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Tommy Wright's Gameplan.


killiefife

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I'm not hugely concerned at the moment.

Last season we all had similar opinions... if we hadn't conceded a stupid amount of goals, we would have stayed up.

We no longer concede many goals. Let's not forget the last 6 months of Steve Clarke Reign.

We scored 18 goals in 18 games, and that included a 5-0 pumping of Hamilton which was a 1 off.

At the moment I fully understand us sorting the defense.

I'd rather we won games 5-4 for some entertainment, but I'll take 1-0

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1 hour ago, historyman said:

We still need a natural finisher. Someone like Boyd or Watters would have scored a couple on Saturday. And it looks like we don’t spend any time on set pieces. The floaty balls into the box are a waste of time and we barely win any of them. I hope we play better v Thistle. That will be a tricky game. 

Unfortunately every club in the country is looking for a natural finisher, they are very hard to find. I think another option is to try and find a creative midfield player who can set up chances for Robinson and Shaw goals will come from that.

I think TW knows what system he wants to use, it is just a case of getting the squad fit and hopefully adding that final bit of quality. We are in an excellent position for a team that has still to gel. Cant be critical of results so far the future is looking good as far as I am concerned.

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I'm happy with the quality of players signed and quality of defending, passing and ball retention.

I'm not happy with our style of play, creating chances, winning the second ball or our general dynamism.

So far, the only decent team we've played is ICT and the goal we lost was a defensive/goalkeeping error. My concern is that if we go a goal down, as we did against ICT, if a team really sits in we don't have the tools to unlock.

It's okay saying that we'll be happy winning games 1-0 as that is likely to get us out of the league. However, with our superior budget, I did expect us to have team that at least on occasion would show a real sign of intent by wiping the floor with the opposition. First round of games, teams will be wary of our favourites tag, but second round if we are seen as a wee bit timid and not dominating, then teams might well up their game and have a go against us.

I think we have a real decision to make with Polwarth, McGinn and Alston, because as the season progresses, I can't see all 3 of them starting in the same 11, they are far too similar. Despite his goal on Saturday, Rory didn't do much else, if Burke is on the sidelines Armstrong has to play to give us that natural width and worry the opposition.

A massive game against Thistle next Saturday will show us where we are at, they will set up to attack us I would think, so what happens if we lose the first goal? Will there be more space for us to exploit and, if so, will we be able to?

A lot of questions still to be answered.

 

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14 minutes ago, Guff92 said:

See if we get promoted, would people be happy to watch this football in the prem next season? Or should it be a case of thanks Tommy see you later and get someone else in? 
 

 

If TW gets us up this year then he deserves a crack at the prem next year. If he doesn’t get us up then I suspect he won’t be in the job, no matter how close we came. 

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I think if I was to describe Tommy Wright's management style in one word, it would be 'pragmatic'.

And I think it's well worth people understanding that's what he gives. He's not the guy you'd have picked if our first demand was for expansive, free-flowing football that you'd maybe demand if you were a club where that was your core identity.

Ultimately, that's probably a 'nice to have' right now. After a series of less-than-ideal managers, I don't think there's much doubt that the board had to look towards delivering stability first and foremost. To that end, we've employed a manager who gives us stability, builds a coherent unit and gets defensive frailties sorted first. He's delivered success in the past based on the whole being greater than the sum of its parts, few star signings, and not a huge amount of flair.

I can absolutely see why we've gone down this road, and why points are going to be far more important than performances in the first few months, or indeed for much of the season. We can't lose sight of the fact that this is a totally new group and it takes months for them to start to gel and put more complex things into place. Right now, coaching will be about getting a basic, solid base right to give us a longer-term springboard to get us beyond a hugely disappointing couple of seasons.

I don't think we can underestimate just how poor the team was a matter of months ago, and therefore just how much work was required. I don't think I'll get overly grumpy if the only things we genuinely deliver this season are a coherent team an genuinely competing for the title. Everything else is longer-term.

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The loss of Chris Stokes as a commanding presence beside Euan Murray has been significant in affecting the team set up and upsetting our composure at the back. While Jack Sanders has potential he doesn't seem quite ready to be a starting centre back. Injuries, however, have forced the manager's hand.To my mind this has weakened the back four and caused a lack of conidence to ripple through the team when mistakes are made. I think we'll see a tighter but more expansive game plan in due course - all being well...

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1 hour ago, funky monkey said:

I'm happy with the quality of players signed and quality of defending, passing and ball retention.

I'm not happy with our style of play, creating chances, winning the second ball or our general dynamism.

So far, the only decent team we've played is ICT and the goal we lost was a defensive/goalkeeping error. My concern is that if we go a goal down, as we did against ICT, if a team really sits in we don't have the tools to unlock.

It's okay saying that we'll be happy winning games 1-0 as that is likely to get us out of the league. However, with our superior budget, I did expect us to have team that at least on occasion would show a real sign of intent by wiping the floor with the opposition. First round of games, teams will be wary of our favourites tag, but second round if we are seen as a wee bit timid and not dominating, then teams might well up their game and have a go against us.

I think we have a real decision to make with Polwarth, McGinn and Alston, because as the season progresses, I can't see all 3 of them starting in the same 11, they are far too similar. Despite his goal on Saturday, Rory didn't do much else, if Burke is on the sidelines Armstrong has to play to give us that natural width and worry the opposition.

A massive game against Thistle next Saturday will show us where we are at, they will set up to attack us I would think, so what happens if we lose the first goal? Will there be more space for us to exploit and, if so, will we be able to?

A lot of questions still to be answered.

 

 

If we go 2 up top which i think we will next week, it'll be Robinson and Shaw which will cause teams more problems, most defences are tall solid players but robinson nipping at their heels should leave space for shaw. Middle 2 will be Alston and Mcginn. If we need to go for it then mcginn off for polworth.

I think the middle 3 are different enough to play together. Certainly not the creative vacuum that power and dicker were last season. Mcginn clearly the sitting player, head always up for the pass, Alston tries to get things moving forward but can get stuck in aswell. Polworth clearly has the best vision and some of his passes are really good, he doesn't do the dirty side enough which is why i think he was hooked for Robinson. 

 

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2 hours ago, Mcd said:

Unfortunately every club in the country is looking for a natural finisher, they are very hard to find. I think another option is to try and find a creative midfield player who can set up chances for Robinson and Shaw goals will come from that.

I think TW knows what system he wants to use, it is just a case of getting the squad fit and hopefully adding that final bit of quality. We are in an excellent position for a team that has still to gel. Cant be critical of results so far the future is looking good as far as I am concerned.

How long does it take a team to gel? They've been together for two months now, training with each other every day. 

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35 minutes ago, fraz65 said:

How long does it take a team to gel? They've been together for two months now, training with each other every day. 

I'm not sure anyone can actually answer this - has the extent of rebuild we had to accomplish in a single window ever taken place in Scottish football before?  Even when Rangers were liquidated, the reanimated corpse had more parts sloughed off the of the old monster than we had remaining.

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We are 5 games in, and have conceded 1 goal. That's a strong base to build on, few of the players have joined later than the rest, (Shaw, Polwarth, Mcgowan) and some still not 100% fit (Robinson). Shaw looked good on Saturday, his movement is night and day compared to Cameron, we learn how to utilise him, and get Robinson closer to him, hopefully more goals will come. 

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Those hitting back at criticism of the team/tactics saying " WE WON" and "I'll take 1-0 wins from now til the end of the season" are missing the point.

We have now had a few unconvincing and undeserved results. Last minute goals against QoS and Morton in the cup... undeniably lucky to take all 3 points in the league against Morton.  How long can that go on? The Inverness game is a striking example of how any game can go against us the way we are playing. 

We looked twice the team with Robinson on the park as a second striker. I really hope that is the plan going forward. At very least at home.

 

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I feel that playing at home we definitely need to play with 2 up front, it’s not as if we’re playing against top level opponents (no disrespect to any of the other teams in the division). Teams have already sussed out our tactics and by closing down our 1 centre forward we don’t carry any other threat as we are too slow in going forward to create chances.

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Compared to Dyer I can see more positive play and attacking intent. I think someone will take a hammering soon , once Shaw and Robinson get more games together.

We are no longer balls down both wings and cross, I see build up play around the box and Murray on the left cuts inside a lot.

I would like to see us play a defence splitting ball to a forward when we are on the back foot, to often the quick direct passes are to feet and not into space for a player to run onto.

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3 hours ago, Mrangel08 said:

The loss of Chris Stokes as a commanding presence beside Euan Murray has been significant in affecting the team set up and upsetting our composure at the back. While Jack Sanders has potential he doesn't seem quite ready to be a starting centre back. Injuries, however, have forced the manager's hand.To my mind this has weakened the back four and caused a lack of conidence to ripple through the team when mistakes are made. I think we'll see a tighter but more expansive game plan in due course - all being well...

Do we know how long Stokes is likely to be out for? Ditto Burke?

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1 hour ago, bizza_89 said:

Those hitting back at criticism of the team/tactics saying " WE WON" and "I'll take 1-0 wins from now til the end of the season" are missing the point.

We have now had a few unconvincing and undeserved results. Last minute goals against QoS and Morton in the cup... undeniably lucky to take all 3 points in the league against Morton.  How long can that go on? The Inverness game is a striking example of how any game can go against us the way we are playing. 

We looked twice the team with Robinson on the park as a second striker. I really hope that is the plan going forward. At very least at home.

 

Only if it's a one-way street. If we accept that some of our 1-0 wins were less than convincing, you've got to accept that other team's victories over us will fall into the same 'lucky' category. I think the Inverness game is a perfect example of that - a draw, home win or away win would all have been perfectly reasonable result there.

At the heart of that, you'd always want to be the 'lucky' team that's able to deliver wins and clean sheets more often than everyone else. I'm not really sure how much value there is in worrying about how 'unconvincing' or 'undeserving'  results are if it glosses over the fact that we're now capable of delivering that type of result; something that was utterly beyond us a few months back.

We've gone from utterly rudderless to relegated, and now we're on the journey from hard to beat back to being a more coherent team. So, no, I don't think it misses the point at all.

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