St. Johnstone vs. Morton - August 30th 2025

[TRVMP]

St. Johnstone are going to win the league with 85+ points, totally strolling it, so for me this is damage limitation.

[RossMcC1874]

I would say this is essentially a free hit, nobody will expect us to get anything from the game so the pressure is all on them. 

Would take a point right now Brophy to get us a goal but they will score more. 

[DaftTon74]

Not expecting anything out of this one today. St johnstone flying and scoring goals for fun. Really tough test for us.

Comfortable home win with Baird inevitably grabbing a goal too. 

[dunning1874]

While we naturally focus on shape or individual players who are missing, I think regardless of what the formation is we need another defensive body in there to give the team a bit more balance.

Against both Aberdeen & Ayr we've effectively had four attacking players who make little defensive contribution on the park. That's not a comment on effort but just the reality of the types of player they are. Shaw and O'Halloran don't have the mobility to press, Moffat will run himself into the ground but it's more of a headless chicken press rather than sound defensive positional sense and Brophy is not George Oakley. Pressing from the front therefore doesn't really work, but with so many players there who don't contribute much defensively you're then looking to the players behind them, and Blues & Robertson were just left with too much to do last week. Ayr consistently found room in midfield and won the vast majority of second balls because there was too much ground for two of them to cover while not getting much help from the four in front of them.

Imrie's tactical flexibility is one of his great strengths as a manager, but generally throughout his time here you can trace the good runs of form to when we've had more of a defensive balance in personnel regardless of whether that was with a back three, back four, 4-4-2, 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3. The great run that put us in playoff contention in 22/23 usually had a midfield three of Gillespie, Blues and Robbie Crawford who were all solid defensively and could press along with wingers who could do the same, the following season the lengthy unbeaten run generally saw us sacrifice a winger to have Blues on the right. Changing things up to try and get more attacking players on the park was often where we lost our way over those seasons - you can definitely get away with 2 players who don't do much of a defensive shift and maybe 3, but very rarely 4.

There's been focus on Wilson not being in the team, and if Gillespie, Taylor and Crawford are all missing then it does have to be him, but whether it's Wilson or not we need another body alongside Blues & Robertson to give us more players who can scrap for second balls and do the defensive running. We're already really lacking in physicality compared to most teams in the division, we exacerbate that if we try to accommodate more wingers.

Particularly against a team who've been on fire and scoring freely like St Johnstone, we need to be hard to play against first and foremost. Give them the amount of space in midfield Ayr had and we'll have serious problems.

[GiGi]

Crawford missing again is a sore one. Not all that hopeful. 

[irnbru]

Not really many options on the bench but it's not a game to carry Shaw and his lack of work today. 

[vikingTON]

5 minutes ago, irnbru said:

Not really many options on the bench but it's not a game to carry Shaw and his lack of work today. 

Would extend that to O'Halloran and all of our other sand dancing wide options. It's not a serious formation. The one mitigating factor is that it's probably too early for Gillespie to play from the start,

The bench actually shows how unbalanced our squad is with a couple of absences/fitness issues. There are plenty of options for positions that don't really need it. 

[Boogs49]

Get in, 1 up,  Eamon Brophy

[Mr.Blue]

What a strike that is.

[dunning1874]

Very early days, but has Imrie done it again with a striker everyone else had written off?

[The Bewilderedbeast]

What a strike indeed

 

[Mr.Blue]

Ballantyne and O'Halloran off for Gillespie and Moffat. Hopefully Ballantyne isn't badly injured/.

[Boogs49]

Garrity on for Robertson

[DaftTon74]

Has been coming that one.

[TRVMP]

Excellent result in isolation. Few teams will take points in Perth this season. Storer is a plehr. 

[GiGi]

Yeah getting any kind of result there is very good. Need to target wins now, the games won't get any harder than that. 

[dunning1874]

That's a great point, disappointing as it is to concede late. The win needs to come but the next three games are a bit kinder and we can hopefully look up the table from there.

[vikingTON]

3 hours ago, Mr.Blue said:

Ballantyne and O'Halloran off for Gillespie and Moffat. Hopefully Ballantyne isn't badly injured/.

To lose Ballantyne and playing Gillespie out of position there (presumably) only adds to the merit of that result. 

9 draws for the first quarter before we actually get some nice, plump soft ball fixtures in December. 

[RossMcC1874]

Really impressive away performance. Looked good on the ball when we had it and defended well for the most part. 

Absoulte peach by Brophy and thats now 3 goals in two games. Storer once again outstanding and thought the whole back 4 did really well.

Let's hope Ballantyne injury isn't to bad would still ideally like another defender and midfielder but will have to wait and see. 

The next set of fixtures are all winnable games and some positive results would put us in a really good position already this early in the season.

[Mr.Blue]

For a young player Kerr Robertson comes across very well in interviews. He also seems to have a good understanding of the game and can articulate this as well.