Not far off

[CaleyTennis]

I said this last night and truly believe it's true

Imho, we are not far off becoming a Premiership team and would agree with a column in the Press and Journal which said we're "on the right track" and should "fear nobody" as we proved this season that we can mount a serious title push, we just need to turn draws into wins and especially stop losing "silly' points to teams in the bottom half of the table as that was as much to blame as our 11 game winless run.

As has been said in the match and squad update threads, we have the nucleus of a good squad so hopefully we retain as much of them as possible (though the money from Deas could come in handy), I also believe that we need to strengthen but not drastically, my hope is that we sign young players hungry for success, guys like Lowry of Rangers (he's just an example, not on my wishlist haha). As was mentioned yesterday on the sky coverage before the match, John has been down in England scouting so I see that as a positive as that's a good market to use (One player released down there that IS on my wishlist is Davis Keillor-Dunn, ex Dross County and most recently, Oldham).

 

Then there's our own crop of youngsters such as Ally Riddle, Harry Nicolson, Ally Mackay and Strachan (the guy on bench on Friday) that could be worth signing on professional contracts :).

So as IHE would say, time to regroup and come back stronger and then all aboard the promotion rollercoaster :D.

Bring on next season

 

Finally, it's been a pleasure contributing to this forum despite occasionally falling out with certain members at times, I'll try and do better next season haha. 

[STFU]

What we proved this season was that we weren't good enough to be promoted.  It tells us nothing about how prepared we may, or may not, be for next season.

[bdu98196]

^ Agreed and the reality is whether people see it or not is that was the weakest Championship and poorest quality competition we have had in relegation, the gulf between the bottom of the Premiership and upper Championship is growing faster than ever fully driven by the disparity in money. Over 2 legs we were comfortably thumped by a St Johnstone team that had only 0.7 goals per game all season yet averaged 3 against us, the statistics of the 2 sides over the season just show how a team that cant socre or defend in the upper league is strides ahead of the inverse from below.

There will be a turn around of players again this season and maybe more youngsters but this will not put us in a position different to any other team, the challenge may be whether the bank rolled clubs like Cove & Queens Park continue to operate at a loss to recruit talent.

Being realistic next season should be play-offs again, expecting Dundee to be the strongest team but without a bucket of cash we will always be relying on a lot of luck to get promoted.

[Scotty]

3 hours ago, bdu98196 said:

, the gulf between the bottom of the Premiership and upper Championship is growing faster than ever fully driven by the disparity in money.

Robbo was quoted on the coverage as saying that the payments that come from the league in September would be £65,000 for the championship side and £650,000 for the premiership sides ! That is a large gulf. He then went on to compare crowds noting that we only had around 4500 away fans over the course of the season compared to 45,000 in the premiership. The crowd figures are perhaps an unfair comparison given COVID affected the numbers but it is clear there is indeed a large gulf and it will only get wider if thats the numbers we are talking about ...  10X more funding before a ball is even kicked and for sure higher levels of away support and although costs are higher i doubt they are 10X higher. 

[CaleyTennis]

Jeez peeps, I'm trying to remain upbeat and confident ahead of next season but your ruining that with negativity .

 

[Kingsmills]

5 hours ago, CaleyTennis said:

Jeez peeps, I'm trying to remain upbeat and confident ahead of next season but your ruining that with negativity .

 

No. Just injecting an element of reality.

[+Gringo]

On 5/26/2022 at 1:33 PM, Scotty said:

Robbo was quoted on the coverage as saying that the payments that come from the league in September would be £65,000 for the championship side and £650,000 for the premiership sides ! That is a large gulf. He then went on to compare crowds noting that we only had around 4500 away fans over the course of the season compared to 45,000 in the premiership. The crowd figures are perhaps an unfair comparison given COVID affected the numbers but it is clear there is indeed a large gulf and it will only get wider if thats the numbers we are talking about ...  10X more funding before a ball is even kicked and for sure higher levels of away support and although costs are higher i doubt they are 10X higher. 

Friday night fixtures don't help either IMHO. They stopped me going to at least two away games 

If it wasn't for that awful dip in form mid season we'd have run away with the league. Next season will be a hard act to follow but I'm sure we'll be up for it.

[FrontRow]

I think it’s pretty simple.
Look at the start of the season - great team spirit and winning matches

then the the Gardyne effect - this absolutely ruins everything built up in the squad and things start going awry 

This is compounded by injuries to Allardice, MacGregor, Walsh and the bad run gets worse 

Turn of the year and the loanees take a bit of time to bed in and we’re still not winning 

Dodds says team spirit is there….and he is proved to be right because the results suddenly come and they dig wins out of losing situations (Raith being the main one) 

If….we can start next season with that same determination and spirit …add a couple of experienced players (to replace Broadfoot in particular) and take a few risks then we look like we’ve got a great squad. I really like the look of Samuels and I really hope we don’t go for a target man to continue hoof ball - it’s not entertaining and it’s not making the best use of the talent we have. Whoever has been looking at the loans has done a good job this last year because they were all great additions. Let’s hope we can continue with that - let’s face it, there’s a load of young talent sitting about in U23 football in England never getting the chance.