Are you actually supporting this team?

[piemeister]

Apologies for this rant, I don't normally post on the forum but some of the absolute pish that I'm reading tonight is ridiculous.

The fact that people applaud Clark after a couple of wins then call for his head after a defeat is embarrassing. Happened a few times this season already. Do you not remember the constant thrashing from s**te teams last season? Two games ago no one was mentioning sacking the manager, now we lose against last seasons 3rd and 4th place teams and people want him gone? Unbelievable.

Even worse is the singling out of players when the result hasn't gone our way. The general feeling the past couple of weeks on this forum about Will Boyle is that he has done well and is one of the loan signings that people would want to stay, however he is being absolutely slated tonight. Yes he had a nightmare, but over 20 games he has been decent for us. Coulibaly, Jones, Boyle, Burn, Tyson, Scott Boyd, Hendrie have had a more positive impact than any of the players that we let go in the summer. While some of the summer signings have been terrible, at least they have not been signed up on 3 year deals like last season. There was no way all of the summer signings would be successful, however we haven't missed anyone that we released and Coulibaly, Jones, Hendrie and Scott Boyd have been solid additions. We are missing one of our top players in Greg Kiltie which is a huge blow, but people like Frizzell and Greg Taylor have made the step up to the first team which is great to see. We are eighth in the league, we are not getting pumped at home 4-0 every week by Dundee, Ross County etc. and we have several quality prospects coming through from the under 20's. We are in a much better position than last season, we have a proven goalscorer and we are taking points from teams around us.

Could we improve? Absolutely. We are nowhere near the team that Mixu and Kenny had. We aren't near the level this great club should be. But there was no way anyone would turn Gary Locke's catastrophe into a team competing for top six in less than a year on this limited budget. We have a long way to go until we are where we should be, but sacking Lee Clark would be a foolish decision.

Personally I am more proud of the team this season. Mention Coulibaly's name to any Scottish football fan this season and they will recall his wonder strikes. This season, I don't go into work every Monday to be reminded of how s**te Killie are, shipping five against Partick Thistle, sitting near the bottom with no hope and getting comfortably beaten by everyone. We have beaten Hearts, Hamilton, Dundee and St Johnstone. We have only lost to Hearts, Rangers, Celtic, Ross County, Aberdeen and Motherwell. Six teams that are way above us in terms of wages and that have much more settled teams.

I'm still not happy with the way we are playing and improvement is 100% required, but for only being in charge for less than a year, Lee Clark has done a decent job. There are much bigger problems off the pitch than on it, we should focus our efforts making change in the boardroom rather than the dressing room. There will be players leaving in January and hopefully some quality will be brought in. Realistically we should be happy with 10th this season although we will hopefully finish higher. It's time we collectively got our heads out of our arses, realise that change on the pitch won't happen overnight, keep fighting for change in the board room and get behind our team.

Do you actually support Kilmarnock Football Club? Or do you just enjoy complaining when they fail?

[historyman]

I think most supporters can't see any discernible improvement from last year. 

In general fans are less patient these days anyway but perhaps if Clark had said at the end of last season that he had a two year re-building job on his hands rather than let his mouth run away with him then there would be more understanding for what he is trying to do. His scattergun signing policy  is also hard to defend as there have been few successes. 

[Squirrelhumper]

In what way have we improved on last season? 

[skygod]

6 hours ago, piemeister said:

Two games ago no one was mentioning sacking the manager, now we lose against last seasons 3rd and 4th place teams and people want him gone? Unbelievable.

Maybe a few people got carried away because we briefly climbed to sixth place, although the gap with 12th place was only three points!

Football fans are eternal optimists; I've lost count of the times we've changed manager or signed a new player and I've thought, "Everything will be alright now", only to find that it wasn't!

But a corner hasn't been magically turned. We're still a distinctly average team made weaker by a few injuries and suspensions.

Clark has made mistakes though. Someone should have stopped him from grabbing the mic after the Falkirk match - he built expectations that we had signings in place who were going to transform our fortunes. What we had was a mixed bag of unproven signings and loans who might make us a better team. Most of them haven't made enough impact, especially the permanent signings. Cobain, Webb, Jones, Kayode, Smith and MacFadzean have been unimpressive. Only Coulibaly, Addison and Tyson have made much of an impression and Addison is injury-prone.

But you're right that the major problems lie off the field and, again, optimism has been repeatedly been stifled. MJ was to step down as chairman, new directors were appointed, shareholders signed up to demand an EGM, a petition calling for MJ to leave was organised ... Nothing has changed, except that the directors who joined have left.

Nothing is heard from the board which gives encouragement that they know what they are doing.

Is it any wonder that frustrations build up and boil over?    

If you took a long-term view, you would say that it made sense that we should be relegated, which might give the opportunity to sort out the ownership and to regroup. Going from relegation crisis to crisis is, as Clark himself said, no good. If we have to sack anyone, maybe it should be McCulloch and Leven so Clark can bring in his own assistants. Something seems not to working on the coaching side.

 

Edited December 28, 2016 by skygod

[DuncanEwart]

I've heard this theory about relegation possibly being a good thing put about a bit since the summer. I get the idea: gives us a chance to re-organise and restructure the club, maybe start winning games and getting more punters back and more money in. But I can't help thinking about how long it took St Johnstone to get out of that division; Falkirk are still in it; Partick Thistle went out of it in the opposite direction; St Mirren could do the same; Hibs have been stuck for going on three seasons now. I would never assume Killie would bounce straight back up. Relegation could even mean part time football. 

[skygod]

2 minutes ago, DuncanEwart said:

I get the idea: gives us a chance to re-organise and restructure the club, maybe start winning games and getting more punters back and more money in.

I didn't say that relegation would be a good thing. It could even be a very bad thing.

At the moment, we are going nowhere with no sign of improvement. Not until 2019 anyway. Another two seasons of stagnation and division and falling gates. Lifelong supporters are scunnered and giving up.

Sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards. Look at St Johnstone, who you mention. Falkirk may be in the Championship but their gates are higher than ours and they seem to be a well-run club. If you speculated on where Killie and Falkirk might be in ten years time, would you rate us higher?

 

 

[DuncanEwart]

Sorry, I didn't mean you in particular were saying that relegation would be a good thing, rather that I have had this said to me. 

[Mclean07]

2 hours ago, Squirrelhumper said:

In what way have we improved on last season? 

It's all apparently based on the single fact that a couple of teams who beat us heavily last year haven't done so this year. Other than that, it's what they would like it to be in their heads.

 

[All the Wine]

The problems off the park were the same problems when Locke and Johnston were in charge, ie MJ pulling strings. 

Clark is getting an easier time than either of those two did and I just wonder why. I genuinely don't see us as being much better than when those two were in charge and with probably the same level of player, or even worse seeing that everyone we jettisoned was apparently not good enough. 

Yes there's a ton of off-field stuff that's not helping but we can't let it blind us from some of the tripe being served up on the park. If progress is not getting pumped by Partick then our expectations are really at the bottom of the barrell. Progress for me is not getting pumped full stop. Hearts and Aberdeen are decent sides but some of the fans seem to think it's acceptable to get horsed by them! 

 

[Mclean07]

34 minutes ago, skygod said:

I didn't say that relegation would be a good thing. It could even be a very bad thing.

At the moment, we are going nowhere with no sign of improvement. Not until 2019 anyway. Another two seasons of stagnation and division and falling gates. Lifelong supporters are scunnered and giving up.

Sometimes you have to go backwards to go forwards. Look at St Johnstone, who you mention. Falkirk may be in the Championship but their gates are higher than ours and they seem to be a well-run club. If you speculated on where Killie and Falkirk might be in ten years time, would you rate us higher?

 

 

Well, you've got to give Clark some credit. We're going backwards at an astonishing rate.

[Candygram for mongo]

We should not be losing 4-0 going on 7 against a low in confidence and fairly average Hearts side. We should not be failing to beat a terrible ICT team at home. We should not be being passed off the park by Partick at home. A 9-1 aggregate score against Aberdeen! I'm lost for words. Two home wins since Falkirk, which included defeat to Morton and failure to score v Albion Rov! His substitutions v St J were poor at best. Why Frizz hasn't been involved is surprising to say the least. It's taken him too long to realise his only position is the middle man in a three behind a striker, and when he shows flashes of creativity he's not involved again. ??

I do give the players 10/10 for effort and commitment in every game I've seen this season. 

It's huge disappointment that with two winnable home games against ICT and St J we had a fabulous opportunity to get 6 pts and create space for ourselves and we failed. Those two games were IMO going to be a good gage of where we were and potentially shape our season. I hope I'm wrong but the shape at the moment is taking a distinctly pear-shaped one.