Kmcalpin

Another blunder.

My preferred choice too. K-L in central defence.

I can't comment about AJ's time so far, but things weren't quite so rosy behind the scenes with Kettlewell.

In terms of responsibilty to individuals, we have discussed Willy Vogt's situation and understandably so. That includes the effect on him personally of hooking him. However, what about the effect on Tom Sparrow, of not hooking Vogt? Sparrow was made to look silly, by having no effective cover in front of him. That said, he still isn't a full back. So, its not as simple as looking at Vogt in isolation.

I certainly don't condone any of our fans who barracked Vogt when he was substituted, if indeed that happened to any extent. Its certainly counter productive and not a good look. However, there is dubiety about this. We sit near the dugouts and the impression that I got was that many of those involved were directing their ire at AJ and not the player. I didn't hear any loud shouts aimed at the player, although there was much private discussion, if I may call it that. The manager has a fine balancing act in man management to weigh support for a player against responsibility to the team. Its not easy, but AJ got that very badly wrong. The lad is clearly nowhere near ready for first team football in our league let alone playing against the current champions. Why he chose him and what advice he was given by the coaches we don't know. AJ did him no favours by firstly picking him to start and secondly by not taking him off at half time. The lad's confidence will now be rock bottom. It raises serious questions about AJ's man management skills, as did other personnel decisions before and during the game.

Go on pour yourself a double Glenallachie or Scapa.

I just don't know, but both Falkirk and St Mirren are media darlings so its maybe an unfair comparison?

We signed some decent players over the summer, but maybe a bit unbalanced in some respects e.g. age and lack of leadership. I'm all for signing "projects", but does anyone else think we've overdone that a bit? Typically they might take a year or two to come good. Can AJ get the best out of them?

This pretty much sums up much of our discussion and concerns on here over the past few days. A few have said that the type of football we witnessed was not a continuity style and that sums it up for me.

Yes, that was a strange choice which has largely flown under the radar. It raised a few eyebrows around us at the time and it didn't work out well. It left Longelo somewhat exposed on the left, but unlike Sparrow he is at least a full back. I hope we're not going to go down the Craig Brown route of shoehorning square pegs into round holes and fielding our "best" 11 players irrespective of what positions they normally play in.

Not sure what you're saying here. You need to expand your reasoning. Are you saying A) There is definitely no possibility of disquiet in the dressing room or B) If there is disquiet it won't be possible for fans to detect it?

I wouldn't disagree with you. However my goals are a tad more modest. I'd settle for the defence playing as a unit; and the midfield playing as a unit. We have a swathe of new players struggling to settle in and thats to be expected to some extent. However, I hope they play as though they buy into the new system and understand what is being asked of them.

I hope that AJ turns things around and we improve as a team, both in respect of performance and results. How will it turn out? Who knows. What I do know though, is that if the length of AJ's reign is threatened by poor results, the fans may well force the board's hand. Thats how football operates for better or for worse.

Agreed Grizzly. No point in getting on at the lad himself if he's struggling badly. No one booed him around me although a few critised the manager.

Vogt was hung out to dry by AJ. I quite get that he'd want to boost the lad's confidence by handing him a starting slot, if he'd shown up well in training. Nothing wrong with that. However against Celtic? It simply wasn't the game to do that. A bad call pure and simple.

Some good insightful posts from Wellhighlander and Joe. Another post which caught my eye on P & B was one by Handsome Devil. It focuses on our good early season form and our subsequent slump. I attributed this phenomenon earlier to AJ having little time to change things but HD put a slightly different slant on it. Due to injuries, AJ had little scope to chop and change and was severely limited in terms of team selection. Now that players are returning, we have a bigger fit squad and decisions have to be made about who to pick and who to leave out. Perhaps thats why he's struggling. Normally it takes a manager 2/3 months to find his best formation, especially if a number of diverse new players arrive. However, at the moment we have little idea about our best defence; the midfield is a disorganised mess; and attacking options are also unclear. I fear Priestman's return, although a bonus in theory, might exacerbate that confusion. HD rightly points that we have good players but they're not playing together; not as units. Is it simply lack of training or something else - not buying into whatever system AJ is trying to introduce?

In terms of style, as opposed to results, we have moved on since the Kettlewell / Alexander dynasties. This was particularly true of last season. This season not so much. Yesterday we saw no high press, no intensity, low possession stats, increasing use of direct football, and passive deep defending. I've seen a few calls for AJ to go elsewhere, on social media, but not a lot. I have however seen many expressions of growing concern and thats perfectly justified. AJ's post match presser had the alarm bells ringing for me, as it did with a few others; especially about doubling down on team selection. I get that many managers do that but it affects their credibility with the fans when they refuse to admit errors. We are quite capable of seeing when things go wrong. AJ needs to be more open and honest with the support. There's no need to go into detail about individual players but come on. Recently Jim Goodwin at Tannadice did just that after a defeat. He said that whilst his players had to take some responsibility he held his hands up and admitted he got things wrong in pre match planning.

You make some very valid points, but fans can often see with their own eyes what is working and what isn't. Many players look great on the training pitch but can't translate that to matchdays - Derek Adams being a classic case in point. I happen to think that Vogt is talented but hasn't been doing it on the pitch for some reason. The manager has to balance an individual's interests against those of the team as a whole and many think that he got that wrong today. If he had hooked Vogt after 20 minutes, would that have been any worse than taking him off when he was, to boos? The lad himself must have known he was playing poorly. I don't agree with such booing by the way. Personally, I'd have taken him off at half time. That would have balanced the lad's and team's interests. No-one is saying that football management is simple as it isn't. But, punters and pundits are all entitled to have their opinions and to express them, within reason. Its all part and parcel of the game.

Even if AJ had picked his best 11, whatever might might be, there is no guarantee we would have achieved a better result. Thats a necessary caveat. However, it would have improved our chances of doing so. There were other factors at play. Personnel wise, swap Knight Lebel for SOD. SOD replaces Sparrow at RB. Introduce Maswhanise and Said for Vogt and Hodge.

Quietest I've seen our part of the POD for many a game. Many regulars not there and empty seats.

With respect, I think we are. Results wise you're right, although we are conceding more goals. Performance wise though, we could see progression and what JBA was trying to do. There's none of that this season. For the life of me, I can't see any emerging or established style of play. Where are we heading style wise?

Thats exactly it for me. I'm not calling for AJ to be fired but the alarm bells are now ringing out loudly. Next Saturday will be a big game for him and us. Given the significant changes in personnel, I was expecting a drop off in form as the new players settled in. I also expected to see a SLIGHT change in playing style. However, what we're now witnessing is less possession; lower work rate; less organisation; no high press; and an over reliance on long high balls. Like Prestwickwell, I just can't identify any particular style of play from AJ. Unlike JBA's early tenure, I just can't see what we're trying to do. There's no pattern to it. I was expecting to see some progression and improvement after more time on the training ground, but this simply isn't the case. If anything we're going backwards. Playing devil's advocate, maybe we were more successful at the start of the season as AJ didn't have the time or opportunity to deviate much from JBA's established style. Once he started to introduce his own methods and ideas then things began to go awry. Even the form of our best players has tailed off. At our level, we invested a fair bit cash in new players over the summer and it doesn't seem to be paying off. Some talented players, for sure, but maybe they aren't being played to their strengths? Maybe some were overrated? Not all signings succeed of course. Something somewhere just doesn't seem right although I've seen suggestions elsewhere about that. One thing is for sure, rightly or wrongly, the fans will have the final say, as they always do.

I received a jolt and not a pleasant one when I read the team sheet. Sparrow at RB again, no Knight-Lebel, Vogt starting and a defensive looking midfield, including an out of position Hodge as it turned out. In the round, we shot ourselves in the foot pre match with that line up. As for the game it quickly became apparent, for obvious reasons, that Celtic were targeting our right side. The defence was an unorganised shambles; a throwback to the Hammell/Kettlewell/Alexander eras. Pack the defence, withdraw the 2 full backs into the penalty box and hope for the best. Despite that approach, Celtic found plenty of time and space in our box. The midfield was pretty anonymous and sat far too deep as we played a passive game. No leadership or physicality. Palmer Houlden, and latterly Thor, were left isolated all too often with little support from an overly cautious timid midfield. Throughout the game, we relied far too heavily on aimless high punts up the field. Off the ball work, both in and especially out of possession, was non existent. Transitions were chaotic. I'm still not convinced by Paulsen. A very showy shotstopper, he did, in fairness, produce some fine saves today to keep the scoreline respectable. However he looked culpable for the first goal, and also spilled a fairly innocuous shot. His distribution was poor throughout and that put pressure on a suspect defence. In fairness, no one player was to blame for the defeat, but Longelo and a poor Sparrow weren't helped by lack of cover in front of them. Our subs were far too late and by that time we were 2-0 down. The one bright spark was Said, who really tried to make things happen when he came on. My MOTM. In truth, Celtic could have won by 5 or 6 goals comfortably. I wasn't looking for a win but was hoping to see some kind of improvement in performance; some progression if you will, but all we seemed to show was regression.

Stay just as you are Grizzly.

Yes that would work. If 6 members, for example, submitted very similar comments, then a general reply would suffice. At the very least those 6 members could be sure that their concerns had been addressed.