Our Inconsistencies

[harry94]

Been thinking about the game on the drive back and come up with a few ideas about what went wrong and how we can maybe look to sort things out. Today was pretty bad and hurt quite a lot but if nothing else, it has at least highlighted some of the problems we have.

In my view, we have some terrific football players. Thomson, Ross, Low, Harkins and Stewart are all very good on the ball and as good as anything that I've seen at Dens out-with a couple of the obvious exceptions in the pre-admin regime. How could we play them all and lose so badly? The problem is that good footballers are useless unless they manage to exert some sort of influence on the game.

Against most sides in the league, I think we have the potential to rip them apart and really put them to the sword if we're sharp in front of goal and having a good day. Killie, United, St Johnstone, Hearts and even Thistle (in the last period of the game when we had Loy and Calder playing) have for major parts of the game looked a level or two below us when we have got going and you can see that Hemmings, Loy and Stewart together scares teams and they all cause major problems.

The issue we have is when things aren't ideal. Against Aberdeen, Dunfermline, Hearts, Inverness, Thistle and Celtic; we have had major periods of the game where we've looked like an amateur outfit. Sometimes the issue is that we've not got the perfect team on the park that day and sometimes we're just not physically as strong as the opposition.

Today we were playing a team who had Brown and Bitton in the middle of the park and they had the strength to almost blow our whole midfield over. I can understand the need to sit back sometimes in a game and be patient but we didn't have enough players on the park who could actually fight and win us the ball so we could launch a proper attack. We had Ross, Harkins and Stewart having to defend and that just isn't what they are trained to do. Low has a great work rate and is back defending but he's not actually got the experience to do that sort of job. To make things worse, all of them are naturally central players and don't really have great pace so are just playing into Celtic's strengths.

I actually really like our squad and think pretty highly of our youngsters but we've got to get some sort of rethink on how we approach matches like today. We've got Gadzhalov who's got a record of playing in defensive midfield before arriving to us (I'm going to discount the one game he played for us there since he couldn't speak English and was adapting). Holt who played as a very attacking wing back for QOS and could maybe play on the wing. Meggatt who looks like he could play anywhere across the back (and maybe defensive midfield too?).

It's hard to really say what would solve the problem and I suppose a lot of it is probably down to the younger guys in the team being a bit inexperienced. At the moment though, we're pretty much a mid table team. We play well half the time and we play very badly half the time. If we could just start being a bit smarter when we're playing badly; we'll finish comfortably in the top half of the table IMO.

[Boba Fett]

We're not playing at a high enough tempo throughout games bud..

We're so pedestrian and laboured at times that it becomes easy to fall out of games for large spells and it invites the opposition on to us as well.

I agree that we have some great ball players but we need them moving and thinking far quicker and for 90 minutes. 

[eyeothedug]

Agree we are far too slow. Passing should be much faster and one touch at times. They should practice this in training. We need to play Calder from the start and have width plus play with both Loy and Hemmings up front.

[Billy Campbell's Ghost]

we play a fives game on a big pitch

[Ivan Drago]

Good post Harry

However I think you could have condensed it into one word if I am being honest. Pace.

We are totally devoid of it and that hurts us. Look at Calder, a fairly raw laddie with no experience, however he has a bit of pace about him and instantly he looks like he could do a job for us.

I do think the formation and the reliance on full backs for width cripples us however the single biggest issue with that side, is pace IMO.

[Dundeefc1783]

Good post Harry

However I think you could have condensed it into one word if I am being honest. Pace.

We are totally devoid of it and that hurts us. Look at Calder, a fairly raw laddie with no experience, however he has a bit of pace about him and instantly he looks like he could do a job for us.

I do think the formation and the reliance on full backs for width cripples us however the single biggest issue with that side, is pace IMO.

Think everyone apart from Paul Hartley could see last year that we were crying out for pace and who has he added with pace. An untried 20 year old.

He quite simply needs to change the formation because not one of our full backs is anywhere near good enough to do the job Hartley expects of them.

[chomp my root]

Think everyone apart from Paul Hartley could see last year that we were crying out for pace and who has he added with pace. An untried 20 year old.

He quite simply needs to change the formation because not one of our full backs is anywhere near good enough to do the job Hartley expects of them.

I think Ashley Cole in his prime would struggle to do what our FB's are expected to do.