Accies World

Your comments please...

Saints have had some notable victories this season with comprehensive wins over ourselves, Aberdeen and Rangers as well as getting a win over Inverness at the weekend with 10 men. But we are at home and have shown great fighting spirit. I assume Martin in for Lucas and Ali back so I think we can win this one. Will take in the under 20's tomorrow which may give us a clue to who will feature on Saturday

The niggle I have is that in the last 3 games we have really only played when our opponents have had an aspect of sitting back on a lead; at 11 v 11 and equal score we have been decent enough but not great.

Kurtaj has looked decent in the middle and I wonder if we could get away with a centre trio of Gillespie, Crawford and Kurtaj? Kurakins for me continues to under perform and looks as if he's just not 100% up for it; always looking for the easy ball or to avoid a physical confrontation or battle.

The last game flattered them and we can hurt them; but Martin Canning's ability to last 90 mins this week when he could hardly complete 30 odd mins last week is also a concern.

3 Nil Acccies

2 battling performances when down to 10 men in recent weeks but I wonder whether overall it's 4 points dropped rather than 2 gained.

So changes for Saturday - Morris has huffed and puffed for a few weeks now and on each occasion Nade has come on and gave us a greater attacking thread (goals against Killie, Motherwell, Dundee & Thistle all coming after Nade had replaced Morris). So time for Nade to start.

Crawford back and I would expect that he will replace Longridge with Kurtaj going back out wide but it would be interesting to see both Crawford & Kurtaj playing in midfield, doubt it will happen.

In defence, I'd expect Canning to start and I'd like to see McMann come in for Kurakins who has failed to impress and had a real shocker on Saturday. A player who looks like he has zero confidence and who fell asleep for Thistle's goal, however with McMann playing 90 minutes tonight I doubt this will happen either.

Is the boy we got from QPR injured?

Is the boy we got from QPR injured?

There was a tweet to that effect but no detail re the nature of the injury.

Yummy Fur wrote:2 battling performances when down to 10 men in recent weeks but I wonder whether overall it's 4 points dropped rather than 2 gained.

So changes for Saturday - Morris has huffed and puffed for a few weeks now and on each occasion Nade has come on and gave us a greater attacking thread (goals against Killie, Motherwell, Dundee & Thistle all coming after Nade had replaced Morris). So time for Nade to start.

Crawford back and I would expect that he will replace Longridge with Kurtaj going back out wide but it would be interesting to see both Crawford & Kurtaj playing in midfield, doubt it will happen.

In defence, I'd expect Canning to start and I'd like to see McMann come in for Kurakins who has failed to impress and had a real shocker on Saturday. A player who looks like he has zero confidence and who fell asleep for Thistle's goal, however with McMann playing 90 minutes tonight I doubt this will happen either.

Is the boy we got from QPR injured?

I can't see us changing much in all honesty. Morris will probably still play as I think he likes Nade coming on from the bench and I remember him against Aberdeen (his last start?) where we didn't have much threat up top. I don't think he fancies D'Acol yet (or ever) either however I'm intrigued to see him play. Kurakins will start too I reckon. I hope Docherty keeps his place as opposed to Longridge as Ali will obviously come back.

Looking at the statistics you might think this was pretty even. We had 56% of the play and nearly as many shots on target (3 v 4) as they did according to the BBC. We dominated the first half with chances falling to Nade and Crawford but then lose a goal to probably Saints only chance of the first half. Second half they score early and basically we fall apart. Lucky it wasn’t 5 or 6 for saints. Our 2 gaols flatter us. Defensively all over the place and very little from midfield. With Hearts on form don’t fancy our chances next week. MotM for accies? No one really.

Compare and contrast Nade's chance early on, ball deflected out to him and he hits the keeper, to their second goal, McGovern parries it out and there is Cummins, a proper goal scorer who pounces and tucks it away. I was glad to see Nade start as he's looked good coming on, but he then missed the target with a free header and was unlucky to see Mannus make a fine save from his excellent curling shot. We played really well in the first half but we lack a cutting edge. We lose a poor goal, not McGovern's fault as some were suggesting, always a centre half's ball but Jesus strained every sinew and just could not reach it and somehow they led at the break. Second half we just caved in, pretty embarrassing.

Fear for us next week and throughout November as Aberdeen will pick up and it looks as though United already have. Time to maybe have a re-think and maybe bring in some of the young boys who are doing so well in the U20s.

What a completely bizarre match.....we dominated the first 40 minutes, lost a bad goal......Nade shows great control then trips over the ball, Gordon has already overlapped and is miles out of position, Gills misses the tackle in the middle of the pitch and Saints exploit that.
Then we gift wrap two goals through bad individual errors, 4th is a decent finish but someone needs to close him down.

Gillespie played well in first half, then made some bad errors.....not sure how he is mom???

One other observation, interested to hear others' thoughts.....

St Johnstone punted the ball back to front the whole game, effective today as they got the win but, watching that style would drive me nuts....I do like the boy O'Halloran.....

Can see us losing next three matches, hopefully we can use first 40 minutes and last 20 as a fine example of how we should play.....just adding a finish or two.....

Finally, why did we get a penalty??

Martin Canning, he's a donkey.

Carbon copy of the perth game!

Did not take chances and terable defending.

Time for a formation change

An early poster summed it up perfectly - bizarre.

This game showed what Accies are capable of - from good to bad and everything in between. St J's quality shone thro in the end, as despite playing really well for 40 mins all to often our final pass and/or finish came up short. Just as breaks have gone for us recently they went against us either side of half time when our best player this season had 2 horrendous errors - Gills giving the ball in midfield for the first and then inexplicably letting the ball bounce on the 18 yard line before the second. His confidence shattered and that let St J rule the game from then on in.

Defensive frailties with neither full back supporting the centre backs didn't help. I thought the midfield trio of Gills, Ali and Kurtaj would work and did (to great effect)............but then it didn't and we went 4 down! Perhaps by his absence we could see the dirty stuff that Dazz does that stops teams playing at times, as we didn't have any answer when they stepped up a gear.

No need for wholesale changes but 2 hard games coming up. If we are looking at all at strengthening in January then we should be looking for a striker. Nade and Morris are doing a shift and doing ok; but ok might not be good enough.

D alco to start next week let see what he can do!

Nobody's yet mentioned that Tagliapetra's absence was also critical, not only for his physical bustling presence but his ability to win most headers. It also appears that we are exposed on the same side of defence time after time. Should Kurakins not be told in whatever language to stay and defend rather than power down the field too mant times?

I understand that Gills will be missing next week having run up enough required yellow cards to be suspended. Hearts could take us apart unless we really tighten up. Jesus played well, but his slip/mistake let them in for one of the goals, and the same with Gills. Both had a reasonable game overall, but the lapses cost us, as well as really poor finishing by our front men. Had they taken their chances better we could have been two or three up in the first 20 minutes. St J WERE the better team over the 90 minutes.

Their all important third goal was a clear foul on the keeper.

terrible performance, a great chance blown to pull away from the pack of 5 and that's now 4 games without a win 2 of them defeats. only stand out was grant Gillespie.

Alexander the Great wrote:terrible performance, a great chance blown to pull away from the pack of 5 and that's now 4 games without a win 2 of them defeats. only stand out was grant Gillespie.

Grant Gillespie was great for 40 minutes. He then missed a tackle in the middle of the park that led to goal 1 and let the ball bounce on the edge of the box, leading to goal 2.......nobody really stood out on Saturday.....