Barney Rubble Posted August 6, 2023 Report Share Posted August 6, 2023 24 minutes ago, lady-isobel-barnett said: Kris put two upfront aimed primarily at ball retention up the pitch. A play that backfired due to the inability of the front players to retain the ball. The other eight outfield may well have adjusted to the set up. Fairly certain they did. Any failings defensively were evident throughout the game. We were very poor off the ball all game. Effectively replacing a midfielder with Dowds just made matters worse. Perhaps if we had persisted with the starting formation we may just have stuttered our way to three points. This is the crux of the matter for me. More so because after the change of shape to 4-4-2 the ball rarely went up front anyway. so maintaining the 4-2-3-1 would have been more sensible especially given the disruption to the back four following Jack's substitution. Yesterday was not a pre-season game when you can try things and damn the result of the game. It was the first league game and that level of unnecessary disruption was asking for trouble, and sadly for us it duly arrived. Fair play to KD for admitting that his strategy backfired though. 2 defeats in 26 competitive games is a record to be proud of for any manager. Long may he continue to achieve that level of performance for the Jags. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jagfox Posted August 6, 2023 Report Share Posted August 6, 2023 Surprised there's not more folk picking up on the way Dowds let's a ponderous Keith Watson, get away from him to set-up the mo e that brings the equaliser. It's a tough situation for Dowds. According to the excellent match programme, has only started 8 games and 30 as sub with 7 goals. With Tomi coming in he certainly didn't seem very happy. Maybe time to send him elsewhere and get in a midfielder who can tackle or another defender? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert's Ghost Posted August 6, 2023 Report Share Posted August 6, 2023 12 minutes ago, jagfox said: Maybe time to send him elsewhere Fairly likely outcome I'd have thought. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JAG1970 Posted August 6, 2023 Report Share Posted August 6, 2023 24 minutes ago, jagfox said: Surprised there's not more folk picking up on the way Dowds let's a ponderous Keith Watson, get away from him to set-up the mo e that brings the equaliser. It's a tough situation for Dowds. According to the excellent match programme, has only started 8 games and 30 as sub with 7 goals. With Tomi coming in he certainly didn't seem very happy. Maybe time to send him elsewhere and get in a midfielder who can tackle or another defender? He’s failed to stake a claim for starting a game in the time he’s been here. With Adeloye now ahead of him his time at Firhill may be up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barney Rubble Posted August 6, 2023 Report Share Posted August 6, 2023 1 hour ago, jagfox said: Surprised there's not more folk picking up on the way Dowds let's a ponderous Keith Watson, get away from him to set-up the mo e that brings the equaliser. It's a tough situation for Dowds. According to the excellent match programme, has only started 8 games and 30 as sub with 7 goals. With Tomi coming in he certainly didn't seem very happy. Maybe time to send him elsewhere and get in a midfielder who can tackle or another defender? That's harsh in my opinion. There were plenty opportunities after that for that move to have been killed - yes I'm looking at you Bannigan, Williams and Muirhead. Dowds was the least of the issues in that instance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lenziejag Posted August 7, 2023 Report Share Posted August 7, 2023 9 hours ago, JAG1970 said: He’s failed to stake a claim for starting a game in the time he’s been here. With Adeloye now ahead of him his time at Firhill may be up. Has Adeloye shown more than Dowds had at the start of his time at Thistle ? Dowds time maybe up, but I am not sure Tomi Adeloye is the answer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lady-isobel-barnett Posted August 7, 2023 Report Share Posted August 7, 2023 (edited) 3 hours ago, Lenziejag said: Has Adeloye shown more than Dowds had at the start of his time at Thistle ? Dowds time maybe up, but I am not sure Tomi Adeloye is the answer. The answer to your question re Adeloye is no, tho' with less than 30 mins game time it's rather premature. My problem with Dowds is he's basically a Brian Graham Lite. By that I mean he's the same type of player as BG but falls short in ability in every department in Graham's game. Opposition defenders will perk up when they see Dowds replacing Graham. If Dowds then can't lead the line on his own to anything like the standard of Graham then I feel there will be a tendency to have someone partner him up top thus changing formation. That shouldn't be necessary. That's why I felt on Saturday we ended up playing like we were a man down. We really want Graham's sub to offer something different. Most likely some amalgam involving speed, directness, ball retention ability. Adeloye may not prove to be the answer but he is a different type of player to Graham. That alone will put him ahead of Dowds in the pecking order. If finances are still favourable after we sort out the defence then I would think Doolan will be looking for an attacking wide player to cover for Lawless and Fitzpatrick. Perhaps if Dowds went out on loan we could bring in a player somewhere say in the big gap in quality between Tony Weston and Scott Tiffoney? I guess you'd use the term an "impact sub". Something that Dowds simply isn't. Edited August 7, 2023 by lady-isobel-barnett Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jagfox Posted August 7, 2023 Report Share Posted August 7, 2023 12 hours ago, Barney Rubble said: That's harsh in my opinion. There were plenty opportunities after that for that move to have been killed - yes I'm looking at you Bannigan, Williams and Muirhead. Dowds was the least of the issues in that instance. No he wasn't, he could have at least impeded him. All about opinions though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lenziejag Posted August 7, 2023 Report Share Posted August 7, 2023 1 hour ago, lady-isobel-barnett said: The answer to your question re Adeloye is no, tho' with less than 30 mins game time it's rather premature. My problem with Dowds is he's basically a Brian Graham Lite. By that I mean he's the same type of player as BG but falls short in ability in every department in Graham's game. Opposition defenders will perk up when they see Dowds replacing Graham. If Dowds then can't lead the line on his own to anything like the standard of Graham then I feel there will be a tendency to have someone partner him up top thus changing formation. That shouldn't be necessary. That's why I felt on Saturday we ended up playing like we were a man down. We really want Graham's sub to offer something different. Most likely some amalgam involving speed, directness, ball retention ability. Adeloye may not prove to be the answer but he is a different type of player to Graham. That alone will put him ahead of Dowds in the pecking order. If finances are still favourable after we sort out the defence then I would think Doolan will be looking for an attacking wide player to cover for Lawless and Fitzpatrick. Perhaps if Dowds went out on loan we could bring in a player somewhere say in the big gap in quality between Tony Weston and Scott Tiffoney? I guess you'd use the term an "impact sub". Something that Dowds simply isn't. Wasn’t the reason we signed Dowds that he was the same type of player as Graham, albeit not as experienced. It worked well enough in the early part of last season - somewhere along the line he lost his confidence. It seemed to me that we started using him a bit differently in that he often came on as part of a double substitution. And on Saturday he was part of the 4th change in the team. Hard enough to make an impact with a settled team. Of course, same can be said for Adeloye. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fenski Posted August 7, 2023 Report Share Posted August 7, 2023 Lot's to be frustrated about on Saturday, but equally I saw lots of promise with the new players. It's way too soon to be passing judgement on them - give them a chance to bed in, and in William's case get used to Scottish football. Dowds is getting lots of stick, but he was the width of a post away from scoring on Saturday, arguably closer than Graham got. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lady-isobel-barnett Posted August 7, 2023 Report Share Posted August 7, 2023 36 minutes ago, Lenziejag said: Wasn’t the reason we signed Dowds that he was the same type of player as Graham, albeit not as experienced. It worked well enough in the early part of last season - somewhere along the line he lost his confidence. It seemed to me that we started using him a bit differently in that he often came on as part of a double substitution. And on Saturday he was part of the 4th change in the team. Hard enough to make an impact with a settled team. Of course, same can be said for Adeloye. One of McCall's stock phrases when signing a striker was "He'll offer us something different to what we already have". In this case McCall thought Dowds was "really quick*". * message from the manager 30 May 22 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaggernaut Posted August 7, 2023 Report Share Posted August 7, 2023 4 hours ago, lady-isobel-barnett said: The answer to your question re Adeloye is no, tho' with less than 30 mins game time it's rather premature. My problem with Dowds is he's basically a Brian Graham Lite. By that I mean he's the same type of player as BG but falls short in ability in every department in Graham's game. Opposition defenders will perk up when they see Dowds replacing Graham. I Too late now, but I wonder if Dowds and Mullen had played a handful of games together from the start, whether some kind of understanding between then and a promising option for us might have emerged. Graham: Can't complain about his goals, and assists. But can complain about his attempts to cheat at almost every ball launched from our defence in his direction. He makes no effort whatsoever to win the ball, but starts falling down backwards against the defender while holding onto him (i.e., committing a foul) while already mouthing off at the referee. Not pretty, not intelligent, and not helping the team's aims. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lenziejag Posted August 7, 2023 Report Share Posted August 7, 2023 1 hour ago, lady-isobel-barnett said: One of McCall's stock phrases when signing a striker was "He'll offer us something different to what we already have". In this case McCall thought Dowds was "really quick*". * message from the manager 30 May 22 Well now I am confused. We signed him cos he was different to what we had but then we just play him as a replacement for Graham ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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