Quote Originally Posted by Smartie View Post
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When he got rid of Milligan he stuck his neck on the block.

Whilst Milligan wasn't universally popular, he was one of our best players during the second half of the season, the second half where we did ok over the piece. He was found wanting bit at Ibrox so I could understand why PH might have wanted to see if he could use the wage for someone better.

As it stands currently he hasn't, and that is looking like one of his most questionable calls so far. A central midfield of Allan, Milligan and AN Other with a bit of energy would provide so, so much more than we're getting right now from the current midfield 3.
I agree with all of the above, I wanted to say the same but you've beaten me to it. He let Milligan go and in doing so we've replaced one player guilty of giving the ball away through indecision with a few capable of doing exactly the same. My hope is that when PH says we are work in progress he also means that ultimately there will be much less of us losing the ball in the middle of the park even when under little pressure. It's no surprise then that at Ibrox when under a lot of pressure all over the park we can't hold on to the ball. Further when we do lose the ball we don't have the players on the park capable of winning it back in a tackle until the defenders are reached and even then our defenders tackles aren't all that great. One thing I admired about Omeonga was his willingness to chase a lost ball and often win it back, something we are glaringly lacking now. The best we have now in that category in the middle is perhaps Slivka, imo, but he wasn't used on Saturday, which wasn't a great decision by PH in my view. Likewise he didn't go for a more experienced defence and he could have played Paul Hanlon on the left. I appreciate that he went for young legs at left back over experience and he also kept the back balanced with two left footers and two right. Perhaps that balance is more important than experience, I don't know, but with hindsight Mackie was sent off and that could be down to inexperience relatively speaking.