DMAA

2 minutes ago, pete said:

Our midfield should be McCrorie with Jack and Arfield more advanced.

I was frustrated at times that he dropped too deep but he was far more comfortable on the ball than McCrorie is. He had some great spells of intricate passing with Arfield and Jack that created openings in the first half. 

Worrall is getting pelters but I honestly think McAuley will be caught for pace more often than Worrall does something like that. I was a fan at first but he has to be the slowest player we’ve ever had.  

3 minutes ago, Big Jaws said:

They didnt get goals from nowhere. Brophy earned his goal by pressing up on Worrall and making him fuck it up. If that was Alfie we'd be singing his praises and adding another million to his price tag. Jones took up position just inside Tav between him and the pensioner, the ball is played over the top of our midfield into that space Jones picks it up runs at him knowing he's no pace takes it a couple of yards inside and bang its off into the bottom left hand corner. You simply cant give a player like Jones that amount of space or time on the ball in and around the box cause he will punish you. 

 

No mate none of their goals were either lucky or from nothing they two lads worked hard to make the space and earn the right to shoot at goal. 

You’re just misunderstanding what I mean. They are sucker punch goals that haven’t come from sustained pressure or buildup play. And they’ve scored almost with every shot. McGregor has only made 1 save in the whole game. But it should have been 2. 

1 minute ago, craig said:

We had the lion's share until having to press.  We didn't create much but Killie created virtually nothing.  McGregor had little to do.  We keep talking about the league being over here - Celtic will have to go to Rugby Park too and Killie won't be a pushover for anyone at their home ground.

 

League isn't over at all, but we certainly can't be dropping points that were there for the taking.

I agree. The league isn’t over. If it wasn’t for Worrall’s blunder we’d have won comfortably. Morelos was 2 inches away from making it 2 nil and the chances were still coming. We slowed down and the centre backs were reluctant to play it long and it invited pressure and mistakes. 

1 minute ago, Gonzo79 said:

I agree. It was a fairly even match.  Our silly mistakes cost us.

We were far more creative and should have had them out of sight. We came close to scoring number times. They got goals from

nowhere and capitalised by keeping things simple and not taking risks. Fair play to them but we are clearly a far better team than them. 

1 minute ago, Gonzo79 said:

The scum are now 6 points ahead.  Unless they make an arse of it we've handed them the league tonight.

St Johnstone have the best away record in the league so it’s not that certain

Worrall’s blunder shot us in the foot and a freak goal like that always throws you off. Same again with Jones, goal from absolutely nowhere and from then on it’s really hard to get back into it. The way people on here are talking is as if Kilmarnock were slicing us open and creating loads of chances. They had two lucky breaks, scored 2 from 3 shots on target. 

1 minute ago, ian1964 said:

You are blaming players here when maybe you should be blaming the manager who picks them?

Yes I do blame the manager. I just meant McAuley was at fault. 

McAuley has to take blame for the second goal. He is so slow and gave Jones all the time

and space in the world to shoot. Jones up against McAuley was always a worry and when you see how slow he is you have to wonder what Katic has to do to get a start. Missed Goldson tonight. 

Jack down. Brophy has deliberately stuck his boots into his leg and he’s only got a yellow. Clear cut red card. 

Another shocking pass from Kent. Not good enough. 

Poor decision making at the back. They’re wasting time passing formaide to side when every time they hit it long it’s causing major problems. The link up play between Jack, Arfield and Davis has been brilliant. Defoe and Morelos are both linking up well too. It’s just about getting the ball to them! Kent is all about urgency and pace but his passing has been shocking as usual, giving the ball away repeatedly. 

1 minute ago, 26th of foot said:

Killie are starting Burke and Jones on either flank.

Burke has had a very good season. 6 assists. 

Broadfoot has had a sudden onset of violent diarrhoea after seeing our lineup

It’s the diamond!! ? 

6 minutes ago, der Berliner said:

A lie and a threat in the same paragraph by one of their bosses ...

 

Scotland full-back Stephen O’Donnell has confirmed that manager Steve Clarke has warned himself and his fellow defenders not to lose their discipline if they are manhandled by Rangers’ mercurial striker Alfredo Morelos, but insists that his team-mates will have their own way of dealing with the Colombian when the clubs meet at Rugby Park tonight.

 

Methinks most of the time, Alfredo reacts to the stuff the opposition does to him ... but maybe that's too blue-tainted glasses.

I'm tired of comments like this about Morelos from the opposition all. the. time ? storm in a teacup every time

28 minutes ago, buster. said:

Forget the formation for a moment and think attitude and determination (plus match-fitness/in press).

 

For me these next three away games in the league will need the attitude and determination in spades. This was the main reason we got the monkey off our backs on the 29th and those who stood up to be counted deserve more gametime. 

Match fitness is what we don't know and the reason why Defoe and Davis probably won't start, at least not both of them. 

Home games are totally different from away games and attitude and determination are all well and good but these are the players who have repeatedly failed away from home in the 4-3-3. Not a one-off, it's been consistent.

Only 4 wins and 15 goals from 10 away games so far. St Johnstone managed 7 wins from 10. And in the games I watched it seemed that our lineups were just too defensive and didn't have enough attacking ability. No penetration because the players playing just didn't have the ability. I think change is essential and I hope we'll see it. If the new boys aren't fit then I hope Gerrard and his tactical gurus have used the break to crack what's gone wrong away from home and we don't see a repeat of what we saw in the first half of the season.

I agree he'll probably ease Davis and Defoe in. But I for one am sick of showing SPFL sides too much respect. I don't think the old firm starting 11 should be untouchable because it's not the only game they've played this season. We all love Candeias but he's not title winning quality in the final third. We've seen that repeatedly. And although the diamond is definitely a risk at this stage, replacing Candeias with Defoe makes us far more threatening and replacing McCrorie with Davis makes us far more creative. We don't need as many defensively minded players in our starting line-up as we've been playing. Every time we've done it away from home we've seen attack after attack break down due to lack of ability in that area.

Whatever the line-up tonight I'm hoping we will see (at least at some point) Defoe giving their defenders a nightmare with his movement and Davis playing some defence splitting passes and creating space for our wide men with the quick quality cross-field passes that we haven't seen enough of.

If we do go with the diamond and Kent is at the head of it he needs to prove he's got end product or for me Arfield should take that position and McCrorie reclaim his spot as the anchor man with Jack pushed on.

12 minutes ago, buster. said:

Difficult restart but the players have to see it as an opportunity.

Yeh the flip side is that it’s an opportunity to get psychologically ahead of Celtic because we’ve already got 3 really difficult games out of the way and got full points whilst they still have those grounds to go to. That’s the goal. 

As others have pointed out in the next 4 games we have Kilmarnock, Livingston and Aberdeen away whilst Celtic are hosting most of the bottom 6 at home. There’s a real risk of a gap opening up unless we perform the way a serious Rangers title challenging team should.

Well we’ve caught Kilmarnock at the perfect time, Stewart who has carried them this season is away and they haven’t had a chance to replace him yet and Jones has a huge cloud hanging over him. Any shred of an excuse has been removed and nothing less than 3 points will suffice. 

McAuley is frightfully slow, that’s my only concern on the counter with the quick Brophy and Jones. Katic looked good against Helsinki, good to see his goalscoring threat too.

I have to admit I'm not sure about plastic pitches being that dangerous. Don't our players train on plastic pitches (as well as grass) pretty much every day? We have an indoor synthetic pitch at Auchenhowie. The point about synthetic pitches being used at elite level is a different question. Synthetic pitches will never provide the experience of grass pitches. But if they were that dangerous we wouldn't all be training on them, never mind the fact that the vast majority of youth football is played on plastic these days.

1 hour ago, der Berliner said:

In the packed-box world of Scottish football, one striker is usually swamped and we could have made much better use of Herrera and Cummings had we played them alongside another striker. We shall see how the arrival of Defoe will change our approach ...

We've seen a lot of that in the games we've struggled in this season, balls being lumped towards a crowded out Morelos. I think we need to be able to comfortably switch between 1 up front and 2 because only a fool believes one size fits all in football.

22 minutes ago, Craigy1881 said:

yeah that tweet is slightly miss quoted.  He mentioned that everyone has their price but nobody would be leaving in this transfer window.

Yeh I listened to it and he was very clear that he wasn't going anywhere in January. I think I don't rate Morelos as highly as most on here so I'd take £12m or so for him but not in January unless they had a replacement lined up. Yes it's tempting to look at what other players have gone for but it's not the way the market works. If our scouting department are doing their job they should be able to put the money we'll eventually get for Morelos to very good work.