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FTFY

I have been away for a week, so catching up and I'm reminded why I love this forum. There is a sort of mass manic depression about it. When I left, we had just had a couple of decent games and it was all about just a couple of tweaks to the squad and we could be pushing for the play-offs. After a bad game against United, it is get rid of the lot and we might just avoid automatic relegation. Got to love the wild swings !

MacKinnon signing should allow Bannigan to do his fowling further up the park.

That would be a marina, I suppose?

That ink's taking a long time to dry!

Some great thoughts and thanks to all. I think Laukat hit the nail in terms of us doing better when we’ve had strong board leadership and if we’d avoided sentimentality over managers. I know money is very important and while Colin Weirs money didn’t go on the first team it did leave more budget for it with not having to divert from first team funds to fund youth. So for a short while we may have had an advantage over the likes of Motherwell. Then again United, Hibs and Hearts have all squandered fortunes and been down here. So I think there’s a lot of truth in the point made about teams expectations as that can force poor decision making, whether over budgets, hasty signings or sackings and appointments. I think the choice over managers has been key for some clubs. Motherwell rarely makes mistakes. Even when Butcher was there he’s had a good spell. Who’d even heard of Steve Robinson? St Johnstone are desperately poor to watch but Tommy Wright works wonders. Killie haven’t had a great season this year but Clarke last year. Of course whoever you appoint is always a gamble as we’ve sadly learned the hard way. I really felt that in our last spell and while under Beattie I’d never felt the club to be more stable and having a better chance to establish ourselves for the long term. I almost think the top 6 achievement was bad as there was only one way to go and we were ahead of plan. Just seemed to turn to crap so quickly. Anyway that’s history now and no point dwelling just love us to find the right long term solutions. McCall in the dug out is a good start. Lets hope we can start to get the rest right across this season.

Leaves Hamilton Accies https://www.hamiltonacciesfc.co.uk/darian-mackinnon/

So close, but the Marina was a Morris. The Austin Atlantic is probably the closed to a boat pun. Sorry m’lady

Reckon getting McKinnon in will really benefit Bannigan and let him play a bit furthet forward. O'ware is the best of a poor bunch at centre half but the defence should also benefit from someone like mckinnon in front of them. I'm hoping getting a better goalkeeper in the summer is something we are looking at, Fox does my head in. I'd punt Saunders, Mcginty, Harkins, Miller, Robson, Slater, I dont know about Williamson tbh. But we will need a back up RB so we could do alot worse than having him as that. Mansell is still young but with Rudden coming in I'd imagine he will no longer be needed, hes not very good but he seems a hard working young lad and feel quite bad for him that his ability doesnt match his work rate. Not seen enough of Jones or Austin to give a opinion tbh. I like Cardle but i dont know if we should keep him for next season, maybe as a squad player. Gordon i would definitely keep, really hoping he can be improved because he has that knack of getting into the box and making runs at the right time. But he really needs to be more productive on the ball and get involved more.

Yes. Office open until 5, i think.

We defintely have defensive problems mainly because of the personell available. Our rightback is more a wingback so relies on having a defensive midfielder in front of him. That worked ok until we lost Kakay. We currently rely on Bannigan and Cole playing deeper to protect the defence as we have no proper defensive midfield. We also don't have a left sided central defender so distribution on the left side is heavily dependent on Cole. On the plus side the rumoured signings are in areas that would address most of our problems by the end of the window and the potential system McCall wants to play looks like its been continued into the players we're looking at on PCA's. Hopefully by the end of the window we'll have a team that looks like the following Fox Houston(rangers loanee)-O'Ware-Mayo (rangers loanee)-Penrice Cole-MacKinnon-Bannigan Cardle Rudden-Graham Next Season might look like the follwoing if we stay in the championship: Fox New Signing-Brownlie-McCart (ICT)-Penrice Cole-Docherty-Bannigan Zanatta - Rudden- New signing

Good points been made by jagfox & exiledjag. Motherwell would've been a yo-yo but for lucky circumstances. If I remember the "Motherwell Rule" has been enforced three times otherwise I believe they would've spent a fair amount of time in the 2nd tier. St Johnstone thru a combination of luck and good club management have enjoyed a steady time of it. Luck in as much re how they found themselves at McDiarmid in the first place. And secondly finding themselves close by to Perth Crematorium.

One of the major differences I think, as jagfox points out, is money. Also in the case of most of the clubs mentioned a wealthy benefactor (s) who was willing to put money into the player budget to fund signing the club couldn't otherwise afford. For example, Kilmarnock (Johnston and now Boyle), St Johnstone (Brown), Motherwell (the Amerkcam/Canadian businessman prior to fan ownership), Ross County (McGregor), Dundee (various businessmen over the years) and St Mirren (Sale of Love St - £16 Millions). I know the above isn't the only reason as some of our managerial appointments and signings has been very poor. However could Kilmarnock have appointed Mackie as their manager or signed players like SOD on the level of revenue generated from attendences of around 5000 and related merchandising. I doubt it. Also their accounts for last year showed a small profit with a footnote that the club owed a Director (assumed to be Boyle) £800000! I acknowledge we have/had Colin Weir but as far as I was aware his support was focused on the Academy and more recently the proposed training centre that has evolved into club ownership and eventual transfer to fan ownership. I am not aware he funded any football related appointments or signings. This is not a criticism of how Colin Weir supported our club. If the rules of Financial Fair Play (not sure this is correct designation) were applied consistently to clubs in the SPL, Kilmarnock, Hearts, Dundee, Ross County, St Johnstone, Motherwell and others would all have been punished years ago for living beyond their means.

Budget mostly, when in the top flight we've almost always been near the bottom of the top 10/12 since the Premier League era came into effect. We've nearly always been a middling team and were okay when it was a top flight of 18 or over. Outside the top flight our support quickly drops off or we've been saddled with too much dead weight in players on too high wages. I'm not sure what our overall league placing would be but I'd guess it would level out somewhere between 12th-18th, certainly since the reconstruction of 1975.

Two goals lost from Thistle throw-ins and another because our goalkeeper is glued to his line, but, you know, Kenny Miller.

Rudden signs on 2 year deal from Rangers. Small fee but add on if transferred. Just waiting for clearance which should be on Monday. per Ian McColl on radio.

The gate receipts we’ll receive from 6,000 peasants is most welcome, but in football terms it’s the last thing we need. Take the giro money and move on. Arbroath the following week is of far more importance to us.

The one consolation is that McCall is in charge. He has managed to wring results out of this mob. If Caldwell was still in charge we would be gone by now.

If we are not already in the must win zone we are close. All the teams near us apart from Dunfermline have at least 1 game in hand. Our next league game is Arbroath away and so far our record against the 2 part time teams is poor. Played 5, drawn 4 and lost 1. Imo we need a win at Arbroath to hopefully get some confidence going. It is only another 4/5 league games and we are away to yesterdays opponents. The only league table that counts is the current league table and we are second bottom.

Yesterday showed up all the weaknesses in the current Thistle team. They can dominate a game for spells, but can't score. They give the ball away in midfield carelessly and don't have the players to win it back. The defence leaks like a sieve with defenders prone to making mistakes. There's no point in looking for consolation in the thought that the game would have been different if only we'd scored in the first half hour. Of course it would, but experience of previous games indicates that's the problem right there. Too often we don't score when on top and the opposition realise they've little to fear. The only way forward, I think, is with different players which, thankfully, the manager is working on. I'm fearful, though, that we'll have to suffer more embarrassment next week before any new players can have an impact.

Watched United's goalie dominate his box all afternoon. What a stark contrast with Fox, shit scared to leave his line. Ultimately it didn't cost us against Inverness but by christ it did today. He has many good qualities as a goalie but if he is incapable of clearing out a corner 1 yard from his line he needs replacing.