STFU

Any mention of where we'll be playing home fixtures this season?

2 hours ago, FrontRow said:

Couldn’t make the game today but we couldn’t have been getting overrun in midfield that much if the game ran according to BBC match stats? 

BBC Stats often don't reflect the game and these look like they are a little generous to us.

We didn't really take control of the game for any length of time.  Our goal was the best piece of play and well worked, but other than that we showed a lot of naivety and allowed Cove to draw us into their game which resulted in is committing needless fouls.

We need to be smarter and have confidence that we can execute our own game plan and not be so reactionary in our approach to games.

Still, we progress, bring on the next game.

It seemed to be fairly common knowledge among people at the match today.

The next set of published accounts will verify it if nothing comes out from the club before then.

Why does it matter where the info came from?

52 minutes ago, caleyboy said:

We're the concerts we'll attended? Did we make money?

On 7/21/2022 at 4:13 PM, STFU said:

Losing nigh on £1,000,000 in a single weekend

4 hours ago, Kingsmills said:

Congratulations to the club for getting closer to promotion than for many years.

What's that got to do with the abject failure of the concerts?  We were told they would bring in what they've just lost.  Heads should roll.

Losing nigh on £1,000,000 in a single weekend

Bring back Emma W.

3 minutes ago, roarer said:

Sorry but I don't believe you! 

Wasn't aware that I knew you, putting you in a position to make such a judgement

Utter BS from the club.  The trust have a larger shareholding than most of the board, where does their mandate come from?  What's the shareholding of the Wyness Shuffle Podcast, Section 94 or Travel Club?

The trust aren't without their issues and have been toothless since the days of David Sutherland and Donald Johnstone who would stand up to this kind of bully boy bollocks.  Where are these guys now?

Sounds to me like the CEO is just looking for a compliant group to raise funds to cover the ever growing salary costs of jobs for the boys.  Also appears as if that's what the trust are looking to offer up.

Roofing the west stand for a couple of dozen fans whilst our disabled followers get a half hidden view behind a wall and next to no protection from the elements?  Pathetic that they would suggest it, even worse if the trust back it.

Did enough for the win...just. Hopefully not a season of scraping by and hanging on.  Wins are great, but fans deserve/need to be entertained.  Controversial view, but I'd take an entertaining season over a promotion one.  Fingers crossed for both

Lot of fragility in the squad.  Everything crossed that we don't get any (more) early injuries and do get a flying start

Does this suggest that Charlie Christie doesn't think Dodds is the kind of manager who will give young players a chance?

13 hours ago, Scotty said:

We can bring them through, but you have to be careful. There is the adage that if you are good enough, you are old enough, and i loosely agree with that, but its been shown time and again that the vast majority of academy graduates or youth players are neither physically or mentally ready to play every game. Their minutes have to be managed and there needs to be a balance. Otherwise you run the risk of wrecking a career before its even begun.  

 

I see the same thing week in and week out at Toronto these days ... There are 11 academy graduates (and several other u-22 players who came from elsewhere) in the 30 man first team squad (currently 27/30 in the squad) and in some games we have seen 6 or more of them start as Bob Bradley rebuilds from the clusterf*** of having Chris Armas as our manager in 2020/21 (the same guy labelled Ted Lasso at Man Utd this year). Players like Ralph Priso, Jahkeele Marshall-Rutty, Jayden Nelson, Kosi Thompson, and Deandre Kerr have all seen significant game time this year and are all under 19. All of them are exciting talents with (just turned 18yo) Jahkeele deemed most likely to perhaps emulate Alphonso Davies who went from Vancouver to Bayern Munich and lit up the Bundesliga. These are players who I would definitely label as "good enough". The others I counted are all under 22 and have also seen a lot of game time simply because of how MLS works ... Bradley cut-out the deadwood late last year and signed some players to replace them, but MLS player and squad rules being what they are you cant do it in one fell swoop regardless of how much money you have (and Toronto are wealthy). Until July 7th Bradley can sign no more players as that's when the transfer window opens in MLS. Lorenzo Insigne has already arrived from Napoli and lots of rumours about other players but the 5 I mentioned above are still likely to see a lot of time on the park. 

What I have noticed from all of the youngsters, including the 5 teenagers, is that they certainly have the skill, and the athleticism of youth, but in some cases they just cannot physically match up to bigger and older players as they simply haven't fully developed physically yet. They also don't have the guile or experience to draw or get away with fouls or to see a plan or a run from other players in the same way that an older player can and that can lead to needless errors and ultimately heads going down. They will get there, but when the club was going through last season and the first third of this season, and losing a lot of games, the errors got worse and the players form dipped. Last year, you could see it with one particular player who was played a lot and this year he has had to go out on loan to rebuild confidence as it was shattered ... but at least the manager does see potential in him rather than cutting him loose like would and does happen at some clubs ...

 

I hear you and I know we always get told this, but the evidence doesn't seem to support it.

I cite Hearts, Dundee Utd and, dare I say it, Rangers! as examples which immediately spring to mind.  Clubs who, in recent years, have been forced to use squads full of younger players and have done pretty well in doing so.  Sadly 2 of those clubs resorted to old habits when finances improved and I suspect Utd will do likewise as well.  Do they/we all think they were lucky with the younger players and fear slipping if they continue on that road?  Where are all the reports of ruined careers?

A signing like this excites me.  At the start of their career and every chance they are keen, looking to prove themselves and not just chasing a final wage.

Same reason we should be bringing more of our own youngsters through sooner.  Who knows, maybe if we show willing to give a chance at first team football a bit sooner, then they may sign their contracts and not disappear out the door for virtually nothing when they turn 16 

18 hours ago, Moogthurso said:

What has Scott done well since he joined the club.

Not a lot.

18 hours ago, Moogthurso said:

What would you like him to do more of. 

I thought that was pretty clear from my post.  Action, not words.

Given how good he is at kicking things down the road, perhaps he should be pulling his boots on and contributing on the pitch.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like we're not going to make the £500,000 per concert he claimed we missed out on during Covid and that we'll be doing well to make any money.  That's worrying if we've put together a business plan which depends on that income.

Apologies if the reality of the situation is a miserable one.

I really like that and suspect it could outsell the gawd awful home shirt.

5 hours ago, caleyboy said:

Why not support the lad instead of tagging him a failure before he kicks a ball

Because he's kicked lots of balls and has shown that to be the case?

The whole "judge me on what I do from here, not what I've done till now" is the same BS argument being used to keep Boris in power.

I'm not sure a playing career that's been in constant decline is any indication that "he's not a bad player", quite the opposite.

I think Jock is justified in his appraisal and he didn't actually say that Boyd shouldn't be given a chance, however it's for the player to perform and change minds, not to expect nobody to judge him on what he's achieved (or not) till now.

Maybe our CEO should do less talking and more actual doing.

Fed up of seeing his face in the paper when I'm having my breakfast and reading his 'blah blah blah'.  If it's not pie in the sky ideas and promises that aren't being delivered, it's stories of 'poor me', how hard done by we are and it being everyone else's fault.

22 hours ago, RiG said:

Robertson definitely did well taking some absolute jobbers like Donaldson, White and Chalmers and turning them into good players. Granted he had plenty of misses as well but so did Butcher. 

I wouldn't put these players in the unidentified/unrealised talent category.  They are guys who, as you rightly describe them, are jobbers.  They have obvious talent, but bounce around clubs because they generally only perform at any one place for a short period of time or they have a knack of pissing people off and get moved on.

The genius with many of these signings is that if we get a good first season or so out of them, then Ross County come calling and we offload them before they turn sour.

11 hours ago, DoofersDad said:

Hardly headline grabbing signings, but our club does have a knack of identifying players who have not realised their potential at other clubs and then bringing them on well.  Time will tell if these lads come good too.

10 hours ago, GaliantGrunt said:

That’s exactly what we do well DD

Do we though?

My feeling is that we've only had two managers who've been consistently good at this, and those were Paterson and Butcher.

Others managers have, of course, found players of this nature but it feels more like it's been a numbers game with a lot of misses for each hit.

1 hour ago, GaliantGrunt said:

Looking like it’s only one home league game between December 3rd and January 14th ?

We're at home to Cove on 2nd January

Apologies if it looked like I was asking you to justify your attendance, I was merely clarifying if you were a carpark user.

Our observations on the facility are very different.  I used it for most home matches and often was arriving fairly close to kick-off due to work commitments and have been turned away as it was full.  I've also had a ticket (successfully overturned) for parking on the verge as a result....oops.  The stewards are terrible at emptying the car park (often not helped by the idiots driving), but they do a pretty decent job of packing them in there to begin with, in my view.

Buses from the social club are great for those who choose to go there, but even two double deckers is only 100 people...about 5% of the average attendance.

I live in the city, and for me to get a bus to the town centre and then from there to the stadium would be about £5 return and close to 50 mins each way.  If that became my only option, I'd find something else to do with my Saturdays.

Why would the parking not be required?  Have you ever been in there on a matchday?  They line the cars up bumper to bumper in order to get as many in as they can and cars often get turned away as it fills up.  These people then resort to parking elsewhere. Not always sensibly and ending up with parking fines.

The club moans that the people of the city don't do enough to support them, but constantly throw obstacles in the way.

It took over 20 years to get a single bus running from the town centre to the stadium on a matchday.  The chances of getting a bus system that can be easily used by people from all over the city is less than slim.

8 hours ago, CaleyTennis said:

Are we actually going to sign ANYBODY because this waiting is getting on my nerves, every other club are signing players yet we haven't signed ONE yet .

I hear ya.

We have a Sporting Director who we're told is there to focus on spotting targets for the manager.  If he wasn't lining up options for us to move on for both promotion and non promotion scenarios, then that would have been a dereliction of duty.

Ultimately, it's who we have come kick off on the first competitive match that matters, but being frustrated at the lack of any movement or news of any movement is understandable.