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The stuff about Harper being deliberately subbed off is typical of our club.  We are an utter shambles, on and off the park.  

Someone said that if we go down the club will disintegrate, it's already disintegrating.  The guys in charge have no idea what they are doing - Muirfield Mills are a group of ex-pats who wanted to stick some money into local sport and now they are running the club - they don't know what they are doing.  I've been told a few things about the shambolic organisation of the club and it all rings true.  We have a load of utter amateurs trying to administer the club, from the teamsheets, to the commercial side, to the finances, to player recruitment, to the pitch.

A few years back someone told me that a former board member said about Terry Butcher "we've created a monster!" because he basically ran the club, ran the playing side, ran the scouting, did a huge amount of media.  Since he left things have slipped - the success of the Hughes era (with Butchers players) hid it for a couple of years but once that fell away there was no disguising it.  Robbo is a positive guy but he's not managed to take us from a good position a couple of months ago to anywhere near where we need to be. 

If we stay up, which I think is doubtful, we need to try, somehow, to get an investor in who can back us for two seasons to clear out the playing squad, employ a manager who can recruit players of value and develop those we need to keep and give the club some organisation.  Sadly, it's doubtful we'll get any of that.

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I agree with a lot of what you say Chris, we need another Pele to find players from lower leagues and mould them into a team. JR won promotion with Pele's team plus a great addition in Bingham who was nearing the end of his career. Our football in that season probably wasn't as good as Pele's teams and JR was using a tactic which went out when he played, the big switch ball to the back of the box. For me, the players would have won that championship with almost any Manager pity it wasn't Pele in charge. We need to find our level wherever that may be and build from there but we need the right man at the helm and it's not JR, we are not in a financial position to attract anyone else unless we identify the next go getter from the lower leagues.

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On 14/03/2018 at 9:01 PM, HawkeyeTheGnu said:

We had been as high as second in the league and reached the league cup semi final in the season that Butcher left. There’s no telling how that could have finished if Butcher had stayed. 

Whilst you can’t ignore losing quality players, and the injuries that occurred, the fact remains is that Hughes recruitment was generally poor. You can only sign what is available, but maybe it’s better to keep some of the budget rather than sign lots and lots of midfielders, when we were clearly still short in both defence and attack. 

 

I understand that. The trouble is we tended to hurt ourselves when we had the ball by trying to retain possession too close to our own goal and then making a mistake. That season, we weren’t generally ekeing out points, we were trying to hold onto a lead and often failing. I don’t dismiss the winning 4 out of 5, I am just saying that it made the season look better than it probably was. 

 

Surely an experienced manager would have clarified the budget? The style could have been successful for years to come, but only with the right players. I would question Hughes’ ability to find and recruit those players. 

Without being pendant in residence boom boom my response to your points are as follows:

Butcher left, we did not finish second nor did we win a cup and we lost Andrew Shinnie who was a stand out for us.

I'm glad you accept that losing your best players and injuries can have a deleterious effect on the team, which relates to point 3.

With no out ball (Watkins had left and Doran was injured) an aimless hoof up the park would have achieved little so yes, the players at the back had difficulties as a direct result of losing your quickest forward and having another quick player injured.

The reason why JH left was over the very issue you raise, trying to clarify the budget. I accept your point about Hughes recruitment but remember it wasn't Butcher who identified the bargains brought to the club from down south.

The fact is we have never had enough money to buy established front men, they cost too much, which is why we have always gone for players from the lower leagues or strikers who have had injury problems or fallen out of favour or guys who can't find another club we were soooo fortunate to get Marley Watkins who could convert from being a winger to a very effective centre. I do not expect in my lifetime to experience the highs of JH's reign, he turned us into a proper football team and the board turned us into a laughing stock in one season, quite an achievement. You can continue to have a downer on JH if you like but he will remain our most successful Manager long after we have departed this life.

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11 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

There is no doubting that Yogi had great success but we are now paying the price for his arrogant shortcomings in other respects.

In my view, all things considered and in relative terms, our most successful manager was Steve Paterson.

Kingsmills I will be very gentle and suggest you wrote the above whilst not thinking. Listen, I loved watching the football played by Pele's teams and he had to rebuild several times during his tenure but he wasn't competing every week in the SPL nor in national cup finals and sadly he never won the Championship though I contend that JR won it with his team.

As for Yogi being arrogant, I worked beside a lad who played out in the middle east, his son was captain of Falkirk's under 18's and he raved about Yogi as a person, a coach and a Manager, arrogance was never mentioned as one of his traits. We all have a bit of ego, it's what protects us from the world but arrogant? not in my book.

As you can see from my numerous posts I have too much time on my hands at the moment, please excuse my fulminations.

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14 hours ago, wynthank15 said:

The reason why JH left was over the very issue you raise, trying to clarify the budget. I accept your point about Hughes recruitment but remember it wasn't Butcher who identified the bargains brought to the club from down south.

Who cares who was responsible. The fact is that Butcher had a system that worked well with a limited budget and signed some cracking players for us. Even when they moved on we still got some excellent replacements which were supplemented with cheap loan or short term signings. Hughes, with a bigger budget, completely failed to replace the good players when they left, signed about ten central midfielders and didn't address our shortcomings up front for the vast majority of his tenure.

Your never ending romanticism with Hughes is, to a point, merited. I don't disagree that we will probably never hit those highs again. That said, you are also pretty deluded regarding other parts of his tenure, namely player recruitment, that, whilst an obstacle for previous managers, had still previously been accomplished with much greater success, and with less money to boot, than what Hughes had at his disposal.

That failure to recruit well was the start of a slippery slope. Foran though was the catalyst for the resultant downfall.

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On 16/03/2018 at 9:07 AM, RiG said:

Who cares who was responsible. The fact is that Butcher had a system that worked well with a limited budget and signed some cracking players for us. Even when they moved on we still got some excellent replacements which were supplemented with cheap loan or short term signings. Hughes, with a bigger budget, completely failed to replace the good players when they left, signed about ten central midfielders and didn't address our shortcomings up front for the vast majority of his tenure.

Your never ending romanticism with Hughes is, to a point, merited. I don't disagree that we will probably never hit those highs again. That said, you are also pretty deluded regarding other parts of his tenure, namely player recruitment, that, whilst an obstacle for previous managers, had still previously been accomplished with much greater success, and with less money to boot, than what Hughes had at his disposal.

That failure to recruit well was the start of a slippery slope. Foran though was the catalyst for the resultant downfall.

RIG, let me enjoy my delusions, anyone suggesting we would win the SC and finish 3rd in that season would have faced the same charge.

Never ending romanticism is bang on the money, that a small club with a savvy Manager could do so well. The feeling of joy was only enhanced by the gnashing of teeth coming from the central belt press who wanted us gone from the SPL and gave only grudging credit for a marvellous achievement, don't you know it was only due to the weakness of other clubs that we did so well, that's delusional.

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7 hours ago, wynthank15 said:

 let me enjoy my delusions, anyone suggesting we would win the SC and finish 3rd in that season would have faced the same charge.

 

I agree that few people would have suggested we would win the Cup and finish 3rd in the league that season - but only because of the complete mess Hughes made of the previous season.  

When he took the reigns we were 2nd with 28 points from 13 games. In the remaining 25 games we managed just 29 points.  That's flirting with relegation form despite having the best squad we have ever had and playing in a seriously weakened division (No Rangers and Hibs and Hearts in self inflicted freefall).  In the cup, having comfortably beaten Morton 4-0 in the last game before Hughes' arrival, we stuttered to a narrow victory against Stranraer after drawing the first game and then got thrashed 5-0 at home to Dundee Utd.  We could and should have had European football a season earlier.

 

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On 19/03/2018 at 11:08 AM, DoofersDad said:

I agree that few people would have suggested we would win the Cup and finish 3rd in the league that season - but only because of the complete mess Hughes made of the previous season.  

When he took the reigns we were 2nd with 28 points from 13 games. In the remaining 25 games we managed just 29 points.  That's flirting with relegation form despite having the best squad we have ever had and playing in a seriously weakened division (No Rangers and Hibs and Hearts in self inflicted freefall).  In the cup, having comfortably beaten Morton 4-0 in the last game before Hughes' arrival, we stuttered to a narrow victory against Stranraer after drawing the first game and then got thrashed 5-0 at home to Dundee Utd.  We could and should have had European football a season earlier.

 

DD I think you are being very harsh, what did Butcher achieve when he went to Hibs? after all he made the decision to go. I think he would have been delighted with 29 points. Re the DU game which I referred to earlier in this thread and the reasons for that defeat, my point is this, had JH not changed the players mentality and style of play we would have won nothing. My regret is that the style he infused the players with which got results, despite crippling injury problems, the club should have maintained that philosophy going forward as a template for how the team should play. That style forces every player to be responsible for the ball and improves their touch and vision, if either is lacking they are quickly found out. Touch, vision, movement backed by fitness which is a given, plus understanding how you fit into the overall team structure both offensively and defensively are the essentials of any successful team. The great Marcello Lippi was asked what was the greatest asset he looked for in a player, and he answered intelligence. If a player is intelligent he can understand all of the nuances required by the Manager and how he fits into the overall plan.

I really don't understand the reluctance to give JH the praise he deserves for what he achieved without all the speculative backbiting, we shouldha couldha, wouldha if Butcher hadn't upped and offed, he did and the rest was a wonderful part of our history. So much so I've written a song about it which I will put up on the site time permitting.

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Time to put this to bed once and for all and focus on the present and future.

We've had great times, bad times, and many more of both to come, I am sure.

We've a final, admittedly of a small cup, but need to help the players build a platform to build from.

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On 3/22/2018 at 12:08 AM, wynthank15 said:

he did and the rest was a wonderful part of our history. So much so I've written a song about it which I will put up on the site time permitting.

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