There is nothing much left to say that has not already been said over social media about the defeat to Kilmarnock on Saturday. If you have not followed any of it then I will try to sum it up as nicely as possible.
That was DIRE!
I got the notification on my phone walking to Dens Park with the line-up and as soon as I saw it, it was clear we were playing without a midfield.
Paul Hartley was going for a 4-2-4. We did demolish Killie 4-0 at the start of the season but right now, they are a very different team from what we came up against but it does not seem like the gaffer realised that. Maybe he did and he thought that we could still beat them with that formation but he must have been the only one in the stadium that day that thought that.
This is not me trying to have a go at the manager, far from it. He has done a brilliant job in my opinion and will continue to do so. Listening to his post-match interview, he mentioned that the team had been training all week for this set up so it was not like they never knew their roles.
The outcome was that Kilmarnock were set up better and they over ran us in midfield which then cause problems in our defence who then struggled to contain it. This also led to us having no service for the front four.
When we did make a few substitutions and changed to a 4-4-2, we started to play better and take control of the game. We were 2-0 down by thenso it was always going to be hard to claw back the two goal deficit.
We did however come close to doing so. After on loan striker Rhys Healey headed home to give us hope, the Kilmarnock keeper pulled off an absolute cracking save after Paul McGinn who headed the ball towards goal from the six yard box.
Alas it was not to be and the epic comeback I was hoping for would not happen. Even if we did manage to get a point from this game, it would have be unduly deserved.
I will be putting this result, performance and team selection down to a bad day at the office and hopefully down as a lesson on what type of roles some players can play and more importantly, cannot play. Hartley does have a knack or trying new things so I am hoping that this is one he can score off his list and not use again.
We move on from this though and look to put it behind us. Nothing good ever comes from dwelling on bad results. We are still in a healthy position in the league just now but we have to cut out the sloppy goals and play to our full strengths each week so we do not slip into the wrong end of the table. It is tight in this league so a few defeats can see us looking over our shoulder which would be a stark contrast from a few weeks back when we were only three or four points off third place.
A visit to Inverness is up for us next and this place has never been a happy hunting ground. I am about to get the history book out to look at the staistics between the teams but I am positive we have won once up in the Highlands against them.
I guess there is no time like the present to change that.
