Juanito

For me his technical skills and ability to pop up with a few goals are outweighted by his lack of a cover for the full backs if he is played as a winger or his lack of pace as a forward. His confidence is paper thin after being at United and Thistle during some bad times, so probably County or another team with a small support is best for him, less pressure from the stands.

If Fox saves a penalty it is a miracle.

Would love to see us look at Ross Doohan who must be nearing the end of his Celtic contract and has had a lost year and not played much. Think he would be a long term solution to one of our positions that need strengthening. Good age and good keeper. Connor Shields who is out of contract as well but I am sure we have missed the boat on him, having passed up on him when he went to Alloa. Is Aaron Taylor Sinclair out of contract as well or am I aiming to high.

It depends on what is expected from their development, neither have played more than 5 senior games, so just to be involved with a senior squad and be in the battle for a place in the team is a big step up from playing age grade football. It will be up to the players to get into the team and stay there as the parent club and other clubs will be watching, if the loan isn't working then I am sure they could be recalled in the new year window. Football is pretty simple, if you are the best player you normally play as winning a game makes everyone look like they know what they are doing, managers, coaches, boards and other players.

I am with you exiledjag and I have seen a majority of away games as well, my opinion of him soured in the 4-0 defeat to Ayr at Somerset (not the only player), he downed tools early and left Williamson exposed to the overlap from Forrest and I think Harvie, in the second half he was called on his lack of effort by a fan on the terrace and buzzed about for 10 minutes until his engine went. Good in a good team man down in a poor team.

Swanson v Foster on the wing should be tasty.

He also has played lots of games on an artificial surface, which if we are in league 1 will be important.

Foster and Cardle on the same side of the pitch scares the life out of me, massive lack of pace in that team. Early days but still not sure what type of team we are planning to be, if we are looking for Penrice and Foster to supply the width then its a worry. If they are a nice steady pair of full backs to allow the players in front a platform then OK.

Think the initial problem would be how do we pay full time players with no income whilst part time teams will just hibernate and start up when pre-season for our league kicks in. No start date for League 1 and it will be at least 4 months till any gate money comes in, also if our league starts behind the championship most players would take a solid offer of known football and pay vs a maybe we will start around the same time offer, so we will not have our pick of players to improve the squad.

Thanks for the info, not as bad as I first feared but will be interesting to see how we proceed in the future.

I presume we aren't using the furlough scheme as I don't remember it being mentioned, or we are using it and topping up the wage to 100%, either way costly given the minimal money coming into the club at the time. We can't pay off players we would normally come to an agreement with. We couldn't sign players just now and place them on the furlough scheme so there is going to be an almighty bun fight when football returns to professional level.

Interested to know everybody's opinion on what to do the playing staff. Currently we are likely to begin any season in League 1 and contracts are coming to an end. Do we follow the likes of Ross County and free players we have no need for to preserve as much money in the club as possible for the long term. Or do we offer short term contracts to the players to give them some security over this difficult period, similarly to Ayr and Dundee. Also do we place them on the furlough scheme as I think currently we are still paying full wages and the likes of Motherwell have placed all staff on the scheme. I think I would try and keep as much money in the club as possible with the aim to springboard back up the leagues if possible, but that might be due to my dislike of the current squad.

Best window ever

Excellent topic and some really great posts and with all the recent boardroom movement something that has occupied my mind. For me Thistle are a club which should be somewhere between 8th and 16th in Scottish football, given its size location and history. Given the information above that is pretty much on average where we are. I would be interested in other peoples thoughts but the jags are a pretty unusual team to follow, smaller core support (due to location, wealth, recent success) than Killie, Motherwell maybe even St.Mirren or Falkirk but i think we have a higher percentage of that core support which go home and away. So it seems to me that it is more difficult to hide at Thistle, maybe why managers are very hit and miss, we are a very passionate support (which is good and bad). If we could get our season ticket sales up to 2000 and our home support up past 4000 consistently then I think we can look at moving the goalposts up a place or two, Killie and Motherwell survive on being somewhere between 6th and 11th usually. I do think we would have to knock one or more of the established teams out of the league to do this. I would happily spend many hours over a beer discussing how possible this is to achieve.