Six points and a six pointer next week

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Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby porcupine » Sat Aug 19, 2017 6:15 pm

After today's great result, we sit six points ahead of our anticipated rivals for the bottom six places.

With the 'Dee at home to Hibs, our visit to Rugby Park gives us a six pointer against Killy. The Accies team looks settled and playing as a unit, and with Rakish now finding form we should have no fears of a trip down the road next Saturday for maximum points.
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby Willie Wastle » Sat Aug 19, 2017 8:21 pm

I'd take a draw at Killie right now. Never mind our decent record at Rugby Park, or the form of the last couple of weeks. They've made a disastrous start, we're on a high... it's a stick-on for this to be their game, and for Brophy (who else?) to score the winner.

However, we have a settled side, we're suddenly scoring goals, and it feels a bit like the start to Alex Neil's half season in the SPL. I'm delighted to see all the gloom-mongers on here with their gas at a peep. We look capable of beating anyone.

Later in the season may be a different story. Our first XI looks strong, but we lack cover in a number of key positions, so once injuries and suspensions come along we could toil. All the more important that we make hay while the sun shines: if we put more wins on the board, and battle through the winter, our prospects look decent. We've got a great chance of making it 5 seasons in the top flight - I'll say it now, I predict we'll stay up this season.
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby Amoutahere1874 » Sun Aug 20, 2017 3:53 am

That's a bold prediction.
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby Bomber Harris » Sun Aug 20, 2017 8:07 am

What a difference the football is now without Devlin's hoofball skills and Dougie as captain. long may this continue.
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby Big Wurzil » Sun Aug 20, 2017 9:18 am

Also a good result takes us into the break with 4/5 of the next games being at home but against tough opposition so get the points on the board early
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby Bluesy » Sun Aug 20, 2017 10:25 am

That was sensational yesterday- I was really worried before the game. That was like Alex Neil era football from Accies who were all over the Hibs midfield. McManus made Kieran Tierney look like Kurakins!
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby Amoutahere1874 » Sun Aug 20, 2017 1:50 pm

Yeah and fair play to Rakish
Always hoped he'd prove me wrong.
Although to be fair he needs to do it consistently.
A point seemed to be missed by some posters on here.
A good start is all it is.
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby Willie Wastle » Sun Aug 20, 2017 3:00 pm

"A good start is all it is"

If we'd lost the last two this forum would be filled with abuse for Martin Canning, calls for his sacking, and forecasts of certain relegation. Admin would be busy chopping the worst posts. Killie, Partick and Dundee have all lost their first three games, but only a maximim of two of them can go down. And we're six points plus goal difference ahead of them all.

Who thought we'd have six points after our first three fixtures? And have scored six goals? And be fourth in the league? What would your measure of success at this stage be?

Early days, sure. But it's looking more than good so far.
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby accies1874 » Sun Aug 20, 2017 4:16 pm

Willie Wastle wrote:"A good start is all it is"

If we'd lost the last two this forum would be filled with abuse for Martin Canning, calls for his sacking, and forecasts of certain relegation. Admin would be busy chopping the worst posts. Killie, Partick and Dundee have all lost their first three games, but only a maximim of two of them can go down. And we're six points plus goal difference ahead of them all.

Who thought we'd have six points after our first three fixtures? And have scored six goals? And be fourth in the league? What would your measure of success at this stage be?

Early days, sure. But it's looking more than good so far.

Spot on. Also, I'd say it's nature of the win and performance yesterday, especially the second half. Players are getting better, Canning is seemingly getting better and hopefully we can add a couple of more players to the squad. However, when do we ever have two good results in a row? :lol:
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby Amoutahere1874 » Mon Aug 21, 2017 2:33 am

Okay then a good start is not all it is.
Those 2 wins have guaranteed 2nd place and European football.
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby Willie Wastle » Mon Aug 28, 2017 9:13 am

Another week, and more promising evidence. Our team showing fightback qualities we lacked last season. Good goalscoring. Good tactical adjustments by our coaches. A point secured from a situation where most of us would have expected us to lose. Still top six. And we actually extended our advantage over the team in the automatic relegation position.

I suspect Partick's position is artificial: they've lost all four games by a single goal, and they've played the top three so far. But defeat is a habit, and the longer they stay bottom the more of a problem it becomes for them. So it's nice to be 7 ahead of them. Killie and Dundee may each have picked up their first point of the season, but I don't fancy either side, and it's good that we're still 6 ahead of both of them.

Rojano's clearance still to come through, Canning reported to be chasing 2 or 3 more players, and Devlin still to return. There's no position where we look conspicuously weak (unlike last season).

Nobody's getting carried away, but this feels more like 2014/15 than the last couple of seasons. A tough run to come in September: 3 homes, but v Celtic, Hearts & Rangers; and a tricky away game at St Johnstone. Let's see how we stand after those.
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby Willie Wastle » Tue Jan 02, 2018 7:48 pm

Willie Wastle wrote:I'd take a draw at Killie right now. Never mind our decent record at Rugby Park, or the form of the last couple of weeks. They've made a disastrous start, we're on a high... it's a stick-on for this to be their game, and for Brophy (who else?) to score the winner.

However, we have a settled side, we're suddenly scoring goals, and it feels a bit like the start to Alex Neil's half season in the SPL. I'm delighted to see all the gloom-mongers on here with their gas at a peep. We look capable of beating anyone.

Later in the season may be a different story. Our first XI looks strong, but we lack cover in a number of key positions, so once injuries and suspensions come along we could toil. All the more important that we make hay while the sun shines: if we put more wins on the board, and battle through the winter, our prospects look decent. We've got a great chance of making it 5 seasons in the top flight - I'll say it now, I predict we'll stay up this season.

Found my prediction from last August. Sadly prescient about the poor run when we had a few players missing, but I stand by the prediction.

Now at the winter break. 21 games played, 23 points accrued - better than last season. We're 9th, and we have the best goal difference in the bottom six, thanks to our goals-for column. Poor results against most of our relegation rivals, Dundee being the standout exception, but some great unexpected wins, at Hibs, Rangers and Motherwell. Unpredictable, with a mixed bag of results, but usually competitive, and unlucky in enough games to know we could stand even better.

As long as we aren't significantly weakened in the window, I think we'll be fine.
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby Willie Wastle » Tue Jan 09, 2018 1:49 pm

Found this table comparing this season to date with last season.

Image

Remember, from that position last season, we stayed up. (Yes, by the skin of our teeth at the end, but only because we lost 4-in-a-row after the split.)
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby accies1874 » Fri Jan 12, 2018 10:41 am

We are better this season. I'd say D'Acol would be the only regular from last season who would get in our strongest XI. The problem is that the league is stronger, in my opinion.
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby Willie Wastle » Wed Jan 17, 2018 1:52 pm

accies1874 wrote:We are better this season. I'd say D'Acol would be the only regular from last season who would get in our strongest XI. The problem is that the league is stronger, in my opinion.

Dunno about the league being stronger overall.

In terms of particular clubs, Partick and Ross County are both worse than us, even though our head-to-head records v them aren't great. I think Dundee are also worse than us, although the opposite is true in their case - take away our head-to-heads (+6 to us) and we're worse. Kilmarnock were worse until they brought in Stevie Clarke; Motherwell may be worse now that they've loss Moult. Hearts or St Johnstone could still collapse, as an SPL team often does mid-season.

Let's see who looks stronger/weaker after the window. But we only need to finish above two teams, and there are more than two candidates right now.
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby accies1874 » Wed Jan 17, 2018 5:21 pm

Willie Wastle wrote:
accies1874 wrote:We are better this season. I'd say D'Acol would be the only regular from last season who would get in our strongest XI. The problem is that the league is stronger, in my opinion.

Dunno about the league being stronger overall.

In terms of particular clubs, Partick and Ross County are both worse than us, even though our head-to-head records v them aren't great. I think Dundee are also worse than us, although the opposite is true in their case - take away our head-to-heads (+6 to us) and we're worse. Kilmarnock were worse until they brought in Stevie Clarke; Motherwell may be worse now that they've loss Moult. Hearts or St Johnstone could still collapse, as an SPL team often does mid-season.

Let's see who looks stronger/weaker after the window. But we only need to finish above two teams, and there are more than two candidates right now.

I think Dundee, Killie and Motherwell (all bottom 6 teams last season) look better and Hibs are certainly better than Inverness were. Thistle are only one point worse off this season than they were last season too.
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby Euan » Wed Jan 17, 2018 5:50 pm

On paper the other teams all strengthened in the summer, apart from Ross County, but Motherwell are now weakened with moult away...hopefully in free fall.
It’s not quite worked out for all of them so far, but we can’t afford to lose players in this window.
Thistle will improve with players back and Kilmarnock should be safe.
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby Willie Wastle » Sun Feb 04, 2018 6:15 pm

It's looking grim at the moment. We've played four games since the January break, 1 in the cup, 3 in the league, and lost them all. Some of our worst form of the season so far. The sorest one was the Dundee game, because it had the most impact - if we'd won that game we'd be 8th right now, above Dundee, Partick and even St Johnstone. But we're 11th, occupying the play-off spot.

We all know why this has happened. We've lost Docherty and MacKinnon - as well as Longridge, Gillespie, Devlin and Donati. And we've yet to find our new best XI. Our problems are: we don't have a reliable central defensive partnership; the wing backs system doesn't work for us; we lack someone who can control the game from deep in midfield; we have several forwards, but none that currently offer a consistent goal threat. All this in addition to our usual issue about playing several youngsters prone to errors and inconsistencies. Worst of all, we seem to have a crisis of confidence.

It's fixable. If we can get the defence settled, find our best midfield combination - presumably featuring Charlie Scott - and get one of our strikers to start scoring, we should have enough to stay up. Ross County have had one good result - against Dundee - but I'm confident we'll finish above them. We just have to finish above one other. We're still doing better than last season, and we stayed up then in spite of losing four games after the split.

Let's face it, we're probably going to lose our next game too. It's the one after that matters. We need to get more ruthless about beating the teams around us, in those six-pointers. Starting at home to Partick. Use the Rangers game to test our best way of playing for our best XI, then win the must-win game. That's becoming the touchstone of our season: beat Partick and we can stay up.
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby Willie Wastle » Thu Mar 22, 2018 4:21 pm

Quite a transformation since my last post on this thread. Our wee unbeaten run is now 3 games - 2 wins and a draw - and it's amazing what a difference those 7 points make.

Remarkably, we've managed to find an effective XI, with van Der Weg, Jenkins, Ogkmpoe, and especially Ferguson being the significant changes.

8 points clear of bottom, superior goal difference, and games in hand all mean we're looking good to stay up.
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Re: Six points and a six pointer next week

Postby Willie Wastle » Sat Mar 31, 2018 6:36 pm

Two defeats on the bounce, but we're no worse off, and that bit closer to confirming we're staying up.

Hard to see County take 9 points more than us from the remaining games; I don't even fancy Partick to take 6 points more than us, which is what they need. I reckon 34 points may well be enough for safety this season; there's no way County will get that, and I think Partick will struggle too.

Best result in the County-Partick head-to-head midweek is probably a draw, especially if we can take anything from Easter Road. But failing that, I'd prefer a County win - I think we're sure of finishing above County, so I want to be equally sure of finishing above Partick.

And that's even before we factor in the failings of Dundee.

It may not be pretty, but it's looking good.
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