Lenziejag Posted May 4 Report Share Posted May 4 11 hours ago, Fawlty Towers said: It is tricky - 19 points from a possible 33 is okay given the injuries and that they were limited to just loans or players without a club in terms of transfers. I don't think the quality of play has been great overall but at this time of the season with pitch conditions and clubs all having something to fight for it is often results taking priority. They have shown some good points as well though. If we successfully get through the play offs then they get the job but going out at the first stage would not really be considered success but I would understand from the "know the club, players, etc" point of view why they could get the job. Unless there is someone else ready to come in straight away more delay in letting players go, planning pre season, extending contracts, etc puts us further behind other teams. Interesting times. Thinking about the outfield players that we signed in January/February, pretty much every one of them has ended up injured for the last few games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaggy Posted May 4 Report Share Posted May 4 1 hour ago, Lenziejag said: Thinking about the outfield players that we signed in January/February, pretty much every one of them has ended up injured for the last few games. Martin was unfortunate. Maybe Jak & Kelly were without clubs due to injury issues and we took a gamble on them? If so hopefully that was taken into account with what they were offered. Reid’s issues maybe due to a lack of game time and as we desperately needed a left back we took a chance on him as well. Then of course the case of the mysterious Dryesdale Pure speculation on my part 😀 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarciaBlaine Posted May 4 Report Share Posted May 4 1 hour ago, jaggy said: Martin was unfortunate. Maybe Jak & Kelly were without clubs due to injury issues and we took a gamble on them? If so hopefully that was taken into account with what they were offered. Reid’s issues maybe due to a lack of game time and as we desperately needed a left back we took a chance on him as well. Then of course the case of the mysterious Dryesdale Pure speculation on my part 😀 What the hell happened with Drysdale? Was it ever confirmed he was injured? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lenziejag Posted May 4 Report Share Posted May 4 2 hours ago, jaggy said: Martin was unfortunate. Maybe Jak & Kelly were without clubs due to injury issues and we took a gamble on them? If so hopefully that was taken into account with what they were offered. Reid’s issues maybe due to a lack of game time and as we desperately needed a left back we took a chance on him as well. Then of course the case of the mysterious Dryesdale Pure speculation on my part 😀 It was certainly a huge gamble by whoever took the decision to offload so many players in January, which just paid off in terms of getting 4th place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Dastardly Posted May 4 Report Share Posted May 4 6 minutes ago, Lenziejag said: It was certainly a huge gamble by whoever took the decision to offload so many players in January, which just paid off in terms of getting 4th place. With the exception of Roberts (we had no choice) and Milne (sensible financial decision) would any of those released have made any significant difference ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lady-isobel-barnett Posted May 4 Report Share Posted May 4 21 minutes ago, Dick Dastardly said: With the exception of Roberts (we had no choice) and Milne (sensible financial decision) would any of those released have made any significant difference ? Robinson perhaps, but I can't say I was that upset when he left. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lenziejag Posted May 4 Report Share Posted May 4 3 hours ago, Dick Dastardly said: With the exception of Roberts (we had no choice) and Milne (sensible financial decision) would any of those released have made any significant difference ? It’s a fair enough point. I think Robinson, possibly Diack and to a lesser extent Lyons might have. I was thinking more about having a full bench to choose from though rather than kids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jagtastic Posted May 4 Report Share Posted May 4 I think it’s fair enough to say Robinson could have given us a different option going forward if he stayed, but at the time the trade off was for Martin which I’d have taken every time. It’s just unfortunate he’s had a bad injury after the event which makes it feel like it wasn’t a one in one out situation. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lenziejag Posted May 4 Report Share Posted May 4 28 minutes ago, Jagtastic said: I think it’s fair enough to say Robinson could have given us a different option going forward if he stayed, but at the time the trade off was for Martin which I’d have taken every time. It’s just unfortunate he’s had a bad injury after the event which makes it feel like it wasn’t a one in one out situation. I think that is a hard one to argue. Martin only managed a couple of games for us, but at Hamilton with Robinson in the team they collected enough points that would have pulled them up from 2nd bottom to 7th. Another player that we let go that we could be doing with now is Muirhead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaggy Posted May 4 Report Share Posted May 4 1 hour ago, Lenziejag said: I think that is a hard one to argue. Martin only managed a couple of games for us, but at Hamilton with Robinson in the team they collected enough points that would have pulled them up from 2nd bottom to 7th. Another player that we let go that we could be doing with now is Muirhead. Would you give either of them a new contract? Especially 2 years that Accies gave Robinson? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lenziejag Posted May 4 Report Share Posted May 4 28 minutes ago, jaggy said: Would you give either of them a new contract? Especially 2 years that Accies gave Robinson? That’s not the discussion. The discussion was about letting so many players go in January/February that has left us short of fit players at the end of the season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fenski Posted May 4 Report Share Posted May 4 I can see why Graham and Wilson are getting viewed positively as the permanent management team. They've done quite well so far. But not as well as Doolan did, or indeed Archibald did. It's still early days. Who knows how they'd do when the inevitable mid-season slump happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woodstock Jag Posted May 4 Report Share Posted May 4 16 minutes ago, Lenziejag said: That’s not the discussion. The discussion was about letting so many players go in January/February that has left us short of fit players at the end of the season. The proliferation of injuries (including long-term injuries) over and above what is typical has left us short of fit players at the end of the season. The actual squad size is (objectively) a perfectly reasonable one. A first team squad of 21, consisting of: 2 Goalkeepers 6 Defenders (I've excluded Drysdale) 6 Midfielders 4 Wingers 3 Strikers supplemented by 4 players from the development squad including: 1 Youth Goalkeeper 1 Youth Defender 2 Youth Midfielders should not, even allowing for (say) 4 long-term injuries and the occasional knock, leave us short of fit players at the end of the season. Our problem has been that Lawless, McKay, Martin, Stanway and Mackenzie (and in the first half of the season, Mitchell and Muirhead) all suffered sustained periods unavailable or not fully fit, whilst a large number of players have also picked-up short-term injuries in games themselves (Chalmers, Reid, Megwa, Kelly, Banzo plus his suspensions and Jakubiak). You really can't pre-empt for that except by having a significantly larger than average squad. Something for which, simply put, there wasn't the budget. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jordanhill Jag Posted May 4 Report Share Posted May 4 On 4/28/2025 at 4:28 PM, lady-isobel-barnett said: Perhaps JJ will suggest this could make an ideal venue for training the team. Throw a few bricks in the bottom of the golf bag and up you go. "Golf is a good walk spoiled." 😀 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaggy Posted May 4 Report Share Posted May 4 2 hours ago, Lenziejag said: That’s not the discussion. The discussion was about letting so many players go in January/February that has left us short of fit players at the end of the season. Fair enough but we effectively swapped Robinson for Martin and we never ran short of central defenders. The problems were elsewhere Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lenziejag Posted May 5 Report Share Posted May 5 10 hours ago, jaggy said: Fair enough but we effectively swapped Robinson for Martin and we never ran short of central defenders. The problems were elsewhere Until now, if Kelly cant play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lenziejag Posted May 5 Report Share Posted May 5 11 hours ago, Woodstock Jag said: The proliferation of injuries (including long-term injuries) over and above what is typical has left us short of fit players at the end of the season. The actual squad size is (objectively) a perfectly reasonable one. A first team squad of 21, consisting of: 2 Goalkeepers 6 Defenders (I've excluded Drysdale) 6 Midfielders 4 Wingers 3 Strikers supplemented by 4 players from the development squad including: 1 Youth Goalkeeper 1 Youth Defender 2 Youth Midfielders should not, even allowing for (say) 4 long-term injuries and the occasional knock, leave us short of fit players at the end of the season. Our problem has been that Lawless, McKay, Martin, Stanway and Mackenzie (and in the first half of the season, Mitchell and Muirhead) all suffered sustained periods unavailable or not fully fit, whilst a large number of players have also picked-up short-term injuries in games themselves (Chalmers, Reid, Megwa, Kelly, Banzo plus his suspensions and Jakubiak). You really can't pre-empt for that except by having a significantly larger than average squad. Something for which, simply put, there wasn't the budget. We don’t use the development players, as a rule - so that’s a squad of 21. Is Mackay ever going to play for us - 20. Of that 20, we replaced at least 3 players that had been training/playing with ones that hadn’t and weren’t match fit. For the last 9 or 10 games we were effectively down to squad of about 17. How many games did we get out of Reid, Kelly and Jakubiak ? We have lots of injuries over the past 2 or 3 seasons. This season isn’t an outlier. I take your point about the size of squad and budget but for me a lesson learned should be don’t bring in players in Jan/Feb that hadn’t been playing. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jagtastic Posted May 5 Report Share Posted May 5 16 hours ago, Lenziejag said: I think that is a hard one to argue. Martin only managed a couple of games for us, but at Hamilton with Robinson in the team they collected enough points that would have pulled them up from 2nd bottom to 7th. Another player that we let go that we could be doing with now is Muirhead. The point being though that at the time we needed a presence like Martin in the team (still do) and Robinson was expendable to bring him in. The subsequent injury is just pure bad luck but we wouldn’t have got Martin in without Robinson going the other way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lenziejag Posted May 5 Report Share Posted May 5 2 hours ago, Jagtastic said: The point being though that at the time we needed a presence like Martin in the team (still do) and Robinson was expendable to bring him in. The subsequent injury is just pure bad luck but we wouldn’t have got Martin in without Robinson going the other way. You might be right about the sequence of the events. There was certainly a story going around that Robinson wanted away because we weren’t prepared to offer him what he wanted. Martin coming our way was a result of that. Not the other way round. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jordanhill Jag Posted May 5 Report Share Posted May 5 On 5/4/2025 at 11:35 AM, Lenziejag said: It was certainly a huge gamble by whoever took the decision to offload so many players in January, which just paid off in terms of getting 4th place. It was an even bigger gamble assembling a squad of the size it was in the first place - lets face it how many actual quality signings did we make compared to the Signing of Arefield by Falkirk We went for quantity over quality Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barney Rubble Posted May 5 Report Share Posted May 5 24 minutes ago, Jordanhill Jag said: It was an even bigger gamble assembling a squad of the size it was in the first place - lets face it how many actual quality signings did we make compared to the Signing of Arefield by Falkirk We went for quantity over quality Ashcroft, Chalmers and O'Reilly have all proven to be quality signings, no question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaggy Posted May 5 Report Share Posted May 5 I doubt if Arfield would have signed for anyone else in our league apart from Falkirk. He’s said as much in several interviews. Falkirk got lucky with his signing, the timing was perfect Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lenziejag Posted May 5 Report Share Posted May 5 2 hours ago, Jordanhill Jag said: It was an even bigger gamble assembling a squad of the size it was in the first place - lets face it how many actual quality signings did we make compared to the Signing of Arefield by Falkirk We went for quantity over quality The difference between us and Falkirk in the January/February window was that we significantly weakened our squad. It very nearly came back to bite us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jordanhill Jag Posted May 5 Report Share Posted May 5 1 hour ago, Lenziejag said: The difference between us and Falkirk in the January/February window was that we significantly weakened our squad. It very nearly came back to bite us. Agreed - but only because we overspent - building a massive squad in the first place Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Third Lanark Posted May 5 Report Share Posted May 5 4 hours ago, Barney Rubble said: Ashcroft, Chalmers and O'Reilly have all proven to be quality signings, no question. Ashcroft is a quality signing apart from playing against Clyde 😂 but yes great signing Chalmers is fantastic when playing at his best, disappeared in a few games as well though Agree about O Reilly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.