joewarkfanclub

GA 15 is a quality dram! 🧡❤️🧡

Thats absolutely fine. And if Willy hadnt been hopelessly out of his depth and harming the team, then no one would argue. But his first half was so bad that it was very clear that it wasnt going to end well. By not substituting him he merely prolonged the agony and risked damaging the player further due to the reaction from some if the less patient members in our support. FWIW, I wouldnt be championing Maswanhise right now given the form he has been in regardless of any rumours. Said on the other hand brings something to the table most weeks. Despite the chaotic nature of his play on the ball, he is quite disciplined tactically and always works hard for the team.

Has there been a media backlash against us? I dont buy newspapers, so no idea what they are saying. Sportsound was always anti Jens due to him showing their old boys network up. Halliday and Stewart were always pretty positive, Tom English a bit of a weather vane, the rest not so much.

Only got 20 minutes. Game was gone by then, so no real chance to impress.

It may well be that Alfred is well aware of where the problems lay on Sunday and is just protecting the player (a little too late imho). If that is the case then I would expect to see something very different on Saturday. If we do, lesson learned, we can move on. If not and we get another insipid, passive performance with no press and no control of the football, then more questions will arise. You cant win every game. But here is a way to lose football matches, and going down swinging, playing your way on the front foot is more palatable than what we saw on Sunday.

Mmmmm. Who did he play on the right side again? 🤔🤔🤔

Graeme McGarry nails Sunday (12mins). Obviously, he doesnt have his coaching badges either, so he might not be seeing the big picture.

Aye. Not expecting the team to reach Jens levels anytime soon, if at all this season. But Id like to see a shape, structure, patterns of play, any evidence really that we are trying to implement the clubs/managers philosophy. We really havent controlled games in the way we did last season, even in the games we have played well. Thats led to more pressure on our defence and in our box, so no surprise we have conceded some cheap goals. We either need to get back to the fundamentals that made us successful last year, or just not play out from the back quite as much, especially when teams have shown they are ready and equipped to deal with that. The little chipped ball into midfield or into wide areas seems to have been disgarded in favour of the long ball to Seb. Whether thats because Paulsen just isnt as good at it, or Alfred doesnt want him playing it, I dont know. But there are still opportunities to find space on the pitch that we are not utilizing right now.

Interesting, you did seem to use a lot of the words and phrasology in my post, so forgive me for being mistaken! For what its worth, I do get your general point. Managers do have to contend with a lot of stuff that we as fans just dont see and a lot of tactical stuff is beyond your average fan unless you happen to have studied for your coaching badges. That said, I dont think thats what happened on Sunday, and I suspect that our issues are systemic rather than tactical game to game. We all know Willy hasnt been great in the opportunities he has been given. We can all see that he hasnt grasped any of them. Some of us suspect he is the player that needed an arm thrown around him. Im 100% behind supporting the player, getting him happy and trying to see if we can coax out whatever it was that convinced us to sign him. But Celtic isnt the game to throw him in for his first start in months. It just isnt. Its fine to suggest that a player having a stinker may not be their fault, but in this case its hard to avoid the evidence of your own eyes. I dont like to single players out, but in this case its unavoidable. We want to be a progressive front foot team that presses and wins the ball up high. On Sunday our press totally broke down because when SPH and Lowry went, Willy was too slow and allowed Celtic to play around us. When the ball went his side, he was too slow to engage. He also didnt get back quickly enough to engage Celtics players down his side, leaving Sparrow in all sorts of trouble. That led to problems all over the park. So when you say the midfield being overun maybe wasnt a midfield problem, to an extent, you are correct. Bottom line is, if Alfred wants to continue to play the way we want to play (and he was very clear its what the executive board want him to do) then he needs to get our best players in their best positions and stop tinkering. If we want consistency, select consistently, then players will get a chance to build the relationships he talks of and we might see an upturn in performance. I get that hasnt always been possible due to injuries and suspensions but that doesnt excuse what he did on Sunday with 1 decision to help one player out at the expense of the team.

Not really looking forward to this one given the form we have been in. But its a home game for me, so I will be going regardless. Thankfully Kilmarnock arent Celtic and McCann seems to be struggling to get any consistency out of his team, so should be a slightly more level playing field this week. Always nice to win these games as it means I get the bragging rights locally, but will be happy just to see some sort of structure and improvement around our performance. Saving grace is that Hibs play Falkirk, so even if we do lose heavily, we cant go bottom of the league as one of them will still be below us!

Wow! Really dont know where to start with all of that, so Im not going to bother with most of it. Fair bit of misrepresentation of some of my post, but that all seems pretty incidental to the point you were trying to make. Lets just say you lost me when you suggested that the problem with Vogt, maybe wasnt Vogt!

Absolutely all 100% true. But those booing need to give their head a wobble. No one ever got better by being booed off the park. Booing the team or the manager or even the officials at the end of the match is all fair game. Singling a player out, who is already struggling for confidence is such a bad look.

I think there is merit in a lot of what Star Sail AND Wellfan are saying. There is no doubt in my mind that our support is no better or worse than other clubs. Football fans in general are fickle and behave in similar tribalistic ways. However, I think we have to differentiate between considered debate (which I think has been the case for the most part on here) and some of the rampant toxicity you get on other social media platforms, where folks just vent their spleen. I do worry about the atmosphere at the ground though, as it hasnt taken long for the positivity and big crowds to drift away. The Helsinki game was only a month ago! I get the whole transition debate and Alfred should 100% be given the time to turn this around and show us what a team in his image is going to look like. But he is going to have to find some improvements quickly. That mind not mean winning loads of gamed in a swashbuckling style. But it has to show improved performances, more structure, some evidence that the players are taking on board the coaching. Thats what allowed Jens to get a pretty easy ride over the first couple of months. The naysayers and more vocal element in our support were kept quiet by performances, not results. Hopefully Alfred can find some of that soon.

I think its possible for fans to point out things they thought the manager got wrong without necessarily thinking they know better than the manager or could do a better job than him. Alfred clearly has way more coaching experience and knowledge than your average fan. But when he talks about certain things pre-match and you see none of it during the game, and then he comes out post match and says he got the starting line up correct, then eye brows will be raised. If you go down that route, I think you need to add a little flesh to the bones to back up why you think that. Otherwise, fans will quite rightly question your methods/thought process. If the manager talks about intensity, I expect to see intensity. If he talks about movement and rotations, I expect to see movement & rotations. He talked about lack of experience in the side, so I wasnt surprised to see SOD start especially when he talked up the senior pro's contribution in training. Whether we think it worked or not is another matter, but at least I can understand why he did that. Putting Willy in after a 3 week break where he has had time to work with him was a surprise. But given JT's recent form and the fact he has been away on his travels, I could understand it. However, he had another poor 45 minutes and he should have protected the player at half time. Similarly with Hodge. Playing him on the left, you intitially give him the benefit of the doubt as tactically you think he has seen something in Celtic that requires it. However, with the entire midfield being overun in the first 45, you expect to see a change for the second half. These arent highly technical tactical observations. Just very obvious things that may have improved our fate before the game was gone.

Im usually one of the last to turn, and tonight Im officially "concerned". Being beaten 2-0 by Celtic at home in itself isnt usually something to get perplexed about. But the nature of the performance and the failure of the manager to hold up his hands, or call it out are. There are many moving parts for which he will be given time. But some signs of a structure/gameplan/identity sometime soon, wouldnt go amiss.