Hamilton entry

[The Thistle Archive]

Many of the post-Hamilton updates now in place on the Archive... Turner, Graham & Lawless all hitting notable highs in various goals and assists charts... The Thistle Archive →     GRAHAM AT THE DOUBLE

● For only the 8th time in history there are 7 players aged 30+ in Thistle's starting eleven. 5 of these elevens have been registered in the last 5 weeks. The club-record (8) was set 3 weeks ago!

● Ross Docherty marks his 100th competitive appearance with his 27th booking. His 27% ratio is way beyond the notorious Stuart Bannigan (21.2%).

● Kyle Turner registers his 11th competitive assist of the season, matching Kallum Higginbotham's tally of 2013-14. No player has reached 12 in any of the last 10 seasons.

● Kris Doolan's Jags concede a first half goal for the first time, and the club's run of 11 consecutive first-half clean-sheets comes to an end.

● Thistle go 5 competitive away games without defeat to Hamilton Academical, a run which stretches from 20th July 2019 to date.

● Brian Graham registers his 24th direct goal involvement (16 goals & 8 assists) in 2022-23 competitive action. He's the only Jag to have passed the 20 mark in any of the last 10 seasons, and has now done so in each of the last 2 seasons, having hit the 23 mark in season 2021-22.

● Steven Lawless joins Gerry Britton on 43 competitive goals. Just one more is required to join our All-Time Top 50 Competitive Scorers chart.

ongoing sequences:

● 44 consecutive competitive appearances for Jack McMillan, 9th Jul 2022 to date, a new personal best. (Longest run since: James Penrice - 51 games, 7th Sep 2019 to 10th Apr 2021. Club-record: Johnny Jackson - 313 games, 28th Aug 1926 to 25th Mar 1933.)

[Lenziejag]

3 hours ago, javeajag said:

Of course McCall is history ….I was trying to make the point that speculation about what might have been yesterday is pointless …..we didn’t win that’s the fact 

 

That hasn’t been the gist of your posts over the last couple of days. It seems to have all been comparing Doolan to McCall. You have also decried his recent record. It seems that over the last 6, we are 3rd in the form guide and in the last 4, we are 2nd, although admittedly it doesn’t feel like that.

[AirdrieJag]

17 hours ago, dagenum said:

Makes no difference now but Graham was onside for what should have been the winner. Screenshot shows ball just after leaving Holt's head.

It matters inasmuch as we have a good shot at 2nd place if we get 3pts yesterday and win our last 2 games.

If we now finish 4th we get £160k less in prize money than for 2nd and that's a massive issue for us given our financial position. 

Edited April 23, 2023 by AirdrieJag

[jaggy]

5 hours ago, Dick Dastardly said:

And over the season there will have been bad decisions which went our way that earned us points. These things balance out over the season and while the timing is unfortunate it is not that which will have cost us anything.

That’s a cliche often mentioned but does anyone really know that for sure?

[lady-isobel-barnett]

7 hours ago, lady-isobel-barnett said:

So if the goal had stood, and we came away with three points, would Doolan still be getting the same criticism in this thread?

 

7 hours ago, javeajag said:

If ian McCall had won every game this season would you still have sacked him ?

pointless comment …..we didn’t win yesterday and have only won twice in our last six …..my assumption is that doolan was brought in to a. win the league or b. Get us into the playoffs …..one has gone and the other is in the balance 

under doolan we have played some good stuff and some poor stuff much like McCall 

If you took the time to read my post you would've noticed I wasn't making a point. I was asking a question. For further clarity I wasn't even being rhetoric. 

[CotterJag]

3 hours ago, AirdrieJag said:

It matters inasmuch as we have a good shot at 2nd place if we get 3pts yesterday and win our last 2 games.

If we now finish 4th we get £160k less in prize money than for 2nd and that's a massive issue for us given our financial position. 

It's a disgrace that a linesman can get a decision that wrong, especially when there is a big white line to guide him.

Could cost us big time and we'd still be in with a shout of 1st if we'd have won that game.

Was that goal ruled out when it was 2 each?

(Guessing so, as the screenshot shows 2 - 2). Makes it even worse.

 

Edited April 23, 2023 by CotterJag

[allyo]

It's a tight call and it's a tricky job when the two players are going in different directions. Give me dodgy calls and frustrating injustices over VAR any day.

[AirdrieJag]

1 hour ago, CotterJag said:

It's a disgrace that a linesman can get a decision that wrong, especially when there is a big white line to guide him.

Could cost us big time and we'd still be in with a shout of 1st if we'd have won that game.

Was that goal ruled out when it was 2 each?

(Guessing so, as the screenshot shows 2 - 2). Makes it even worse.

 

Yes it was 2-2 at the time.  Realistically I think winning was beyond us, but 2nd was achievable.  To rub salt in the wound BBGs other disallowed goal was also onside. 

[Lenziejag]

17 hours ago, Dick Dastardly said:

Dundee have just 1 win in 4, so they are hardly consistent, which makes the points we have given away all the more disappointing.

I saw that once I had looked at the form guide and it just backs up my point about every team stuttering. Of course it is disappointing, but not surprising. It happens every season. Teams find it hard to “get over the line”.

[exiledjag]

I have been watching the Jags for over 60 years and I am still waiting on decisions to balance up.

The idea that decisions balance up over time is a myth. I am not saying we don't get the occasional decision  of course we do, but over the timescale I have been watching/supporting the Jags we are definitely in deficit so much so that we will never be in balance.

 

[Dick Dastardly]

25 minutes ago, exiledjag said:

I have been watching the Jags for over 60 years and I am still waiting on decisions to balance up.

The idea that decisions balance up over time is a myth. I am not saying we don't get the occasional decision  of course we do, but over the timescale I have been watching/supporting the Jags we are definitely in deficit so much so that we will never be in balance.

 

And I will guarantee that every supporter of every team will say exactly the same thing. It's far easier to remember the bad decisions that go against you and blame someone else. The back to back home defeats to Hamilton and Cove and 6 defeats in a row did far more to scupper our chances than any refereeing decisions.

[Duke Gekantawa]

For a bit of context- since Doolan took over, we've earned 1.81 points per game. Our PPG at the time of McCall's departure was 1.57.

Dundee are presently on 1.73 PPG.

 

[javeajag]

17 hours ago, Lenziejag said:

That hasn’t been the gist of your posts over the last couple of days. It seems to have all been comparing Doolan to McCall. You have also decried his recent record. It seems that over the last 6, we are 3rd in the form guide and in the last 4, we are 2nd, although admittedly it doesn’t feel like that.

Comparing doolan to Macall is not unreasonable as I assume the change was made to possibly win the league which has gone and certainly be in the playoffs which is still possible. While there has been improvement over macall the inconsistency has remained. Macall isn’t coming back but doolan needs to be judged on results and performances like everybody else and Saturday was two points dropped.

I get he’s  young and inexperienced but experience isn’t what happens to you it’s what you learn from what happens to you or else you keep making the same mistakes.

[javeajag]

57 minutes ago, Duke Gekantawa said:

For a bit of context- since Doolan took over, we've earned 1.81 points per game. Our PPG at the time of McCall's departure was 1.57.

Dundee are presently on 1.73 PPG.

 

You are correct though it has declined from a high of 1.88

[lady-isobel-barnett]

1 hour ago, Dick Dastardly said:

And I will guarantee that every supporter of every team will say exactly the same thing. It's far easier to remember the bad decisions that go against you and blame someone else. The back to back home defeats to Hamilton and Cove and 6 defeats in a row did far more to scupper our chances than any refereeing decisions.

Undoubtedly.

Off on a bit of a tangent here. I think tho' the standard of refereeing has dropped considerably from what was already rather poor officiating. Reasonable then to assume that with more bad decisions there'll be more chance of officials causing gained/dropped points. Tho' I entirely agree re every supporter of every team feeling hard done by poor officiating, the sheer volume of dodgy decisions increases the "paranoia". If we take this specific game as an example and if we assume Graham's two chalked off goals were onside that means we'd have to have put the ball in the net a minimum of five times to come away with three points.

I was quick to jump in last week and point out that Brownlie's error bad as it was shouldn't have cost us two points. Inability to score more than one goal at home was more at fault. Hard to blame our forward players this week if we indeed scored four genuine goals. 

As for refs and linesmen I think they too often send out the wrong signals. As examples refs tolerate the offending players to stand over a free kick, flick the ball away etc to delay the kick. Linesmen (and refs) don't appear to care where a throw in is taken from and are too often silent when they see their ref make a wrong decision. In my mind in doing so they're undermining their own authority and negating respect from players in particular. Harder to give an official respect/not question his judgement if he either doesn't know or care where an infringement took place.

Edited April 24, 2023 by lady-isobel-barnett

[Lenziejag]

1 hour ago, Dick Dastardly said:

And I will guarantee that every supporter of every team will say exactly the same thing. It's far easier to remember the bad decisions that go against you and blame someone else. The back to back home defeats to Hamilton and Cove and 6 defeats in a row did far more to scupper our chances than any refereeing decisions.

No doubt that’s true, but even in that abysmal Cove performance there were some strange refereeing decisions against us and particularly in favour of Shay Logan.

[laukat]

To my mind when Doolan first cam in he really changed 2 things in terms of tactics and formation. 

First of all changing to 4-2-3-1 made us defensively much stronger and allowed Turner to focus on attack. Thats still largely in place but slightly less effective due to the injury to Milne in particular. 

The second thing I thought he changed and was noticeable in his earlier games was to not always play out from the back and sometimes get the centre backs to go long into the channels just to get us higher up the park.

Under McCall it was play out from the back no matter what which meant if the opposition pressed high they could put us under pressure. Against Hamilton we scored then tried to keep the ball in our own half allowing Hamilton to pressure us. Whilst it didn't directly cause the goal the build up of pressure felt to me like it gave Hamilton encouragement and created nerves in our backline. I could argue that Brownlie's mistake against Ayr is again created because he's trying to keep the ball rather than putting it in the channel for Fitzpatrick or Graham to chase which may lose possession but certainly doesn't lose a goal.

Personally I don't see anything wrong at this level of occasionally playing a ball down the channels and forcing the opposition to deal with it. There just aren't many teams in this league that can pick up the ball deep in their own half and pass the ball through the other team. 

One further comment on Saturday. I was impressed by Hamilton's Scott Martin. He looks much more of a ball winner than even Docherty and if we're in the championship next season we could do a lot worse than looking at him.

 

 

[Lenziejag]

5 minutes ago, javeajag said:

Comparing doolan to Macall is not unreasonable as I assume the change was made to possibly win the league which has gone and certainly be in the playoffs which is still possible. While there has been improvement over macall the inconsistency has remained. Macall isn’t coming back but doolan needs to be judged on results and performances like everybody else and Saturday was two points dropped.

I get he’s  young and inexperienced but experience isn’t what happens to you it’s what you learn from what happens to you or else you keep making the same mistakes.

You can compare him to every manager in the league and in the time he has been in charge, only Billy Dodds has bettered him in the form charts on the 4,6,8,10 game points.

[javeajag]

2 minutes ago, Lenziejag said:

You can compare him to every manager in the league and in the time he has been in charge, only Billy Dodds has bettered him in the form charts on the 4,6,8,10 game points.

I’m comparing him with I assume his targets……win the league or make the playoffs….finishing fifth with the second best manager form guide is actually failure.

[Duke Gekantawa]

4 minutes ago, javeajag said:

I’m comparing him with I assume his targets……win the league or make the playoffs….finishing fifth with the second best manager form guide is actually failure.

Depends on how success and failure is to be defined from the period he took over. I do think if he finishes 5th, but with a PPG over his tenure that would have won the league extended over a full season (which is entirely possible) and a greatly improved PPG than his predecessor, then it is not truly a failure. The failure really lies elsewhere. I certainly wouldn't be looking to replace him if that came to pass, in any case.

Of course, Doolan's real test is next season (whether we go up or not), when his recruitment skills will become apparent.

[lady-isobel-barnett]

Putting results aside most of the players do look a good bit fitter since Doolan took over. The average age of course is a concern for the future and will need redressed but proving to be less of a burden just now.

[Lenziejag]

41 minutes ago, javeajag said:

I’m comparing him with I assume his targets……win the league or make the playoffs….finishing fifth with the second best manager form guide is actually failure.

I don’t think you are. You seemed to be directly comparing him to McCall. We haven’t finished 5th, at least not yet. 

[javeajag]

34 minutes ago, Lenziejag said:

I don’t think you are. You seemed to be directly comparing him to McCall. We haven’t finished 5th, at least not yet. 

You mean we changed managers but we’re happy not to improve our league position ….don’t think so.

[javeajag]

44 minutes ago, lady-isobel-barnett said:

Putting results aside most of the players do look a good bit fitter since Doolan took over. The average age of course is a concern for the future and will need redressed but proving to be less of a burden just now.

Can I exempt Fitzpatrick from that …..I’m disappointed he doesn’t have seemed to have learned much from his time at Norwich about diet and lifestyle and he looks overweight 

[Lenziejag]

1 hour ago, javeajag said:

You mean we changed managers but we’re happy not to improve our league position ….don’t think so.

In case you have forgotten, we terminated the contracts of 3 staff and gave another notice to be replaced by 2 much more inexperienced(maybe less expensive) staff. I suggest that the change wasn’t only a football decision. Being happy and what the board would find acceptable are two entirely different things. But, as I said, we haven’t finished 5th yet.