Kris Commons

Absolutely agree. At the end of the day he justifies being greedy sometimes because he is our top player and weighs in with the most goals and creates the most. I agree on Mcgregor aswell , he looks equally dangerous , him and Commons are the two i want to see starting every game.

 

so just play a player all the time even though in the last 2 games in particular he's been beyond *

aye way to go as has been said just a few posts ago nearly everything goes through him so when he's rotten which is quite a lot the team is *

jpr21 for manager NOT!!!

we need consistency first and foremost and midfelders that are productive if commons is so good at scoring play him as the striker, he isnt a good enough attacking midfielder he cant shield the ball or hang on to it for any length of time, he can't run with it and his passing is overated aswell

 

Commons consistently brings goals and assists though. He is consistent, you don't discard a midfielder that scores as much as he does. You work it into the team, main problem for me is we rarely allow him to run past the striker anymore. Don't use him as the focal point, use him as the danger he is.

As we did for his goal against Zagreb.

 

what happened to him the rest of the game ?

 

Once again, thers been a lot of * in our team this season thus far. Nobody has merited a guarenteed starting place. Again, your wanting to axe our top scorer last season out the team the very same player that won both pfa and football writers player of the year last season.

 

He tucked in behind and played shockingly. Whose goal gained us 3 points?

That's basically my point. Goals win games. Commons consistently gets goals and scores goals as an attacking midfielder, don't play him as the playmaker, allow him to make the runs and the room to get onto the end of chances

You have a man who can score 32 goals from midfield, who can assist around half that while he's at it. You don't say that's not good enough, you work around the defencies so you have the goals in the team.

 

You not think with another player in there we would be creating more chances and scoring more goals? Yes goals win games but if thats the only thing'll he do why waste so many potential chances to score goals because of his inconsistencies.

 

Incredibly overrated.

 

he isnt a good enough attacking midfielder , even though in one season he scored 32 and assisted 14? I have said this before when he is playing in the current team he is the only chance of us scoring a goal, the only creative spark. He has far more quality and ability than any other attacking player in the team . * unreal this forum , people are so flippant and have no memory ; a player has a few bad games , it happens to the best of em , it is called form . class is permanent and commons is our best player . Also , ironically , "sheilding the ball " is actually one of commons strong points , gathers the ball into feet and quite often wins free kicks by sheilding the ball.

 

nail on head

 

He's consistently been one of our top assisters as well. It's not the only thing he does, he's just not the man to play everything through, we need to be more dynamic in attack and let players like Commons, Guidetti, Wakaso, McGregor, Stokes etc. get into the positions that will damage opponents the most.

Get him into the positions where he can play facing goal, laying off passes to the strikers, getting beyond them, getting in on goal and making spaces for others in the team. Stop giving it to him with his back to goal, expecting him to hold it up and beat the 3 odd players that are around him and isolating the striker.

There's a stark difference between how Ronnie is playing him 'in the hole' and how he did last year.

 

You are correct Devlin.

Ronny has to show a bit more flexibility with tactics and formations because we dont have the players to play the way he wants us to.
Every game is almost a rerun of the last ,typically we would have 7-8 men in attacking positions only for one guy to lose the ball and be hit on the counter,playing the way we do there is always a massive hole where the midfield should be and ether no RB or LB because we play them plåying as wingbacks and they are miles up the * pitch.

 

lets get real about this

he's a wee guy who can't shield the ball, can't turn, can't run, can't dribble

he can shoot he can score goals in scotland but is all to often missing when we need a body in european games

you are infact nominating kris commons has a free role in our team on the basis of his form in scotland

get tae

if he can't play in the role a role that should suit his style of play he gets dropped for someone that can or play him as striker which i'm not entirely pleased about since i think gudetti and scepovic are decent strikers

 

A free role? Where did I say that? I said play to his strengths. We play our vast majority of games in Scotland, we are struggling in Scotland! Play to his strengths and those around him and it will work. You don't throw away 32 goals and 14 assists (so yes he is creative, he's set up 50 goals over the course of his Celtic career)

You say that role should suit his style of play while labelling stuff that he can't do which is a requirement for that style of play? How does that make sense?

And no, don't play him up front, he's not a * striker. Don't know why that is so hard to understand. He is much, much better when the play is facing goal, not when he's been the one required to play with his back to goal as he is now.

His European goal scoring record is the best we have for a midfielder as well, for a long time anyway. I get that you don't like him, I don't know why as he's the sort of midfielder we were crying out for years for but belittling him as much as you have doesn't make sense.

 

Wow..

 

Uft.

Even playing in this dross formation and with these substandard tactics he's still our top goal scorer.

I actually think that the team should be built around him, even if that means fitting him in as a centre back :smiley-laughing002:

 

he gets robbed of the ball far too much

i am not sure devlin what position your playing him in ?

is it attacking midfielder ? or support striker ? he can play when he gets space which you dont get at the highest levels

what ever the role all players should be at least competent enough to be able to shield the ball for a few moments and be able to lay it off, not get dispossesed a lot and be the cause of the break down of all the teams moves

i am basing all my observations on commons from his european games and he is almost useless in the games as he hasn't the pace or energy or natural professional footballer fitness required for these games
In Scotland yes we could get away with allowing the play to go on all around him and him drifting about and getting on the end of things the way i assume your talking

but i can see very well why ronnie didnt want to play him in these european games as he gets shown up and we are in effect playing with a man down so him getting shown up causes us to get shown up
you/we cant afford to have passengers in these games no matter if they could pop up
with the odd goal, anyone could pop up with the odd goal, but a prerequisite for these european games is being able to stand the pace of these games and be productive which he isn't, bar his lucky goal against dinamo

did you see the fitness of salzburg and zagreb they never stopped running and moving the ball never stopped getting shuttled around and as a consequence we ended chasing them and the ball the entire match

i want more than that i want an end to these embarrasing matches we may not need to be superfit for scotland but we absolutely need it for europe

 

I actually agree with a lot of this, but you can't say his goal against Dinamo was lucky. That is a blinkered view mate. It was a very well taken goal at the end of a good move. He was arguably the worst player on the park after it though, I will say that.

I've said it previously, but for me, Commons would start every game domestically, in Europe though, I don't think he does enough.

 

yeah lucky aint the term im looking for

lets say kris and celtic were fortunate it came early as they didn't look the same team after that, we angered them and they stepped it up especially 2nd half where we couldnt get near them

but yeah it was a cracking goal, pass dummy and one touch lay off and one touch finish in the corner

and we were very very lucky not to lose game or drop points

 

Post is to long to answer on my phone but you do make a few good points. I disagree with Commons performances in Europe though, he was one of many who was very good in the last 16 run.

I don't think we angered them, we didn't show any confidence after the goals both in Salzburg and against Zagreb. The biggest missing factor just now is confidence.

It's surprising you don't seem to place importance on goals though, I don't quite get that when talking about football.