful. Gershon seemed lost. Kayal could not complete a pass to save his life. Just a terrible performance.
 
Haven't watched the second half yet (I've got the game recorded from BBC Alba) but it doesn't sound good. I only want to watch it to analyse it and work out who was playing so badly!

Lennon has said Hooper is exempt from his criticism because he was the one bright spark going forward while Miku was good in fits and starts but was always going to struggle on that pitch.

From what I saw in the first half, Kayal was putting in effort but it didn't look too clinical when it came to the final pass. Hooper was dropping deep and trying to create but not doing an awful lot. Miku was looking sharp but struggling to quite find the way through. McGeouch was trying hard but seemed to be left with little support and the fact the pitch was so bad really didn't help him play his more skillful game.

The defence looked ropey and they and our midfield simply could deal with the bounce of the ball or the speed at which County were playing. They played it quick, closed us down quick and generally just caused us problems with their shape.

Lennon says he is making changes for the next game, but he will still be without most of the fullbacks so it's probably going to be 3 at the back again....unless he plays Fraser (if he is fit again) or he plays Ambrose at RB.

He is hoping Izzy and Samaras will be back, Forrest will be in the squad again and they will check on Wanyama. My gut feeling is that just bringing those 4 players back in....might not be enough!
If Lennon really wants to send a message to some of these players, he should play more of our youngsters! Regardless of how they perform or if we lose, if he plays them first, it will soon send a message to those he feels are not playing well enough at the moment!
 
This 3-5-2 doesn't work. I didn't think Miku did much. We did have trouble with the pitch. Balls seemed to cling to the surface and our passes were short. But we had them down 2-0 and should have romped from there on out.
 
That's the biggest disappointment welch, we were 2-0 up and then threw it away! It was almost as though we scored 2 goals and some of the players thought that was it over and they could take their foot off the gas.......that is definitely a no no!!!!
 
The defensive lapses were pretty bad. It was one of those games where they moves fast to close us down and no one adjusted with greater effort or by creating passing lanes.
 
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