Hoping for a bit of performance from the team here. Weekend was disappointing as it was predictable. Despite not actually playing that badly, we were exposed st crucial times. The form generally hasn’t been bad so I’d hope we can give hibs a decent game and get a result. 

Not having Hayes is a shitter. Whilst getting Cosgrove back is good, I hope we don’t change our style of play to suit.

out

bed

bed

bed

2-1 dons, hedges and cosgrove

Hayes is a massive loss, he's been brilliant recently and leads by example.

Cosgrove does not look anywhere near fit. A few more weeks on the bench for him. Should never have started the cup game.

Out,

Work (parent teacher meetings)

Work

Work

0-1 Hibs Taylor o.g.

I have little trust in the confidence of the team at the moment, drew a game we should have won and never really competed in a game we really should have had a chance in. Now we're playing another team above us in the league (no matter how fractionally) and I fear without Hayes and with an unfit Cosgrove we'll revert to last year and fuck this up!

Battle of the losers this one. Both will feel the did not do themselves justice last week so will both should be looking to put in a performance this week. Agree with Tup that Cosgrove does not look ready to be starting games but will Watkins be fit after Browns assault. Cannot go back to Main. Would be tempted to start Devlin in place of Taylor if he is fit. No idea how we replace Hayes. Hope it’s not Greg Leigh. 
 

Oot

Work

TV

Flat

2-0 Ferguson and Hedges

 

41 minutes ago, Jute said:

Battle of the losers this one. Both will feel the did not do themselves justice last week so will both should be looking to put in a performance this week. Agree with Tup that Cosgrove does not look ready to be starting games but will Watkins be fit after Browns assault. Cannot go back to Main. Would be tempted to start Devlin in place of Taylor if he is fit. No idea how we replace Hayes. Hope it’s not Greg Leigh. 
 

Oot

Work

TV

Flat

2-0 Ferguson and Hedges

 

Fascinating stuff, amazing how a week can change an outlook to an extent. Most feel Cosgrove isn't match fit, understandably, and the player who replaced him has done well in a system that is pleasing to watch. Watkins is injured I think, and both Cosgrove and Main are not inspiring replacements to most, and we fear the change in style of play. If fit I'd certainly hope we go with Edmondson if Watkins doesn't make it. We played our best footie of the year with him in the lineup. No clue what Main brings to the team. I think it will be a dull and uninspiring performance with Cosgrove starting and the natives get more restless.

1-1, Ferguson.

Any word on how long Hayes is out for? Heard he was getting a scan a couple of days ago,but not seen any updates

  Potential for a good game though, would also start with Edmundson if it means the type of fitba we saw. McInnes mentioned having Cosgrove back meant the opportunity to get more crosses into the box,(which sounded a bit like at the expense of on the deck fitba to me).

      Defence wise,as long as were scoring more than were shipping,I would allow the current trio more gelling time with the new set up

 

     Dons 3 - Hibs 1   Edmundson,Wright x2

Edited November 4, 20205 yr by Elgindon

I thought we played some okay stuff at times against the Tims with Cosgrove in the team. Especially in the first game. I'd agree, he looked unfit, but I still think he offers more than Edmondson. Again, the key will be keeping Wright and Hedges high up alongside him and not reverting to Hedges out wide. To me, the team picks itself with Hayes and Watkins out, with Kennedy, Ferguson, McRorie and McLennan behind Wright, Cosgrove and Hedges. I'd keep Taylor in because I think Devlin is worse. McRorie had his best game for us against Hibees last time around and I'd say he's not been nearly as good in the last few games, so a goal from him will do the business.

Dons 6 - Hibs 2

Cosgrove x 3, McRorie, Hoban, Wright

Might put £100 on it, as I'm fairly confident.

Surprised nobody has commented yet. Hayes is apparently out for 3 more games with a groin injury picked up/worsened in training a day or two before the semi. Watkins is out 8 weeks and not even sure we'll see him again as I think we had him until the end of the year? That certainly limits our options up front to 3 guys who have all been significantly injured or beat up in recent weeks, Main, Cosgrove, and Edmondson. 

I cannot remember who commented, here or elsewhere, but they felt our style of play changed in the semi with Cosgrove in that we were more reliant on the direct to Cosgrove again, rather than attacking with pace and width to feet as we had done in the 3-3 league game. I'm not necessarily saying it was the painful long ball shit of the past, but I think we all agree we've been fun to watch and been successful with the attacking play of Hedges and Wright in particular, hope we don't lose that with Cosgrove back.

Out

Work

TV

Bed

2-0 ( Hedges & Ferguson)

Big game this one for us.

Need to get over disappointment (expected) of last weekend

Also need to get back into third ahead of yet another international break or we're playing catch up when we return and we all know where we go when we come back so that gap could become rather larger.

Regarding Watkins, see McInnes making noises about trying to extend loan until season end and it would appear that with Bristol two points off second in the Championship that they would appear to be doing fine without him

Given Celtic got taken apart, again, last night, it makes our performance against them on Sunday all the more abysmal. Any half decent team can beat them.

We seem to be scared or even terrified of them. That's on the manager.

So we need to beat Hibs tonight with a convincing performance. 

We didn't play too badly against Celtic. If Hedges had buried that ball he received in the box from Wright, it would have been a different outcome, but fine margins can dictate a win against either of the bigots.

Having Hayes out is a real blow and I would say the same for Watkins as he can offer something different. I just hope the loss of Hayes doesn't stop of from trying to play a better style of football and we revent to bypassing midfield like last season.

I would say there is not much of a difference between us and Hibs, with the managers being fairly similar in their approach, so don't expect to see too many goals tonight, so I am going for...

4-3 - Sam with three and Considine with a last minute header to win us the points.

COYR

1 hour ago, TheDeeDon said:

We didn't play too badly against Celtic. If Hedges had buried that ball he received in the box from Wright, it would have been a different outcome, but fine margins can dictate a win against either of the bigots.

Having Hayes out is a real blow and I would say the same for Watkins as he can offer something different. I just hope the loss of Hayes doesn't stop of from trying to play a better style of football and we revent to bypassing midfield like last season.

I would say there is not much of a difference between us and Hibs, with the managers being fairly similar in their approach, so don't expect to see too many goals tonight, so I am going for...

4-3 - Sam with three and Considine with a last minute header to win us the points.

COYR

We can say we never played badly but Sparta Prague, with half their team missing, put 4 goals past them. So I think we did indeed play badly in the context of the form Celtic are in.

We never even tested them in defence, the Hedges chance notwithstanding.

I think that chance summed up our team's approach in games with Celtic. Zero belief. Their defence is a complete shambles yet we hardly created a chance against them.

5 hours ago, tup1 said:

Given Celtic got taken apart, again, last night, it makes our performance against them on Sunday all the more abysmal. Any half decent team can beat them.

We seem to be scared or even terrified of them. That's on the manager.

So we need to beat Hibs tonight with a convincing performance. 

We are scared of Celtic, the manager has ingrained that in us and, for the most part, I don’t know why. One of the reasons I dislike him. He’s set fear deep inside our players that’s extremely hard to get out. It’s like he treats Celtic (and rangers to an extent) like the best team(s) in the world. He’s taken coaching courses and sets his team out like we’re a world class defensive teams playing top notch opponents. While we weren’t bad last week and it was two poor goals we lost, as naive as I sound, if we go out and play, let the players loose and have a go. DM won’t do that. We’d lose more than we win probably but it would be more inspiring with a better return, and I think we’d all be happier and more proud of our efforts.

37 minutes ago, LA-Don said:

We are scared of Celtic, the manager has ingrained that in us and, for the most part, I don’t know why. One of the reasons I dislike him. He’s set fear deep inside our players that’s extremely hard to get out. It’s like he treats Celtic (and rangers to an extent) like the best team(s) in the world. He’s taken coaching courses and sets his team out like we’re a world class defensive teams playing top notch opponents. While we weren’t bad last week and it was two poor goals we lost, as naive as I sound, if we go out and play, let the players loose and have a go. DM won’t do that. We’d lose more than we win probably but it would be more inspiring with a better return, and I think we’d all be happier and more proud of our efforts.

Agreed. It makes it all the worse as the opening goal was scored by Christie who played with us for ages. He got the freedom of Hampden to line up his shot. He finished it well but that's not the point. 

Everything they did well went through Christie. Neutralising him would have been key. The manager should spot that because he managed the player before.

Yes McInnes treats the two Glasgow teams like it's Barcelona and Real Madrid we are facing. Probably because he still has the mindset from his playing days at Ibrox. It's difficult to accept.

I don't think we are scared of them, I just think he worries about not getting beat so much that we forget how to win. Celtic aren't a shit team though and most players would walk into our team, so they may just have been up for it on Sunday and raised their game against us. Also the key to beating them at the moment is to score the first goal, as that seems to cause them serious problems whereas in the previous few seasons, it would just annoy them and they would up the tempo and destroy teams who are now getting results against them.

I also think quite a few of our players lack the bottle to win or even compete in big games and have a feeling that some of them are doing well in this empty stadium enviroment we find outselves in.

All we can do is win the next game as regardless of what we think of DM, as he is not going anywhere,  We all want to see us win, that much we can all agree on.

 

 

32 minutes ago, TheDeeDon said:

I don't think we are scared of them, I just think he worries about not getting beat so much that we forget how to win. Celtic aren't a shit team though and most players would walk into our team, so they may just have been up for it on Sunday and raised their game against us. Also the key to beating them at the moment is to score the first goal, as that seems to cause them serious problems whereas in the previous few seasons, it would just annoy them and they would up the tempo and destroy teams who are now getting results against them.

I also think quite a few of our players lack the bottle to win or even compete in big games and have a feeling that some of them are doing well in this empty stadium environment we find ourselves in.

All we can do is win the next game as regardless of what we think of DM, as he is not going anywhere,  We all want to see us win, that much we can all agree on.

 

 

"He worries about not getting beat so much that we forget how to win."

That sounds like he is scared to me. If he focuses so much on not getting punished and not losing that feeds a negative mentality and fear. If that's what he tells players that's what they learn and think. If all you do is focus on the negative you become a negative culture, and that's clear with Celtic (and Rangers now.)

I 100% agree Celtic aren't a shit team, but as I and others have commented, they are not Barcelona or Real Madrid. They don't win every game, they make mistakes, and they draw and lose games. But just not against us for the most part since we approach these games with the wrong mindset.

"I also think quite a few of our players lack the bottle to win or even compete in big games"

Which sounds like a man management failure to me?

6 minutes ago, Madbadteacher said:

"I also think quite a few of our players lack the bottle to win or even compete in big games"

Which sounds like a man management failure to me?

Correct, breed negativity and it doesn't inspire and develop confidence. Sorry to the younger viewers, but it's the opposite approach Ferguson took and he didn't do too badly.

Interesting to note that a win tonight and we're 8-2-2, our best start in something like 20 years ago. Win our games in hand and we're only 6 points off Rangers, and we'd be level on points with Celtic having played a game more. This, to me, is all the more reason to take games against the old firm as one offs and go for it. His tactics against Rangers and Celtic over the last few years, obviously less so Rangers, have brought minimal return, why not change the approach/mentality?

I think Celtic have had a very good team up until this season, and we've had three seasons of having a fairly pish team. I think we approached the last two games quite differently to prior seasons based on that fact, and I didn't think we played with fear at all in either. We didn't sit back in either, we were organised and created more chances against them than we have in the entirety of the last three years. We simply switched off at Hampden and lost two stupid goals which not only knocked the stuffing and belief (which we definitely had the previous week, it can't be denied) out of us but gave them (the Tims) the confidence to play at the level they're capable of when they're not bottling it. We went into the game believing we could win it and trying to win, but we didn't believe that we could come back from a two goal deficit and they didn't believe they'd lose it. To me it was a prime example of just how easy it is to get picked off against the Tims, who have quality players despite being in poor form. I agree with Tup about Christie, but his goal was a result of sloppy defending that wouldn't have been punished against ten other teams in the league (including us... maybe McGinn?), which is why I get frustrated with "just go for it" comments as if we're playing against cardboard cutouts.

Tonight will be a big test again though and I hope we're up for it. McGeouch and Watkins being out hopefully makes team selection easier and I really hope we see Wright and Hedges close to each other through the middle behind the front man (Cosgrove for me, but happy with Edmondson, Main would be shotgun to the head territory).

 

6 minutes ago, LA-Don said:

 His tactics against Rangers and Celtic over the last few years, obviously less so Rangers, have brought minimal return, why not change the approach/mentality?

He did change his approach and mentality. We saw it in the 3-3 game and we all talked about it on here. Both performances were night and day compared to the last few seasons. Surely at some point we can accept that a team with good players picked us off twice in quick succession? We've all seen our previous Hampden games where we haven't touched the ball for 20 minutes, with 48 mean behind the ball and then lost 2 goals and we have to get the bus home, but that wasn't what it was like last week and I think we're letting those previous performances - understandably - cloud our judgement. It was an even game before Christie's goal, we'd had a couple of good crosses in the box via Kennedy and we also had the subsequent Hedges chance, with them having not much to write home about.

The game was effectively over after 23 minutes. So we competed for 10 or 15 minutes of a 90 minute game. Not anywhere near good enough.

We did draw 3-3 against them the week before so really there is no explanation for the above other than the players and or the manager once again freezing on the big occasion.

We have used the excuse in the past that the game taking place in Glasgow gives Celtic a big advantage because they'd have the bulk of the stadium. No such excuse available this time. We simply weren't good enough and produced an insipid and meek performance, summed up by Hedges refusing to shoot when presented with a golden opportunity because he can only use his left foot.

38 minutes ago, tup1 said:

The game was effectively over after 23 minutes. So we competed for 10 or 15 minutes of a 90 minute game. Not anywhere near good enough.

We did draw 3-3 against them the week before so really there is no explanation for the above other than the players and or the manager once again freezing on the big occasion.

We have used the excuse in the past that the game taking place in Glasgow gives Celtic a big advantage because they'd have the bulk of the stadium. No such excuse available this time. We simply weren't good enough and produced an insipid and meek performance, summed up by Hedges refusing to shoot when presented with a golden opportunity because he can only use his left foot.

Very different obviously, but years of abuse doesn't go away over night. I didn't see the 3-3 game so I may be way off, but the cup semi wasn't that different. We always give them too much respect in my eyes, and we crumbled. We created little. I don't agree they were very good and us not so much in recent years, they were better but we gave them so much of the ball that allows them to gain momentum, confidence, and play.......and score, and win! Going back to the semi, they are shite at the back but we didn't create many chances. Why? At half time why didn't we decide to have a go? Fear of going 3 down? Celtic are vulnerable, both in play and in mentality, but we didn't lay a finger. Then they get spanked again a few days later.

Anyway, Hibs game will be interesting with Watkins out. He's been a big part of our success this season to date with his work rate and mobility, and this has helped Hedges and Wright, and our style of play. Not sure what to expect in performance, but it's the team I expected. Cosgrove starts, Kennedy and McLennan as wing backs, Hedges and Wright supporting Sam. Hope we go back to our pace and width and not the long ball target man stuff.

Was the semi defeat not as much down to a rare(this season) purple patch fae Celtic that knocked the stuffing out us?

 

  Above line up looks as good as we can muster this week. 3421?  Hedges/Wright with Cosgrove up front?  Potential for goals,looking forward to it.COYR

Edited November 6, 20205 yr by Elgindon

Not looking forward to this one with any great confidence considering who is missing. 

Cosgrove did nothing on Sunday and tbh he didn't look particularly interested but as I expected, he starts tonight. We are obviously putting him in the shop window but if he plays shite for the next few weeks and doesn't score, his value drops on a weekly basis. I read what Ferguson said about penalties after the draw with Celtic...I read into it that Cosgrove is back on them but I'd far rather Ferguson continued in that role.

Kennedy/Wright/Hedges/Mclennan are a pacy attacking unit to assist Cosgrove but a bit powder puff when it comes to doing the dirty side of the game. Ferguson will have to play a bit deeper in the absence of McGeouch. 

Hernandez makes the bench by default. 

I want to say 3-1. But 1-1 wouldn't surprise me

Nice.Pity I went for a cup of tea when we scored.Might have another....