joewarkfanclub

I was going with the premise of having a "shit pitch" 😉

Dundee spent money on their pitch close season. Its looked like a bowling green all year. They can hardly be blamed for a weather system coming in off the North Sea for the best part of a week subjecting the entire area to persistent rain and snow. Also, our pitch isnt looking very good right now, despute the efforts we have gone to improve it. Should we also be fined?

Johnny K in full training yesterday from pics shown, so any knock he had was obviously a minor one. Good news going into an important 7 days of football.

Need to win tomorrow night now. Do that and win next Wednesday and we can start to dream.....

There were a lot of players who looked brutal under Kettlewell. A few of them are doing very well under Jens......

I think folk are getting the wrong end of the stick here. I said I was slightly underwhelmed with the window purely because I expected 1 or 2 new bodies in based on what Jens had said in his pressers. Im not disappointed. Far from it. Id much rather we were where we are now than the trolley dash we have become accustomed to over previous seasons. But that doesnt mean you cant be analytic about it and point out where we could have done better. Left back cover is an obvious weakness. I know Koutroumbis and SOD can both play there, but both are currently injury doubts for tomorrow meaning we dont currently have cover for Sparrow or Longelo. Filling that space would have made sense to me.

Only slightly negative because Jens is very meticulous and hinted at getting at least one more in. If we had covered left back it would be a B+ from me. FWIW, Im not convinced Robinson will be straight out the door. Obviously depends if he is able to come back to peak fitness. But he is young enough and his attitude wasnt in question. I think Jens will at least have a look at him or at least test the data. Id like to see what he is like without the ball bouncing around his ears....

Slightly underwhelmed with the window. Obviously delighted we didnt lose any players. But the club were in a real position of strength on that one, with money in the bank and long term contracts all around. Signing a striker is good, and although getting Welsh back is to be welcomed, he is still cup tied and cant play against Celtic, so tinged with frustration. Not signing a left back is disappointing, unless we couldnt get who we wanted or there is maybe a deal still to be announced this morning. Overall, we are stronger coming out of the window than when we went in, with Nicholson and McGhee coming back. Hopefully Watt and RCC not too far behind them. We also managed to get Stuparevic out the door, so Robinson is really the only unanswered question. I think we are in decent shape, but we will have to see how the business our peer clubs have done pans out before we can assess our expectations for the rest of the season. C+

😆😆😆 Maths was never my strong point!

My reading of it is that Celtic just want him off the wage bill and that any fee to Celtic would be to pay up his contract. 16 months at £10k a week would be £160k. That would leave him free to sign a short term deal with us which is basically free money to Welsh. Would he sign that until 2027 with the understanding that we wont stand in his way if a bigger club comes in? Hard to say, but personal circumstances would come into it. Not sure if he has a young family or not?

First 30 minutes we bossed them. If we had scored just one of our chances, in all liklihood, we would have won the game. And thats before we even start on the penalty. Revenge would be very sweet though. Ive heard its a dish best served cold! 😍😍😍

Only 15 hours to go. Fingers crossed for no outgoings. Only incomings!

Its good for us to just keep flying under the radar right now. Just keep winning one game at a time and see where it takes us. It would be an absolute longshot, but I havent been to a game this season where I left thinking the opposition had been better than us, and that includes the semi final.

I keep waiting for this run to come to an end because we have been conditioned by past history into believing these things will never last. However, with every passing week the manager and the players find new ways to win games. The squad rotation is allowing us to keep things fresh and maintain performance levels. Dundee are certainly much improved from earlier in the season, but I think we should still have too much for them. Another solid performance and 3 points would set us up nicely going up to Pittodrie.

My bad! Mutualled! 😆😆😆

Totally agree. A much leaner meaner squad is the way we should be operating. Be interesting to see if Robinson gets mutalled as well, or uf he will get a second chance to impress.

Stuparevic mutalled.....

100% agree with all of this. Especially McCann. I know they are in a relegation dogfight, but they were leaving the boot, shoulder and anything else they could land on our players all game. The fact Walsh let so much of it go is quite ironic when you see tge 2 yellow cards Lowery got. He was far from the worst offender. Pleasing to see us get the better of that kind of football, just as we have just about everything else that has been tried to stop us this season. If we hadnt thrown away so many points before clean sheets became a thing, we would undoubtedly be in a title race. For now though, Europe and a good Cup run beckons.

The next 2 games wont define our season. But if we can win them both it will certainly put is in a really strong position in the run in to the split. Livvy are a tough team to play against, but the league doesnt lie and there must be a reason they havent won since August. We are much further along the road than we were when we went there last time out, so I expect a much better performance. If we can keep another clean sheet we should have enough about us to take at least one chance and win the game. Top 6 is within our grasp. We just need to go take it. After that we can start looking up the way!

Thought Just was excellent again. His work rate and interceptions in winning the ball back are exceptional. However, I went for Fadinger. In Watts absence he has really stood up and took on the responsibility of senior man in the midfield. Capped a good performance with a cool finish.

Thought we struggled the first 20 minutes. Killie did well to disrupt our patterns of play and were very physical. However, we eventually figured them out and had wrestled back control by the time we scored the first goal. The boy Lowery is a little unlucky with the red card. Both are probably justifiable yellows on their own, but you expect the referee to give him the last chance waggy finger on the second. No sympathy for McCann though as he had clearly instructed hisnplayers to be leaving a little bit on tackles and several other Killie players got away with worse challenges than Lowery. After that it was one way traffic and 4-0 didnt flatter us at all. Some lovely football and interplay. Bjorgolfsonn looked good when he came on and it was interesting to see Jens go with 2 up top at the end. Could be a useful tactic in certain circumstances going forward. The young boy McColm didnt look out of place either in his short cameo. Overall, a decent performance and a great 3 points. 40 points in January isnt too shabby at all.

Ive consigned myself to the fact we may never give a team a pumping and will win every game 1 or 2 nil. I think we might be just too controlled to hand out a pumping to anyone. On the other hand, its hard to see us losing too many at the other end right now. Of course Killie could have an absolute mare and everything we hit goes in, and likewise, Im not naiive enough to think there still arent mistakes in us, but in general, we are likely to have 65% possession of the ball and win 2-0. Love to be wrong though.

There have been tweeks, no doubt. Jens alluded in his presser to using "the data" to improve our defensive issues. It just all adds to the confidence that we, as fans, can have in the process. This isnt just some ad hoc anomaly we are witnessing. Its the real deal.

He did it with humour and they all laughed. Im totally cool with it.....

I absolutely love Big Jens. That presser is fantastic. We need to do everything we can to encourage him to stay as long as possible.