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Game 7 and Saints 10pts behind Livvy


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10 minutes ago, saintargyll said:

We will finish above Livvy at the end of the season

if not i will donate £50 to charity

You have got to be impressed with their start. Will we finish above Livie ? Personally I don't think so they have a formula that works. Oran is building his formula , going by yesterday I would say we are heading in the right direction especially up front goals will come. Defence does not look too bad with Ferdinand giving Baird coaching.  In the middle of the park we are missing a bit of steel. Murray, Goodwin , Abercrombie type player. Things will get better I came away from the game yesterday quite happy. 

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As Wendy has consistently told us, Livy have had the same man in charge for a good while. 

They have not had any managerial upheaval. Holt is a mouthpiece as was Hopkin. 

Livy won't be found out. 

They will get stronger. 

They will finish miles ahead of us. 

We should have employed their real manager after Ross. 

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Where we are compared with Livi after 7 games is not going to be a significant stat in the season overall. What Livi's performance to date does show is that a decent Championship side can do well while retaining the bulk of the previous season's squad. Livi also recruited some of the better players from teams who finished below them last season. Despite also changing manager twice since being promoted behind ourselves they have had a fair amount of continuity with last season between retaining much of last year's squad and the unusual influence of their assistant manager. Livi have recruited shrewdly.

By contrast we have had one of the most disappointing transfer windows I can remember, where it seemed towards the end we were making random signings for the sake of bringing in more players. Stubbs first 3 signings (Heaton, King and Cooke) made up 75% of his permanent signings and none of them have started a league match and as soon as Kearney has arrived he has decided Kpekawa isn't starting XI or bench material. I've already posted elsewhere on the number of loan signings Stubbs brought in and the lack of signings he made with experience of our current level. Stubbs ripped up the squad from last season and threw together a new squad who don't look up to the task individually or collectively.

All we can really hope for is that Kearney gives players their confidence back and we can hang in there until the January window opens. I don't think we have any hope of replicating the effect of Jack Ross' first transfer window. We stayed up on goal difference on the final afternoon of the season after being on league winning form for the final 4 months of the season. However good our January signings are in 2019 I can't see us finishing the season on league winning form.

Forget Livi. Livi look as though they will cruise to 7th or 8th at least this season and be well clear of the relegation dogfight. Between now and the end of December if we can stay within a few points of Dundee, Hamilton and Motherwell we can try and regroup and address the shambles of a squad Stubbs bequeathed to us.

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2 hours ago, saintargyll said:

We will finish above Livvy at the end of the season

if not i will donate £50 to charity

I admire your confidence. A few of the folks I go to games with felt that, on balance,  once they reached the Premiership  they were better equipped than Saints to stay there.  A big,  strong,  physical and we'll organised team.  I am surprised though on how well they have done so far.  End of the season,  I expect ourselves and the usual suspects to be in the bottom six... Including Livvy. After that... Who knows. 

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Continuity, that's what Livi have. They basically have and play the same team as last season with only a few good signings. We, thanks to Stubbs had our heart ripped out and replaced with utter dross. OK has a job on his hands and hopefully he can pull us round but I don't see us finishing above Livi, 10th would be great for me this season.

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1 hour ago, St.Ricky said:

I admire your confidence. A few of the folks I go to games with felt that, on balance,  once they reached the Premiership  they were better equipped than Saints to stay there.  A big,  strong,  physical and we'll organised team.  I am surprised though on how well they have done so far.  End of the season,  I expect ourselves and the usual suspects to be in the bottom six... Including Livvy. After that... Who knows. 

This was my thinking too. They had the physicality we knew we were going to need, they didn't get hit by player losses like we did with Morgan, Davis and Reilly, not to mention losing JR too. Livi had a steady ship going into this season whereas we did not, and they were already set up in the right way to adapt to this league. I'm surprised at just how well they've done but it doesn't surprise me in the slightest they are above us, and at the start of the season we were targeting them as main competition.

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Fortunately we only need to finish above two clubs, so hopefully Dundee and Hamilton will be those sides. Just checked the fixtures and Hamilton in particular have a very tough run coming up, away games v Hibs, Aberdeen and Killie and a home game v Rangers. Can't see them getting many points out of that. 

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16 hours ago, saintargyll said:

We will finish above Livvy at the end of the season

if not i will donate £50 to charity

We won't finish above any other teams imo, we've too much to do to get back to a level playing field,  thanks to the disastrous Stubbs appointment. Some of the young players in the squad are doing ok just now , but they aren't good enough for our current level and that will be proven in the fullness of time. Our only chance , and it's a slim one , is to be close enough to the likes of Accies and Dundee come January , to make it worthwhile to have a mass clearout and bring in around 12 new players. Comes down to how much GLS wants an SPL club at his disposal I suppose !

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More important than personnel Livi have maintained their style from last season, we couldn't have done the same - the thrashings by Aberdeen (& relegated) Partick last season indicated we couldn't go toe2toe with the other teams in the top flight.

JR knew this and had planned an overhaul, some of our current problems were inevitable once Ipswich & then Sunderland came in for him but the lack of urgency from TF/GLS in replacing him & Stubby's subsequent decision to ignore the advice from JR and go his own way (sic) left us underprepared at the start of the season. The least said about the rest of Stubbsy's tenure the better but with new a manager, OK, we're left in a dogfight against teams (Livi not included) that will be well motivated - we're not adrift at the bottom (yet) but we'll have to match our rivals in terms of attitude and hope for a productive January window.

For us I reckon 10th place will be an achievement and unlike the OP if Livi somehow manage to fight their way below us my flabber will be gasted - well and truly!

 

Edited by Bud the Baker
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43 minutes ago, Bud the Baker said:

More important than personnel Livi have maintained their style from last season, we couldn't have done the same - the thrashings by Aberdeen (& relegated) Partick last season indicated we couldn't go toe2toe with the other teams in the top flight.

JR knew this and had planned an overhaul, some of our current problems were inevitable once Ipswich & then Sunderland came in for him but the lack of urgency from TF/GLS in replacing him & Stubby's subsequent decision to ignore the advice from JR and go his own way (sic) left us underprepared at the start of the season. The least said about the rest of Stubbsy's tenure the better but with new a manager, OK, we're left in a dogfight against teams (Livi not included) that will be well motivated - we're not adrift at the bottom (yet) but we'll have to match our rivals in terms of attitude and hope for a productive January window.

For us I reckon 10th place will be an achievement and unlike the OP if Livi somehow manage to fight their way below us my flabber will be gasted - well and truly!

 

The next 4 games will, for me, show us if we have what it takes to survive.............. Dons, Killie, Well and Fakes..... has to be at least 6 points in that. To stay up u need at least 1 point a game

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1 hour ago, DougJamie said:

The next 4 games will, for me, show us if we have what it takes to survive.............. Dons, Killie, Well and Fakes..... has to be at least 6 points in that. To stay up u need at least 1 point a game

At the minute, given how we, and those four are playing i can only see us taking something from the Well game. Hope to be proved wrong, but i fear our poor start will continue.

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7 minutes ago, Lord Pityme said:

At the minute, given how we, and those four are playing i can only see us taking something from the Well game. Hope to be proved wrong, but i fear our poor start will continue.

It probably will, so we will need to stick by and support. However bad our start has been, Dundee have less points, Well have same points and Accies also have lost 5 games. These are the must win games for us

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The second half display on Saturday gives me reason for optimism. Another defeat is nothing to be happy about, but the manner of our play in that second half was good to see. Jackson looks like he could get goals for us once he's totally up to speed, while young Jamieson gave us something we've lacked for a long time -  a physical guy up front, willing to get in about the opposition defence and noise them up.

I'm hopeful with the level of trialists we are looking at in the last few weeks that we can get another player or two in who can help us going forward, as lack of goals is our biggest problem at the moment.

More than anything I think the manager realises the importance of the support, as shown by his insistence on applauding all sides of our support after Saturday, and the applause the team got in defeat suggest a fanbase who are willing to give the new man our support.

Things might not be as bad as they currently appear. I can see us avoiding the drop and suprising a few teams this season. 

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I think we have to prepare for 3 different scenarios.

1 Staying in the Premiership. 

2 Finding ourselves in a play off position. 

3 Return to the Championship and coming right back up stronger than before. 

To achieve any of these we have to aim for the first and build a fit,  physical, experienced and organised team with some pace. 

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1 hour ago, St.Ricky said:

I think we have to prepare for 3 different scenarios.

1 Staying in the Premiership. 

2 Finding ourselves in a play off position. 

3 Return to the Championship and coming right back up stronger than before. 

To achieve any of these we have to aim for the first and build a fit,  physical, experienced and organised team with some pace. 

Is that the only 3 ? :whistle

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