New Heart and Hand Podcast now available - We've seen this film before

Enjoyed that.
I think the problem was that hardly anyone played well. No-one stood out, Kamara and Foderingham caught the eye but no-one else. We missed the attacking influence of Arfield in midfield. The quality of cross was poor. We didn't deserve to win though I thought our handball penalty shout was a strong one. The ref didn't help the match by blowing at every slight contact, and surprise surprise, he didn't let us take the corner in added time. Trying to be positive, we have a 5 point cushion in 2nd place, we got a point and it could easily have been no points.
 
Thoroughly agree with David about tempo. In the games where we are trying to break teams down we make it easy for them to keep their shape. We take an age over throw in's, free kicks, corners, balls out from the back, the lot. At no time do we build up any sustained pressure forcing the opposition into losing discipline and making errors.

We can be an extremely pedestrian team at times.
 
Enjoyed that.
I think the problem was that hardly anyone played well. No-one stood out, Kamara and Foderingham caught the eye but no-one else. We missed the attacking influence of Arfield in midfield. The quality of cross was poor. We didn't deserve to win though I thought our handball penalty shout was a strong one. The ref didn't help the match by blowing at every slight contact, and surprise surprise, he didn't let us take the corner in added time. Trying to be positive, we have a 5 point cushion in 2nd place, we got a point and it could easily have been no points.

Toward the end of the match it was almost like every man for himself, there appeared to be little shape or plan to our play. That was a worry for me.
 
I’ll listen later . The one thing me and my old man said as we left the ground on Saturday was “ we didn’t up the tempo at all “ .

Everyone is slow , the ball boys are slow , the officials , but our players as well as if they were given rohypnol in their pre match cuppa .

Unacceptable and amateurish . We will never win the league with this mentality .
 
I thought it called a lot of that correctly. It's time for us to face up for our failings rather than make excuses for where we are.

I'd encourage anyone to sign up to the H&H pod btw, very good value.
 
Thoroughly agree with David about tempo. In the games where we are trying to break teams down we make it easy for them to keep their shape. We take an age over throw in's, free kicks, corners, balls out from the back, the lot. At no time do we build up any sustained pressure forcing the opposition into losing discipline and making errors.

We can be an extremely pedestrian team at times.

You have hit the nail on the head, where the feck did this pressing teams high up the pitch dosappear to. SG spoke about it during pre-season as though this was to be our style, sla Klopp at Liverpool, but it has hardly been seen. Celtic and 2nd half against Maribor are the only 2 games that I can think of where we have employed this style, and to good effect.

More often than not we are a slow pedestrian side playing aimless square passes. Obviously the lack of creativity in our squad does not help, as we clearly lack players with the skill, ability, imagination and guile to make killer forward passes.
 
I'm going go be unhappy again listening to this but maybe Ibrox on Wednesday will cheer me up. Was so disappointed at weekend I ate 2 pies in the louden after the game, extra long dog walk today
 
Tempo is a fair argument. But that's a quality issue. Can you expect Joe Worrall to up the tempo and drive that ball out of defence? Course not.
 
Tempo is a fair argument. But that's a quality issue. Can you expect Joe Worrall to up the tempo and drive that ball out of defence? Course not.

Maybe not, but the players in front could show more urgency in finding space, receive the ball and move it on quickly. They could make their priority keeping the ball moving forward and not make their default setting a safe sideways or back pass.
 
Fan opinion seems to swing week to week. We've got people talking about shape again, when less than two weeks ago the forum (the pod etc) was almost unanimous in it's agreement that we simply HAD to play 433. Candeias was a must etc.
 
Fan opinion seems to swing week to week. We've got people talking about shape again, when less than two weeks ago the forum (the pod etc) was almost unanimous in it's agreement that we simply HAD to play 433. Candeias was a must etc.

It won't be the same fans changing opinion though. For me, 433 in the games where we know the opposition will be more adventurous but we need to change it for games against teams who will try to stiffle us home and away.

I'm struggling to see an obviously team/formation will the current squad but we will need to adapt moving forward.
 
Fan opinion seems to swing week to week. We've got people talking about shape again, when less than two weeks ago the forum (the pod etc) was almost unanimous in it's agreement that we simply HAD to play 433. Candeias was a must etc.

I would say if Morelos is available than 433 is the style we should play, however to think we can just switch Defoe for him and play that formation is crazy imo

Thought Adam nailed it this week, unsure what our defined way of playing is, we seem to be making it up as we go along
 
Thoroughly agree with David about tempo. In the games where we are trying to break teams down we make it easy for them to keep their shape. We take an age over throw in's, free kicks, corners, balls out from the back, the lot. At no time do we build up any sustained pressure forcing the opposition into losing discipline and making errors.

We can be an extremely pedestrian team at times.
Agreed. No tempo from us at all

Another thing is we are chasing a goal Saturday and when the ball goes off the park there was no rush to get the ball back and get us going again
 
I haven't been able to bring myself to listen to anything regarding Saturday except Gerrard post match interview.

Still in dis-belief and terrified of what lies ahead now for the future, I reckon the club will have to address the support if we drop anymore points and go out the Scottish Cup.
 
Fan opinion seems to swing week to week. We've got people talking about shape again, when less than two weeks ago the forum (the pod etc) was almost unanimous in it's agreement that we simply HAD to play 433. Candeias was a must etc.

I don’t think I’ve ever said that to be honest. I may have said there are certain matches where it has to be 433, definitely. But horses-for-courses is a long-term argument of mine.
 
I just listened to this and pretty much agreed with everything unfortunately.
Although when Adam was suggesting whether the problem was either A or B ( and I apologize but I can’t remember what A or B were exactly was in terms of this discussion) I woukd like to throw C into the mix and I think it was something you David touched upon.

When I think back to when we were doing well in the Europa league and qualifying for the group stages Steven Gerrard came out with the quotes a long the lines of ‘the players are ahead of schedule’ and doing so well.

Well I think for Gerrard he is probably begining to regret that statement and I think he is begining to realize especially after Saturday’s result… that the reason the team are not following his direction anymore is because they can’t!
Most of them are simply not good enough and like The Gazza and Laudrup days only too eager to pass the buck for fear of failure and can’t handle playing infront of shall we say …a demanding but loyal support?

They are only too damn eager to give the ball to Kent and Morelos and expect them to create something out of nothing!

What was it Ally once said in an interview about Lauders.
‘Walter just said to us …get the ball to Brian and then get out of his road!!’

Someone earlier in a post made a valid comment about how few goals our midfield players have scored this season and that is because they rarely make these runs into the box anymore!

Jack uncharacteristically has scored twice now and has seen it pays off but the others rarely do.And if Morelos is not on his game or worse still not even playing
Who scores the goals?

Another damning statistic of lack of goals scored by midfield players that just doesn't lie and tells it’s own story… unfortunately!
 
I don’t think I’ve ever said that to be honest. I may have said there are certain matches where it has to be 433, definitely. But horses-for-courses is a long-term argument of mine.

It was more a general point rather than aimed directly at you, David.

Gerrard took a lot of stick on the pod though (and on here) for playing the Diamond at Killie. There was this notion that 433 would have seen us win the game, when it's not worked against Killie (and other teams) plenty of times already this season.

Killie are exactly the type of team we have struggled with 433 against ie deep lying, low block and hit on the counter. If Worrall didn't have that brain fart I am certain we'd have won that game and everyone would be saying Gerrard played a blinder. We'd likely have kept playing it as well but similar to Motherwell earlier in the season when we played 352 the gaffer has shat the bed and reverted to type when the goals we lost in those games were nothing to do with the change in shape and came down to individual errors and set pieces.
 
Is there an actual footballing style adopted?

Recently all I've seen is aimless long balls and little quality, celtic and sheep games aside.
Gerrard needs to get his imprint on this team and fast and work out his best team
 
If we are waiting for Davis to get up to speed then there goes not only any chance of winning a trophy but also the credibility of the management team.

Found it absolutely insane that neither had completed a game for over a year (18 months for Defoe) and both were pitched straight into the side against Killie, breaking up the team that beat Celtic.

Surely it was obvious in training that these guys needed easing in, especially considering the previous fixture’s performance.
 
lack of urgency.

smacks you bang in the face watching this team stroll around at times. Infuriating stuff

One of the reasons why McGregor being banned was a kick in the balls. He screams at the team to get playong quicker.

Jack and Arfield were a huge miss in that regard. Davis, Worral, Barisic, Middleton, Kamara, Kent had zero urgency and were important players in our system to get a high tempo going.
 
I may be wrong but got the impression Adam was having to hold back from saying the players in the attacking midfield slots just aren't good enough.

I never thought a league win was likely this year but the difference is the numbers their attacking midfielders post and what ours do - that's the only 'gap' left for me.

I feel we're getting too bogged down in mentality, character etc as we tend to do in much the same way we are seduced by effort and bravery - indeed that issue is a direct problem with our current crop of attacking midfielders.

If we'd matched Celtic's 100% record at home we'd sit top of the league. If we'd even just beaten Hibs and St Johnstone at home we'd still be right in the mix.

All points lost at home were as a result of a total inability to create goalscoring opportunities - it's been the most prominent issue all season.
 
Great pod.
Infuriates me why we don't drive into the box or go through the middle now and again.
Even if we lose the ball they have to come out and it will open up space.
Instead it's get it out to the wings, lob in a shit cross, rinse and repeat.
If you're going to do that, at least get Lafferty on from the start.
 
Tempo is a fair argument. But that's a quality issue. Can you expect Joe Worrall to up the tempo and drive that ball out of defence? Course not.

Some of the tempo issue arises from very little things though, like I’m fine with a sideways pass to an open man every now and then but we have a penchant for trundling the ball along the ground like we are having a kickabout in the park. And I’m not talking eye of the needle passes here where you could understand being a bit more careful.

In isolation it isn’t a massive problem but in a stuffy game like Saturday it feeds the frustration.

Great pod btw, always feel like I need it after a bad game like Saturday, perfect rage therapy.
 
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