Caldwell

[Blackpool Jags]

1 hour ago, AndyMac said:

Sadly no. Wish someone had done a bootleg video of it though, would be worth a watch

I'll settle for a copy of his PowerPoint presentation, the one that clearly wooed Ms Lowe. 

[Jaggernaut]

3 hours ago, Gress said:

If you can look at my profile etc, you will see I have only posted on here 2-3 times,last time was a few years ago when a Dundee United fan ran him down on this site. Should give you a clue as to why ?

Nice one Chris. Looking forward to getting the full story in due time.

[AndyMac]

19 minutes ago, Blackpool Jags said:

I'll settle for a copy of his PowerPoint presentation, the one that clearly wooed Ms Lowe. 

Oh yeah. The Power Point presentation was definitely the money shot

[Lenziejag]

9 hours ago, jaf said:

Well we know their view is the fans will believe anything...….

 

If they read this forum, they would know that the fans believe nothing they say

[dl1971]

17 minutes ago, Lenziejag said:

If they read this forum, they would know that the fans believe nothing they say

Some fans....hopefully none of the players read this forum. Their confidence would be shot to pieces.....

[sandy]

There is no smoke without fire.

The posters who are indicating there has been an issue with Caldwell & Erskine are usually very balanced and well reasoned Forum users. I have no reason to doubt them; and the unusual Club statement draws further attention to the situation.

If Caldwell had done his homework on the players as claimed at the time, he should have known Erskine was talented and gives us something different on the park.

For whatever reason, Caldwell has misjudged this one. He has also taken us to the bottom of the table. 

[erty13]

When a new manager is appointed they normally have a new manager bounce where they pick up results and this cements their credentials as being better than the outgoing manager.

This has not happened with Caldwell, so to maintain credibility you start to blame the quality and attitude of the players, rather than admit your at fault.

The issue with Erskine is that the fans are not questioning his quality or attitude. Yes we know he has not played as well as he can but he certainly is good enough for a team sitting bottom of the league.

I am not privy to if there was a disagreement, however most fans would expect the senior players to speak up to the manager if there was an issue. It takes a strong man manager to take on board feedback, maintain relationships and harmony. 

They easy thing to do is act as a dictator and force the player out.

 

[stuart_adam]

To be honest with you whether Chris stays or goes I wish him well. 

As for Gary - 1 win from 12 is a shambles. If you somehow turn it around with your decisions then you are doing your job right. If not, well then be prepared to be remembered as one of the worst if not worst managerial reigns in Thistles history.

 

As for Low, if Caldwell goes she should follow. This whole season has been a shambles which has taken the club backwards instead of forwards. I was never a huge fan for Beattie, but he done a far better job over a number of years before perhaps losing interest.

[jlsarmy]

1 minute ago, stuart_adam said:

To be honest with you whether Chris stays or goes I wish him well. 

As for Gary - 1 win from 12 is a shambles. If you somehow turn it around with your decisions then you are doing your job right. If not, well then be prepared to be remembered as one of the worst if not worst managerial reigns in Thistles history.

 

As for Low, if Caldwell goes she should follow. This whole season has been a shambles which has taken the club backwards instead of forwards. I was never a huge fan for Beattie, but he done a far better job over a number of years before perhaps losing interest.

It seems to be the Gary Caldwell way or no way at all , Erskine and Doolan had a say in the dressing room when Archibald was there as most senior pros do at a football club , they are also the template to set standards as to what is expected.

Caldwell’s man management is debateable from taking Mtumbo off after 43 mins which basically hung the player out to dry to dealing with the Chris Erskine issue on the week of a very important game against Falkirk.

The spin before the January window, scouts all over down South and we’re covering Scotland as well 

What do we get Harkins and Cardle , two journeymen pros who are actually older than anyone else in the squad and whose best days are behind them , we get the reserve keeper from Celtic even though we’ve got 3 other goalkeepers on the books , Steven Saunders who hadn’t played football for 3 months and was obviously struggling for fitness but looks as if he could be ok when he gets fit , our new goalscorer is Ally Roy deemed not good enough for Dumbarton and doesn’t score a lot of goals which we were desperate for .

Doesn’t look great 

 

[javeajag]

1 hour ago, sandy said:

There is no smoke without fire.

The posters who are indicating there has been an issue with Caldwell & Erskine are usually very balanced and well reasoned Forum users. I have no reason to doubt them; and the unusual Club statement draws further attention to the situation.

If Caldwell had done his homework on the players as claimed at the time, he should have known Erskine was talented and gives us something different on the park.

For whatever reason, Caldwell has misjudged this one. He has also taken us to the bottom of the table. 

Actually you can have smoke without fire ....

erskine has been at best average for the last two years .....even he has said that !

[javeajag]

42 minutes ago, jlsarmy said:

It seems to be the Gary Caldwell way or no way at all , Erskine and Doolan had a say in the dressing room when Archibald was there as most senior pros do at a football club , they are also the template to set standards as to what is expected.

Caldwell’s man management is debateable from taking Mtumbo off after 43 mins which basically hung the player out to dry to dealing with the Chris Erskine issue on the week of a very important game against Falkirk.

The spin before the January window, scouts all over down South and we’re covering Scotland as well 

What do we get Harkins and Cardle , two journeymen pros who are actually older than anyone else in the squad and whose best days are behind them , we get the reserve keeper from Celtic even though we’ve got 3 other goalkeepers on the books , Steven Saunders who hadn’t played football for 3 months and was obviously struggling for fitness but looks as if he could be ok when he gets fit , our new goalscorer is Ally Roy deemed not good enough for Dumbarton and doesn’t score a lot of goals which we were desperate for .

Doesn’t look great 

 

I see so we will appoint a new manager but only as part of a player led committee to ensure the manager isn’t a dictator ? Utter nonsense 

you don’t like Caldwell we all get that , he has a limited amount of time to turn things round we know that too, you don’t like any player he has signed fine ( though I suspect you probably wouldn’t like anybody he signed tbh) yet on Saturday we had a decent performance and an acceptable result and the three new signings played well 

you want to judge Caldwell on poor results but the new players on your opinion and assessment ...why not wait and see how they perform 

[jlsarmy]

1 minute ago, javeajag said:

Actually you can have smoke without fire ....

erskine has been at best average for the last two years .....even he has said that !

Has there been an outstanding player the last 2 years , don’t think there has been and that’s why we’re now bottom of the league, Erskine has hardly featured under Caldwell which maybe tells a story , if Erskine had been played more we might have won more games rather than stick with the same rigid formation and the lack of goal scoring threat .

[jlsarmy]

2 minutes ago, javeajag said:

I see so we will appoint a new manager but only as part of a player led committee to ensure the manager isn’t a dictator ? Utter nonsense 

you don’t like Caldwell we all get that , he has a limited amount of time to turn things round we know that too, you don’t like any player he has signed fine ( though I suspect you probably wouldn’t like anybody he signed tbh) yet on Saturday we had a decent performance and an acceptable result and the three new signings played well 

you want to judge Caldwell on poor results but the new players on your opinion and assessment ...why not wait and see how they perform 

The rhetoric at the start of the season was to build a team for promotion this season , are you still going with that ? , if you were there on Saturday we played well first half , second half we went back to type , lucky to hang on in the end .

Wasn’t a great Dundee United team who had just came off a defeat by Alloa the week before,let’s not get carried away by one first half performance and the result whatever way you want to dress it up took us to the bottom of the league 

[javeajag]

24 minutes ago, jlsarmy said:

The rhetoric at the start of the season was to build a team for promotion this season , are you still going with that ? , if you were there on Saturday we played well first half , second half we went back to type , lucky to hang on in the end .

Wasn’t a great Dundee United team who had just came off a defeat by Alloa the week before,let’s not get carried away by one first half performance and the result whatever way you want to dress it up took us to the bottom of the league 

I wasn’t getting carried away ....an away point at tannadice was an decent point in our circumstances ....get over it 

if you check you will see that I never thought we would get promoted - relegated teams rarely go straight back up from this division - avoiding relegation was my aim ( you could see our squad was shit ) and still is 

[javeajag]

35 minutes ago, jlsarmy said:

Has there been an outstanding player the last 2 years , don’t think there has been and that’s why we’re now bottom of the league, Erskine has hardly featured under Caldwell which maybe tells a story , if Erskine had been played more we might have won more games rather than stick with the same rigid formation and the lack of goal scoring threat .

Archie also had him in the bench regularly .....he’s an up and down player 

someone mentioned my hero Dennis McQuade who was a similar type of player only much much better 

[laukat]

One of the things that has been a debating point this season is how good or bad the playing squad is. Looking at our results every league game we have played we have only lost 4 games by more than 1 goal and all but 1 been away from home (Ross County 2-0 home, Dundee Utd away 3-1, Ayr away 2-0, Morton away 5-1, Ross County away 2-0)

It tends to suggest that we are cometitive in all games but especially at home. In a struggling team logic would suggest that getting points at home is the first place to start so we should probably look more closely at what those results have looked like. Archie's record at home in the league was played 4 won 3. Caldwell's record is Played 5 won 1 drawn 1 lost 3. (I've excluded the 2-1 loss to Dundee United as it was Allison and Britton in charge). Both mangers have realy struggled away from home with Caldwell getting 1 point and Archie 0

So why did a team that had a won 75% of its home points then drop to winning only 26% ?

Caldwell suggests its that we don't score enough goals and to a degree thats true. In the games we won under Archie in 2 of the 3 we scored 2 or more goals. In the one Caldwell one we scored more than 1 goal. However we did beat Morton under Archie by only scoring one goal (that the referee gave) also all of Archie's wins were by only a 1 goal margin so that would suggest we were capable of holding onto a lead. Of the wins Archie had in only 1 did we concede a goal in the second half (Falkirk at home).

If you look at the 3 lost and 1 drawn we've lost the winning goal in the ones we lost after 70 minutes and in the one we drew after 58 minutes. So we appear to have got consistenly worse defensively at home in the second half since Caldwell took over. The next question would be whats changed when its broadly the same set of players?

Have we got unlucky and individual errors increased? Its looks unlikely to be luck in such similar fashion over 4 games and as the players have not really changed why are we getting more issues than earlier in the season?

Has the formation changed? Well with 4 at the back under Caldwell we lost 2 and with a 3-5-2 we lost 1 drew 1 and lost 1. 4 at the back under Archie was more succesful so unlikely to be formation

That I think means we are left with only tactics, training and confidence/moral. Confidence/moral is almost impossible to analyse and usually follows from other changes.

Are the tactics and training making the players tire in the second half? The in game tactics look to be aiming for a slightly faster pace of football and we know Caldwell has changed the training regime as he made a real selling point of it at interview so it would suggest the reason we are in a relegation battle is that he's has introduced a training regime and tactics that our playing squad either can't adjust to or are taking time to adjust to rather than the players not being good enough.

So the last hope is really that he can recruit players that can play at that tempo for 90 minutes bit the signing of 34 year old Harkins looks, Saunders who has not played a lot this season and Cardle who hasn't played since 3rd November doesn't seem to fit with that desire

P.S. in no way is this we should never have fired Archie post or a the squad of players are good enough post. Archie's time was up after the 4-0 loss to County and we do have some sub standard players and some gaps in the squad.

[javeajag]

25 minutes ago, laukat said:

One of the things that has been a debating point this season is how good or bad the playing squad is. Looking at our results every league game we have played we have only lost 4 games by more than 1 goal and all but 1 been away from home (Ross County 2-0 home, Dundee Utd away 3-1, Ayr away 2-0, Morton away 5-1, Ross County away 2-0)

It tends to suggest that we are cometitive in all games but especially at home. In a struggling team logic would suggest that getting points at home is the first place to start so we should probably look more closely at what those results have looked like. Archie's record at home in the league was played 4 won 3. Caldwell's record is Played 5 won 1 drawn 1 lost 3. (I've excluded the 2-1 loss to Dundee United as it was Allison and Britton in charge). Both mangers have realy struggled away from home with Caldwell getting 1 point and Archie 0

So why did a team that had a won 75% of its home points then drop to winning only 26% ?

Caldwell suggests its that we don't score enough goals and to a degree thats true. In the games we won under Archie in 2 of the 3 we scored 2 or more goals. In the one Caldwell one we scored more than 1 goal. However we did beat Morton under Archie by only scoring one goal (that the referee gave) also all of Archie's wins were by only a 1 goal margin so that would suggest we were capable of holding onto a lead. Of the wins Archie had in only 1 did we concede a goal in the second half (Falkirk at home).

If you look at the 3 lost and 1 drawn we've lost the winning goal in the ones we lost after 70 minutes and in the one we drew after 58 minutes. So we appear to have got consistenly worse defensively at home in the second half since Caldwell took over. The next question would be whats changed when its broadly the same set of players?

Have we got unlucky and individual errors increased? Its looks unlikely to be luck in such similar fashion over 4 games and as the players have not really changed why are we getting more issues than earlier in the season?

Has the formation changed? Well with 4 at the back under Caldwell we lost 2 and with a 3-5-2 we lost 1 drew 1 and lost 1. 4 at the back under Archie was more succesful so unlikely to be formation

That I think means we are left with only tactics, training and confidence/moral. Confidence/moral is almost impossible to analyse and usually follows from other changes.

Are the tactics and training making the players tire in the second half? The in game tactics look to be aiming for a slightly faster pace of football and we know Caldwell has changed the training regime as he made a real selling point of it at interview so it would suggest the reason we are in a relegation battle is that he's has introduced a training regime and tactics that our playing squad either can't adjust to or are taking time to adjust to rather than the players not being good enough.

So the last hope is really that he can recruit players that can play at that tempo for 90 minutes bit the signing of 34 year old Harkins looks, Saunders who has not played a lot this season and Cardle who hasn't played since 3rd November doesn't seem to fit with that desire

P.S. in no way is this we should never have fired Archie post or a the squad of players are good enough post. Archie's time was up after the 4-0 loss to County and we do have some sub standard players and some gaps in the squad.

Interesting analysis and as you say Archie’s time was up and there are/were deficiencies in the squad but we are where we are

we see what the new additions add to the squad but I suspect Caldwell has till the end of Feb to turn things round 

[Flycatcher]

13 hours ago, allyo said:

That statement has me very uncomfortable. I've never known Thistle to issue a statement on other clubs speaking to our players. These deals get done privately and then we get told. The only reason I can see for that statement is to try to deflect criticism or blame if/when he leaves. On to Chris Erskine. Basically to say, aye well you all thought he was a legend but look at that, he's gone and signed for someone else. Hung out to dry, all the pressure put on him. Not sure how he comes back from that.

Why? Because they know that the fans are very unhappy and they are losing us. Which is really sad but true. But this statement is really ill judged and will not help in any way.

I honestly don't know where this goes next. There is no doubt in my mind the Caldwell was a terrible appointment. I can't go along with the idea that he needs his own players and had no chance. Maybe not to win the league. But he inherited enough points and players to keep us off the bottom. I also think the club is looking really foolish, in almost everything it does right now.

Blah. I have no answers.

Agree 

[lady-isobel-barnett]

I also feel the notion that Caldwell always needed his own players in is wearing  a bit thin. If that was the case he should be signing players he'd previously identified, players with a future ahead of them. He may of course still do as there's plenty of time left in the window but I doubt it's any coincidence that three of the players signed are three players that most of us knew were available. No real sourcing required so to speak.  Then again we've been let down by too many "leftfield signings" recently so maybe it's part of a masterstroke signing the obvious.

[JAG1970]

As I and others have said, if Caldwell had told the board at his interview the team was sh*te and he would only be able to win one game until the window, they would have told him where to go. So let's not have anyone pretend that Caldwell has been anything other than a failure so far. Unable to get the best out of a mediocre squad, certainly a squad that should not be at the bottom of the league. To hear some people say that this squad was always destined to be relegated is just nonsense. Fine if his additions get us out of relegation trouble but finishing 7th or lower has to been seen as failure and must result in him (and Low) moving on at the end of the season.

He always comes across as incredibly arrogant/know it all, but right now most of his audience (Thistle fans and the media) view him as a twat.  It's up to him to get results in the next 3 games, all at home, if he can't do that then his fate is sealed. Just the timing that would be up for debate. If we finish 7th or lower and he was still the manager, I for one would not purchase a ST next season, a season which will be my 50th going to Firhill. I've seen plenty of dud managers in that time and right now he looks to be in that hall of infamy. I'll be delighted if he proves me, and many others, wrong.

Other views are available.

 

Edited January 9, 2019 by JAG1970

[lady-isobel-barnett]

Gather round, everyone, Here's the plan......https://www.footballscotland.co.uk/spfl/scottish-championship/gary-caldwell-partick-thistle-management-15607073

[allyo]

7 minutes ago, lady-isobel-barnett said:

Gather round, everyone, Here's the plan......https://www.footballscotland.co.uk/spfl/scottish-championship/gary-caldwell-partick-thistle-management-15607073

Well, he's certainly succeeded in making them look uncomfortable on a football pitch.

Edited January 9, 2019 by allyo

[laukat]

"I have a saying ‘be comfortable being uncomfortable."

Is that a message to the players or the fans?

"You have to stop losing games first, then you can really get started going in the right direction."

Hows that one going?

[jaf]

"The team’s away form continues to cripple them. "

Taking the last 6 home games only as a form guide, we are second bottom of the Championship table for home games only. In that time we have not played the league leaders at home, nor the team who are third.

 

 

[partickthedog]

36 minutes ago, lady-isobel-barnett said:

Gather round, everyone, Here's the plan......https://www.footballscotland.co.uk/spfl/scottish-championship/gary-caldwell-partick-thistle-management-15607073

I was intrigued by his comment that he tried to injure his own players and thought that at least he may be succeeding in something.

Then I realised that the word was "inure".