St Mirren v Hibernian SPFL Premiership 11/12/21

[FTOF]

Still canny work the edit facility.

[Sonny]

The 3 at the back are constantly exposed as they are given no help from the wing backs as they stay far up the pitch and don't come back to help so very easy for the opposition to attack down the wings. Glass identified that last week and every other manager must see it. For example in yesterday's Hibs goal. Hibs got the ball in front of their own penalty box and started a charge up the park. Lewis Steven was next to Millar in a left back position. Stevenson charged the full length of the park to stretch our back 3. Millar stood where he was and watched Stevenson go. Shocking play from Millar.

And I feel sorry for McGrath and Ronan whose only job these days is to try and get onto the second balls the oposing defence fires back at us from a long punt. Trying using your assets Jim and play through the midfield. If I was McGrath I'd want out of that team pdq.

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[The Original 59er]

On 12/11/2021 at 11:45 PM, munoz said:

Goal scorers are notoriously difficult to find / or produce but we as a club have really struggled since Tommo. 

I know our all round play this season is far from perfect, but you can't help but feel that if we had a natural forward on form, we would be fine. 

One of Goodwin's biggest flaws for me has been his recruitment in the forward areas. 

I wrote this last week in another post:

Posted December 6

We are like a stuck record (vinyl)...........

Same old problem year on year. We have theoretically tightened up our defence and we have a capable mid-field but we have had no real poacher goal threat since........... let me think now......?

Probably Mark Yardley (2003), Dougie Somner (1983), Frank McDougall (1984) or Barry Lavety (2004) who have been our most recent goal threats. Whilst these mentioned were good in front of goal, our best instinctive goal scorer still probably remains as Gerry Baker

That is a sad fact. Yes there have been various players since Baker that have donned the black & white jersey who have been quite good in the penalty box but Gerry stands out like a Jim Forrest or a Mo Johnston.

Baker's average over 3 playing seasons was 22 goals. Compare that with Lavety - 7 goals a season, Yardley - 8 goals per season, McDougall - 11 per season, Somner - 13 per season.

So as much as we complain at not sticking the ball in the net, despite getting into scoring positions, we haven't had anyone that regularly hits the net for 17 years and probably more as Barry wasn't too proficient in his latter years. What we have are players who aren't sharp enough despite the training, because they have to work blo*dy hard to get into the scoring positions however they aren't instinctive so they don't anticipate to move into, or be in the position that true goal scorers do. An amusing example of this is Jota playing for Liverpool on Saturday - he got into the position then didn't have the composure to finish it off, instead he just didn't take a look or take a second and place the ball (if you haven't seen it, it's worth watching how not to try and score).

So what Alnwick is saying is true. He was at Rangers and he will have seen natural goal scorers in action on a daily basis at training and in his occasional run outs for the 1st team. We haven't anything near that ability, but to find it you either have to pay quite a lot of money, accidentally find a gem who will leave you after a couple of seasons, or keep trying to find a journeyman who might just come good for a season or two. So far none of these has appeared for 17+ years and counting.........