Weāve been undone a bit easily by aimless balls down the pitch today. Denayer has looked poor on the return.
Sensational save from Gordon in the 89th minute!
I donāt like defending leads against far inferior teams and thatās what Deliaās subs did today, we should have been looking to press for a third or fourth but instead we decided to settle for a 2-0 lead and it very nearly ended up catching us out.
Johansen was our MOTM today, led by example in his work rate, made some lovely passes and his overall energy caused St Johnstone problems all game. His goal was a cracker as well.
[QUOTE=āIl Bomber Destro, post: 1091604, member: 2533ā]I donāt like defending leads against far inferior teams and thatās what Deliaās subs did today, we should have been looking to press for a third or fourth but instead we decided to settle for a 2-0 lead and it very nearly ended up catching us out.
Johansen was our MOTM today, led by example in his work rate, made some lovely passes and his overall energy caused St Johnstone problems all game. His goal was a cracker as well.[/QUOTE]
I think they caused us a few problems on our right hand side from the start. They were getting crosses in from there too easily, including for the goal but also for a couple of other chances in the first half, so the Ambrose substitution was sort of odd but kind of worked. Donāt think the Stokes or Henderson changes were necessarily negative. Stokes didnāt have a great time, bar that one pass for Henderson and Henderson himself was quite poor.
Great start but I think we got too cocky from that and tried to play everything too quick. We did put together some nice passages of play and caused them loads of problems but as you said in an earlier post, we didnāt keep the ball well enough. Griffiths isnāt suited to that and we were too quick to look for the killer pass instead of building it up slowly. Itās great having Armstrong and GMS to up the tempo a bit but we need to mix that with slower passing through Bitton etc.
They didnāt really look in the game until that first goal. Gordon was obviously very poor for that but made up for it with that outstanding save just before the end. We certainly retreated too much for the last few minutes but no harm to learn to deal with pressure ahead of the Inter test.
One thing that is a concern is our lack of height. They exposed Denayer a few times with balls over his shoulder and behind Matthews (hence the Ambrose change again) but also from set pieces weāre relying an awful lot on VVD. Stokes gives us a bit more of a presence at the back - heās not a huge man or anything but he can compete fairly well. When itās a team of small attackers, small full backs and Denayer we really only have VVD who is dominant in the air and Brown and Bitton who are both competent.
[QUOTE=āRocko, post: 1091672, member: 1ā]I think they caused us a few problems on our right hand side from the start. They were getting crosses in from there too easily, including for the goal but also for a couple of other chances in the first half, so the Ambrose substitution was sort of odd but kind of worked. Donāt think the Stokes or Henderson changes were necessarily negative. Stokes didnāt have a great time, bar that one pass for Henderson and Henderson himself was quite poor.
Great start but I think we got too cocky from that and tried to play everything too quick. We did put together some nice passages of play and caused them loads of problems but as you said in an earlier post, we didnāt keep the ball well enough. Griffiths isnāt suited to that and we were too quick to look for the killer pass instead of building it up slowly. Itās great having Armstrong and GMS to up the tempo a bit but we need to mix that with slower passing through Bitton etc.
They didnāt really look in the game until that first goal. Gordon was obviously very poor for that but made up for it with that outstanding save just before the end. We certainly retreated too much for the last few minutes but no harm to learn to deal with pressure ahead of the Inter test.
One thing that is a concern is our lack of height. They exposed Denayer a few times with balls over his shoulder and behind Matthews (hence the Ambrose change again) but also from set pieces weāre relying an awful lot on VVD. Stokes gives us a bit more of a presence at the back - heās not a huge man or anything but he can compete fairly well. When itās a team of small attackers, small full backs and Denayer we really only have VVD who is dominant in the air and Brown and Bitton who are both competent.[/QUOTE]
Stokes should have been played on the left if he came on, heās far more suited there in the system Deila likes to play. It should have been Stokes for Armstrong and Guidetti for Griffiths. The changes were poor and led to an uneasy finish, I really, really dislike when teams shut up shop against inferior opposition. We werenāt under any pressure today but we made changes that put us under pressure. We should have been going for a third rather than looking to close it out.
Iād like to see the following team for Wednesday:
Gordon
Matthews Denayer Van Dijk Izzy
Bitton Brown
Forrest Johansen Stokes
Guidetti
[QUOTE=āIl Bomber Destro, post: 1091543, member: 2533ā]Stunning goal from Johansen.
Up your bollocks, @Bandage.[/QUOTE]
No need for the hostility, mate.
Got a chance to watch the match earlier.
What a fucking save by Gordon at the death. Heās absolutely magnificent.