Kmcalpin

Good post Captain. This is an interesting thread but a complex one. As far as Marvin Johnson is concerned, I suppose to some extent it depends on what his role actually is. I agree he's not a creative player. By the same token he's not an out and out striker. Anecdotally however, I would say that the quality of service to him is generally poor in that its incompatible with his style of play. Perhaps his style of play is simply not suited to the current team and vice versa?

A point worth investigating Greg, but we should also take into account the strength of the opposition.

I'm not surprised in the least given the money they bring in from TV. I think a few years ago Arsenal spent about £8m on a new drainage system. Don't forget too that the climate is a wee bit kinder south of the border.

That could equally apply to most of the team Busta. I'd say that Ripley, Moult and MacDonald would be clear exceptions but virtually the entire defence and midfield are very poor when we don't have the ball. This is probably our main weakness as a team.

Come on Fraz...chill out

Previous to the first half goal that we lost, on 3 separate occasions, St Johnstone players were allowed free access to the right hand side of our penalty box. So, something somewhere was going wrong. Either the gameplan was deficient or a player(s) was not doing what they were supposed to be doing. Surely after the second time the alarm bells should have been ringing with Mark McGhee.

Absolutely. He is not playing particularly well but he is being given very poor service. His game is running onto balls and running at defenders. In that respect he is a one trick pony. Once again on Saturday he was being given passes 6 feet behind him or when he was being covered by 2/3 defenders. I lost count of the number of times he shouted for an early pass only to be ignored. It was frustrating to watch a defender or central midfielder dithering about rather than releasing him with an early ball when the opposing defenders were in disarray. In other words rank poor service. This goes on week after week.

In theory yes, every goal scored is, to a greater or lesser extent, a defensive error. It is the management team's responsibility to analyse every goal lost and devise ways to avoid losing similar goals in the future. That will never happen in reality of course. There is nothing more demoralising for players or fans to hear a manager after a game saying something along the lines of there was nothing we could have done to prevent that goal/I don't know how to prevent that from happening again.

I heard a few folk say exactly this at the game Busta and seen a few comments on here about it. Watching the highlights last night though casts it in a different light. Spoony whacks the ball directly at Ripley who has it covered.Then the ball takes a swerve to Ripley's right and he is left helpless. I wouldn't blame him for that.

It needs to be raised at election time when politicians are desperate to win our votes.

Yes, thats how things are shaping up. We're at the stage now where performance doesn't matter so long as we can grind out results. We could also do with a bit of good luck - we must have quite a bit accumulated in the bank. One issue we do need to address is the now traditional second half slump. Worryingly too, a win may not be good enough in itself; it may have to be a convincing win, as the league is very tight. Tactics? Surely we'll revert to an old fashioned 4-4-2. Ripley and Moult would be the first names on my team sheet - after that?

The only problem Fraz is that its against the rules as they currently stand. In theory the club could be disciplined if we, the fans, don't abide by the rules.

That doesn't surprise me. I wonder if the Kangaroo Court took that into account in its deliberations.

First things first I'm not singling out or blaming Keith Lasley for yesterday's defeat - be clear about that. In the first half his distribution was awful and gave his colleagues no chance, Gomis put himself about a bit more but his distribution was very poor also. In the second half Lasley was completely anonymous when we needed the engine room to dig in and protect the defence and feed an outball to the strikers. That said, Pearson was just as anonymous as was Johnson and to a slightly lesser extent Cadden. I said before the entire midfield was poor - Lasley and Pearson were no worse nor better than the rest. Our central midfield has been poor for several years now and that did not change yesterday. In the middle of the park we lost just too many individual battles. This is leaving our centre backs exposed and our strikers and wingers starved of decent service.

You've hit the nail on the head. This is our single biggest weakness as a team. Its more than just a coaching issue though. Its down to the character, physique, fitness and pace of the players. The teams that you cite are not great footballing sides, but they are in the main fit, compete and make few mistakes.

Killie's support has plummeted over the past 3/4 years. In part it may be due to internal bickering with the owners but I think there was a rumpus a few years ago about ticket allocations at the then OF games, when home fans got shafted..

We'll agree to differ on that Tweed. In the first half, as I said earlier A St Johnstone player was able to get into the right hand side of our box within close range of Ripley with no defender near. It happens once and you think "maybe a one off". It happens twice and you start to think what to do about it. It happens a third time and you know something is going badly wrong. Not only did it happen three times yesterday in the first 45 it happened a fourth time and they scored from it. In general they were no more skillful than us but were more determined, looked fitter and faster, and better organised - at one point I wondered if they had 20 players on the pitch - they were here there and everywhere harrying us, chasing us and closing us down. On not a few occasions they had 3 players marking Johnson and Cadden.

Can anyone tell me the recommended ratio of fans to stewards is and what it was at the Sevco game?

It would not have made a jot of a difference Haggis. Service to him would have been just as dire.

I agree about MMcG overthinking tactics but Pearo was no worse than the rest of the midfield today. They were all very poor. That said it would be nice to see Cadden and Pearson playing in roles to which they are more suited.

I don't think Traveller was overly criticising Stevie Hammell here Andy. I took it that he was criticising Mark McGhee's tactics and team selection. I had assumed that if he was going to bring on one full back it would have been Josh Law, given that Saints were tearing us apart down our right hand side. However I think that he should have brought on 2 full backs and not one. For the record Stevie Hammell didn't play well when he came on but he was no better nor worse than the rest, although he didn't look clever at the second goal. I also think that too many players in midfield are being played out of position. Pearson is being deployed in too deep a role and I'm far from convinced that Chris Cadden is a winger - more a right sided midfielder. I have no axe to grind with Mark McGhee and was quite happy when he was brought back but some of his tactical decisions, like today's, simply beggar belief. It became obvious after say the first 30 minutes, that the line up was completely wrong. All that said, I wasn't expecting to get much today - our real test comes next Saturday. No excuses for less than 3 points then.

Absolutely. Canals do leak small amounts of water but they are lined to prevent this. If the underlying hydrology is in any way to blame it will be dependent on the level of natural water table and I very much doubt that it reaches ground level under Firhill.

Agree with that but who do you head the ball to when your midfield is sitting about 2 yards in front of you?

No-one deserving of a vote today.

Absolutely. Just home from the match. We got what we deserved - forget the late goal if Saints had scored earlier it would have been 3 or 4. We matched them for skill but couldn't match them for attitude or work rate. The team played badly but we were beaten at 3.00. Tuesday's formation was never going to work today. I felt sorry for young Cadden and the 2 strikers + Johnson who had a thankless task on poor or non existent service. The entire first half Saints exposed our virtually non existent right hand side and Cadden was left cruelly exposed. When Wotherspoon hit their first goal it was the 4th time one of their players was able to stroll into the right hand side of our box without hassle - we failed to heed the first 3 warnings and paid the price. The second half we fell into our customary defensive shell and Saints were able to fire over cross after cross with the inevitable result. In short our entire midfield was woeful - little creativity, second to most balls and struggling to compete and failing to protect the defence. Their passing was awful and Johnson and the 2 strikers suffered accordingly. That said Fletcher struggled to compete and looks more like a 6 yard box player. Our big problem was that due to the starting formation requiring substantial changes to transform it into a 4-4-2 set up it simply couldn't be done mid game. Gomis didn't have a great game but his defensive presence was missed when he was hooked as we simply don't have suitable replacement. Faddy was a big letdown - didn't do much apart from take 4 corners, 2 of which were very poor, one very good and one leading to the goal.