alternative maryhill

Interesting news. Having been great last year, Hastings has been seriously disappointing this season, not just in his defensive positioning but also going forward - there were several occasions at Fir Park & Love St when he looked like he couldn't be bothered chasing balls on the overlap. So who should come in? Do we give Morgan an opportunity or should we move Rankin back to left back? And if the latter, who should play left midfield? McBain? Or can Zander play on that side? Personally I'd love to see Zander get his chance if we can accommodate him in the team. 

And the updated BBC take is....

Brewster firm favourite, Warnock mentioned only as a bit of a daft fantasy. Plus ca change...

I'm probably being thick here, but what's the connection between Brewster and Shearer? They haven't played together or coached together before, have they? (Or have they?) Why are they being tipped to form a partnership?

Thanks for the report, Johnboy. Doesn't sound too discouraging. Now waiting for Charlie Bannerman's take on it - due to come up on Radio Scotland soon.

"Reports suggesting that injury-plagued Celtic and Scotland defender Stephen Pressley could be a candidate are wide of the mark."

Glad to read that. I'm sure Pressley has shown ability in completing his coaching badges, but it wouldn't be fair to us or him to put him into the job when we are sitting bottom of the league and confidence is probably as low as it has been for some time. He should start his career in the lower leagues, we should deviate from our past policy and go for someone with a lot of experience. Like Warnock...

Just finished listening to the Radio Scotland sports broadcast tonight. Chick Young's take on the vacancy was that Brewster is firm favourite. Didn't even mention Warnock by name - I think his closest reference was something like "There have been some bizarre names mentioned - even former Premiership managers". Jim Spence or Kheredine Iddesine or whoever the presenter was did then mention Warnock, but the response was merely "he'd be a great addition for us" (i.e. the media - because Warnock gives good copy / is a "character").

Radio 5 on the other hand did mention Warnock on Sport on Five tonight, but again the tone was more bemusement and intrigue and obviously highlighted because it would gain more interest among English listeners.

In summary: the BBC don't appear to be treating Warnock as a serious candidate. Does this indicate insider knowledge? Or just a lack of respect for ICT's ability to attract a "big" name?

P.S. Rory got about 25 minutes but seemed to spend most of his time, in common with the rest of the team, defending on the eighteen-yard line. Good result for Scotland though.

Posted something similar on the "Brewster Vs Warnock" thread, but I strongly favour Warnock because of an impressive record at a number of "smaller" clubs and because I think, having come up through the physically demanding lower leagues in England, he must really prioritise fitness.

Also - although some may just see him as a loudmouth - in his interviews he seems intelligent, funny and charismatic. Maybe our players could do with being confronted with that sort of personality to bring out their self-belief and fighting qualities a bit more. Most of our previous managers have seemed pretty taciturn and lacking a bit in character.

Looking at the stats Phill pulled up, Warnock's record is very impressive, especially considering he's never managed at a club expected to win the majority of their games. If he's serious about not caring too much about the salary, we've got to try to get him.

Another point I don't think anyone's made is that, having taken clubs through the lower leagues of England, he must be very very good on fitness (which is Brewster's only real advantage over the other candidates for me) - the English Championship is probably the physically toughest league in England and he got Sheffield Utd up in second place.

One concern though - would he want to move on a lot of our players? I still believe, even with all the speculation about things going on behind the scenes, that the mutual support and knowledge of each others' strengths among our players has been our greatest strength over the years. It would be a mistake to sacrifice that.

There's nothing I'd like more than to see Pele prove himself in the top flight and help us progress in the SPL playing the sort of cavalier football we used to play under him. It would make a chnage from being tagged as a 'big' team who are 'well organised' and 'difficult to beat' all the time.

However, the reality is that with our budget, our existing squad and a fairly limited youth system it's unlikely we'll ever be able to match the majority of SPL teams in terms of flair. The key to survival has got to be tactical flexibility and superior fitness, and there's no evidence that either of these were really Pele's strong point. As several people have pointed out, our fitness really improved under Brewster, although personally I thought our football under him was as dull as it has ever been.

One final point, and this applies to both Pele and Brewster, and indeed Robbo: has there ever really been a manager who has returned to a club where they had previously had success and managed to repeat that success? I'm thinking Jimmy Nicholl at Raith Rovers, Jim Leishman at Dunfermline, Howard Kendall at Everton. Alex Totten too - didn't he return to Falkirk without success? Walter Smith may be the exception, I suppose - but am I missing anyone obvious? To my mind, reappointing old managers just doesn't seem to work.    

Reporting Scotland - which incidentally deemed Strachan having a wee tantrum at Pittodrie more newsworthy than Charlie resigning - named Brewster, Robbo and Malpas as the main candidates, with Brewster as favourite. Lazy journalism? Or are people in the club feeding their reporters their preferred shortlist.

A few people on this thread have mentioned Malpas, but he seemed to have a bad time, and play pretty uninspiring football, at Motherwell last season and I don't know anyone who was sorry to see him go. Can anyone explain why they think he would make a good choice?

Don't know the exact reasons, but rumours abound that Rowan Alexander made many enemies among the Gretna players, among the Scottish press and among people associated with Morton where he was an ex-player. If there is as much unrest behind the scenes at ICT as is rumoured, we probably don't want to be employing someone who allegedly has a rare talent for p*ssing people off. Besides which, he built his teams at Gretna by offering inflated wages to over-the-hill ex-Premier players - not a particularly forward-looking philosophy for a club that wants to consolidtae and build in the top division - and anyway he's still the manager at Gretna, dontcha know...

Incidentally, why would the likes of Shearer and Sheringham want to come to us? And why would we EVER want them? The two most arrogant members of a very arrogant generation of England players. They would no doubt consider Inverness to be third world.

As a reasonably remote fan who rarely gets to home games, I'm very depressed by Caley Ds take on what's going on behind the scenes if it is true. I've always held the club up to people down here as a model for how a modern football club should be run - familiy-orientated, supportive of its staff, a team composed of long-serving, committed players, a club which refuses to take on long-term debts for short-term goals, unlike Livvy, Gretna and Dundee and so many others. Having Charlie as manager always seemed to me to be emblematic of the fact that the club had built up its success by showing confidence in its existing strengths and its home-developed talents. Maybe I was naive about that. However, I desperately hope that this isn't the start of a new era at the club that encourages mercenaries and underestimates how important it is to have unity throughout the team and the club as a whole. Or is it already too late? 

Second all the above. As a player a legend, and as a manager no' half bad either.

Billy Stark crossed my mind too, Pele is God. Didn't have a great record at St Johnstone but has lots of experience at Celtic and Kilmarnock and has done a great job at Queen's Park. He's also not too weegie-centric, having been a hero at Aberdeen for a few years.

Lambert fits the sort of profile the club has gone for in the past, but he's probably on better money at Wycombe. Warnock would be a blast but would only come up here if he really thought the club would be a stepping stone to a much bigger job.

Robbo & Brewster absolutely not. Pele - heart says Yes, head says No Way.

Maybe, given events over the summer, the players are keen to distance themselves from any potential illegal drug references e.g. "toke"...  :011:

Not enough ex- Red & Blacks on here... The shed at Kingsmills carried an advertising hoarding for Leisuropa on its fascia (you'll remember it, Charles?) long after Intersport had got its mucky chainstore claws into the city. I could see it out my bedroom window. Nowhere upheld outdated institutions quite like Kingsmills: Leisuropa, wooden fire escapes, Jimmy Calder...

Same as today, I think, but have reservations:

Attack: can't quite decide whether Deano should get the nod over Dennis or not. Deano will be hungry if he gets a chance from the start but Dennis did have some great flashes and is also a confidence player - maybe he needs one more chance.

Midfield: The midfielders were great today when they played the ball on the deck - part of the problem was defenders punting the ball up too often and bypassing them. Rankin v McBain is tricky, but I think McBain did enough today to stay in. Cowie looks a good signing.

Defence: Unless we sign someone with experience, Caff stays in. I don't think he was as bad as some people have said today, although he seemed a bit unsure of his positioning early on.

BUT - While we can't keep f*nnying around with the starting line-up, Charlie MUST be prepared to make bold changes earlier. We have four strikers (not including Rory) all looking to be first pick, strong alternatives in midfield, and in particular, a winger in Zander who looks God-given to run at tiring defenders. One more week when we're not penetrating enough and no sign of Zander, and people will be getting really p*ssed off.     

Dear IHE,

I don't think you know my mother - although given your alleged immoral pillages from the west end into the more civilised environs of Kingsmills and Broadstone Park in the 70s I can't be sure...

As to the rest, I'm raising my glass of wine to the prediction of a cup victory - as I said in another thread, it'll take until at least the second round of matches until we see the best of Marius, but by 2008 he should be tearing defences apart. 4th round hat-trick at Pittodrie would do nicely.  

IHE -

1. As a mere scribe and not an immortal seer, I bow to your knowledge of imminent defensive changes.

2. We will have to agree to disagree re Deano. Didn't you have him tipped as the new messiah though?

3. Lack of togetherness - who is to blame? CC, Grant or both? Would you have A.N. other as captain?

love,

Mary x 

Maybe I missed something, but I wasn't aware of any terrible collapse in team camaraderie. The Granty - Russell incident stood out a bit, but IMO Granty was in the right: Russell risked a totally unnecessary booking by overreacting to a perceived foul, and CC should have a word with Russell about respecting his captain's instructions. As for the rest, Tokely has always been a bit of a law unto himself and we all know that when Blackie loses it there's not much anyone can do about it (and for the record, apart from one reckless tackle in injury time, he conducted himself pretty well today). There is no more obvious captain in the squad than Granty - he's solid and intelligent, he's a first pick player, he never gets into unnecesssary altercations with opposition players; can we say that of Tokely, Black or Duncan? The other possible choice, Barry Wilson, is probably not going to in the team regularly enough this season to justify making him captain. If any player has a problem with Granty as captain (and as I said, I didn't see much evidence of that today), then it's up to CC to sort it out quickly.

2 other points reacting (with mucho respect) to IHE's observations:

1. It doesn't seem fair to me to say that Deano looked "disinterested" - by the time he came on we'd already started falling into the trap of playing far too many high balls. If we'd continued playing balls to feet like we did for much of the first half, he'd have had far more opportunity to show his strengths. He should have been on after an hour - possibly for Marius, who looked knackered by then.

2. IHE, you mentioned that we've had to change the defensive system to accommodate Caff. I'm not disagreeing necessarily, but what other options do we have while we don't have another recognised, experienced, centre-half. And why should this cause such unrest? - it's not as if any of our remaining regular back four from last season has lost his place. I'm interested to know how else you would see the defence lining up, assuming we don't sign anyone else?    

It's far too soon to start debating whether Marius is overhyped, or causing unrest, or a primadonna. He's not match fit yet, he's also unused to the pace and physicality of the SPL, and as he's had such a bad recent history of injuries, it's understandable that he might take a while to start mixing it properly. If we're being realistic, we should be waiting until at least the second round of SPL matches before we can expect to see the best of him - not that that really helps us if we're already struggling against relegation, of course.

My impressions were that it was a reasonable debut where he showed flashes of his ability, laid the ball off well once or twice, showed that he has some skill with the ball at his feet and showed that he also has some presence in the air. I wasn't really aware of him having a go at his teammates, but if he was, perhaps that just shows willingness to do well and commitment to the cause?

Time, gentlemen, please - it's a bit hypocritical of us to start accusing the team of being unsettled when we're already having a go at players after 75 minutes of football.    

Also just back. Not too disappointed. The midfield were a vast improvement on last week - Duncan fought hard and covered the defence well and even made a few effective runs forward in possession (!). Black used the ball well as usual and made space intelligently. Cowie was the standout for me, if only for his workrate - covered when he needed to but also frequently got up to support the strikers. The most frustrating thing was that we resorted to punting the ball forward for periods throughout the match, bypassing the midfield - we looked the better team by far when we played the ball on the deck. Some lovely touches by Niculae, laying the ball off, pulling it back across goal. One concern is that he looks like going down a bit easily when challenged, but that might just be that he's not used to the physicality of the SPL yet. Dennis seemed to be inspired for a while during the first half but faded in the second. Caff looked a bit shaky early on but seemed to improve in the second. Like EWS, can't see why Tokely made MOM - worked hard but made quite a few wrong decisions going forward and Granty & Caff had to cover the right back slot too often. 

In summary, same team deserves a chance next week, but CC should be prepared to make changes earlier - Niculae looked knackered by the hour and Deano should have been given longer, and I'd also like to see what Zander Sutherkand could do against a tiring opposition.

I'm with Kiltarlity and Bronson here. Bullock took the abuse in good part at first and some of the banter was really funny but a few guys behind the goal kept it up for half the second half, and some of their comments were completely inappropriate. Remember that as well as there being children in the crowd, statistically it is likely that there were a significant minority that have sufferered some sort of abuse as children. They don't need to be reminded of their experience or have it trivialised just so an opposition player can be wound up. And please, don't come back with "Well they shouldn't go to football matches / they should sit in the stand if they can't take it" - going to a game should be about enjoying the football and supporting the team without being made to feel uncomfortable by persistent comments about sensitive subjects such as paedophilia.   

On the basis of yesterday, Wood. I don't necessarily think Rory lacks hunger, but Wood certainly looked sharper and more effective with the ball at his feet. We should hold our fire on sending ANYONE out on loan, though - even if the work permit comes through, Niculae has a bad injury record, and Dean and Bayne being injured so early is ominous: if either is rushed back too soon there is a gretaer chance of a recurrence.

Surprised no-one has made more of the other substitutions - Zander was excellent, Black looked a class above as usual but I also thought Cowie made a huge difference when he came on. He was solid, used the ball well, got it out to the flanks far more than Hart or Mcbain (before he moved wide in the second) did, and also got forwrd well on occasion. About ten minutes from the end he made an excellent diagonal run to the edge of the box, took a long ball from Joinville beautifully and set up a decent chance for Garry Wood. This is the first time I've seen him play, but on today's evidence I think we could do worse than him and Black in the middle, with Rankin pushed wide. This would also give us a bit more height in midfield. Wood also looked a real prospect - matches Rory for size, made intelligent runs and in just two or three touches looked trickier than Rory with the ball at his feet. If Bayne doesn't make it next weekend then it might be worth pitching him in against the Huns: like Zander, he doesn't seem to lack confidence.

As for the rest? The regular defenders were fine - thought Caff did very well at right back - but am unsure about Joinville. He seemed to mistime an awful lot of headers, was a bit clumsy when tracking back and looked isolated - perhaps Granty should have talked him through the game more. He did show some nice touches in the second half and won a few more headers, but whether he is reliable enough as a defender in the SPL I just don't know. The midfield, allegedly our strongest area, was a big disappointment in the first half. Wilson and Rankin both looked tentative, didn't use the ball nearly as creatively or effectively as you would expect against a second division team and (although someone always says this at the start of every season and he proves them wrong) I thought Wilson looked off the pace. McBain in the first half seemed to be the holding midfielder more than Hart, and he didn't have any real presence. Hart ran about a lot but wasn't effective. There was no imagination and no penetration. And in the attack, Wyness was anonymous in the first half but came on to a game in the second with some lovely touches and good linking play, and Rory worked hard, had at least one excellent shot, but as we saw last season, did not seem to have the speed of thought or ability with the ball at his feet to trouble good defenders.

To sum up, on the basis of the first half I was really fearing for us next season, but by the end of the second, thanks to Sutherland, Cowie, Black and Wood, I was pretty excited.