Today we have our 3rd of 4 Betfred Group H games, at home to Edinburgh City of League 1 in what will be another brilliant game if the first 2 group games are anything to go by.
We start the post looking at Sean Slaven – 19 in-game, 18 IRL, showing as 6ft 1/2 in game, 6ft 5 IRL. He has the heading and Jumping reach to be a real handful in our Wingplay formation with either/instead of McGrath & Allan. Healy now is looking more like a right winger, with the temptation to play Gegenpress at home and Wing Play/Control away, but we will see how things go with the formations.
Our U18 played East Kilbride U18 in a friendly, winning 3-1 – AMR Andy Doig (18), Sean Slaven & Martin McNiff with the goals.
There were some more Betfred games on the Saturday.
Livingston lost on penalties to QotS after a 0-0, Airdrie drubbed Edinburgh City 5-1. So our fate is very much in our hands, a win today and it will be all to play for in the last match v QotS.
NEW LOAN SIGNING
Andy Turner (18, 5ft 9) joins on a season long loan from our senior affiliate Dundee as another centre midfield option, coupled with the ability to play as a good DM. Solid with some nice Mentals for his age I’m hoping he can definitely become a rotation option. Our 4 loanees now fill positions 2 through 5 in our squad by current ability!
We go with the tried-and-tested Wing Play tactic today, 4-4-2, and a chance to see if our 2 tall, young forwards can play together. Slaven gets his first start, as a TM, with McGrath as the AF. Watt & McLaughlin on the wings (Note – I need another MR as cover for McLaughlin if we use this tactic a lot, Though Cornelius can play there). Sutherland as the DLP and Cornelius as a CM on automatic in the middle. Newgen Lewis Faulds (18, 5ft 11) starts at left wingback, Morrison on the right, with big Rod and Harry Nicolson pairing up at centreback. Allison/Alisson starts as always between the sticks. Edinburgh City go 4-4-2.
HT Berwick 1 (McGrath 12) Edinburgh City 0
A decent start with some good forward movement but no product. Breakthrough in the 12th minute, a lovely ball over the top had McGrath running on, and he finished at the second attempt. 1-0 Berwick. Edinburgh started looking a bit more dangerous after the goal, but were dealt with well by the defenders. Close enough on the stats, 1-0 at HT.
FT Berwick 2 (McGrath 12, pen 73) Edinburgh City 0 Att 315 (22 Away)
Cornelius moves over to the right as an Inverted Winger, Morrison going attacking as the wingback on that side. Barr on for McLaughlin. Again, a decent start, with a few good opportunities and some nice interplay, though headers need some working on! Allan on for Slaven, going to Support TM to try and get in the hole in front of their back 2. We do seem to face good keepers every game though. Then from a Berwick corner in the 73rd minute there was definite suspicion of hand ball from Stuart Morrison – and it was given! McGrath stepped up and made it 2-0, his penalty into the bottom right hand corner. And we’ve been worth the lead in this second half, the condition on the Edinburgh boys is really low. Orru on for Sutherland, swapped with Cornelius, Barr to DLP, Cornelius CM, Orru IW on the right. And we then set about seeing the game out. And we did. 2-0, about the most regulation game of football I’ve managed in this save, there was almost no threat from Edinburgh City, whereas we were well worth the result. 11-2 for shots in the 2nd half to Berwick!!
So our final game v QotS is 1st v 2nd – A win may not be enough to qualify as Airdrie play Livingston, and they have both ‘beaten’ us on penalties, though the above seems to signify that us not losing in normal time means we are above Airdrie currently. We are joint weakest of the 2nd placed teams currently, and only the top 4 best 2nd placed teams qualify. We will go out and try and win – getting through and getting an away tie against Celtic/Rangers could be massive for a club this size. I might even be allowed to train for a coaching badge!!!
Got this through – paint me Mahogany and call me David Dickinson 🙂 🙂 🙂
Lastly I’ve gone and gotten all the xG data (thanks to FMTahiti and Dictate the Game for this – https://dictatethegame.com/2019/09/27/getting-expected-goals-or-xg-into-fm19/ – for Civil Service & Berwick up to this point (Just under 1100 shots) and the current overall xG is 1.73 – 1.84 for Civil Service (Won the league in the 1st Season, left them halfway through the 2nd season in 4th) and only 0.73 for Berwick!!!!! I will have a look at this in more depth in the next post, where we will take on Queen of the South and attempt to get out of our Group. See you then.