ictchris

It'd be hilarious if Shankland did an Andy Barrowman and never does anything in his career again.  Doubt it though, think he's sealed the title for United, sadly.

Our current best XI?

-----------------------Ridgers--------------------

--Mckay---Donaldson--McCart--Tremarco--

----------------Trafford-----Welsh-------------------------

---Doran--------Vincent----------Walsh--------------

--------------------White------------------------------------

Maybe Keatings could play in the Vincent role and JV could slot in alongside Welsh rather than Trafford?

Our current squad

Goalkeepers

Mark Ridgers

Cammy McKay

Daniel hoban

Defenders

Brad Mckay

Shaun Rooney

Carl Tremarco

Kevin McHattie

Coll Donaldson

Jamie McCart

Midfielders

Sean Welsh

Charlie Trafford

Aaron Doran

Tom Walsh

Dave Carson

James Vincent

Strikers

Jordan White

Nikolay Todorov

James Keatings

We've signed two players from clubs who finished below us last season, neither of whom were particular stand outs for those teams last season.  Todorov has scored three or four goals at this level in his entire career.  Vincent underwhelmed at Dundee and didn't stand out at Dunfermline either.  We have to hope that both will do better in our environment than previously.

The big loss for us is Liam Polworth.  Last season he either scored or assisted 30% of our goals and the season before he scored or assisted 40% of our goals.  We need to replace that contribution.

Triple signing of Charlie Telfer, Kallum Higginbotham and Paul Paton incoming.

15 hours ago, ymip said:

I understand we will announce a new signing on Wednesday. No idea who it is but comes from a reliable source that a deal has been done for someone or other.  

Paul Paton is absolutely useless, a washed up massive jawed diddy.

I take it you mean Charlie Telfer?  His career is progressing on the time honoured path - "hot young prospect" with one of the old firm, middling prospect who doesn't make it at a Premiershop level club, drops down to First Division but still can't do it and eventually ends up bouncing around the seaside leagues until the final career death knell sounds and you sign for Clyde.  

It's an interesting story - we apparently tried to buy him on deadline day but he'd already signed for Peterhead.  When Sutherland found out about our bid he wanted to join us but Peterhead wouldn't do it.

https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/fp/sport/football/scottish-football/sutherland-up-for-sale-as-blue-toon-boss-says-head-was-turned/

A couple of thoughts.  This suggests that we didn't plan to sell Oakley in the window but got a late bid that we thought was too good to turn down and that we were looking for a replacement at very late notice.  If we had planned to try and sign Sutherland then we messed it up big time.  

In terms of him as a player, I haven't seen him play since he left us but he was useful if not quite of the required standard when he played with us before.  He had a superb game against Celtic when we beat them 3-2 in 2011 but never really built on it.  He's generally a centre forward but can be played wide in a 'wide target man' style.  He's played six seasons since leaving us and has been a regular goalscorer at Elgin and Peterhead, a particular achievement at Elgin who haven't had the best side for him.  He played a season in League one and scored 13 goals in the league at that higher level.

If we are after him again, he could be a decent option, he might not be.  With Jordan White we have a target man and if he were to sign he'd definitely be behind White and Keatings in the pecking order.  

36 minutes ago, Caley Stan said:

The bookies suspended betting on Sergio Markarian this afternoon. I'm hearing it's a done deal. 

Don't say that @TopSix will be off to put £100 on him.

The Sun and Daily Record are reporting that Dundee asked for our permission to speak to Robertson regarding their managerial vacancy but we turned them down.

If they were to come back with a big offer I wonder if we'd think of it.  I wonder if he'd welcome a different challenge.  If he were to go, who could possibly replace him?

Out of contract at the end of the season

Owain Fon Williams

Kevin McHattie

Liam Polworth

Joe Chalmers

Nathan Austin

Out of contact in 2020

Mark Ridgers

Cammy McKay

Brad McKay

Coll Donaldson

Carl Tremarco

Jamie McCart

Charlie Trafford

Aaron Doran

Tom Walsh

Jordan White

Out of contact in 2021

Darren Macaulay

Out of contract in 2022

Daniel Mckay

Can't find details on how long Sean Welsh or Shaun Rooney have on their deals.

I'd be amazed if he stayed with us.  Hopefully he can leave on a high, a fantastic servant for the club and a great player.

I've not been to many games this season but this is how I'd see us lining up.

Does anyone know if McCart is injured or was rested on Saturday?  If McCart is fit I'd expect something like this

------------------ Ridgers-----------------

--Rooney--Mckay--McCart--Tremarco--

------------Chalmers---Trafford-----------

--Doran-------Polworth--------Walsh---

-----------------White----------------------

If McCart isn't fit then I'd expect Tremarco to move to centre back and, er, Kevin McHattie to play left back, although he played centre half there for at least part of the game on Saturday apparently.

We could also have Polworth sit back and have more of a 4-3-3 or 4-3-2-1 and play on the break.  I'd expect us to be a bit more reactive, we are better against higher up teams in our division and away from home.  We do lack a bit of pace in our team, Walsh is the only player you'd say is quick and White is a target man rather than someone who is going to stretch Hearts with runs.

As much as I'd love to beat Hearts, I don't think we will.  We have a pretty decent first XI but take a couple of players out of it and we are pretty thin.  Hearts are an uninspiring team but they are solid, they will be properly organised and I think they'll probably be able to hurt us with Izpeazu especially.  Also, going forward I'm not sure we have enough to hurt Hearts.

Basically, if Hearts play as they usually do I'd expect them to win.  For us to win we'll need season-best performance from quite a few of our players, we'll need guys coming into the back four to have outstanding games, we'll need our attackers to play better than they have against anyone this season.  It's a tall order.

I'm amazed we appointed someone with any background in Scottish football, I was expecting the assistant manager of Pentangle or something like that.

In 2017/18 Liam Polworth scored 3 goals and had 18 assists.

In 2018/19 Liam Polworth has scored 2 goals and had 11 assists.

Last season and this we scored a total of 95 goals, meaning Liam Polworth has either scored or assisted roughly every third goal we've scored in that time. 

11 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

Strikers need providers and yet again it is Liam Polworth who heads the list by some margin with 11 in the league so far.  Probably in the top 2 or 3 in the division I would guess.  

He's tied for second in the division with Joshua Mullin.  Fraser Aird has 13 assists.

Tom Walsh has seven assists.

Stewart, Wyness, Rooney and Mckay all leading scorer for three seasons - you can kind of divide up those into eras of the club tbh.

Interesting that in our most successful season our leading goalscorer only just made double figures and left the club in January!

In the disastrous relegation season of 2016/17 if we'd actually started our leading scorer when he was fit we probably wouldn't have been relegated.

Five goals for a leading scorer was ridiculous in 2008/09  

League goals only

1994/95 - Alan Hercher / Charlie Christie - 6 goals

1995/96 - Iain Stewart - 24 goals

1996/97 - Iain Stewart - 27 goals

1997/98 - iain Stewart - 16 goals

1998/99 - Scott Mclean - 19 goals

1999/2000 - Barry Wilson - 13 goals

2000/01 - Dennis Wyness - 25 goals

2001/02 - Dennis Wyness - 18 goals

2002/03 - Dennis Wyness - 19 goals

2003/04 - Paul Ritchie - 14 goals

2004/05 - Barry Wilson - 10 goals

2005/06 - Craig Dargo - 17 goals

2006/07 - Craig Dargo - 10 goals

2007/08 - Don Cowie - 9 goals

2008/09 - Adam Rooney - 5 goals

2009/10 - Adam Rooney - 24 goals

2010/11 - Adam Rooney - 15 goals

2011/12  -Gregory Tade - 9 goals

2012/13 - Billy Mckay - 23 goals

2013/14 - Billy Mckay - 18 goals

2014/15 - Billy Mckay - 10 goals

2015/16 - Miles Storey - 11 goals

2016/17 - Alex Fisher - 8 goals

2017/18 - George Oakley / Iain Vigurs - 8 goals

We should be careful about too much pressure on future world player of the year Matheus Machado.

44 minutes ago, Jack Waddington said:

Nah, but I seriously hope he isn't a one match wonder, like Jack Brown, who never makes another appearance after his debut

Jack Brown is 17 and got his chance in a game we were missing a few players.  Hardly fair to write the guy off as a one-season wonder when he can't even legally buy a pint!

No-one knows how good Machado will be and he's very young and inexperienced.

But I feel confident in saying he is definitely going to be the best player we've ever had, probably the best player in Scottish football and after he's won us the Scottish cup and secured promotion we'll sell him to PSG to clear up the accounts.  It's a certainty.

The entire club is a shambles, run by people who don’t want to be there and are, as an added bonus, incompetent.

The only way anything will change is if someone comes in and takes over the club and clears all these people out but no-one is going to do that so we are stuck with this until something forces a change.

There isn’t the same possibility for the sort of scheme that Hearts ran. Living in Edinburgh there are a lot of armchair Hearts fans who contributed to the Foundation while rarely going to games. My brother-in-law pays into it and he probably goes to two or three Hearts games a season. We don’t have that sort of fan base so the people you’d be asking to pay for it would be season ticket holders, it’d effectively be a price rise.

Rather than trying to squeeze more money out of our existing season ticket holders we should try and encourage people to come back through the turnstiles. The reports in the press say that we are 30,000 fans down. We must have a database of people who have bought tickets for games but don’t have a season ticket or used to have a season ticket but don’t anymore. Have we reached out to this group of people to find out what would bring them back?

The main thing is to get a successful team on the pitch. If we get to the Scottish cup semi final and somehow manage to win promotion it will be the best way to boost things. 

20 hours ago, Alan Simpson said:

Any chance of getting some scantily clad "dancers" for half time entertainment Saturday keep the good vibes going Iv a few contacts in private eyes could send u there numbers!

Barred for inappropriate touching IMO