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St Mirren V Alloa Athletic Championship 3/10/15


shull

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Frustrated Saints boss Ian Murray said: “We had some wee chances but I don’t think we ever got going. I thought they played exceptionally well.

“The disappointment comes from being a goal up again and losing from a set play. These things happen too often in the last few weeks. We did okay but I didn’t think even if we’d won 1-0 it was our greatest performance. The last three home games have been our poorest.”

The thing is Alloa didn't play well, they played like a team that has conceded 19 goals in the 8 games previous to this. I honestly think he still thinks he is at Dumbarton, we were awful as a side, plenty of possession but no final product.

I don't know what our training sessions are like but it certainly doesn't look like there is much time spent on tactics, running off the ball to pull defenders out of position and other basic things like that.

I don't know if we can afford to sack him but then again I don't see how we can afford not to.

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In the car on the way there and heard we were playing 3 forwards which was interesting, sit and watch a match where we created barely anything against a team who look to me like the worst team in the division by a good bit. Strangely in the first half all the noise i could hear was talking amongst fans who had literally given up watching. Truly a surreal day.

It is at the discussing scores and even potential trips down south stage.

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That was a disgrace today. Utterly clueless, tippy tappy ball retention negative shite. No direction in our play, no desire, no gameplay, no win.

Have to say, I'm not sure about the great squad I keep hearing about. Yes, we have some genuine talent (Mallan, McMullen, Gallagher) but we also have players who are guaranteed a spot in our starting XI who are dreadful footballers. Sean Kelly - total liability, too weak, prone to moments of madness. Keith Watson - sluggish, unfit, poor positionally, dreadful first touch. Carswell - where do I start?

We won't be automatically relegated but we are on our way to relegation play offs.

Can't be bothered going back to be honest. Same hopeless, gutless shite we are served every week.

Sort it out or f**k off Murray!

Have to agree. This is a poor squad of players. We have had a couple of 20 minute spells of decent passing since the pre season friendlies. The 3 youngsters you mention are talented. Jim Goodwin and Andy Webster can easily operate at this level but the rest haven't offered anything this season. We are a club in crisis. This is looking like yet another season where we need to have 2 teams more shite than us to be safe. I had thought we would be at least spared that.

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just cant understand why we set up so defensively, today there were few chances for players to get forward but seemed to just either not have desire or have been instructed not to get forward

there were also chances we just don't take them, shooting practice required

Also Mallan has a decent free kick and corner but if he doesn't mix them up teams know how to defend them, need a change to tactics

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I think I called it more or less correctly an hour before kick off when I predicted Murray would change the team again and start with 4 defenders and 2 holding midfielders against Alloa at home. It's hard to say how many were up front... I'd like to think it was 3 up front but most of the time it looked like it was Thommo up there on his own and hard to tell where Gallagher and Shankland were playing.

Thommo looks finished and is the biggest passenger in the team. Ok he won a few headers but he usually put them nowhere near a St Mirren forward. He had one good diving header in the second half where he did well to get to it and direct it toward goal, but at times it was sad seeing him attempt to shimmy past a Dumbarton defender and just look like a 60 year old, and as he had a decent chance to make it 2-0 and just passed the ball back to Alloa and blamed Morgan for not making the run and reading the pass he hit without checking anyone was in the box before he knocked the ball to no one. How he stayed on the park for 90 minutes... which brings me to Ian Murray.

It was another game where he elected to watch most of the game from the stand and only came down for the last 15 minutes and stayed at the touchline from then on. Most of his time was spent chatting to Spalding or looking at his shoes, checking his watch once and then realising he hadn't actually clocked the time first time round and looking at his watch a second time seconds later, checking his shoes again, muttering something to Spalding. Shoes, watch, watch again, Spalding, watch, shoes, watch, Spalding. I think with 15 minutes left after Alloa equalised most of us thought the point of him coming down and chatting to Spalding was with a view to bringing on subs to try and win the game. I don't think we had any chances except an off target Mallan free kick after Alloa made it 1-1.

In the first half we retained possession well enough but it was obvious Alloa were sitting back and letting us knock the ball around in our own half and just in to their half but we seemed incapable of penetrating and rarely made it into their box at all in the first half. Our best chances were Mallan's direct free kicks, a Mallan shot from outside the box and then a great header from Shankland on the stroke of half time.

Alloa looked a lot more direct when they hit us on the break, and as the game went on they seemed happy to mix it more rather than sit back in numbers. The game finished with Alloa as likely to score a winner as we were.

Murray's starting XI did not suggest to me we were going out to win the game... it seemed like a 4-5-1 we played with. To only bring on 1 sub in a game like that suggests Murray was happy enough to hold on for a point at home against the team team who started bottom of the league.

Nice to see Danny Lennon stick around and shake hands and chat with St Mirren fans at the end of the game. DL and Gary Teale would both do a much better job than our worst appointment in the last 18 months.

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That and the West Bank counting to 10 for a ref that can't count to 8.

I nearly mentioned that, but I think we can't complain about today's ref. No big decisions in today's game and he was quick to book Alloa players for kicking the ball away at our free kick and their keeper for time wasting. Today's result 100% lies at the door of Murrya, Spalding and the players.

If Murray is getting a better, more strategic view of the game sitting in the stand it baffles me that he does not appear to see what everyone else in the same stand can see. Today against a team sitting with 10 and sometimes 11 men behind the ball in the first half we did not need 4 at the back and two holding midfielders and 1 main striker.

Edited by Dibbles old paperboy
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I nearly mentioned that, but I think we can't complain about today's ref. No big decisions in today's game and he was quick to book Alloa players for kicking the ball away at our free kick and their keeper for time wasting. Today's result 100% lies at the door of Murrya, Spalding and the players.

If Murray is getting a better, more strategic view of the game sitting in the stand it baffles me that he does not appear to see what everyone else in the same stand can see. Today against a team sitting with 10 and sometimes 11 men behind the ball in the first half we did not need 4 at the back and two holding midfielders and 1 main striker.

I agree. The ref was fine today. I don't know if Ian's strategy is to build from a strong defence and he feels we need 2 sitting in front of 4 to achieve that. We seem to play very narrow and never get wide men behind the opposition defence. We are missing big Jason's overlapping runs and McMullen 's skill. Watson and Sean Kelly just don't get forward enough for me. I hope the manager can come up with a plan and get some confidence about the place. His own confidence must be shot to pieces. Edited by magnus
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I agree. The ref was fine today. I don't know if Ian's strategy is to build from a strong defence and he feels we need 2 sitting in front of 4 to achieve that. We seem to play very narrow and never get wide men behind the opposition defence. We are missing big Jason's overlapping runs and McMullen 's skill. Watson and Sean Kelly just don't get forward enough for me. I hope the manager can come up with a plan and get some confidence about the place. His own confidence must be shot to pieces.

Watson and Kelly get forward just fine, sadly the delivery and decision making today was awful. That should improve through repetition at training though, bit of guidance on the training ground and watching match footage afterwards instead of being on the golf course by 1 PM. I used to work with a players relative, he'd get the daily "what you up to" text around 1 PM. It's a holiday camp, with the players having no concept of graft. That said, Murray's inability to utilise the tools at his disposal trumps any player deficiencies.

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Watson and Kelly get forward just fine, sadly the delivery and decision making today was awful. That should improve through repetition at training though, bit of guidance on the training ground and watching match footage afterwards instead of being on the golf course by 1 PM. I used to work with a players relative, he'd get the daily "what you up to" text around 1 PM. It's a holiday camp, with the players having no concept of graft. That said, Murray's inability to utilise the tools at his disposal trumps any player deficiencies.

Got to hope that extra drills and extra fitness sessions is top of the manager's list. Decision making was chronic.There was no pace to our play today and we certainly didn't look any fitter than Alloa.

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It's the defend and hold mentality that utterly slays me. We eek a goal , we then invite anyone and everyone on us. Been so guilty of over respecting everyone in this division, it's unacceptable.

Get on the front foot and push forward with some belief, fans respond. Even if we ain't the best talented pool of players, by having a go you'll at least energise things to some extent.

This negative approach and caution just sucks the utter life out of the team , the motivation, the fans, the ground ffs.

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Looking at the highlights of there goal jack bairds defending was awful ball watching completely loses his man that scores and ends up flat on his face

On the subject of Baird, anyone else think he hasn't been the same since the game where he played at rightback and gave away a penalty? Dunno if it's confidence or whatever but he's certainly gone back the way - ironically it's since Webster came in and that should have helped him!

Edited by Stu
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Baird has a lot of maturing to do.

He was megged by their player, wasn't happy, and hauled him down. This resulted in a needless free kick that led to the goal.

There is raw talent in there, but he needs a fair bit of guidance.

Edited by Drew
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