Leaderboard

I'd say that was slightly less pish than recent weeks, we almost had the shape of an actual football team at points, in the final third. Incredibly harsh two yellows and at that point we needed the McInnes cautious sub that never came. Bates was poor today like. Lewis with a poor clearance on his wrong foot, but keepers do that all the time and the most basic rule of defending is to get into your line as quickly as possible. I mean it's drilled into players, but Bates was miles behind the others. You sprint out and retain your shape as soon as the ball leaves the keeper's foot, just as a striker should never be caught offside because they didn't get back in time. Bates also at fault for their second, and threw himself into loads of needless challenges. He just looked way off the pace. Lewis makes the wrong decision for the third, but he was always going to be second to that one and the only option of going through main was probably fairly risky - they got fucking lucky that main basically missed it. Another naive performance unfortunately.

Lewis was poor today and is not playing as well as he has for us but even at that level he is a far better keeper than Woods. Abysmal keeper who was signed as a cheap bench filler for injuries nothing more. No way he should be considered. Tom Ritchie supposedly looked good in the challenge cup games (saved a couple of penalties) but he was loaned to Huntly yesterday. Think we are going to have to stick with Lewis.

Kind of stayed away from here, trying to give Glass time and see where we are, the guy says all the right things and I think we can all agree there's a bit more purpose about how we try to play now, but ultimately it's not working, there are many reasons for it. First and foremost, Joe Lewis needs dropped, that's a simple one to start off with, guys as good as a goal down these days. It gets more debatable probably here after, for me, cannot for the life of me see what Scott Brown brings to this team, very much in the same vein as Lewis Ferguson, no secret I have never rated the boy, but Brown and Ferguson together is not productive. Calvin Ramsay will definitely go on to bigger things, he's a proper prospect, but he still has so much to learn defensively, MacKenzie I've no real issues with, for me, McCrorie replaces Brown in the middle of the park, McGeouch replaces Ferguson, and whilst he's clearly not started brightly, Gallagher and Bates should be Central Defense, Ramsay and MacKenzie the full backs and Woods in Goal. I'd have Samuels and Hedges as close to Ramirez as possible too, Ramirez is pretty poor all round in my opinion, but he's predatory and will score with the supply, but he spends far too much energy and time chasing lost causes, looked like he could link up well, but that was one game really and that was with Emmanuel-Thomas right next to him. It's been a pretty abysmal run of results, some good play and less aimless hoofball aside, it's not good enough. I'd have no issue in keeping Brown as a bit part Player and coach, I'd sell Lewis Ferguson to the highest bidder, McGeouch may not be a goal threat, but he is box to box and rarely loses possession, always gets about the pitch and looks for the ball, leave that to the likes of Longstaff, Hedges, Samuels etc... Woods Ramsay Bates Gallagher MacKenzie McCrorie McGeouch Longstaff Hedges Samuels Ramirez I appreciate that looks a bag of shit, but you get the idea. I just think we're being held back by poor individuals, and have been even under McInnes, although he never helped himself with poor selections and personnel for a long period of time, the same will happen to Glass if he doesn't shake it up. Sorry for the rant, appreciate constructive criticism as of course there will be many disagreements and hope everyone is well and safe.

Time to drop Joe Lewis. He's at fault for two of the goals. One clean sheet in 20 games - he's got to be culpable for some of that. I can give David Bates a bit more leeway in that he's still new, but fucking hell. Can we not find a decent centre half anywhere? Lewis Ferguson is another needing dropped. Offering very little at the moment. He's just playing for himself just now, constantly taking pot shots at goal because he wants to boost his goals for account and net himself a January move. That would be fine if he was hitting the target but most of the time he's not even forcing the goalkeeper into a save. Other than that, at times we were playing good stuff. It's easy to lose the head because of the run we're on. I watched Dundee v Rangers yesterday and Dundee missed a pile of chances and Rangers, without playing particularly well, get out of there with a 1-0 win. When you're luck is out, it's out. As negative as it would be, I can't help but feel maybe we should go three at the back next week v Celtic. We're losing too many goals with the back four and I really don't fancy us to go toe-to-toe attacking wise with Celtic just now.

3rd is on Lewis for not just wiping Main out and Bates for playing Main on. Bates has been partially at fault for all 3 and looking very poor.

I did predict he was gonna score ha

Interesting possession stats. However, possession was never really an issue under McInnes either. We had huge spells of un-scored possession last season too, which was variously described as "dominating". However, like last season we don't look like scoring. I think if we were to look back at around this time last season there'd have been talk on this board about someone "about to take a hiding" from the dons. We were playing with a lot of invention but weren't finishing, with Watkins providing great all round play without the finishing. We're not looking like giving anyone a hiding at present despite our possession as we look utterly unthreatening. Sounds like Watkins won't make it today as you say (although I don't think that would ever excuse suggesting Samuels up front though!), so it'll likely be Ramirez getting another run out. Hopefully we'll see a bit more invention with Hedges back, but I think that we're so disjointed at times that he might struggle to work out his role. I think I'd like to see us take the Steve Clarke at Killie approach for a while. Simplify everything down to a few basic instructions per player in a recognisable shape (3-5-2 or 4-4-2 or 4-2-3-1) that provides good cover. For example, Hayes and Hedges hitting the byline and firing it across with Ramirez making the front post on repeat. Playing it in the channels and pressing the opposition, that sort of jazz. Get us back to some sort of form and then build back in the more elaborate stuff from a position of confidence.