ascender

That was horrendous.... What exactly is Gio's plan and why is he so damn negative??

With the World Cup break coming up I'm starting to think we need to admit this isn't working and make the change sooner rather than later so whoever comes-in has time to work with the players and hopefully do a bit of dealing during the window.

Just feels like we're delaying the inevitable.

Christ almighty McGregor...

I just don't understand in what world McGregor, Kent or Borna start today. Baffling.

How on earth is Kent still on?

McGregor? Who saw that coming...

And why oh why can none of our midfielders just shoot first time when we're in a good position.

That's some run and finish!

Just now, Sutton_blows_goats said:

Now we see why Barisic hasn’t been dropped. Our main tactic is to get him to hoof the ball in the box from wherever he is.

Its weird that we're back to the Kent & Barisic overlap as our only apparent tactic.

High balls for Matondo? Give me strength...

1 minute ago, der Berliner said:

7m Kent should rip the @rse out of every Scottish defence every other week. His doing effectively nothing for months, but people hare after Matondo ...

He's started brightly today again, but no real end product. And part of the issue is that if he does play well against Motherwell, he'll start again next week and its all forgotten. He's not looked like a 7M player in what, 12/18 months really? Apart from the odd performance here and there, he's been very poo. But we stick with him...

Same script today, we start with a lot of possession, a high pace, positive attitude but with nothing to show for it after 30 minutes.

King's distribution looks good and it was great to see Davies clearing a ball from the near post following a cross as that's something we have had problems with.

Not really created many chances so far despite all the possession.

Is McGregor getting booed by the Motherwell fans?

1 hour ago, der Berliner said:

A wee reminder: wages aside ... we paid

 

- 4,3m for Davies, who I would suggest will be playing most games

 

- 3.6m for Ridvan, signed when Borna was essentially on the jump and people wanted him go anyway. Thankfully for Borna, he regained some form and good one at that. I for one wouldn't mind playing Ridvan in front of Borna, since he seems very adapt at attacking and defending too.

 

- 2.7m for Matondo, who was meant to be the answer on the right wing, yet given not much game time to really settle in ... and, after all, he is a winger. 

 

- 2.25m for Colak, who made us forget Morelos

 

... but no matter whether it were those guys or someone else, or we had spent 20m more, we'd still be miles off from the teams we face in our group. Well, make that astronomical units.

 

At this time, we also have 7 players out injured who could/would all contest as starting slot, and lost Goldson and Jack too. Obviously, you can ask for effort and all that, but you also have to keep in mind that the other teams, aside from their class, also can provide the same effort ... and them subs yesterday were clearly out to show Klopp that they should have been first choices. It is a very (football) Germany attitude to look primarily at oneself and not the opposition. Arrogance borne out of permanent success. Either "we" play good and deserve anything we get, or "we" played poorly. The opposition is always secondary. That is hardly objective and we shouldn't fall into that trap. Not least when the opposition is way above us.

 

All the above doesn't mean that we just suck it up and be done with it. But as I noted in the previous post, we need to change and shift some personnel as well as use adequate tactics to develop as a team. We've come a long way from the 4th tier and as before, our way will never end. We're not driving in a Bentley like Liverpool as yet, but a fairly well equipped Rover. A decent Mercedes would be the next step, before we start thinking about Bentleys et al.

Davies looks like he could be a good buy based on the very limited time I've seen of him.

Ridvan made total sense given his age and promise. But I've kind of lost patience with Borna too. We all know he's a confidence player, but how many second chances does one guy get? To me he's part of the underlying issue where we have such short memories now that we have a moan about a player not being good enough, they seem to improve for a bit but they soon regress and we have a moan again. Repeat.

Matondo - why didn't he start on the left last night after the promise he showed at Anfield? He couldn't have been any worse than Kent.

Colak looks like a bargain.

I agree 100% that no matter how much we'd have spent, the best we could have hoped for was a lucky draw which put us in with a chance of finishing 3rd, but last night was humiliating and some of those players had clearly given up and couldn't even be bothered running at points. We've proven ourselves to be an excellent European team at Europa League level, but didn't even show that last night from about when we conceded the soft equaliser.

Injuries is a good point, but playing devil's advocate... injuries and a lack of depth in some positions or alternative systems to play to minimise impact of injuries cost us the Europa league final IMO. Like with Borna, we have a false dawn with Ryan Jack every single year. Unlucky with Lawrence, but we then signed Souttar as well as keeping Helander. I think Souttar is a good player and was worth the risk... if we'd managed to move Helander on.

35 minutes ago, Gonzo79 said:

Kent did a good impression of the invisible man last night and Lundstram kept giving the ball away in dangerous areas.

 

They're supposed to be two of our better players.  

When was the last time Kent looked like one of our better players? I can't remember a MOTM performance from him or even a few games in a row where he's looked like one of our star players.

He's either not as good as we suspected or has just been here too long and needs a new challenge (because of various different things).

I’ve seen at least three threads this evening calling the Aberdeen statement out for the flawed bull*hit it is.

1 hour ago, BlackSocksRedTops said:

As much as I will always take great pleasure in any defeat for them, I greet this news with a huge serving of caution. A slip by your rivals in a 2 horse race should be welcomed as an opportunity to take advantage but the way we are operating at the moment, I simply have no confidence in what WE are doing to be able to head to Tynecastle in a confident mood. 

Yeah, it would be different if we’re playing well, but its hard to be that excited about them dropping points when we look so clueless.

Just back… Jesus… I predicted a long season last week and I wasn’t wrong.

Something needs to change. Unfortunately I really think its the manager, even this early in the season.

Match sharpness would be the only reason I can think of - you saw how fast Napoli were and how they ran at defenders, that would have been a recipe for disaster. We've been incredibly unlucky with injuries again, but I'd have also been tempted to have started with King instead of Sands alongside Goldson as Sands has struggled there.

I'm expecting a very long season....

Bottom of CL group; 2nd in the league and we'll hopefully win one or two of the cups.

Fucks sake...

What a pair of saves!

Why was there a retake though, was it for encroachment (if so, WTF?) or for McGregor's movement at the first one?

Its great to see the fight and passion tonight, much better than I thought we'd be and we have had a few half chances too.

That free kick against Lundstram was a shocker though.

Of course Alfie gets booked for leaving a high boot in…..

Wtf, have we gone back in time with that lineup?!

Of course King knows exactly what he's doing. He's doing it for his own best interests, but playing to the room and also taking advantage of the open goal the board have given him.

1 hour ago, weebluedevil said:

I'll take the popcorn option. All I will say is that we have turned an opportunity with the winning of 55 in our 150yr anniversary and our amazing European performances to continue to build momentum around such a feel good factor and instead shoot ourselves in the foot and reach for the self-destruct button. Sad. 

That's what we do though isn't it?

All we need now is some "Judean Peoples Front" action with multiple fan groups making their own statements and it will be just like the good old days.

The league isn’t over, but its not far from being over. What have we honestly got to lose by giving guys like McCann and Lowry a chance at the price of dropping some of the serial under-performers. I guess it might need a tactical change which Gio might just not be willing to do? Or even be able to do? We’ve all had concerns about our one-note, one-pace performances against a lot of teams in the league, so if I hadn’t just seen that match tonight, I might have been convinced he’s a genius in Europe but can’t work out the Scottish game. Now I don’t really know what to think of him.

From what I’ve seen on social media, there’s going to be two groups trying to shout the loudest about who’s to blame. The board, or Gio. I think they’re both to blame for how we’ve ended up here.