Luke Randall's Talking Points of the Month....

Performance of the Month

 

Bournemouth showed Hull who the real relegation side are this October

Eddie Howe described his side as 'faultless' as they tore Hull apart in a 6-1 thrashing at the Vitality Stadium on 15^th October. Both Bournemouth and Hull are teams many will have as relegation favourites this season, but Bournemouth looked a class above their opponents. Bournemouth came into the match in 13^th, just 2 places above Hull in the table. Hull left in 16^th, falling just one place, although it must have felt like they had fallen to 20^th  as they looked at their relegation ‘rivals’ and became accutley aware of the gulf in class between the two sides.

The two teams contested quite evenly for most of the opening period, before Bournemouth scored two quick fire goals before half time. The second half was more of a late show, as after their fourth goal on 65 minutes, Wilson and Gosling waited until the 83^rd and 88^th minutes to hammer the final nail into Hull’s coffin.

Bournemouth only enjoyed 49% possession throughout the match, but threatened the Hull goal 22 times; a fantastic conversion rate and double the total number of shots that Hull produced. This result took Bournemouth to 13^th, and since then they have climbed to 10^th, just 2 points behind Manchester United.

Player of the Month

Dembele, Celtic's best since Larson?

Moussa Dembele, possibly the buy of the summer in Scottish football for just £500,000 from Fulham, has not stopped producing the goods. It started when he scored a perfect hatrick against Rangers in early September and scored 2 goals against Manchester City in the Champions League. Apart from missing a penalty against Barcelona, he has brought nothing but goals galore to Celtic. Since the10th of September, including the hatrick against Rangers, he has scored 8 goals, his latest being a late goal against Ross County on Wednesday 26^th October. The main question regarding Dembele is how long can Celtic keep him? This is a player who Rangers fans will want to forget in a hurry. Even if he does not play that well, he still scores. He has been quoted as a £40 million striker so it will be interesting to watch what happens in the January transfer window.

Goal of the Month

 

 

My goal of the month goes to Gaston Ramirez, who opened the scoring in a 2-0 win for Middlesbrough over Bournemouth on Saturday 29^th October. His 39^th minute goal helped Middlesbrough climb to 14^th in the table.

It was a wonderful solo goal which saw Ramirez almost run the whole pitch before scoring. He blocked a Bournemouth shot and then took the loose ball from near enough his own box and used a nice piece of skill to take him past the Bournemouth midfielders towards the half way line. Then, he used the space he had found to drive toward the Bournemouth box before brilliantly cutting inside past the final defender (Andrew Surman) and slotting the ball into the net, leaving Bournemouth keeper Arthur Boruc with absolutely no chance.

It was a truly superb strike from Gaston Ramirez which earns a goal of the month award from me.

 

Moan of the Month

A dejected bunch of Scotland players trudge away from another Slovakia goal

Scotland have already made the dream of going to Russia in 2018 for the World Cup a nightmare, after just 3 matches. They cruised to a 5-1 win over Malta in the first match but in the October Internationals, drew at home with Lithuania and lost away to Slovakia. My moan of the month has to be the recent Scotland performances. They dropped points against Lithuania, a country outside the top 100 teams and then went to Slovakia and were beaten 3-0 by a less than average side that hadn’t scored in a number of games previously. They sit in a poor 4^th place in the table and though they aren’t far off top they still look destined not to qualify. Scotland’s next match is against England at Wembley, and though Scottish will be right up for the Wembley clash, hope seems to be fading very quickly.

Why can Scotland never manage it? A good number of their players are playing at a good level in the English Premier League, notably Robert Snodgrass for Hull and Crystal Palace’s James McArthur who scored 2 goals against Liverpool recently. Other players either play in the English Championship or the Scottish Premiership. You could not say the Scotland manager (Gordon Strachan) is poor either as he has managed top sides before, including Celtic and Southampton. Why then can these players never capture their form when they put a Scotland shirt on? Man for man, the Scots have as good a squad as many top sides inside the top 15 or 20 in the FIFA rankings.

Is it the expectation of a nation? Is it that the players don’t play well together as a team? Is it that Gordon Strachan should select different players? The same old faces are given the run out every time. Why does Leigh Griffiths not start? Why is Ross McCormack not in the team? Why are there Scottish Championship players in the squad, such as John Mcginn of Hibernian? Should different players get the call up? Change is needed and fast or Gordon Strachan could be the latest Scotland manager to say goodbye. Hope of a first major tournament in 20 years seems to be disappearing.

 

 

 

by Luke Randall

Innes O'Donnell's Talking Points of the Month.....

 Best Performance

Celtic’s draw with Manchester City is a game that Scottish Football should be proud of. Celtic bounced back from a very poor result away to giants Barcelona in the previous round of matches when they lost 7-0.   As a result many people were expecting a repeat for Celtic to lose yet again.   The comparison between the amount of money that Scottish clubs get from TV rights playing in the SPFL is almost miniscule from what many English clubs get in Premier League.  So for Celtic go out there and score 3 goals against a team of superstars coached by the supposed best coach ion the world seemed implausible.

Manchester City were on great form in the BPL and looked unstoppable under Pep Guardiola who when the time came to play Celtic at Parkhead had still not dropped any points as City manager.  The tactical genius from Brendan Rogers was to put massive amounts of pressure on the Manchester club as they were playing out from the back. Celtic’s star players really did perform on the night with Moussa Dembele scoring two and a Kieran Tierney shot leading up to a Raheem Sterling own goal.  It will remain as a historic night for Celtic under the Rogers Revolution.

 

 

Player of the month 

Kieran Tierney has been putting in some fantastic performances for Celtic and was perhaps the only player in the Scotland team who could be given pass marks in their recent qualifying games.  He has stole Emilio Izaguirre place at left-back and has won over the fans with the Green Brigade making up the chant “Shalalalalalala Kieran Tierney!” In my opinion he has been the most inform Scottish player around the world.  Tierney’s chance against Motherwell when he cruised past 3 or 4 defenders and then proceeded to hit the cross-bar really showed his attacking ability as well as his composure.  He thrives defensively as well, when Tierney was picked for the Scotland team the Celtic captain Scott Brown told the BBC that Tierney wasn’t afraid to go into a challenge and it was great to play alongside him.

 

Celtic's £30 million man..??

 

Best Goal

James Maddison’s goal against Rangers was an absolute stunning free kick from 35 yards out.  It has remained as a very significant goal that showed yet again the troubles of the Rangers defence.  There was controversy leading up to the freekick as even the referee admitted after the game that the tackle on Jonny Hayes from James Tavernier was fair. It was in the very last minute and many people presumed that Andy Halliday’s leveller for Rangers was going to mean the game ended in a draw.  However Maddison, the Norwich loanee, stood up for the freekick and placed it right into the top right corner giving Wes Foderingham absolutely no chance, it was an absolute cracker!

 

James Maddion's goal of the month effort helped Aberdeen sink Rangers with the last kick of the game

      

Biggest Moan

One of the biggest moans in Scottish Football has to be National team.  The tartan army’s first game was against Malta and they hammered them 5-1.  It was great result with Snodgrass scoring a hat trick although against minnows Malta the result was expected and anything less would have been a real disappointment.

 

Scotland didn't need pink strips to look silly in their recent World Cup Qualifying games

 

So there was reasonable confidence into going into the next game at Hampden against Lithuania however, it wasn’t to be. A very poor display meant Scotland found themselves behind at home to Lithuania only a late goal from James MacArthur levelled the score at 1-1.  Gordon Strachan appeared to be at fault from many of his player choices and overall bad tactical performance.

The former Aberdeen, Manchester United and Leeds  player chose to play Chris Martin ahead of Leigh Griffiths which was a real source of frustration.  A lot of Scotland fans consider that Martin doesn’t suit the loan-striker role and doesn’t make the correct runs, and is in fact completely ineffective at times up front in a Scotland shirt. Leigh Griffiths scored a total of 40 goals last season and seemed like the player that would fit perfectly into the striker role, yet he started the game on the bench. 

Scotland’s team played Slovakia later in the week at their ground and another disappointment came.  The 3-0 loss has made it nearly impossible for Scotland to qualify and many fans called Strachan for the sack.  The Russia Dream seemed to be a complete imagination and looks over already

 

 

 

 

by Innes O'Donnell

Callan McCabe's Talking Points of the Month.....

Performance of the month

I have opted not to settle for one performance and instead have chosen Chelsea’s performances since losing 3-0 to Arsenal in September.  This season is going to be big for Chelsea to see if new manager Antonio Conte can bring back success to Chelsea. At the of end of last month they lost to Liverpool 2-0, after this defeat Conte when back to the drawing board and came up with the 3-4-3 formation that has been bringing so much success since, so far the Chelsea squad has been transformed into something new and in the month of October they  had 4 clean sheets. Chelea were exceptional against Manchester United winning comfortably by a four goal margin without conceding in a game Manchester United managed Jose Mourinho was woefully under-prepared for. Mourinho after the defeat complained to Conte saying that “celebrating with the fans at 1-0 is okay but at 4-0 its humiliating”. Mourinho should be more concerned with how far his team are lagging behind a rejuvenated Chelsea side.  

 

Player of the month

This month I think Diego costa has marginally been the best striker so far in the Premier League. He has the back of the net 8 times so far this season which has helped him become the top leading goal scorer one ahead of Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero and Everton’s (and former Chelsea striker) Romelu Lukaku. Costa has brought his form back this season and he is looking sharper and much more consistent. Although everyone thinks of Costa as a player who gets angry a lot Conte is using this to his advantage and controlling and using Costa’s aggression. At this moment in time I would say it is working really well. When Chelsea lost to Arsenal 3-0 Conte changed the formation to a 3-4-3 allowing the attackers to stay up and not push back too much. This has brought the best out of Victor Moses playing in a new position on the right allowing Costa to float around the midfield and do what he does best, SCORING GOALS!  

Diego Costa has looked like a different player under Antonio Conte this season

 

Goal of the month

Goal of the month for me would be Jordan Henderson’s strike against Chelsea. Henderson showed good composure to collect the ball move it to his right foot and smash it top right out the reach of Chelsea keeper Courtois’s reach helping Liverpool to a 2-1 over Chelsea.

Henderson's impressive strike gave Liverpool an important win over their potential title rivals

 

Moan of the month

My moan of the month is Sir Alex Ferguson commenting Manchester City, Liverpool , Arsenal, Tottenham and Manchester United are title contenders but that Chelsea are not. This is despite the fact Man United are 8^th in the league and Chelsea are 4^th in the league, his comments have left Chelsea manager Antonio Conte baffled. It’s just the start of the season and everyone knows anything can happen but at this moment in time I personally don’t think Sir Alex Ferguson  can say Chelsea aren’t title contenders when Chelsea’s last four games have been clean sheets one of which was a 4-0 thrashing of Manchester United. United haven’t won a league game since the 24^th of September when the beat Leicester City 4-1, surely it is Chelsea who are the more likely side to top the Premiership table come the end of the season.

 

 

 

by Callan McCabe

Match Report: Larbert High Senior verus Chryston High School

Wednesday 5th October. Larbert High School

Larbert High Seniors 2-2 Chryston

                                '49 Keir Stevenson                                             '3 Chryston no.9
                                 '80 Taylor Gavin                                               '46 Chryston no.5
                                                                                                    

(Chryston win 7-6 on penalties)

 

Larbert had a dramatic last gap equalising goal in the Scottish Cup but couldn’t go on to the next round after losing 7-6 on penalties in a dramatic penalty shootout.

 

It was a closely contested Scottish Cup between Larbert and Chryston

Larbert had a good first few minutes possession but quickly found themselves behind. After losing possession at the edge of the centre circle Chryston struck from the edge of the penalty box and slotted the ball into the bottom left hand corner giving the away team an early lead. Larbert High got into the game slowly as a shot skimmed the bar shortly after the Chryston goal. Larbert had a corner late in the first half but the ball was blazed over the bar from yards out. As half time approached Chryston had another good opportunity they broke free of the Larbert defence and on-on-one with goalkeeper Adam Reape he made a good save to keep the score at one nil at half time.

 

Into the second half the visitors doubled their advantage within a minute after winning a corner the Chryston centre half scored with a powerful header. But Larbert wouldn’t be denied and started to get themselves slowly back into the game. They responded with a strike from Kier Stevenson shortly after the Chryston goal, he got onto a through ball and sent the keeper the wrong way. Larbert were back in the game and almost equalised on the 75^th minute when a cross was headed narrowly over the bar. Larbert eventually got the equaliser their play deserved in the 80^th minute when Taylor Gavin scored to make it 2-2.  Later in the 89 th minute Larbert had a chance to win the game but a miraculous save from the Chryston goalkeeper who tipped the ball over the bar ensured the score remained 2-2 and the game was headed into a penalty shootout.

 

The Larbert team prepare for penalties

 

The game went to penalties Chryston missed their second penalty but then Larbert missed their fourth. Each team maintain a 100% record after that and with the score tied at 6 each Larbert had their penalty saved, Chryston scored to make it 7-6 and move onto the next round. It was an unbelievable comeback from Larbert but in the end it proved a step too far and ended in Scottish Cup disappointment.

 

 

 

by Luke McGuire