Match Thread Hamilton V Aberdeen (1 - 1)

[DodgyKeeper]

I didn't boo the team off at full time. I doubt I ever had - but certainly on this occasion I don't see the benefit in it. What you are looking at is a team well short in confidence and although certain players don't look motivated (Logan in particular), I think it was more a lack of actual basic footballing ability than effort. Some of the slack passing, inability to win the 1st tackle 'could' be attributed to the plastic pitch but then you look at the performance here last year when we won 3-0 when we played with urgency and precision and that point seems mute.

 

What's worrying for me is the the team is set out to play like that - direct balls forward to the target man, bypassing the midfield entirely. Time and time again, it was coming right back to us and putting pressure on an already fragile back four. So we go one up early and surely we should push for a second, move the ball around look for space but the players don't seem capable of putting two or three passes together and there was no willingness for McInnes to anticipate or change it around to make that easier (Move Shinnie into Midfield, take Flood off and put Considine at LB).

 

I think McInnes has done a great job but even when you look at the two fantastic runs we put together early this season, there was an element of pragmatism where by sometimes we just did enough to win. And it wasn't always pretty.

 

I'd much prefer the performances and of the European games where we kept the ball were patient and direct where space could be exploited. So what's happened? It seems like a deliberate tactical decision?

[mutant]

Blaming an artificial pitch is pathetic , most people who have played on one will tell you it's better to play football on that some grass pitches . They are professional

Players who regularly train on these pitches . How hard is it to complete 5/6 yard passes - yet they couldn't do it yesterday . Midfielder seriously needed . Along with a striker .

[Stoneybloke]

Wind down the club and sell Pittodrie for housing.

 

All is darkness, all is hopeless, all is lost.

Third Lanark all over again?

[tommo1903]

Quite liked how, when we took a right back off yesterday, instead of subbing him for the right back on the bench, we brought on a centre half, put him at left back and took our left back who's best position is arguably centre midfield and put him right back.

[lukas989]

Mind when we bossed the midfield in pretty much every game...good times.

[ebbe]

Quite liked how, when we took a right back off yesterday, instead of subbing him for the right back on the bench, we brought on a centre half, put him at left back and took our left back who's best position is arguably centre midfield and put him right back.

Aye that was genius.

[paddy]

Ryan McLaughlin not getting a run out despite him being a RB? This smells a bit like that weird Myles Anderson transfer. Perhaps we had to take him to get Ward?

[RAZOR]

Ryan McLaughlin not getting a run out despite him being a RB? This smells a bit like that weird Myles Anderson transfer. Perhaps we had to take him to get Ward?

 

Worth it in that case as I'd hate to see what position we'd be in without Ward this season.

[Stoneybloke]

I blame the Europa league qualifying rounds. The players are jaded. It's all been too much for them.

[nacnud]

Strangely lacking in giving a shit I reckon. Watched on tv and apart from Hayes it was hard to see anyone busting a gut. We do need a goal scorer. Rooney seems to have lost interest I know he still second to scorer in spl but should have scored heaps more for the chances he has had.

[ebbe]

Worth it in that case as I'd hate to see what position we'd be in without Ward this season.

Good point min, Ward's unreal and he's going to the top. Really hope Del Boy can sort this mess out. Unreal transformation since that Hearts away game.

[V for Vendetta]

Pretty gutted with the result.

 

We seem to have gone from potential challengers to now only a top 6 team, if even that on current form.

 

All very odd.

[Byrne Baby Byrne]

shag your centre backs bird, get banged

[Guest the shepherd]

Apart from Danny Ward and Graeme Shinnie coming on board there has been no improvement from last season. 2 successful signings out of 6 is a very poor good return. Badly need new players that are going to hit the ground running in January and not sign players for the sake of it (Parker, Nuttall, McLaughlin). Anthony Stokes would definitely be that would improve our team.

[tommo1903]

A team containing stokes, mcginn and Jack v Celtic would be a sight to behold.

 

Imagine the number of bottled tackles.

[Boras83]

This disappointing spell perhaps highlights how well the players have done over the last couple of years. McInnes has given us a team that competes. We didn't have that before. Just about every game under his charge has gone down to the wire. We rarely coast to a win - almost every game's been tight and a lot of the wins could've really gone either way. Consistent has been the way his team competes - difficult to beat for sure. But unfortunately no one appears to come close to the character shown by Anderson and Robson as their playing careers neared or near the end, No 'winners'. No leaders. At least one of each would help us get the best out of some decent players (Shinnie, McLean, McGinn...) but it needs to be soon before bad habits really do set in.

[fine-n-dandy]

 

I think when you look back you can see that we were fortunate to win some of those games, particularly Partick away. I don't think we're playing that much better then than now, some notable games aside, but football's about winning so nobody was bothered. Now we're not winning and still playing pish. Hopefully we can beat Ross County on Saturday but it does look like our season is coming down to how we do in the Scottish.

Teams feared us & were scared to have a real go at us early in the season. After the Hibs game they realised we were over hyped & most of us (if we are being honest) knew we were quite lucky to get the three points in a good few of those games.

 

Soon as our defence has had any kind of real pressure now (except the celtic home game) they have been well & truly found out. Midfield weakness doesn't help at all & our lack of goals/form in attacking sense is not nearly good enough to cover for the other weaknesses in our team.

 

I think our defence is decent enough though & could easily cope if they had better players protecting them from midfield. Attacking also we need improving greatly.

 

Hopefully McInnes sees that it is midfield to forward that is the real problem in our team & doesn't try to solve it from the defence first.

[Dusk( 2 Stars )Don]

Apart from Danny Ward and Graeme Shinnie coming on board there has been no improvement from last season. 2 successful signings out of 6 is a very poor good return. Badly need new players that are going to hit the ground running in January and not sign players for the sake of it (Parker, Nuttall, McLaughlin). Anthony Stokes would definitely be that would improve our team.

Pals with Mr Mcginn

[mutant]

Last thing we need is another Tim imposter , stokes is past his best anyway . A striker with pace and trickery with an eye for goal is what we need .

[fine-n-dandy]

Last thing we need is another Tim imposter , stokes is past his best anyway . A striker with pace and trickery with an eye for goal is what we need .

We couldn't afford one with all three. We also couldn't afford three with each having one of those attributes.

 

 

McInnes has a couple (maybe even a few) of great signings to his name but overall he's pretty much bang average. Got some real shite in there also.

 

Hope he's calling in some favours come January. We need at least one real quality player in midfield. One that will basically take over the weak buch we have in there right now.

[Redforever86]

For all the talk of our defence being pish we don't actually concede that much. Over than hammerings fae St Johnstone and Celtic most games were winnable if we were better going forward.

 

I'd try playing McLean, McGinn or Goodwillie as a striker partnering Rooney, with Hayes and Pawlett right out on the wings. Logan and Shinnie supporting. Jack and Flood in the middle both in a more defensive role.

[Guest the shepherd]

If we got rid of a few players in January (Parker, McLaughlin, Logan, Robson (the latter two I would be disappointed to see go)) surely that would free up cash to pay a fee and/or decent wages for someone that would actually improve oor team. I would like to see Cameron Smith actually get a decent run of starts also.

[Bamber]

Apart from Danny Ward and Graeme Shinnie coming on board there has been no improvement from last season. 2 successful signings out of 6 is a very poor good return. Badly need new players that are going to hit the ground running in January and not sign players for the sake of it (Parker, Nuttall, McLaughlin). Anthony Stokes would definitely be that would improve our team.

 

 

Bit controversial but I said about 4 or 5 games ago that I think Shinnie is causing us a problem. Not because he is a bad signing but because he is out best midfielder alongside Jack and brings Mclean more into the game. He is also our best left back. We either weaken our midfield or weaken our defence

 

Cant find Shinniewatch at the moment but it was almost 50-50 and the usual plan B was to swap his position.

 

Our defence is all over the place because it is completely unsettled, our midfield gets outplayed because it is again unsettled

 

I FULLY KNOW ITS A GAME but my first move on getting FM2016 was finding a good midfielder to sit alongside jack to let me use Shinnie in defence Wasn't bothered about anything else (except sending McLaughlin back off loan)

 

Need to see a midfielder to sit alongside Jack

[dave_min]

Fuck sake bamber, it's only a game.

 

Idiot.

[buchanskii]

The squad definitely needs freshened up a bit with players who can compete. Get rid of the dross like McGaughlin & Parker, the players who don't want to be here (logan) and let the youngsters provide some competition it's surely worth a try - the squad looks stale and some of the players are playing like they know they wont be dropped.

[Mr John]

The squad definitely needs freshened up a bit with players who can compete. Get rid of the dross like McGaughlin & Parker, the players who don't want to be here (logan) and let the youngsters provide some competition it's surely worth a try - the squad looks stale and some of the players are playing like they know they wont be dropped.

 

See where you're coming from, but get rid of fringe players and replace them with what? If we start getting injuries there is even less cover, especially at RB.

 

Also, why isn't Robson even playing this season? Perpetually on the bench. When was his last game?

[Bamber]

 

See where you're coming from, but get rid of fringe players and replace them with what? If we start getting injuries there is even less cover, especially at RB.

 

Also, why isn't Robson even playing this season? Perpetually on the bench. When was his last game?

 

 

Yesterday for the U20's against rangers - took a kicking from Fraser Aird and had to go off injured

[Clydeside_Sheep]

Pretty gutted with the result.

 

We seem to have gone from potential challengers to now only a top 6 team, if even that on current form.

 

All very odd.

 

Aye very disappointed not to capitalise on sellick and fartz both drawing.

 

The season has gone from looking like challengers for the title to challengers for best of the rest.

 

I think we all knew we were riding our luck a bit with our excellent start, but its becoming clear we were doing so more than anyone imagined. Though to be fair the opening part of the season did mark us out as the team to beat / "form team", and so teams are probably more motivated to face us than usual.

[StandFree1982]

 

Aye very disappointed not to capitalise on sellick and fartz both drawing.

 

The season has gone from looking like challengers for the title to challengers for best of the rest.

 

I think we all knew we were riding our luck a bit with our excellent start, but its becoming clear we were doing so more than anyone imagined. Though to be fair the opening part of the season did mark us out as the team to beat / "form team", and so teams are probably more motivated to face us than usual.

We're nowhere near that at the moment either.

[Clydeside_Sheep]

We're nowhere near that at the moment either.

 

Thats the spirit!

 

We are hanging in there league table wise, even if you are right about our form.