[Matchday] 9IAR Champions Vs The Uglies - 17.10.20 - 12.30PM K/O

It definetely was, a stat came up around the hour mark and Duffy Welsh and ajer were top three touches all up around the 70

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With Duffy leaving and foster didn't want to come back something rotten going on in the background .
Desmond lawwell and Lennon need to get it sorted and quickly if the players have downed tools then the manager pays the price but if it's two or three players then drop them don't care who they are .

 

Lennon wasnt my first choice but I always respected what he has done for the club and when he got the gig full time I was maybe a bit underwhelmed but I thought we should back him. Also some.of the managers linked at the time weren't really realistic options so all.in all I was satisfied and optimistic when he got the job full time. I remember him saying how he was gonna keep elements of Rodgers possession /movement / passing but "tinker" it that we got the ball forward faster to the final third and have more opportunity and efforts at goal. I actually at the time agreed with him, Rodgers had frustrated me slightly in his last year or so and I remember games where teams were parking the bus domestically and we were 80% possession but struggling to score. The late winner at hearts kind of gave me that faith that with Lennon we would always have a shot at getting something in around the box. But for whatever reason for over a year we have gone considerably backwards. We were easy to work out and our wingers in the 4231 didn't contribute enough and I felt the striker and the wingers were isolated from the rest of the team. A real highlight of that was last Xmas against sevco where we went got the ball across midfield for it to break down and come straight right back at us more or less for a full 90mins. The 352 and Dubai trip reinvented us a bit we had more ball around the box and got a few good away wins when sevco were falling apart. Really we improved to a point and they badly fell away. This season we have been worse, for me yesterday was a prime example of all our failings for the past 3 months. We lack any sort of creativity . We have got outta jail against Dundee utd, st Johnstone , sarajevo, Riga, Livingston (home). Nothing was new yesterday, I've been hoping for two months that we would see something different but all we have done is play attacking mids as second strikers and come up with a few half arsed set piece routines to try milk Duffy's ability to score (Sunday league football). We have been consistently (every game) beaten by teams that tier below where we should be under Lennon in Cluj, copenhagen , feverancos and sevco on the last two occasions and outplayed in the last 3. I want the 10 and I want Lennon to be manager when when it's done but I genuinely have massive concerns we will miss out. I think the board should be meeting the management team today and they should be asked what the solution is not to yesterday but to our months of toothless football. If Lennon Kennedy and Strachan don't have a radical idea to turn things around then the board should be acting swiftly because with our run of fixtures between now and Xmas and covid it could be all done and dusted by a lot sooner than we think

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This. We clearly have the better players but we need an identity and game plan.

At the moment we are relying on the likes of Christie, Edouard and Frimpong to do something. That isn’t sustainable as teams quickly wisen up to this, hence how Frimpong was so quiet yesterday as they marked him out of the game.

In the rats first season we had great quick movement and passing, a really effective team press that won us the ball high up the pitch and stopped opponents getting further up the pitch to test our defence and goalkeeper. Right now we don’t have any of that. This isn’t an overreaction to yesterday either, we have been scraping past far too many teams recently but because were nicking the wins it was papering over the cracks.

Was very alarming to see our lack of urgency when we went 2-0 down, we were passing the ball about at the back like we were the ones in the lead. Lennon just sat there on the bench not even trying to get a reaction from the players. The Lennon of old would be barking on the touch line at the players to give that bit extra.

The players were just so slow and clueless yesterday. Any teams reaction when going behind is to play it about quicker with more intensity and we didn’t even see a hint of that which is very worrying.

 

Just came across this on Twitter. Rogic fails to properly pressure Kamara, Brown needlessly follows Davis and leaves a huge gap in behind him for Jack to exploit. McGregor left stranded with no midfield back up.

 

Our midfield being easily played through/bypassed..

Wow. I'm shocked. I've only been saying this for month's..

Look at the state of that pressing..

 

Rogic has never offered intensity in his closing down. Kamara should never have gotten that pass off given the angle he was at. A press can only be effective if everyone is executing.

 

That’s really tough to watch and shows how easy it is to play through our midfield with one pass. There is no team press at all. Players are just running for the sake of it without having any method to it but we have all known this for sometime.

The huns are drooling over that but it’s a very easy to pass to make as we are all over the place and are basically telling him to play it there.

 

Yup our midfield has been caught out in moments every game this season. Very slow and very vulnerable.

 

It baffles me that we don't press as a unit..

How is an attacking side as us so dreadful when it comes to pressing? Winning the ball back high up is a massive source of good/successful side's of goals..

See it all the time with Christie when he goes solo looking like a diddy but it should be all as one..

 

They done this constantly ,a player would come deep to receive pulling a hole in our midfield by dragging player/s with him while another of their players overlaps going into the space he came from , now a gapping hole to drive into our 18 yard, some of our midfield are not tracking and pressing leaving others to do the running , christie McGregor brown only ones pressing with intent in the team , klimala and griff n forrest to an extent also .

 

Must have been the most comfortable 2-0 win ever in a Derby.

Usually if we are 2-0 up against them I’m still a nervous wreck because one goal can change a game. But they must have been cracking the champagne at 2-0 yesterday cause we were down and out after 54 mins. Absolutely pathetic and no amount of excuses can make up for it.

 

Any dissenters that didnt want Lennon would have got ran out of town as per the Euphoria of the final win so Lawwell picked his moment perfectly

 

We are now being asked questions domestically and tbh you really want this ,to keep improving its needed , (we welcome the challenge ) cant be just a throw away comment , we have been too far infront for too long its stagnated our ability to think faster react quickly , its wakey wakey time .

 

The only positive from this mess is we have time to fix it.

We have the players and with the correct approaching/attitude we can turn things around,however it all boils down to lenny,its last chance saloon for him and he needs to get the players playing for him.

If we dont see a reaction to the weekend * then we can take it he has lost the dressing room and after that its down to the board to take action.

We all know we are playing below standard (we have different opinions as to why)and im sure lenny and the board know it,there can be no excuse for this to be allowed to carry on,hun made a show of us and its the low of the low and if we dont see an immediate reaction lenny has to go.

 

For me yes. Seems a radical step.

I don't want to appear in a 'panic' or having a rant, but it's purely my thoughts on the back of the season so far, which hit a serious low yesterday. For me one, or multiple, or all the following could be at play here:

(Forgive me if they seem far-fetched.)

1. Lennon has lost the dressing room. I don't think i'm alone in the observation that it looks (some might say obvious) like that the players have lost all faith in the manager/coaching staff. The entire squad looks flat. The lack of fans is not an excuse. Teams up and down the country seem to be able to motivate their squads - so how on earth can we not do it?! Which for me points to one factor: the manager. I like the signings, i was over the moon with the transfer business, we spent reasonable money, didn't just bring in projects, and on the face of it, looked to have added to our squad for the better. For me on paper, that squad yesterday was good enough to get something from yesterday.

2. Lennon has lost his appetite. I'm not saying he was ever the new Klopp or anything but he looks like at times he can't be arsed. Throughout a few of the games this season, if not 99%, he's shown no animation on the touchline, especially yesterday. 1-0 down to them and the camera kept looking at him on the touchline and his body language said literally nothing. This ind of relates to the point above - if he doesn't have the appetite, i certainly would be thinking myself "well why should i..." I think a manager with half an appetite could come in and rejuvenate the squad. Much like what happened when *he who shall not be named* (Rodgers), appeared.

3. Are there players that don't want to be at the club? If this is the case, why was this not ironed out early on in pre-season? Why were they not moved in and replaced. The club would have got more than a decent return on the likes on Ntcham, Biton, Ajer, Edouard, Christie (although i'm not 100% he wants to leave - he recently expressed an interest in opening contract talks) - i'm not sure if there are others. If there are players who want away, punt them to the reserves unless they show they're going to give nothing but 100%.

4. None of the above applies. I have considered that this has just been a period of change at the club - a few new bodies, a change in formation (i'm aware we played this in the second half of last season, what was played of it), and the coaches are simply trying to bed in a different way of playing. However it's clearly not working. We have played a full round of fixtures and for the 3-5-2 being is "preferred formation" for me, it's time to try something different. I'm of the opinion that our squad is actually better suited to a 4-4-2, or 4-3-3, either way for me, 4 at the back and 2 up top is a must. Because, we have proven that a 4-2-3-1 (midfield/forward part of it) doesn't suit us.

5. The match day squad leak. Is this having a bigger impact than we're giving it credit for? For me, no. Imo, it was a distraction for him talk about post-match yesterday. Yes find them and boot them out.

My point with the above, is there something toxic going on within the squad, and if so, someone needs to stand up and sort it out. I'm said with how this season is panning out - this was out moment - we were meant to be laying down a marker to the other side of Glasgow/the rest of Scotland and making history.


I want to make a point about yesterday - the only (slight) positives i took out of yesterday were:

1. Welsh looks decent, a bit raw but worth having in/around the first team. Laxalt looks decent, i'm happy to give him time to settle but looks like he'll come on leaps and bounds - with the right coaching obviously (see above).

2. I'm not blaming the strikers at all yesterday - no service. Klimala didn't have a hope in * of making an impact yesterday like i said, no service from the midfield. He was having to drop far too deep to get involved. I feel for Moi too, he's a left winger ffs, not a striker. The positive here in case you are wondering is that i think we have 4 decent strikers, who on their day, can all score goals. We have had glimpses of what Klimala is capable of (Hamilton and St Johnstone). For me, imagine if we were servicing him well and he was playing week in/week out?! Same applies to Ajeti. I don't even need to mention how good Eddy is on his day, and Griff who played 14 mins of football (not taking into account yesterday) in * knows how long and scored.

 

If we win our game in hand we are only 1 point behind.

Need to put this game behind us and get on with winning 10IAR.

 

That result and performance has been on the cards for weeks. I got ridiculed on here for saying I expected us to lose this game......well there ye have it. Yes we were missing some players who are critical to us, so there were mitigating circumstances yesterday. That is not the whole story though. We have been pedestrian more often than we've played well this season. There has been FAR TOO MUCH dicking about with the team. At times it feels like a new lineup and a new formation every week. It has to * stop. Decide what your best eleven is and give them a run of games together. Get some continuity going. Build some momentum. I can only put the fact that a lot of people thought we were going to magically turn it on yesterday and brush Sevco aside down to blind faith. It was not happening.

For the past nine seasons, on a scale of 1-10, I have been a 10 in confidence that we would win the league. Right now I am somewhere in the region of 5-6. 10IAR is not a formality. In fact it may well not happen at all! Unless we buck our ideas up. If things don't show signs of coming together in the next couple of months I want Lennon out. Get a higher calibre of manager in and don't blow this opportunity we've spent the last nine years creating.