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Manager's Position


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Manager's Position  

77 members have voted

  1. 1. Should the manager be dismissed?

    • Yes - now.
      33
    • Yes but only if results have not improved by end of November.
      27
    • No - give him full season and make a decision then.
      17


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13 minutes ago, laukat said:

Conversely 36 out of 46 or nearly 80% have only given him to the end of November.

I choose the option to give him until the end of November because failure to get points at home against Arbroath and progress in the cup against Kelty is a minimum requirement no matter what injuries we have. 

By the end of November we will have played 7 games without Holt and Docherty. If he can't figure out how to fix the current problems by then I think its more than fair to say he's never going to.

On a related note - has anyone any idea what Docherty and Graham's injuries are? I've not seen anything that gives a clue on whats up with them or when they are likely to return.

I know Holt's out for 8 to 12 weeks which means he's probably not back until January. With Muirhead's upcoming suspension and potentially Bannigan injured I'm surprised we haven't brought in a free agent. Someone like Kevin McDonald if fit could do a job for us.

 

 

Not sure about Kevin Holts injury , but Doc’s injury is a Grade 1 hip flexor tear 

Whatever that means !

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I haven’t voted for a couple of reasons:

- I haven’t been to games (seems I’ve timed my boycott pretty well!) so don’t have a good understanding of what’s happening on the pitch

- I honestly don’t know what the answer is, and in some ways I don’t know what the root problem is

IMac and his assistants simply can’t have become less capable in the space of 2 weeks. The injuries might have exposed the management’s failings but by the same token when the injuries clear up would we be coasting again?

I also really don’t think the timing of this slump is accidental. We have a new ‘ownership’ and I have to wonder what’s going on behind the scenes that’s affecting how non-playing staff go about their work, which in turn affects how players train, are set up and ultimately play. I know others don’t see the link as being that direct, but if there’s a paralysis in decision making or some other kind of stooshie it would certainly affect me as an employee even if it didn’t care that much about the business I work in going belly-up.

Although I’m generally a McCall fan I couldn’t defend recent results if they’d occurred in isolation. I’m simply not convinced they’re occurring in isolation. I think something’s badly rotten at our club and what we’re seeing is the effect, not the cause of that malady. And therefore binning the manager MIGHT not cure it.

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Question: Do people really believe that losing four league games on the trot is a sound reason for a manager to lose his job?

Supplementary question: Would anybody that answers Yes to the above question think that winning four games on the trot would be a sound reason for a manager to be satisfied and his job to be safe?

Final question: Think back to our history over the past couple of years.

Now what do you think?

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33 minutes ago, Jaggernaut said:

Question: Do people really believe that losing four league games on the trot is a sound reason for a manager to lose his job?

At this level, with the nature of the defeats as they have been, I think on balance yes.

I think lose next week I think he should leave. Draw next week, win Arbroath and Kelty Hearts I think he has survived.

Despite being very experienced, he hasn't been able to manage the team out of this slump.

Going back to 2000, I can't think of any manager who has been sacked too hastily, been treated unfairly by PTFC, or sacked unexpectedly. I don't think now would be an exception to this.

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34 minutes ago, Jaggernaut said:

Question: Do people really believe that losing four league games on the trot is a sound reason for a manager to lose his job?

Supplementary question: Would anybody that answers Yes to the above question think that winning four games on the trot would be a sound reason for a manager to be satisfied and his job to be safe?

Final question: Think back to our history over the past couple of years.

Now what do you think?

Don’t think it’s just about losing a few games , it’s the direction McCall is taking the Club , too many journeymen players Smith , Mitchell , Muirhead etc.  If by some stretch of the imagination we did get promotion how many of these players would be good enough for the Premier League , at a stretch Harry Milne and maybe Kevin Holt .

Surely over a period of time there has to be a pathway for young players coming through either our system or give a chance to other Academy’s players who haven’t  quite made it yet . 
I agree there has to be a balance between young and experienced players.

At our level there also should be a functioning scouting system, not just relying on agents pushing forward their players .

IMO for us to have an optimistic future there has to be a progressive management team and even before the recent batch of results I don’t think we’ve got that .

 


 

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1 hour ago, MarciaBlaine said:

I haven’t voted for a couple of reasons:

- I haven’t been to games (seems I’ve timed my boycott pretty well!) so don’t have a good understanding of what’s happening on the pitch

- I honestly don’t know what the answer is, and in some ways I don’t know what the root problem is

IMac and his assistants simply can’t have become less capable in the space of 2 weeks. The injuries might have exposed the management’s failings but by the same token when the injuries clear up would we be coasting again?

I also really don’t think the timing of this slump is accidental. We have a new ‘ownership’ and I have to wonder what’s going on behind the scenes that’s affecting how non-playing staff go about their work, which in turn affects how players train, are set up and ultimately play. I know others don’t see the link as being that direct, but if there’s a paralysis in decision making or some other kind of stooshie it would certainly affect me as an employee even if it didn’t care that much about the business I work in going belly-up.

Although I’m generally a McCall fan I couldn’t defend recent results if they’d occurred in isolation. I’m simply not convinced they’re occurring in isolation. I think something’s badly rotten at our club and what we’re seeing is the effect, not the cause of that malady. And therefore binning the manager MIGHT not cure it.

I thought the whole thing about the share transfer was that there was no real change at all ? I think the slump is more to do with the missing players and the lack of quality in the squad. 

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54 minutes ago, Jaggernaut said:

Question: Do people really believe that losing four league games on the trot is a sound reason for a manager to lose his job?

Supplementary question: Would anybody that answers Yes to the above question think that winning four games on the trot would be a sound reason for a manager to be satisfied and his job to be safe?

Final question: Think back to our history over the past couple of years.

Now what do you think?

We haven’t just lost 4 games in a row. It’s the manner that we have lost those games. It’s seems as if a wee switch is flicked as soon as something goes against us and we cave.  I think that is why people are voting to sack now.  McCall is also saying he doesn’t know how to fix it.

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There is, I think, a big difference between, say, losing five games on the bounce by 1-0 or 2-1, and losing five games by a margin of  -13, while shipping 18 goals, including chucking away a comfortable 2-0 lead. We haven’t been unlucky; we’ve thoroughly deserved to get beaten, and handsomely, in all five fixtures.

The defence and goalkeeper yesterday were as soft as a Camembert dip. Well, apart from when they were getting sent off for violent conduct, that is.

We’ve had only two clean sheets against second tier opposition this season, and only three overall in competitive games. That’s not good enough. We had 22 clean sheets in all competitions last season and barely qualified for the playoffs.

This team is badly unbalanced. The preferred keeper is dreadful, the back-up defensive options in Hodson, Brownlee and Akinola can’t hack it. Muirhead is a nutter who can’t be relied upon. Of those not injured only McMillan and Milne get pass marks defensively (and the latter gets a bit of leeway because he’s decent going forward). The defence is chocolate without Doc sitting in front of it, and in turn the midfield is totally lost when neither he nor Banzo are available.

When you think about successful, or at least reliable, Thistle teams in years gone by, you had an established backbone in the form of a consistent centre back pairing and a reliable defensive midfielder sitting in front of them. We simply do not have that right now.

We are going into every game knowing we are going to need to score twice just to have a sniff at taking a point. That’s a bad place to be in a league that can very quickly see teams go on a run and leapfrog you.

At any other Club McCall, and his wider management team, would be on borrowed time now. On footballing matters the buck ultimately stop with him.

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1 hour ago, Jaggernaut said:

Question: Do people really believe that losing four league games on the trot is a sound reason for a manager to lose his job?

Supplementary question: Would anybody that answers Yes to the above question think that winning four games on the trot would be a sound reason for a manager to be satisfied and his job to be safe?

Final question: Think back to our history over the past couple of years.

Now what do you think?

In answer to your first question I agree with Lenziejag's comments. 

Re questions 2 and 3. I take your points. 

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1 hour ago, Jaggernaut said:

Question: Do people really believe that losing four league games on the trot is a sound reason for a manager to lose his job?

Supplementary question: Would anybody that answers Yes to the above question think that winning four games on the trot would be a sound reason for a manager to be satisfied and his job to be safe?

Final question: Think back to our history over the past couple of years.

Now what do you think?

In the last six league games we are bottom of the league with 3 points so yes the manager has to be under pressure 

football is a simple results business so winning you keep your job 

in general we give out managers the benefit of the doubt

a better questions is : with the squad we have are our results and league position what you would expect ? 

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1 hour ago, Jaggernaut said:

Question: Do people really believe that losing four league games on the trot is a sound reason for a manager to lose his job?

Supplementary question: Would anybody that answers Yes to the above question think that winning four games on the trot would be a sound reason for a manager to be satisfied and his job to be safe?

Final question: Think back to our history over the past couple of years.

Now what do you think?

For me it is a combination of things - the manner of those defeats, the recurring mistakes which are not being learnt from (going back to last season) and players not looking fit.

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4 hours ago, Bleeding Gums Murphy said:

Which makes the continual picking of him as first choice all the more bizarre.
Think we all know McCall not a fan of Sneddon as started with the Hearts boy Stone last season before he was injured.
 

Sneddon (& defence in general) confidence is shot & the last line of defence is a big factor in that. 
 

He can put his hand up & apologise all he wants but it is happening every other week. 
Next week’s GK selection will tell us a lot. 
 

Funny smell at Firhill these days & not the canal. 

I think Kenny Arthur gets off very lightly here.presumably he is responsible for training the keepers and has an input into who should be playing 

Arthur has been here the same amount of time as Sneddon and for Jamie appears to have regressed a number of times as has Mitchell 

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2 hours ago, Lenziejag said:

I thought the whole thing about the share transfer was that there was no real change at all ? I think the slump is more to do with the missing players and the lack of quality in the squad. 

The scenarios I have in my head are:

a. where a proud and haughty chairman starts saying things like “that’s now not up to me/I can’t make a new decision on that/that’s for the ‘owners’ to give instruction on”, while the famous five of the PTFC Trust collectively wet their knickers or bury their heads in the sand (as evidenced by their recent absence from… everything!). I can easily see JLow taking that sort of line and how it might lead to paralysis at the club.

b. Or the opposite: the so-called Trust are actually trying to make decisions according to the letter of the law (i.e. they’re technically in control) and the board/chair are actively resisting it. Again, I can see Ms Low doing exactly that.

c. Or even this: the chair is trying to involve the Trust in decision making and they’re simply too inexperienced/overwhelmed to do it. Again leading to stagnation and a lack of decision-making, even bad blood amongst individuals or groups. Probably giving JLow too much credit with this example though…

Our current mess of an ownership structure is set up for exactly these types of civil war, which (and it’s just my view) will trickle down to disharmony throughout the club including on the pitch. For example, say  McCall saw all the problems we now see in defence and wanted to sign a cover defender, and for one of the above reasons it couldn’t happen. 

(And that is of course why the ownership transfer should never have happened.)

I’m not saying any of the above is necessarily the case. I’m saying the timing of the slump and the ownership mess suggest it to me.

Edited by MarciaBlaine
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Unbelievable a couple of fans on Facebook suggesting we go for Danny Lennon because he is a free agent and a jags legend.

He is a free agent because Clyde have sacked him for taking them to bottom of league one

He also appointed Goodwillie as captain and gave him a gushing tribute to him when he left to go to Raith.  Then welcomed Goodwillie back with open arms following the fiasco at Raith.  Also appointed a convicted racist as club captain in Ally Love

Danny Lennon would be an easy appointment for the board with this jags legend rubbish that some fans seem to lap up and believe we can’t employ anyone who has not had some connection to Firhill in the past but to even contemplate employing him would be a disgrace for all of the reasons above not least hes just been sacked for taking Clyde to bottom of league one

Edited by Third Lanark
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8 minutes ago, Third Lanark said:

I think Kenny Arthur gets off very lightly here.presumably he is responsible for training the keepers and has an input into who should be playing 

Arthur has been here the same amount of time as Sneddon and for Jamie appears to have regressed a number of times as has Mitchell 

We were speaking about this yesterday funnily enough. Sneddon broke the club clean sheet record last season & had a number of saves that ultimately got us the points required to scrape into play offs. Think the fact he’s been dropped & playing behind a clown keeper has probably shot his confidence- along with the fact he’s more than aware manager doesn’t rate him.

 

Take your point re Arthur tho. Another who needs cleared out. Been there too long & if he’s telling McCall that Mitchell a better keeper then Sneddon when watching them train & play then he’s every bit as culpable.

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16 minutes ago, MarciaBlaine said:

The scenarios I have in my head are:

a. where a proud and haughty chairman starts saying things like “that’s now not up to me/I can’t make a new decision on that/that’s for the ‘owners’ to give instruction on”, while the famous five of the PTFC Trust collectively wet their knickers or bury their heads in the sand (as evidenced by their recent absence from… everything!). I can easily see JLow taking that sort of line and how it might lead to paralysis at the club.

b. Or the opposite: the so-called Trust are actually trying to make decisions according to the letter of the law (i.e. they’re technically in control) and the board/chair are actively resisting it. Again, I can see Ms Low doing exactly that.

c. Or even this: the chair is trying to involve the Trust in decision making and they’re simply too inexperienced/overwhelmed to do it. Again leading to stagnation and a lack of decision-making, even bad blood amongst individuals or groups. Probably giving JLow too much credit with this example though…

Our current mess of an ownership structure is set up for exactly these types of civil war, which (and it’s just my view) will trickle down to disharmony though out the club including on the pitch. For example, say  McCall saw all the problems we now see in defence and wanted to sign a cover defender, and for one of the above reasons it couldn’t happen. 

(And that is of course why the ownership transfer should never have happened.)

I’m not saying any of the above is necessarily the case. I’m saying the timing of the slump and the ownership mess suggest it to me.

Quite a few people have remarked that the chairman should be the first out the door- although I have no idea if that’s even a possibility 

He did try to sign Joe Shaugnessy from st Mirren but was told there was no money for it- which makes it all the more perplexing that tha jags foundation who were able to offer at least £70,000 to the budget were refused

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6 minutes ago, Bleeding Gums Murphy said:

We were speaking about this yesterday funnily enough. Sneddon broke the club clean sheet record last season & had a number of saves that ultimately got us the points required to scrape into play offs. Think the fact he’s been dropped & playing behind a clown keeper has probably shot his confidence- along with the fact he’s more than aware manager doesn’t rate him.

 

Take your point re Arthur tho. Another who needs cleared out. Been there too long & if he’s telling McCall that Mitchell a better keeper then Sneddon when watching them train & play then he’s every bit as culpable.

My thoughts entirely, what are we paying Kenny Arthur to do,  from going 8 games without losing a goal , which was a club record to loosing 18 in 5 games and I have scene everyone of them must also be also be near a record.. Onwards down to Morton next week, after seeing them put 4 passed I.C.T. last week who knows how many goals we are going to ship...

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22 hours ago, Dick Dastardly said:

Accounts say we are not struggling financially. If the are genuine then the money should not be a problem. I think there will be plenty who would apply. There are for most manager jobs.

Have you actually read them?

Cash reserves dropped from £623 k to £311k creditors up from £428k to £723k plus posting a loss of £280k

 

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Kenny Arthur is another joker who achieved sod all in his career, yet had the audacity to coach Tam Cerny to be a good goalkeeper! Nepotism has poisoned every facet of this pathetic and crumbling club. We consistently reward mediocrity, and our fans excuse it because "at least we ur no the Old Furm ughly sisturs." 

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McCall  has a genuine feel for the Club,  an attacking attitude as a manager and a relatively high media profile...these are all of real value.  He has assembled a squad which from what I have seen this season is clearly the best in the League although with the reservation that we have decent Championship players who may not be good enough for the Premiership...there is a similar concern with regard to his managerial abilities.

It's all gone wrong in the last month.  We have been unfortunate with injuries to key players but the replacements have failed to make the grade. This has compounded existing flaws - over-reliance on Tiffoney to break though defences, failure to defend set pieces and the lack of a defensive midfielder - I don't particularly rate Docherty but we are even more vulnerable to being over-run in midfield in his absence. It's the Manager's job to identify and fix these issues.

Throughout McCall's managerial career, there have been spells of both poor and good sequences of results not just with us but also with Ayr & Queen of South,  He needs to turn things round quickly - we are short of confidence, spirit and fitness. I hope there is a decent goalkeeper, central defender or shielding midfielder in a cupboard at Firhill. I don't want to vote for any of the available options but we need to keep the manager and coaches' position under constant review.

However, there are three things to bear in mind in replacing a manager:-

1) A new manager is not a guarantee of success - more often it makes little difference.

2) I don't see any obvious candidates - Danny Lennon, John Hughes and Jim McIntyre have been mentioned but surely only as comedy suggestions, I doubt that some of the other names would come to Firhill - Neil Lennon, for example but I wouldn't want him.  Dougie Imrie's Morton side lost 5-1 at the beginning of October and were by a distance the worst side I've seen at Firhill this season but a month later some people are seriously suggesting he should be our manager.

3) The choice of manager would be made by the Queen of PR.  I wouldn't necessarily criticise her appointment of Caldwell but he lasted about a year longer than he should - I think it might have been Beattie who sacked him. She doesn't have a track record and her lack of communication with the fans does not auger well for a good appointment.

 

 

 

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44 minutes ago, Winter of '63 said:

McCall  has a genuine feel for the Club,  an attacking attitude as a manager and a relatively high media profile...these are all of real value.  He has assembled a squad which from what I have seen this season is clearly the best in the League although with the reservation that we have decent Championship players who may not be good enough for the Premiership...there is a similar concern with regard to his managerial abilities.

It's all gone wrong in the last month.  We have been unfortunate with injuries to key players but the replacements have failed to make the grade. This has compounded existing flaws - over-reliance on Tiffoney to break though defences, failure to defend set pieces and the lack of a defensive midfielder - I don't particularly rate Docherty but we are even more vulnerable to being over-run in midfield in his absence. It's the Manager's job to identify and fix these issues.

Throughout McCall's managerial career, there have been spells of both poor and good sequences of results not just with us but also with Ayr & Queen of South,  He needs to turn things round quickly - we are short of confidence, spirit and fitness. I hope there is a decent goalkeeper, central defender or shielding midfielder in a cupboard at Firhill. I don't want to vote for any of the available options but we need to keep the manager and coaches' position under constant review.

However, there are three things to bear in mind in replacing a manager:-

1) A new manager is not a guarantee of success - more often it makes little difference.

2) I don't see any obvious candidates - Danny Lennon, John Hughes and Jim McIntyre have been mentioned but surely only as comedy suggestions, I doubt that some of the other names would come to Firhill - Neil Lennon, for example but I wouldn't want him.  Dougie Imrie's Morton side lost 5-1 at the beginning of October and were by a distance the worst side I've seen at Firhill this season but a month later some people are seriously suggesting he should be our manager.

3) The choice of manager would be made by the Queen of PR.  I wouldn't necessarily criticise her appointment of Caldwell but he lasted about a year longer than he should - I think it might have been Beattie who sacked him. She doesn't have a track record and her lack of communication with the fans does not auger well for a good appointment.

 

 

 

A great post @Winter of '63 but if I could throw my 2c in.

1.  yeh can make no difference and sometimes worse but surely it has to be tried?

2.  yep same old names are usual insular Scottish football.  maybe we should start looking at young hungry managers who have never set foot in Scotland.

3.  yeh that’s where it all goes potentially wrong with current board.

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12 hours ago, Dick Dastardly said:

Not much since leaving St.Mirren ?

A 50% win rate at Sunderland over 75 games (just 10 defeats) and an EFL cup final 

A 50% win rate at Hibs over 96 games including a Scottish Cup final 

If that is “not doing much” then bring it on.

No mention of Dundee United I see - sacked after seven games in charge.

Interesting comparison on PPM for both candidates:

Ian McCall

image.png.d1fe8a2690ab7f9e04b256b3c9a0574f.png

Jack Ross

image.png.1f73996a429159011692ebb1dd637a2c.png

McCalls figures might be skewed as he's managed many more games, mainly due to Ross being sacked after 1.5 seasons at Sunderland and 2 at Hibs, the latter losing 7 out of 9 of his last games.

I'm no fan of McCall and think his time is up but wouldn't be keen to jump at Ross either.

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3 minutes ago, Aliballibee said:

No mention of Dundee United I see - sacked after seven games in charge.

Interesting comparison on PPM for both candidates:

Ian McCall

image.png.d1fe8a2690ab7f9e04b256b3c9a0574f.png

Jack Ross

image.png.1f73996a429159011692ebb1dd637a2c.png

McCalls figures might be skewed as he's managed many more games, mainly due to Ross being sacked after 1.5 seasons at Sunderland and 2 at Hibs, the latter losing 7 out of 9 of his last games.

I'm no fan of McCall and think his time is up but wouldn't be keen to jump at Ross either.

Check my posts. I did earlier say that I didn’t know what had gone wrong at United. My post that you quote was disputing that he had done nothing since leaving St. Mirren (note that I didn’t mention his success there)

If you are talking Skewing, Ross has played most of his games at a higher level than McCall (that I will admit could be an issue) However the stats head to head there is only one winner.

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