While we are not down yet, it is difficult to see how things can change. We have played several games against fellow strugglers and we have not turned in a decent performance yet. Significantly, we have rarely been well beaten – but that’s not an important issue. Aberdeen were poor yesterday but they still emerged with the win. They didn’t play particularly nice football, they were poorly organised at the back, they didn’t create much up front and yet they still beat us.
For whatever reason, we cannot play against teams who want to match us in the battle department. We worked just as hard as we always do yesterday, we just met a team who were prepared to do the same. The effect of this is that our game, which involves passing the ball until it reaches the feet of Pearo or Faddy is disrupted. The effort we put into chasing down the opposition is wasted because the ball is launched route one at the soonest possible opportunity. It has been commented that we lose the midfield in games like this – that is true, but only to an extent. Our midfield looks impressive when we throw ourselves into challenges and knock the likes of Ferguson or Lambert out of their stride. Our midfield can try to close down Partick Thistle or whoever, but the ball is not in that area long enough to make it possible since it goes straight to their strikers. One of our strengths is our work rate – when the opposition decrease the contribution this makes, it is no wonder we struggle.
The other problem is the type of players we have in midfield. Pearson, Lasley, and Fagan are arguably technically better than a lot of the competition. The difficulty is that while they are different, they are not quite good enough to rise above a heated midfield battle. They do well when given space, but they just cannot raise their game enough to overcome having their ankles kicked for ninety minutes.
Is there a possible solution? Maybe. If we accept that we cannot play the football required to break down bottom six sides, we might have a chance. Tell the midfield to forget the passes and just get the ball forward. Lehmann wins his fair share of headers and holds the ball up well. Faddy can always produce something and, most importantly of all, as long as the ball is at the other end of the park, the opposition are not going to score. Bad defences make mistakes and every team in the bottom six has defensive problems that we can exploit. It won’t be pretty but some kind of change is necessary. It might not even work but unless we make some kind of change, the First Division ground guide may be needed next year.