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7 hours ago, Garscube Road End 2 said:

Well. Messi is free to talk to in January. Maybe Barca would let us have him early in exchange for Rudden.

Sadly that deal is likely to be scuppered by sevco, as they've first dibs on El Zak. Besides I just can't see both Messi and Blair Lyons in the same starting XI.

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1 hour ago, McCall Out said:

Such acceptance of mediocrity is what will kill our club. We need to get out of this league this season. In case you haven't noticed, upwardly mobile Queens Park will be joining us next year and full-time QotS could well be coming down. Falkirk are hardly running away with the league, so suppose Airdrie or Montrose get promoted and Cove turn full time. We could potentially have 5 full time teams in League One next season. I know that is worst case scenario, but it is a possibility I don't want to risk.  We are currently 5th, so I am really struggling to understand the "stick on for the play-offs" comment. I've said before that McCall was the last ever manager of Airdrieonians and Clydebank, so failure to get promoted this year could well make it a hat-trick.

I think that laukat has been slightly generous in his assessment of some players (I am tempted to change my name to Rudden Out), but I do think that on paper we have a better squad than our league place. But lets turn it round and ask who from Montrose, Airdrie or Cove would you want in our squad ? Then ask why are these teams, with inferior players doing better than us ?

I think that but in bold is an interesting question. Now we have played all teams at least once I think we do have the best defence in the league so I would suspect that most clubs in this league would want Foster, Brownlie, Sena, Williamson and Docherty. You could probably add Graham as someone most clubs would want and I suspect every other team would gladly take Rudden. I would go one further and say that those players would interest most Championship teams.

However we are missing some attacking talent so perhaps another slant on your question would be who would we take from other clubs in this league? I can't think of many beyond Robert at Airdrie and Morrison at Falkirk both are wide/creative players. When you go looking for strikers there isn't really a stand out at this level. Perhaps Goodwillie but for non-footballing reasons he is someone we should not be looking at.

The only problem with this is choices are limited by budget. As much as I think every team in the league would want 6 or 7 of our players there is really only us and Falkirk with a budget big enough to afford them. Similarly we might want Robert and Morrison but we would be competing against teams with bigger or similar budgets.

The better comparission is between us and Falkirk. Partly because of the similarity in size and partly because they are setting the pace but mainly because in my opinion it will still come down to Falkirk or us to win the league. They are scoring more in general and conceding the same amount as us. So are the Falkirk fans happy with their manager and their playing squad?

In short no.  Their fans are not enjoying the style of play and recongnise they struggle to break teams down. They don't have a striker and are pinning their hopes on the return of Aidan Keena who doesn't have a great track record and is still injured. Alston was their big signing and so far he's struggled to meet expectations. At the moment they are reliant on Morrison but I suspect now that other teams in the league have seen what he can do will handle him better and he may struggle to make the same impact on the remainder of the season. Their management team are inexperienced, make some poor tactical choices and have largely went for journeymen to get them out of the league rather than sign players with a future to create a team that takes the club forward. Even if they get promoted they still have problems and serious work to do that could well result in a relegation the following season.

We as a club needed a complete rebuild and from what I see it starting to take shape. We have a defence and midfield that looks reliable and we have a squad age that will allow for progression. To my mind McCall is doing a decent rebuild job that if we were still in the championship most would be happy with. In my opinion the problem for McCall is the expectation is that the squad rebuild can be done at the same time as winning the league in a season were there are only 27 games. Thats a big ask but I think we have the best manager we can afford.

That being said if McCall can't get us challenging, improve the attacking play and mimimum the playoffs then there will need to be a change.

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4 minutes ago, laukat said:

I think that but in bold is an interesting question. Now we have played all teams at least once I think we do have the best defence in the league so I would suspect that most clubs in this league would want Foster, Brownlie, Sena, Williamson and Docherty. You could probably add Graham as someone most clubs would want and I suspect every other team would gladly take Rudden. I would go one further and say that those players would interest most Championship teams.

However we are missing some attacking talent so perhaps another slant on your question would be who would we take from other clubs in this league? I can't think of many beyond Robert at Airdrie and Morrison at Falkirk both are wide/creative players. When you go looking for strikers there isn't really a stand out at this level. Perhaps Goodwillie but for non-footballing reasons he is someone we should not be looking at.

The only problem with this is choices are limited by budget. As much as I think every team in the league would want 6 or 7 of our players there is really only us and Falkirk with a budget big enough to afford them. Similarly we might want Robert and Morrison but we would be competing against teams with bigger or similar budgets.

The better comparission is between us and Falkirk. Partly because of the similarity in size and partly because they are setting the pace but mainly because in my opinion it will still come down to Falkirk or us to win the league. They are scoring more in general and conceding the same amount as us. So are the Falkirk fans happy with their manager and their playing squad?

In short no.  Their fans are not enjoying the style of play and recongnise they struggle to break teams down. They don't have a striker and are pinning their hopes on the return of Aidan Keena who doesn't have a great track record and is still injured. Alston was their big signing and so far he's struggled to meet expectations. At the moment they are reliant on Morrison but I suspect now that other teams in the league have seen what he can do will handle him better and he may struggle to make the same impact on the remainder of the season. Their management team are inexperienced, make some poor tactical choices and have largely went for journeymen to get them out of the league rather than sign players with a future to create a team that takes the club forward. Even if they get promoted they still have problems and serious work to do that could well result in a relegation the following season.

We as a club needed a complete rebuild and from what I see it starting to take shape. We have a defence and midfield that looks reliable and we have a squad age that will allow for progression. To my mind McCall is doing a decent rebuild job that if we were still in the championship most would be happy with. In my opinion the problem for McCall is the expectation is that the squad rebuild can be done at the same time as winning the league in a season were there are only 27 games. Thats a big ask but I think we have the best manager we can afford.

That being said if McCall can't get us challenging, improve the attacking play and mimimum the playoffs then there will need to be a change.

The question I was asking was who from the other teams we would want and the answer is maybe Morrison. Given that we therefore have potentially the best squad in the league, and players that most other clubs would give their left arm for, it is not unreasonable to expect us to be putting up a better challenge than we are currently. Whether there is a rebuild or not, we could and should be doing very much better.

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36 minutes ago, Lenziejag said:

Do you really think that if we don’t get promoted we are going out of business. I am sure everybody would be delighted to know how you would get us out of this league ? What manager would you employ, which players would you sign and how would you pay for ending the contracts of McCall & Co.

This is not an acceptance of mediocrity, more an acceptance of reality.

If we don't get promoted this season, we are looking at a prolonged stay in this league. With reduced sponsorship and dwindling fans, part-time football will soon follow and that would be the start of the slippery slope.

As for who I want, I have no idea who is available, or who is interested, but I would certainly hope that our board do. We were told that the finances were fine before we got the £150k from the government, I don't know if that is enough, but it would certainly make a good dent into what it would cost to get rid of the three amigos. In my opinion, we don't need any additional players, maybe replace some of the loans which end in January, but if we appoint the right manager, we already have the potential to win this league with ease.

I will never accept mediocrity. 

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16 minutes ago, laukat said:

I think that but in bold is an interesting question. Now we have played all teams at least once I think we do have the best defence in the league so I would suspect that most clubs in this league would want Foster, Brownlie, Sena, Williamson and Docherty. You could probably add Graham as someone most clubs would want and I suspect every other team would gladly take Rudden. I would go one further and say that those players would interest most Championship teams.

However we are missing some attacking talent so perhaps another slant on your question would be who would we take from other clubs in this league? I can't think of many beyond Robert at Airdrie and Morrison at Falkirk both are wide/creative players. When you go looking for strikers there isn't really a stand out at this level. Perhaps Goodwillie but for non-footballing reasons he is someone we should not be looking at.

The only problem with this is choices are limited by budget. As much as I think every team in the league would want 6 or 7 of our players there is really only us and Falkirk with a budget big enough to afford them. Similarly we might want Robert and Morrison but we would be competing against teams with bigger or similar budgets.

The better comparission is between us and Falkirk. Partly because of the similarity in size and partly because they are setting the pace but mainly because in my opinion it will still come down to Falkirk or us to win the league. They are scoring more in general and conceding the same amount as us. So are the Falkirk fans happy with their manager and their playing squad?

In short no.  Their fans are not enjoying the style of play and recongnise they struggle to break teams down. They don't have a striker and are pinning their hopes on the return of Aidan Keena who doesn't have a great track record and is still injured. Alston was their big signing and so far he's struggled to meet expectations. At the moment they are reliant on Morrison but I suspect now that other teams in the league have seen what he can do will handle him better and he may struggle to make the same impact on the remainder of the season. Their management team are inexperienced, make some poor tactical choices and have largely went for journeymen to get them out of the league rather than sign players with a future to create a team that takes the club forward. Even if they get promoted they still have problems and serious work to do that could well result in a relegation the following season.

We as a club needed a complete rebuild and from what I see it starting to take shape. We have a defence and midfield that looks reliable and we have a squad age that will allow for progression. To my mind McCall is doing a decent rebuild job that if we were still in the championship most would be happy with. In my opinion the problem for McCall is the expectation is that the squad rebuild can be done at the same time as winning the league in a season were there are only 27 games. Thats a big ask but I think we have the best manager we can afford.

That being said if McCall can't get us challenging, improve the attacking play and mimimum the playoffs then there will need to be a change.

Well thought through and balanced contribution. Totally agree. 

In the face of disappointing performances and results I think it is easy to underestimate the impact that injuries  have had on the stability of the team.  Changing the Manager will simply add to the lack of stability. 

In the next couple of seasons  I see McCall as a Director of Football working with a younger manager (not Archibald, don't know enough about Scally) ). 

I know it's hard supporting the Jags at the moment but we need to be positive and keep our eye on the future! 

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58 minutes ago, McCall Out said:

If we don't get promoted this season, we are looking at a prolonged stay in this league. With reduced sponsorship and dwindling fans, part-time football will soon follow and that would be the start of the slippery slope.

As for who I want, I have no idea who is available, or who is interested, but I would certainly hope that our board do. We were told that the finances were fine before we got the £150k from the government, I don't know if that is enough, but it would certainly make a good dent into what it would cost to get rid of the three amigos. In my opinion, we don't need any additional players, maybe replace some of the loans which end in January, but if we appoint the right manager, we already have the potential to win this league with ease.

I will never accept mediocrity. 

It is just conjecture that not getting promoted this season will result in a prolonged stay. You assume that Cove will turn professional, that Queens Park will challenge and that QOTS will remain full time if they get relegated. It is also interesting that you have Montrose or Airdrie getting promoted if Falkirk falter.

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1 hour ago, Lenziejag said:

It is just conjecture that not getting promoted this season will result in a prolonged stay. You assume that Cove will turn professional, that Queens Park will challenge and that QOTS will remain full time if they get relegated. It is also interesting that you have Montrose or Airdrie getting promoted if Falkirk falter.

If you actually read what I say, that is a worst case scenario that we could have 5 full time teams in league one. It is possible and it is a worst case.

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3 hours ago, Auld Jag said:

Rudden to make donation to Partick Thistle charitable trust in recognition of letting his teammates and fans down after his red card.

It's good that the Club have publicly acknowledged the manager has had a 'discussion' with Rudden about the red card. Although McCall is saying he has 'his own views about the sending off' which suggests to me he is not entirely happy with the referee, I think we can all guess what the tone of the discussion might have been! 

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7 hours ago, McCall Out said:

The question I was asking was who from the other teams we would want and the answer is maybe Morrison. Given that we therefore have potentially the best squad in the league, and players that most other clubs would give their left arm for, it is not unreasonable to expect us to be putting up a better challenge than we are currently. Whether there is a rebuild or not, we could and should be doing very much better.

I think the reason we are not doing better is because we are doing the largest rebuild.

Based on information on trasfermarkt (happily corrected if I have this wrong) I belive Montrose signed only 5 players in 2020, Cove 8, Airdrie 12 (of which 2 are goalkeepers.

 We've signed 14 and Falkirk have also signed 14 in 2020. However of the 14 we've signed only 2 that aren't really featuring (Reilly, Kouder-Aissa) whereas in Falkirk's 14 there are 3 goalkeepers.

So it would suggest that teams like Cove and Montrose are benefitting from a stable squad that doesn't need a rebuild. They've not rebuilt because they have managers and results that are in line with their upper expecations.

Airdrie are somewhere in between and seem to have got lucky with Robert but equally their form has fluctuated and it was only a couple of weeks ago Airdie fans thought Murray should leave. It wouldn't suprise me if Airdrie finished outside the top 4 this season.

The only team in the league to sign more players in 2020 than us or Falkirk are Forfar with 18. Which perhaps indicates its hard to bring in a lot of players and hit the ground running.

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8 minutes ago, laukat said:

I think the reason we are not doing better is because we are doing the largest rebuild.

Based on information on trasfermarkt (happily corrected if I have this wrong) I belive Montrose signed only 5 players in 2020, Cove 8, Airdrie 12 (of which 2 are goalkeepers.

 We've signed 14 and Falkirk have also signed 14 in 2020. However of the 14 we've signed only 2 that aren't really featuring (Reilly, Kouder-Aissa) whereas in Falkirk's 14 there are 3 goalkeepers.

So it would suggest that teams like Cove and Montrose are benefitting from a stable squad that doesn't need a rebuild. They've not rebuilt because they have managers and results that are in line with their upper expecations.

Airdrie are somewhere in between and seem to have got lucky with Robert but equally their form has fluctuated and it was only a couple of weeks ago Airdie fans thought Murray should leave. It wouldn't suprise me if Airdrie finished outside the top 4 this season.

The only team in the league to sign more players in 2020 than us or Falkirk are Forfar with 18. Which perhaps indicates its hard to bring in a lot of players and hit the ground running.

Robert is apparently way to Livi on a permanent deal in January and will be loaned back to Airdrie for the rest of the season 

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1 hour ago, laukat said:

I think the reason we are not doing better is because we are doing the largest rebuild.

Based on information on trasfermarkt (happily corrected if I have this wrong) I belive Montrose signed only 5 players in 2020, Cove 8, Airdrie 12 (of which 2 are goalkeepers.

 We've signed 14 and Falkirk have also signed 14 in 2020. However of the 14 we've signed only 2 that aren't really featuring (Reilly, Kouder-Aissa) whereas in Falkirk's 14 there are 3 goalkeepers.

So it would suggest that teams like Cove and Montrose are benefitting from a stable squad that doesn't need a rebuild. They've not rebuilt because they have managers and results that are in line with their upper expecations.

Airdrie are somewhere in between and seem to have got lucky with Robert but equally their form has fluctuated and it was only a couple of weeks ago Airdie fans thought Murray should leave. It wouldn't suprise me if Airdrie finished outside the top 4 this season.

The only team in the league to sign more players in 2020 than us or Falkirk are Forfar with 18. Which perhaps indicates its hard to bring in a lot of players and hit the ground running.

Personally I think you’re grasping at straws.  Why does a rebuild mean that players can’t score goals, complete simple passes, move into space or tackle a player? 

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7 minutes ago, Big Col said:

Personally I think you’re grasping at straws.  Why does a rebuild mean that players can’t score goals, complete simple passes, move into space or tackle a player? 

If you take that argument to its logical conclusion every team in professional football would be top of the league. Rebuilds take time. At the moment the majority ( i think ) of thistle fans believe he gets more time. 

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10 minutes ago, Big Col said:

Personally I think you’re grasping at straws.  Why does a rebuild mean that players can’t score goals, complete simple passes, move into space or tackle a player? 

It doesn't its possible to bring in an entire squad of players (McCall did at Aidrie in our promotion year and at Clydebank before they went under, Clyde did it for a couple of seasons via their player trials) but the chances of a large bunch of strangers hitting the ground running and reading their new team mates game is not high. Turning over a squad and getting immediate success is the exception not the norm.

I'd be more worried if we had turned over the squad with no real plan such as Archie's signing spree when we were relegated from the premier or Caldwell's attempts. Both signed a lot of players but didn't address the foundation of any good team i.e being able to defend. McCall has done that and in general his signings have both improved the quality of the team and are generally of an age that allows a team to form.

If we can get a couple of players in January who boost our attacking threat we should have the makings of a decent team.

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The very least McCall was brought in to do was keep us in the championship. I know that events contrived to end the season and we got demoted. McCall has to take some of the blame that we found ourselves at the bottom of the league when the season was prematurely ended. January will be his 3rd transfer window and if he fails to get us promotion this season he should not be Thistle manager next season. 

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11 hours ago, northernsoul said:

Take a bow.

What a perfect summarisation of the ignorance and delusion that is rife from those in control of the Club. 

The Jacqui Low effect.

 

It's clearly easier for me to support Thistle, the team, than it is for some of you and this isn't about taking a bow.

I have no idea about the Jacqui Low effect or ignorance from those in control of the club. Do any of these things really exist?

I don't recall ever hating any Thistle manager or board member in my 50 years as a Jag. I've been irritated by some on occasion, had my say about some players and certainly do not like many other clubs one bit.

I've learned to take the highs with the Lows and trust that we are where we belong. Somewhere in the Leagues within Scotland.

Our normal distribution curve encompasses three Leagues but for the majority of the time, we'll sit somewhere between 9th and 16th I'm guessing.

On occasion we'll get into the top 6 and on others, like now, it will be terrible.

As we are a well run club financially and quite well supported, I have no doubt, we will find our way back to where we usually reside.

This time round, it may take longer than we all would like.

If any bookie out there wants to give odds that Thistle will be between 9th and 16th within the next 5 years, I'll break my own bank to bet that. 

 

 

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8 hours ago, CotterJag said:

It's clearly easier for me to support Thistle, the team, than it is for some of you and this isn't about taking a bow.

I have no idea about the Jacqui Low effect or ignorance from those in control of the club. Do any of these things really exist?

I don't recall ever hating any Thistle manager or board member in my 50 years as a Jag. I've been irritated by some on occasion, had my say about some players and certainly do not like many other clubs one bit.

I've learned to take the highs with the Lows and trust that we are where we belong. Somewhere in the Leagues within Scotland.

Our normal distribution curve encompasses three Leagues but for the majority of the time, we'll sit somewhere between 9th and 16th I'm guessing.

On occasion we'll get into the top 6 and on others, like now, it will be terrible.

As we are a well run club financially and quite well supported, I have no doubt, we will find our way back to where we usually reside.

This time round, it may take longer than we all would like.

If any bookie out there wants to give odds that Thistle will be between 9th and 16th within the next 5 years, I'll break my own bank to bet that. 

 

 

This is my opinion as well, except I would never bet on Thistle. 

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15 hours ago, Lenziejag said:

So it doesn’t matter how well or badly the next manager is ?

Of course it matters how well or badly the next manager is. As I have said, getting out of this league this season is of paramount importance. Just making the playoffs (without promotion) will be a total failure for a manager who was backed by the board to keep us in the Championship, then backed again to get us out of League One. I may be many things, but I'm not a fool and I am well aware that there are no guarantees that a change of manager will bring success, but in my opinion, the odds of success are greater with someone other than McCall in charge.

Lets start by looking at his track record

 

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That is an excellent record at Falkirk and Ayr, but those 2 apart, what we are seeing now is pretty much his average. It is therefore not unreasonable to extrapolate this and winning roughly one in every 3 is not going to be good enough. The average managerial win rate in Scotland over the last 10 years is around 40%, so if we get an average manager, the chances will be better than sticking with McCall.

Secondly, I don't buy this team building argument and I'll start with why did he need to rebuild the team ? Breaking down his 41 games in this stint, he won 9 out of 16 between taking over from Caldwell and January. This is a very respectable 56% win rate and if that had continued would have seen us well clear of any relegation threat. We know what happened next, no wins in 7. So far this year we have won 5 out of 14 or 35.7%, around bang average for a McCall team. Remember that this is against mainly part-time league one sides.

 

Shocking statistic alert ! Queens Park are the only full-time team that we beat in 2020.

 

And then the myth that he can build a team. I don't recall what happened at Falkirk, but I would suggest that over 30 games, this was not a team building. I do recall that QotS improved hugely when Chisholm took over from him and at Ayr it took some time before he got them winning. They had to suffer a Championship relegation before he got it right. I don't think that he has that time here. As I have said, failure to gain promotion this season will be a failure that could be catastrophic.

The other myth is that he built the Thistle Championship promotion team. No ! I will give you that he found some good players with potential and that there might be a role for him as a scout somewhere, but it was Jackie Mac who blended these players into a team and released their potential. I think that this time round he has again found some good players with potential. We now need a Jackie Mac type (not Jackie) to take the players to the next level.

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