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1 hour ago, killie billies pal said:

Well, I’m hearing that we are quite far down the road to signing a keeper.

I think we need to be realistic, just like SOD that money is going to be extremely tight and getting highly regarded keepers on a full time basis may be difficult.

Maybe Fox is the one, but I think he will be number 2, with another English PL loanee fitting in regularly.

I’m quite interested to know what people expect of us next season. It’s hard to make predictions now with a threadbare squad but what are fans looking at us doing?

Do they expect us to make the push we expected last season. Boost the squad and try to compete for third again. 

Is it a case of survival at all costs. Build a solid if unspectacular squad and be better than three or four teams. Make sure we stay in the division and have the club on a strong footing going forward with a decent foundation to build a competitive team on.

Or is it somewhere in the middle.

Ambition says it should be the first option but with the goings on and the financial impact I can see it being the second. The problem with that is when you are looking to just stay in the league it doesn’t always work and relegation will get you at some point. 

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1 hour ago, killie billies pal said:

Well, I’m hearing that we are quite far down the road to signing a keeper.

I think we need to be realistic, just like SOD that money is going to be extremely tight and getting highly regarded keepers on a full time basis may be difficult.

Maybe Fox is the one, but I think he will be number 2, with another English PL loanee fitting in regularly.

Worked with two Patrick fans, and some time ago told me he was a weak link in the team as well as a few others. I also what I have seen tells me there is better out there.

 

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2 hours ago, piffer said:

I’m quite interested to know what people expect of us next season. It’s hard to make predictions now with a threadbare squad but what are fans looking at us doing?

Do they expect us to make the push we expected last season. Boost the squad and try to compete for third again. 

Is it a case of survival at all costs. Build a solid if unspectacular squad and be better than three or four teams. Make sure we stay in the division and have the club on a strong footing going forward with a decent foundation to build a competitive team on.

Or is it somewhere in the middle.

Ambition says it should be the first option but with the goings on and the financial impact I can see it being the second. The problem with that is when you are looking to just stay in the league it doesn’t always work and relegation will get you at some point. 

This is a really thought provoking post. I think we blew the chance to really push on last summer as you suggest. As things have turned out maybe we'd have come a cropper if we had pushed the boat out? If say we'd been third again when the season finished what good would it have done us? We might have once again been labelled Premier League club most likely to go bust by our friends in the media and it might even have been true! 

What worries me is that our recruitment has been so terrible in the last two windows compared with clubs if our size and I wonder is that incompetence, bad luck or are we offering a lot less money than (say) Motherwell? It could be a combination of all three of course. 

In answer to the post I think survival has to be the top priority for next season but I do want to see progress in organisational terms and in the connection between cub players and fans to give hope for the medium term future. We've done it before and can do so again! 

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2 minutes ago, Harrogate Peter said:

What worries me is that our recruitment has been so terrible in the last two windows compared with clubs if our size and I wonder is that incompetence, bad luck or are we offering a lot less money than (say) Motherwell? It could be a combination of all three of course. 

It would bring a lot of confidence and a bit of buzz if we got a few deals done pretty quickly. Take a lot of pressure of the manager and Fowler with people who doubt them.

We need to have a clear model in the market that is OUR model and not keep hanging about in windows because that’s what Clarke did. I thinks that’s been a problem for us. Waiting is not necessarily wrong but it is if we don’t work it correctly. 

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Would we have had to push the boat out last summer?

We had the outfield X - less Mulumbu - from the previous season. Two or three astute signings (using the money from selling Taylor?) and we would have been well set. 

It all turned on the appointment of Alessio. 

 

 

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We need to buy players that will fit the way we want to play, no longer wait for the cheapest, hoping that they can fit into the way of playing.

If Fowler has NOT been building Target A,B,C for each position during these times then we are going to be cannon fodder for the media again. A being players likely to get you Top 4, B Mid Table, C Staying up by skin of our teeth.

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2 hours ago, skygod said:

Would we have had to push the boat out last summer?

We had the outfield X - less Mulumbu - from the previous season. Two or three astute signings (using the money from selling Taylor?) and we would have been well set. 

It all turned on the appointment of Alessio. 

 

 

Think we still had a lot of quality in depth to replace on top of Mulumbu. Whatever people’s feelings on them Tshibola, Boyd, McAleny, Ndjoli, Jones, Stewart All contributed more than those who replaced them in the following season. Too maintain the momentum of the previous season we needed to invest in either the same quality as those who left or better. Aside from Del Fabro(other opinions accepted) were any of last seasons signings an upgrade on those who left the summer before. Most were not even level pegging.

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15 minutes ago, piffer said:

Think we still had a lot of quality in depth to replace on top of Mulumbu. Whatever people’s feelings on them Tshibola, Boyd, McAleny, Ndjoli, Jones, Stewart All contributed more than those who replaced them in the following season. Too maintain the momentum of the previous season we needed to invest in either the same quality as those who left or better. Aside from Del Fabro(other opinions accepted) were any of last seasons signings an upgrade on those who left the summer before. Most were not even level pegging.

Branescu was certainly no Bachmann!

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30 minutes ago, piffer said:

Think we still had a lot of quality in depth to replace on top of Mulumbu. Whatever people’s feelings on them Tshibola, Boyd, McAleny, Ndjoli, Jones, Stewart All contributed more than those who replaced them in the following season. Too maintain the momentum of the previous season we needed to invest in either the same quality as those who left or better. Aside from Del Fabro(other opinions accepted) were any of last seasons signings an upgrade on those who left the summer before. Most were not even level pegging.

Agreed. Branescu was certainly nowhere near the level of Bachmann. McKenzie done his best to fill in the gap Jones left us. But no proper replacement was made for Mulumbu or Stewart and that was shown with the lack of goals.

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36 minutes ago, piffer said:

Whatever people’s feelings on them Tshibola, Boyd, McAleny, Ndjoli, Jones, Stewart All contributed more than those who replaced them in the following season.

Yes, but they were mostly fringe players, apart from Stewart who had left in January and Jones who effectively did the same.

So we had to replace some fringe players and add some Bachmann/ Mulumbu/ Stewart/ Jones type quality on top.  

What we did was to bring in the likes of Sow, Jackson, Kopravec, Hendrie, St Clair and Bunn who weren't able to push first team players, many of whose noses were out of joint anyway.

Throw in the feelbad start against Nomads = clusterf**k. We did well to finish eighth in some ways.

 

 

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15 hours ago, piffer said:

I’m quite interested to know what people expect of us next season. It’s hard to make predictions now with a threadbare squad but what are fans looking at us doing?

I am extremely concerned about next season, its the least confidence I've had going into a season. I appreciate that there is a lot of transfer business to be done but looking at the January window when our last minute signing was someone we were lucky to get shot of months previously, i am not convinced we will get that correct. 

I think the managerial appointment is shambolic and I've little confidence in anyone at the club right now to make correct decisions. If Dyers form continues into next season then theres no doubt we will be in a dogfight at the foot of the table. 

We've a threadbare squad, a manager with a very poor record so far and coming off the back of a dreadful transfer window. 

I'd love to be proven wrong but I'm hoping for the best and expecting the worst.

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15 hours ago, piffer said:

I’m quite interested to know what people expect of us next season. It’s hard to make predictions now with a threadbare squad but what are fans looking at us doing?

My own view is that it would be a huge mistake to pretend this is a normal season. For every club that doesn't have pots of cash it's about keeping the doors open until a fans can come back and anything else is a bonus. 

Our fans will need to be patient. Lots of them will not be patient. We aren't going to be able to make many signings until we know exactly how much testing is going to help, how much money is coming from other sources and when the league will actually start etc. 

I suspect we have a very small amount of budget set aside just now for players that will be reviewed up as we know more about what's going to happen. 

That probably means we will be going for fringe players to start with who fans will get annoyed in the "if we're relying on him we're f**ked..." vein. I'd also imagine there will be exceptions if someone very good becomes available. 

For me, January is the initial goal. If we are in a position where more fa s are getting in come January and less testing etc is involved I think that might be the real transfer window for most teams. 

I'm not as pessimistic as others though. Accies and St Mirren have been really significantly weakened and have even less resources to sign players. St Johnstone, County and some others all look weaker too.

We've got, in my opinion, a really good starting point that needs achievable players in a few positions to have a decent starting eleven. I think we are more fortunate than some other teams in that regard. 

 

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12 hours ago, skygod said:

Would we have had to push the boat out last summer?

We had the outfield X - less Mulumbu - from the previous season. Two or three astute signings (using the money from selling Taylor?) and we would have been well set. 

It all turned on the appointment of Alessio. 

 

 

It wasn’t just the appointment of Alessio.

As has been pointed out we lost the guts of the first team - Bachmann, Taylor, Mulumbu, Jones, Stewart and practically all of the back up players and we couldn’t or wouldn’t replace them with the same quality.

You mentioned half a dozen signings yourself who were garbage and contributed nothing. In addition, we didn’t even replace the departing players with similar numbers.

We didn’t make the two or three astute signings you mention in the summer or in January window. It’s clear that none the funds from Taylor, the Clarke compensation and our highest placed finish for over 50 years were not re-invested in the playing squad and we all saw the consequence of that decision. Perhaps the board thought that success was easy and they didn’t need to spend. God knows where the money went though 

We missed our once in a lifetime opportunity to kick on and build on our success and while in terms of squad strength and size we are currently in much the same place as most of the other teams in the league the pre-season expectations for me are just back to the usual - avoid the relegation dogfight and hopefully have a decent cup run. 

Compare that to the level of fans’ expectations before the only full season under Clarke - which were duly met - and then last year when we returned to Europe and sadly made a complete laughing stock of ourselves. 

The club made huge mistakes not preparing for the obvious departure of Clarke and they’ve continued to make them ever since. 
 

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9 hours ago, skygod said:

Yes, but they were mostly fringe players, apart from Stewart who had left in January and Jones who effectively did the same.

So we had to replace some fringe players and add some Bachmann/ Mulumbu/ Stewart/ Jones type quality on top.  

What we did was to bring in the likes of Sow, Jackson, Kopravec, Hendrie, St Clair and Bunn who weren't able to push first team players, many of whose noses were out of joint anyway.

Throw in the feelbad start against Nomads = clusterf**k. We did well to finish eighth in some ways.

 

 

7th would have been fairer IMO but we did not deserve top 6.

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9 minutes ago, historyman said:

It wasn’t just the appointment of Alessio....

The club made huge mistakes not preparing for the obvious departure of Clarke and they’ve continued to make them ever since. 

In saying that everything turned on the appointment of Alessio, I was maybe saying much the same as you, in shorthand. 

Had we made another appointment - another type of appointment, say an experienced British manager - maybe a lot of the issues could have been avoided. 

The players becoming disaffected, the poor signings, the money going out the door in recruiting and terminating Alessio and his cohorts, the consequent appointment of AD, the poor window in January ....

From the decision to appoint AA, so much flowed. It wasn’t even a decision made in good time, which left us short of preparation for the Europa League and the league season. 

It’s water under the bridge and probably should be left that way!

 

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5 minutes ago, mitch14 said:

Really interesting. I think "known quantity, even if that known quantity isn't the best" might be at a premium in this weird signing market. 

Current restrictions prevent you from signing anything other than known quantities or gambles.

In any other summer I’d have imagined we’d have had a wide range of trialist join us for training. With a lack of available accommodation currently, training restrictions and cost of testing it’s unlikely we are going to see that. 

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