The battle ahead

[Gonzo79 15,294]

As I said on another thread, the first two matches are huge and will tell us a lot about our chances.

 

Guava Jelly Loyal 

[JFK-1 1,693]

I’m thinking we wouldn’t be too concerned if we were playing St Johnstone at home. They’re not even going to be top 6

 

But somebody up there likes giving us more taxing opening days.

[Scott7 6,016]

Only Tannochside has really tried to answer compo’s questions in which the keyword is “battle”. Jock Wallace would have asked “does the team have the character?”

 

I think the answer is that they do not.

[Gonzo79 15,294]

The champions unfurl the flag on opening matchday, so if Celtc win the league, we'll be away for our opening match.  

[Gonzo79 15,294]

1 minute ago, Scott7 said:

Jock Wallace would have asked “does the team have the character?”

We'll soon find out but they wilted last season and I don't think we've addressed the biggest issue.

[pete 2,499]

2 hours ago, Gonzo79 said:

As I said on another thread, the first two matches are huge and will tell us a lot about our chances.

 

Guava Jelly Loyal 

I question whether we can say anything after 2 games. I have never seen the league won in August.

[Gonzo79 15,294]

That's true.  But if that lot go clear, we're going to have our work cut out if we're still dropping points to dross like Hibs and Killie.

[DMAA 3,658]

58 minutes ago, Gonzo79 said:

We'll soon find out but they wilted last season and I don't think we've addressed the biggest issue.

We haven’t properly, I said at the end of last season our big signing needs to be a number 10, someone who walks into the team in the position beside Arfield. Where we are now there is debate over that. I thought the Helander money should have gone there. 

 

Having said all that we are far stronger than last season and should really expect to increase our points total significantly. 

 

It seems people maybe have forgotten what our team looked like for the first half of the last campaign. In centre midfield our starting 3 was normally Ejaria, Jack and Coulibaly. Halliday and McCrorie got plenty game time too. It got to a point when we had to play Coulibaly and McCrorie in the 3! Our centre midfield was pretty grim in short, no goal threat and a dearth of technical ability and we lost points as a result of this. 

 

Aribo, Kamara and Davis are an enormous improvement and even the return of Docherty offers a significant attacking upgrade over what we had for a chunk of last season when really big points (and the league cup) were lost. 

 

In defence we were overrated by our own fans quite frankly. We conceded too many and the fact we all knew the Hibs equaliser was coming at Ibrox in December speaks for itself, we lost late goals too often. Whatever the starting CB pairing turns out to be we won’t have fatigued centre backs this season and we won’t have the slowest player in the league for cover (cost us that Jones goal at Rugby Park). 

 

Up front we have Defoe from the start of the season and he’s bedded in properly. I think Morelos and Defoe both have the biggest impact when they come on off the bench fresh and I think this alone is worth a good number of points. Morelos had to play every minute he could for us last season and he must have been very tired at times, he’s not exactly the fittest player in the world either but last season Lafferty wasn’t trusted and when Defoe came in he took months to get up to speed. 

 

In the attacking midfield positions we definitely have concerns but they are maybe being overblown. We have changed formation and the new formation is more effective. Arfield is twice the player in this position and the impact of that on the team is huge (by the way to draw conclusions about his impact on this positions from the Progres away tie instead of the 6-7 league games last season is mental). Jones isn’t good enough and doesn’t suit our new style (apologies in advance to the positivity police). I can only see him having a real impact when subbed on away from home when we are winning and playing the counter attack. Stewart can be good but doesn’t seem fully fit? Murphy isn’t ready which is a blow. On ability alone I’d say he’s an upgrade over Kent and Candeias but he’s no use until fit. Ojo I think will be an upgrade in terms of goal creating and scoring but it’s an unknown at this stage. Hastie is a very good backup addition but it’s not clear he’ll have much impact for now. 

 

The positive spin I would put on all that is that Arfield and Ojo (playing centrally) should be an improvement over Kent and Candeias (playing wide) in terms of making and scoring goals. The formation has proven hard to defend against. And secondly Stewart, Jones, Murphy and Hastie are all a massive improvement in terms of cover, we had next to none last season and that surely cost us points. 

 

That’s before you begin to talk about the impact of the fact it’s Gerrard’s second season and the lessons he and the management team have learnt. We have every reason to be optimistic we will be significantly improved. 

Edited August 3, 2019 by DMAA

[weebluedevil 1,239]

Good post, I’d agree with much of what you said - but I didn’t think the number 10 role was the biggest problem to address - only because I don’t think there’s a quality number 10 that exists for the money we’d have to spend on one. I think what we’ve done, which will help, is have adequate cover for all positions. I personally don’t feel we have a stronger 1st XI though, certainly not without Kent and Candeias. 

Murphy is done IMO, and was never better than either of those two. I’ll be very surprised if and when Murphy gets a starting place he’s able to keep it. 

Successful teams are built from back to front and I think we’re in a good place with strong competition for each position at the back, we’ll improve our defensive stats - that to me is where we improve our points tally. 

DMs are also looking good, totally agree with you - we have also improved there, I’m only worried about who to leave out between Jack, Davies and Kamara - a nice problem to have. 

Attacking midfield again some great options, but we’ve got to shoot more from distance so I hope Ojo can provide that as I think we’ll still lack in that dept.

Up front it’s game on between Morelos and Defoe. SG has rotated them fairly in pre-season but expect Morelos to start more often and expect him to continue banging them in. I’d go so far as to say he should also take the penalties. I don’t see him leaving this season, so I’d hope his goal tally is as high as possible come end of season, anything to boost his valuation when the time comes for us to sell. I think he’ll also cut out the crap this season which will be helpful. 

Consistency is what we need and I think we’ll improve and see some longer winning runs. I think Aberdeen will be stronger as well as Hibs. Killie will regress (hope I’m not jinxing tomorrow) and I’m not sure about Hearts yet. 

Overall, I just don’t think we’re Going to do 55 this year - I hope I’m wrong obviously - but think we’ll win one cup and get to the group stages of the EL - perhaps even to the knockout stages. There will be marked progress again but will that be enough for the fans to stay behind the manager or more pertinently, the board? 

 

 

 

Edited August 3, 2019 by weebluedevil

[JFK-1 1,693]

My confidence stems from the differences in comparison to last season squad wise. Gerrard is a man who with his vast experience must know a player when he sees one and recognise character when he sees it on the field too.

 

I'm trusting his squad will deliver a large improvement on last season and when you break it down maybe we don't even need a large improvement. Just two matches going in the other direction last season could have given us the title.

 

We have strengthened and currently the yahoos have not. At best they have replaced outgoings in defence with similar quality while I would argue we have increased the quality in more than one department.

We have strengthened the defence while we have young dynamic midfield options I think could dominate them to an even greater degree than the times last season we were most dominant in the middle.

 

The match at Kilmarnock is crucial in the sense that everyone including the media have built a real title race scenario for the first time in a long time. Those expectations may evaporate by around 3:20pm Sunday if we don't produce some sort of performance to make our mark despite the fact day one doesn't lose a title.

 

But with all the evidence at hand despite the unpredictable nature of the game I see now way Killamrnock could beat us. I will be surprised if they score and surprised if we don't score at least 2. We will see.