Duke Gekantawa
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Posts posted by Duke Gekantawa
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We scored 3 good goals and were only awarded one. We know our defence is weak, but we make up for it (much of the time) by scoring so many. So when we come across a refereeing performance like that, we do not stand a chance.
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4 minutes ago, King Kenny said:
Officiating aside, we’re just not up to much this year.
Our defence is poor and our midfield offer nothing other than pedestrian sideways passes.
Once Fitzy has been hacked out the game, that’s us finished in an attacking sense. Sideways passes until someone hits a poor cross in to the box and we start again.
Adeloye offers nothing as a sub, can never get up to the speed of the match quick enough.
We might still do enough to get to the playoffs but we’ll not be going anywhere based on the goals we concede.
Stewart distributes the ball quickly but seems very similar to Sneddon and Mitchell.
A poor night all round, less said about the officials the better.
Our defence is poor, but we do score a load of goals - 47 in 24 games (and it should’ve been 49!), which suggests that the midfield must be doing something right. I still think we can sneak a promotion through the playoffs based on the number of goals that we score.
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2 hours ago, lady-isobel-barnett said:
Notwithstanding we've beaten County plus Morton saw off Motherwell, I worry a wee bit about pace and physicality of top tier teams. Put another way we're not exactly blessed with either of these two qualities. Sense we can outplay Livingston without too much difficulty. Just fear that we might struggle to do so for long enough to win thru.
Aye I still have nightmares of Nouble absolutely bossing our defence
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28 minutes ago, Yellow & Redneck said:
Mine took about 20-25mins to come through.
It does come through nearly immediately to the old neglected PT app. I’ve noticed before that the emails are sometimes tardy
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2 hours ago, partickthedog said:
Thank you for that. Out of Thistle loyalty (and being there to witness both goal and astonished celebration) I voted for Banzo, but would be equally delighted if James Craigen won it.
Craigan’s would have been the better goal had it not been offside!
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29 minutes ago, Dick Dastardly said:
I hope Aberdeen don't want Doolan
I hope Doolan doesn't want Aberdeen
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2 hours ago, Dick Dastardly said:
We would need to change our manager before we start with 2 up front. Doolan has shown absolutely no inclination to that sort of formation. Also drop the most prolific striker we have had in years ? No thanks.
Not only the most prolific striker we have had in years, but I believe it's the most prolific he has been in his career (at least over an extended period of more than a season). It shows no indication that he's losing it with age (he seems fit enough certainly), so for now I don't think his age is that relevant.
As for two up front, I'm not sure how that addresses our main issue of conceding too many. We already score enough to win this league comfortably, if only we could defend more competently. Hopefully the new signings will go some way to addressing this.
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1 hour ago, fenski said:
Agree - hope they are identified and told to compensate for drum. However, assuming they are young too, I think a lifetime ban would be over the top - maybe banned for rest of season? Young people do stupid things and more often than not, they grow out of it.
Absolutely this. Let's not be too draconion here.
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Genuinely never in doubt. A very comfortable win. A great cup weekend all round
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A nice habit of scoring each time the ref ignores a stonewall penalty
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40 minutes ago, javeajag said:
Because this started with people saying Raith have more resources than us therefore being in third place is acceptable.
They don’t and therefore it isn’t.
What I don't understand is how you reconcile the view that Doolan should be kept on (which you have explicitly stated as your opinion), with the view that our present performance is "unacceptable".
Similarly I have trouble reconciling your opinion (at the time) that McCall should not have been sacked when he was, with the fact that we were 5th (I think) when this happened (which presumably is also an unacceptable position if third is unacceptable).
For what its worth, I am reasonable content with third at present, even if we were spending more than Raith. There were other mitigating factors, and we are presently in with a realistic chance of promotion.
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Turner is much better going forward than in defence. Our problem is not in attack. We already score enough, at a sufficiently fast rate, to win this league. It’s conceding that’s the problem, in my opinion largely because we lose control in midfield for long periods (I think our core defending isn’t that bad, and we have now added a new CD who should be an upgrade on Aero). I don’t think Turner would address this. Maybe McBeth might, though it’s a big ask considering the level he’s been playing at. If not, we still desperately need more steel in midfield.
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12 minutes ago, jaggy said:
Neilson to be recalled by Hearts? 🙄 Hopefully not but it might explain
Hearts are having a very good season, largely due to an excellent defensive record. Unless there’s been an injury or two there, I think they would recognise the present arrangement as best for Neilson and therefore themselves.
ETA- Also he was allowed to play for us in the cup, which suggests no recall is planned (or at least wasn’t then)
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14 minutes ago, javeajag said:
The statistical evidence that matters is getting promoted. If we keep those stats and are in the championship next year then it’s failure ( cue posts of people telling us why nit getting promoted is actually a great outcome )
But if we punt our manager every time we fail to get promoted, we'd be a mess.
To be honest, I'm not sure exactly what your point is. You said you didn't think McCall should have been punted when he was (i.e., when he was clearly again failing to win promotion while being heavily backed), and you've also said you don't think Doolan should be punted (even though he has been a failure so far by your own single metric). It seems that you view these managers as failures but think we should have stuck/stick with them.
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10 hours ago, javeajag said:
Wrong….i don’t have an agenda just possibly not willing to give the club and the manager lots of excuses for not being in the title mix as others.
I wasn’t in favour of sacking McCall last season and don’t think we should sack Doolan now either but he will soon be in the job for a year and needs to judged like every other manager..
We have not progressed from last season and performances have not been great either.
Actually we have progressed a little from last season. Last year we finished fourth with a ppg of 1.58. Right now we are (comfortably) third with a ppg of 1.68. Not earth-shattering I grant you, but a measurable, real improvement. And almost certainly achieved on a smaller budget.
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33 minutes ago, javeajag said:
There seems to be group think that we can’t win the league because ..,
- we lost four players
- other teams have more money
- we had financial problems
- we couldn’t recruit on time
which seem designed to ensure we all accept we can’t get promoted
But I’ve not seen anyone say we can’t win the league, only that these factors make it more difficult to do so. I’ve also not seen anyone suggest that Doolan has been outstanding or is massively overachieving.
The majority of opinions here are that Doolan is doing OK. Many of us have allowed some leeway due to the quality of the players lost and the fact he’s an absolute rookie learning on the job. Most of us are reasonably content with 3rd place and a good gap to 5th.
You are clearly not content with Doolan’s performance and our league position. That of course is your prerogative. You do seem to be in the minority though.
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36 minutes ago, javeajag said:
It was always going to be a challenge to overcome DU but not impossible. The last time they came down they struggled to get out the division. I find the unsubstantiated claims about Raith amusing …..does any one have any actual information that they have spent a load of cash ? None that I can see and they have half our number of season ticket holders. And let’s ignore the £500k we received. There is no reason why we couldn’t be above Raith except in football terms they are better. I also don’t accept the we lost 4 players excuse either. That happens to us and every team in the championship nearly every year. Just check the results other teams new signings for this season.
where Dollan has been culpable is in recruitment. Hardly any of his signings have been successful and clearly there are 5/6 of them he doesn’t rate as they never play. We can’t afford to only have a preferred squad of 16. I shudder to think of the money he’s wasted.
Getting into the play offs is not a given and if other teams win their games in hand and we stumble then it could be a struggle.
so we are under achieving with a manager who is increasingly of concern.
It’s instructive to consider the two present Championship sides which finished above us last season as examples. They indeed lost very important players like ourselves. However, we’ve coped considerably better, being comfortably above Ayr, while QP are bottom.
Accepting that DU have significantly greater resources, for Doolan to have us ahead of them would mean that he was overachieving (or they were seriously underperforming, which they aren’t). So I can only assume that your conclusion that Doolan is underperforming is because we are behind Raith who may or may not have similar resources. Assuming that we are both similarly resourced, the fact that Doolan, a rookie manager in his first full season, is not doing as well as a more experienced Murray his hardly that damning. Particularly as he’s still doing better than 7 out of 9 of his peers, a number of whom are also managing clubs with similar resources/budgets.
I’m not under the illusion he’s massively overachieving or anything. However, I think he’s doing better than you suggest here.
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Just now, dl1971 said:
Lots of forum contributors were stating we may be relegation contenders, or bottom half of table, given our financial issues. That we are 3rd, 8 points above 5th place is above most reasonable expectations. Team remains frustratingly inconsistent and at times way off it. As many have said January window will determine if we get stronger or weaker.
Funnily enough, I would say the team is quite consistent this season, much more so than last year. We gained 14 points first quarter and 15 second quarter. We tend to beat or at least draw with the teams below us (with the odd exception naturally), but have a poor record against the top two. By contrast, last year our form was all over the place.
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So, that’s half the season done. What are people’s thoughts?
I am reasonably content based on the players lost over the summer, who were never going to be replaced easily. A present ppg of 1.61 is better than last season’s final ppg of 1.58, the latter achieved with a better squad.
We do look good for the playoffs, though it looks very unlikely that we can better that (not that I ever thought we would in the summer).
Averaging nearly 2 goals a game scored is commendable, conceding at close to the same rate less so. The squad’s deficiencies are obvious. Hopefully we can go some way to addressing them in the coming month.
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1 hour ago, CotterJag said:
It's a tough one re. Turner and Tiffoney.
Whilst we shouldn't want to cut our noses off to spite our face, I wasn't happy with either of them last season towards the end.
If I recall correctly, both signed PCA's with their respective new clubs, at a time when we were clearly pushing for promotion and likely to play Ross County in Turners' case.
This lack of respect for Thistle impacted, I believe, Tiffs performances in particular and I think he struggled with the burden.
Their decisions may have cost us promotion, so I'd be in the camp of leave them where they are and look for a couple of other players.
The Dundee's are great at nicking our best players but I can't recall it working out too well for them.
Tiff always blew hot and cold. I really didn’t see any obvious lack of professionalism at the tail end of the season.
I remember in the recent L1 season it was an open secret when Williamson signed a pre-contract with Falkirk when it looked a shoo-in that they would win while we were starting to look wearily at the other end of the table. Still, when it came to the decider v. Falkirk (which if they had won, would have put them very much back in the mix), we started him- and it was he who put in the perfect cross to hand the opener to Rudden on a plate. Erskine was always professional after he’d signed for DU (Paton was injured for much of the tail end of that season.
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46 minutes ago, Third Lanark said:
Definitely worth trying to get Turner back if he is available
Depends on budget. We score on average 2 per game in the league. Attack really isn’t an issue. We concede far too many though. Concentrate everything on at least one defensive mid and more defensive cover. Maybe if there’s anything left after that we can look to see if Turner’s available
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5 hours ago, Dick Dastardly said:
You have to admire them as it can't be just luck. I expect that part of it is mentality and having done it before they can do it again.
A lot of the time, it's simply being the better side. Holding on against superior opposition is difficult, which is why top teams regularly score last minute winners/equalisers. Raith and DU seem to be clearly ahead of the rest, at least for now. Also, (connected to your point of "having done it before they can do it again") is the effect on the opposition. When you build up a reputation for late goals, this will also prey on the minds of the opposition, possibly making them a little more prone to error/panic.
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20 hours ago, laukat said:
Its a stat that tends to re-enforce what we see on a Saturday i.e. that we like to sit on leads in the last 15 minutes rather than taking forward the age old strategy that attack is the best form of defence.
It would be interesting to see a similar table of who has lost points from a winning position no matter when the opposition goal was scored.
I don't think it is a conscious decision to sit on leads though. I think it's a consequence of having no decent defensive midfielder. This means that, when the opposition are chasing the game, we struggle to break up the play and hold on to the ball, never mind mount meaningful attacks. Connected to this, is the simple fact that we concede far too many goals full stop. This means that we are bound to lose goals in games late on regardless of anything else.
In addition, one thing that needs to be taken into consideration when looking at the 7 points lost in the final 15, compared to the other teams, is just how often the other teams were in a position to lose points in the final 15 to begin with. I mean, Arbroath losing only 2 points in the final 15 would mean little if they only had gone into the final 15 level twice and behind the remaining games (to give an extreme hypothetical example). Just to be clear, I've no idea how much the other teams had to lose going into the final 15.
In any case, hopefully these problems will be satisfactorily addressed in the coming window.
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2 hours ago, Lenziejag said:
Did they throw the game away in the last 15 minutes just like the big team.
From what I've seen from the archive, we've only won 1 reserve game in 18 since the Covid break.
Thistle v Dunfermline 23rd Feb 2024
in Main Jags forum
Posted
One thing to take home from the second disallowed goal-it’s worth remonstrating with the ref if a perceived decision goes against you. There was no way that goal was getting chalked off if Mehmet had shrugged his shoulders and threw the ball back to the centre. But because he acted as if the world’s worst decision had just occurred, he convinced the ref and lino to disallow a goal they were correctly going to allow.