Leaderboard

So we haven't had the season so far that most of us would have hoped for, we haven't built from last season's success, we all are less than impressed with at least one thing at the club, we are all entitled to our opinions and we are all more than quailified to pass judgement on those running our club (he says tongue in cheek) but lets break it down and ask - what would you do if you were the manager? I've sat and read almost every post for a long time and hardly passed comment and where everyone seems to have an opinion on what we should do, has anyone truly sat back and thought 'if we did do what we are suggesting how would we do it or if I were in that position what would I do'? So for everyone that thinks we should get rid of JH or thinks the board should be performing better or thinks the recruitment policy is poor or has a belief that RF is capable of stepping up to the plate and becoming our next manager, let me ask the question - what would you do or rather how would you do the job? Forget about saying we should do this, lets all answer on how you would do it - it's easy to sit back and say what we should do but do you actually know how you would do it? All armchair fans/football manager style pundits step forward, this could make for a very good discussion. You're the manager: - what formation and style of play do you implement and why? Would it work with our current squad? Would you mould your style of play to what your squad can perform to or do make your squad mould to fit your style of play? - how big a squad do you have and what is the breakdown of this squad in numbers for each position? - do you build the team around one player? - do you promote from within and bring youth through? Are you in a position to do so or is it forced upon you for a number of reasons? - where do you recruit from? Who are your contacts? Can you afford who you are looking for? Do you build around a necleus of players and supplement with loan signings then recruit slowly to bolster already recruited talent that you can keep? - who do you bring in on the playing staff? Specifically of all those players who you would be able to attract name some you would bring in. - what training techniques do you install? Who do you bring in as your backroom team or do you stick with who we have? Do you run the training yourself and have your coaches oversee it or do you let them have free-rein to work within your perameters? Or do you have a mix of both? - how many backroom staff do you have? What coaching techniques would you want them to have? How many roles can they coach in? - what do you concentrate most on, cups or the league? Why? Do you have a preference or can you afford to concentrate on all? - how do you juggle your budget? Do you focus on signing free transfers and use any money you have on wages or do you try and buy with the little money you have one or two players on a smaller wage? - do you insist on having the running of everything football related or do you ask for help in the form of a Director of Football? - do you ask for more input on less football related matters? Do you insist on being involved in deciding the budgets and what would be the main focus on your budgets? - for youth teams/development league level, do you oversee this yourself or bring in a team to focus on this and have them coach their way with their tactics/formations or do you insist they stick to your style of play and tactics in the hope it helps younger players step up quicker/easier and integrate better? - do you rotate your youth between first team and youth training to help development? Do you have first team players mentor youth players on football and/or non-football related matters? - at what point do you decide who you want to keep at the club and when do you initiate contract talks? Do you decide early and set out your stall with very little scope to diverse and change or do you let things progress and see what happens? Now I'm no manager, nor am I at all in any way qualified to answer any of the above questions but I'm sure above are only a very few number of questions and scenarios which a football manager has to answer and deal with on a daily basis. Equally I would say it is harder to manage a club at out level with the budgets and constraints that we have than it is to manage at a higher level with a bigger budget. Yes I'm not happy with how this season has gone, I'm at times not happy with our style of play with no substance or penetration, I'm not happy with the quality of some of the players we have and the level they are at, I'm not happy with our lack of investment from the Christie sale, I'm not happy with our recruitment policy, I'm not happy with the way we deal with players going out of contract, I'm not happy with losing players on free transfers to other SPFL clubs, the list can go on but I am still in the camp that believes JH should be given another season to show us what he can do. Go on answer the above then pass comment on what we should do because it's all to easy to pass comment on what we should do without looking at it from the other side. I think sometimes we all need to take a reality check, evalute where we are as a club, be realistic about what we can achieve and how quickly we can acheive it and stop jumping on the band-wagon just because it isn't quite going how we want it to. Would we be having all these discussions had it not been for last seasons success?

Get pisshed, go on holiday and ask for more money.

1. Abandon possession football - we don't have the players to carry it off, it's boring for the fans and is risky at the back. Be quicker in transition and deploy pace and width. Only Barcelona have the players to go as narrow as we are. 2. As indicated in previous post: Be more pro-active with regard to contracts. By January it is too late to start offering contracts to players you want to keep - their minds will have started to wander. Make the necessary offers early and start looking to replace those not wanting to stay immediately. Return to offering longer contracts to give valuable players security and ensure a fee if they move. 3. Have 3 or 4 genuine strikers on the books. Stop recruiting midfielders and then trying to squeeze them into defensive or striking roles. 4. Assuming he doesn't have a terminal injury, sign David Raven and get Meekings back into central defence. 5. Stop sucking up to Celtic and Hibs in the media - it's unsavoury. Stop giving these mediocre teams too much respect: They're remarkably poor this season. I think that just about covers it.

It's genuinely refreshing to see a comment like this from a football fan, which comes in welcome contrast with the alarming number of people who always seem to know far better than the manager does. I have never yet understood how all these managers have jobs while the obviously superior talents of these pitch side experts, who seemingly instantly spot the mistakes managers are constantly making, have mysteriously gone unnoticed and unrewarded.

Only kidding. Have some music instead

Thanks Sneckboy. I'll add Stuart Leslie to my list of ex ICT players. He has had a few clubs in his time hasn't he? I didn't realise he was now with Clach until today!

Vigurs must have one of the best goal / assist ratios per game of any midfielder in the SPL. This from a guy who joined us out of the blue with no pre-season under his belt. Get him signed up.

.......or maybe it has something to do with (not) washing hands!

It is him, indeed! You don't miss a trick! Also, perhaps for this section - congrats to Zander Sutherland and the rest at Brora Rangers. They won the Highland League Cup (knockout-tourney) this afternoon, for the first time in their history! At the 70th time of asking! A 0-0 draw after-extra-time against Nairn County, resulted in penalties...and Brora won 5-4. Zander netted the decisive kick.

A lot of if and's and but's this season unfortunately. If a game lasted 85 minutes instead of 90 we wouldn't be in the bottom 6, but it doesn't, and we are. In some ways we've been a victim of our own success last season. I thought at the start of the season that top 6 would be a great achievement considering the number of players we lost in the summer. Taking into account that all our best players moved on in the summer and we lost a significant number of players to injuries this season, we're not actually doing OK. Overall, John Hughes is still doing a very good job in my books, but next season will tell us a lot more in terms of his ability to recruit and keep instilling his style of play.

Cracking win, just keep the momentum up lads and accumulate as many points as possible for the remainder of the season.

Sat 09 Apr 2016 Gary Wood scored again for Formantine today in a 5-1 win over Clach. I notice an S Leslie scored for Clach. Not sure if that is our ex player Stuart Leslie. Anyone know?

So if we hadn't lost to that injury time sucker punch when we were going for a win v Motherwell last week, we'd have our top 6 destiny in our own hands v Hearts this Tuesday.

Solid result, Dundee United have been on the ascendency recently so an away win is a good achievement. Could have been more judging by the commentary. Gutted we won't be in the top 6, but let's focus on winning our own mini league and staying clear of the play-off place.

Top six offski, never mind, with the shyte season we've had staying clear of relegation and hopefully playoff place will do me! Great result today!

BBC commentators only just worked out that we can make the top 6 if Partick equalise. Top knowledge.....

I too, think it's Hamilton Accies. Or certainly, I've heard Martin Canning mentioning it in interviews! The most recent data I can find is from the end of the 2014 season. Naturally, from then, Dundee and Hamilton aren't listed, while obviously Hibs and St Mirren are. The Scottish football figures are near the end of this comprehensive study - on their page numbers 104 & 105. http://www.globalsportssalaries.com/GSSS%202015.pdf

Well into his seventies but you can still see him strutt his stuff. Fab back catalogue. November in glasgow next i think

Good one that I have not heard for a long time!

Surely the first priority, before discussing who is coming in, is to get the likes of Raven and Polworth tied up on three year contracts. Yogi's signings have been mixed to say the least but these are lads or are of proven ability comfortable with the club and the city. Get them secured please.

Firstly, paragraphs are underrated. Secondly, the SPL no longer exists. Thirdly, we had a very attacking side under Butcher, scoring more goals in 2012-13 than any other top flight season in our history. Our average of two league goals per game when he got us promoted was pretty impressive too. Fourthly, "local players" - only Ross, Munro and Shinnie from that list weren't signed from other clubs. The others simply stayed here for a long time, which makes them no different from Draper, Warren and others currently at the club. We've never had a squad mainly built of local players - in fact we've barely had any local players. It's never harmed us before. I'd rather have a guy from down south who can play a bit than a local boy who can't. Fifthly. "442" - the only thing that bothers me more than Mike Bassett "Four-four-f******-two" types are those who insists we need a big man up front. Anyone who watches football with even half a brain knows that formations and systems are largely overrated these days - one team's 4-2-3-1 involves four forwards and is very attacking, and another team's 4-2-3-1 involves five midfielders and is very defensive. If the poster can name one elite team who play an orthodox 4-4-2, I'd be surprised. As for our "tried and tested 4-4-2", I'm not sure we've played such a system regularly since Wyness and Dargo were up front. Even then, Wyness used to drop deeper so it was more of a 4-4-1-1. I suppose we went with Rooney and Foran up top in the last few weeks of the promotion campaign. Sixthly (is that a word?), why people think Foran would be a good coach is not clear - there is more to coaching than loyalty to a club and a willingness to shout a lot.

Anyway, let's hope Peterhead stuff them on Sunday.

The cynic in me notes that 22 players were in U-21 national squad and yet only two carried the bug back to their team. Both of these from the same team. No epidemic at Reading, Celtic, Inverness, Bradford, Rangers, Aberdeen, Falkirk, Dundee U, Man U or Sporting Clube de Portugal. Maybe it has something to do with deficiencies in immune system being as they are from Edinburgh

Sickness on Tuesday? Could not make it to Inverness. AYE! RIGHT! Hoodwinked.

This has been a con job from the start. Hopefully it will give our players the impetus to go and stuff them on Tuesday