ictchris

Scottish football is full of ideas that will never, ever die and this is one of them.  A load of total *****.

Are we back to looking at managerial win percentages?

Danny Lennon doesn't have a perfect record but he had several tricky jobs.  He took Cowdenbeath to two successive promotions, which is probably the best outcome you could hope for with them.  He kept St Mirren in the top flight and won a major trophy, again probably the best he could hope for.  The fact they've dropped like a stone since he was let go is indicative that he did a pretty good job.  They didn't ever set the heather on fire in the Premiership but the two 8th place finishes he managed were the best positions that St Mirren have finished in since the 1980s.

Since then he's had two short-term appointments - he kept Alloa up but didn't manage to kick on the following season and then had a short spell at Airdrie to cover for when Eddie Wolecki had a stroke.

He's not a glamour choice or anything like that but he has experience of managing sides at this level, and above.  He has been involved in Scottish football for a long time so will hopefully have a good understanding of the teams around us and be able to prepare the team a bit better than we were last season.  I wasn't particularly impressed with his St Mirren team but you can't argue with his achievements.  Also, for someone like Danny Lennon, we are a huge opportunity, we are the biggest club he'll probably get a shot at managing at the moment.  He'll certainly be motivated to succeed.

If we do appoint him I would be happy.

Do other clubs fans and former players continually harp on about getting back previous managers/players, or is it just us?

Falkirk fans on P&B saying that we've signed John Baird.

Ultra-experienced First Division striker.  Good recent record.  Solid signing I'd say.

The communications from the club have been pish for years, the club statements are poorly written, aren't clear and in many cases are actually infuriating.  Things like the statement about Greg Tansey when he was targeted by Aberdeen, the bizarre statement when Hughes left, the fact that we were publicising a "one course meal and pay bar" for the Champions League final minutes after we were smashed by our local rivals.

That's continued in this close season.  A perfunctory statement detailing that Foran is leaving, a few puff pieces about the new board and then worst of all the announcement of season ticket prices.  If the statement on season tickets had been thought through even for a couple of minutes then it would've included an acknowledgement that some fans would be disappointed at the prices but that the club need to maintain them to allow us to challenge then people might have come around to it.  As it was there a single, throwaway sentence about the prices.  You don't need to be a communications genius to anticipate what the reaction will be to something and try to head it off at the pass, as it were.

When you look at clubs like Hearts and Hibs who have focused on communications from the board and club, it's night and day for us and it doesn't have to cost money.  The updates Hearts issue from Ann Budge, the way Leanne Dempster has had an impact at Hibs - this is a cultural change and it doesn't have to cost money.  Since the board talked about appointing a general manager, the role has been discussed as something like having a 'football man' on the board, like Malpas or Butcher.  I think the role needs to be more than that, needs to encompass how the club engages with the fans, with sponsors and local businesses, with government agencies, with the wider community.  A big part of that is having someone with overall responsibility for this and the GM could do that.

I'm sure Don did lots for the club without pay and the YouTube stuff is excellent.  The Twitter account was engaging and responded well to queries rather than just pushing out links to the website, which is a lot better than most clubs official Twitter accounts.  I do think that perhaps the club have taken advantage of him a bit if he's been doing all this without pay though and there's surely someone at the club now who can operate a Twitter account to send out the latest fixtures?  It's almost passive-aggressive to just not do anything.

18 hours ago, Renegade said:

I'm increasingly feeling that it'll be a surprise appointment that hasn't even been mentioned yet. 

As with Paul Sheerin, if Darren Dods hadn't played for us would people want him?

Dundee United have significant debts, we don't.

Also, the compensation for Sheerin won't be significant.  Recently Jack Ross was linked heavily with Dundee and it was widely reported that the compensation clause in his contract was £20,000.  I'd amazed if there was any sort of clause like that in a Development managers contract.  

Sheerin would be an underwhelming appointment but better than appointing some utter Scottish football jobber.

Coaching under 20s is different from being a manager, please remember that when discussing his record at Aberdeen if we appoint him.  He had a great start to his time at Arbroath, nearly taking them to successive promotions but fell away badly and got relegated.  He has no experience of managing full-time players.  He has spent the last twenty years in Scottish football, suggesting he'll focus on recruiting domestic players rather than casting the net wider the way we've done in the last few seasons.  

Saw someone on Twitter post that we have interviewed Terry Butcher, Danny Lennon and Colin Calderwood.

Billy Reid did a great job at Hamilton and basically laid the foundations for all their success. The emphasis on youth and the organised system that they play is down to him. I'm not sure he's the person you want to come in and make a diffference straight away though. He was given a long run as Accies manager and waa able to out that in place. We need someone to come in, out a squad together and get us competing straight away. 

Billy Davies has an excellent track record as a manager in the second tier in England, I think it's highly doubtful that he's want to drop down to our level.  He's also a notoriously difficult person to get on with, although the lesser press scrutiny up here might be a good thing for him. I'd say there's little chance of him coming here though. I wish he would, if only so I could hear Bannerman try to interview him.

I'd be amazed if we go for someone like Aitken.  I doubt (and hope) that none of the speculation is relevant - we've just revamped the board so it's doubtful that journalists will have relevant contacts with people at the club to get inside scoops on what is going on.

Our fans do seem to be obsessed with returning to previous managers and ex-players.  If Sheerin hadn't played for us, literally nobody would be suggesting him as a candidate

39 minutes ago, Bronson said:

Chris Sutton

The Caley Thistle Massive are loving it

I don't think it's really surprising that any of these players are leaving.  Meekings already intimated that he would be leaving at the end of his contract, he's far too good for the Championship to be honest.  Billy Mckay isn't our player and is probably well outside our price range.  Alex Fisher would've been a good signing in the Championship though, that's a blow that he is leaving but if he's got a better offer elsewhere then you can understand it.

Ainier, Ebbe, Cole, King, Laing, Horner and Brown?  None of them are going to make any real difference to the team.  Anier is one of the worst players I've ever seen for us, utter, total garbage.  Cole showed a few sparkles but really, what was his contribution?  Nothing.  King is the same, a player who just took up space on the pitch without doing anything.  Laing had a couple of decent games but was also in the side for some of our shellackings that saw us pushed into the spiral of doom.  Horner is a bench-warmer, I hope he gets himself out of the hole he's found himself in though.  Jason Brown I've not seen so can't say anything about.

Ebbe may have done OK in a few Development games but there's a big jump from that to being a professional starter.  Hopefully he's learned from the experience, he seems a decent guy.

Looking at it, we haven't had a summer where we made significant improvements to the team since 2013 - we are stale and ended up suffering due to it.  We tried to add players of quality to the 'spine' but added dross and when the established spine didn't perform we couldn't buy a win.  We need a manager in place to change the ennui around the club at the moment and keeping the list of players above isn't really going cut it.

Sadly, I think we'll recruit some useless jobber who'll sign complete *****.  Oh well.

The statement is terribly written as well, a single throwaway line about why the prices are staying the same.

Every time the club put any sort of statement out there's something off or annoying about it. From announcing Yogi had left without saying he'd left, to that farce about the "routine board meeting". I don't know who is writing these but they have no idea about communicating clearly and honestly.

On 2017-5-30 at 11:32 AM, ictchris said:

Looking at win percentages across managers careers is not what Moneyball / analytics is about.  Looking at stats like that raw don't tell you a great deal - a manager operating on a low budget with a side punching above their weight in terms of which division they are in will likely have a lower win percentage than someone with loads of money who still performs below expectations.  A good example would be Stevie Aitken at Dumbarton - he's got a win percentage of 25% so he must be a dud right?  Wrong.  He's working with a part-time club in a division that not only has mostly full time teams but teams with some of the highest budgets in Scottish football.  He's done a remarkable job to keep them in that division and to get so many wins.  

Also, that doesn't mean that Stevie Aitken is going to be a great manager if he went to a bigger club.  Look at Ian Murray, his predecessor who had a fantastic record and was hailed as a solid appointment when he went to St Mirren.  He turned into a disaster.  Dick Campbell is one of the most successful lower league managers in decades in this country but I doubt any full-time team would look at him.

7 minutes ago, RiG said:

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/sport/spfl/15320523.Stevie_Aitken_focused_on_Dumbarton_amid_Inverness_link/

Can't imagine there is much in this? I'd be surprised if we were able to pay compensation to get someone in.

No idea where they get these rumours from.  Highly placed secretive sources IMO.

Ian Murray was the hot Scottish manager when he kept Dumberton in the Championship and established them there as a part-time side.  He got a move to a bigger, full-time club in St Mirren and it was an absolute disaster, binned after 20 games.

Often successful managers have to pick their club as much as be picked.

16 minutes ago, Yngwie said:

Delay selling season tickets until we have some positive news? Don't think so.

Or try and get things moving so we could have something to tell the fans when putting season tickets on sale?  Considering board members were resigning six weeks ago over the position of Foran I don't believe that we haven't had a chance to try and get things moving in terms of finding a new manager or recruiting for next season.

The comment about next season's promotion really sticks in the craw though.  Who puts something like that in a statement telling the fans they'll be paying Premiership prices for Championship tickets?

Quote

on our promotion back to the Premiership in season 2018/19.

Absolutely pathetic.  We've got ten outfield players and no manager.  We haven't announced anything about players to be released or retained or anything.  But we put out a press release saying that we are keeping Premiership prices in the Championship with a line like that in it.  We aren't in a position to be arrogant.

I understand that we probably need to keep those prices but FFS, at least sugar coat it with some sort of positive announcement.  

Fairly sure we're going to get some completely useless jobber.

Malpas has issued a "come and get me plea" according to today's P&J.

Hopefully the fact that he has to issue a plea means that we aren't considering him.  I do get the feeling that we didn't plan following the sacking of Foran and will probably end up appointing some useless jobber in a hurry.

I wouldn't mind a team of thugs who hoof it up the park to be honest, as long as we win.  I just don't think we would under McPherson.

I'm very wary of appointing youth coaches as first team coaches.  It's a completely different type of coaching, you are developing players in the under 20s, professional sport is about winning, we need to get a winner, someone who will give focus and drive and understand how to arrange the side to win games.  

Malpas isn't a number 1, I'd expect him to get the DoF/GM role.

Back page of the P&J names Sheerin, Gus McPherson and Malpas as candidates. All uninspiring candidates, Sheerin had an up and down tenure.p with Arbroath and now coaches kids, Malpas has a poor managerial record on his own and Gus McPherson got his team relegated last time he managed at the level we are at.

If these are the sort of candidates we get then it suggests we're trying to do things on the cheap and haven't really planned for Foran leaving. Hopefully it's just a load of paper talk.

Ally McCoist has a win percentage of 72% in his managerial career, higher than Pep Guardiola has managed throughout his career.  Win percentages don't tell you much.

Steven Pressley was manager of Falkirk several years ago.  He managed for three seasons in the First Division, during which time he finished third three times, missing out on promotion by 12, 27 and 25 points.  I don't have the full picture but I would severely doubt that teams like Dunfermline, Raith Rovers, Ross County, Dundee, Partick Thistle and Morton were paying significantly higher wages than Falkirk at that time.  Basically he achieved what you'd expect for a club like Falkirk in the First Divsiion but never really managed to mount a significant title challenge.  

His record at Coventry is mixed but that club has really significant issues off the field, with the club going into administration, being docked points in successive seasons and having to play home games in Northampton due to a dispute with teh owners of their stadium.  He did relatively OK for the first few seasons but had a significant drop off towards the end, including getting knocked out of the cup by a non-league side.  Coventry haven't improved a great deal since he left and were relegated to the bottom tier of English football last season, suggesting that maybe Pressley wasn't the problem.  At Fleetwood he stabilised the club after they'd had a shaky start and lead them to safety.  He resigned in a rather odd way after signing a load of players, maybe the owner fancied his replacement more or there had been a falling out.

I have to admit that I don't like Pressley.  When he was at Falkirk he always had an excuse for his failure to get them challenging for promotion, usually along the lines of playing the right way, bringing through youngsters etc etc.  I think Alex Smith joined the club around that time and that is Smith's stock in trade so it doesn't surprise me.  In England he's done OK, nothing amazing, no great success but not been that abject.  On the plus side he'll have a lot of experience of looking for players in England, he's not raw, he obviously understands management.  On the downside I don't think he's got what it takes to take a team and drive them to win - when he was at Falkirk he was full of excuses for them finishing way behind the sides I listed earlier, usually about playing teh right way, bringing through youngsters etc.  Alex Smith was his director of football and he was signing from his hymn sheet.  That's not what we need, we need to win - look at the two managers who won us the First Division previously, both focused winners, whatever weaknesses they had.  Add to that he'll probably think he can get a job at a higher level than the Scottish Championship I'd say that he's unlikely to take it.

33 minutes ago, RiG said:

If Calderwood got anywhere near the front door of the stadium I'd be more than likely not to go to a game. His disgraceful bullying of a young lad at Aberdeen (maybe Killie I can't recall at this time) was utterly shameful.

It was both - Ryan O'Leary was at Aberdeen when Calderwood shelled him out, he went to Killie and when Calderwood took over there he did the same thing.

Calderwood is an absolute utter c*nt of a man.