RicoS321

Aye, you could be right. I guess I'm just concerned that we'll take in four players to get two good ones, and that'll be 7-8 players who need to be moved on. At the moment, it feels like we're way beyond the general churn of pish due to the length of contracts that we've handed some fairly mediocre crap. Mediocre crap that we'll feel obliged to play. Would anyone really be concerned if Boyd was the go to sub over Morris, Gueye or Vinny? Or Milne ahead of Jensen, McGarry and so on? I'd feel a lot better if we'd got rid of a few.

But we're filling our bench with dogshit. When you saw the Airdrie game, it was clear from the subs made that the manager was reluctant to call on any of the game changers on the bench. None offer a plan B either. Unless the plan B is to be absolutely pish. I'd look to trim it to 22 in the next week and maybe bulk up with a couple of loans towards the end of the window. We just seem to perpetually have half a dozen or so guys that you just wouldn't want to see taking to the pitch at any point.

I wouldn't say it's thin, but it's definitely short on quality. There are five players (at least) in there who offer nothing other than filling a number, plus two away and one on loan (and I'm assuming Boyd might get a loan before the window slams). I'm not convinced we need any more than 22 in the squad at the beginning of the season, given these are all known quantities (Nilsen and Molloy aside). I'd like to see us be a bit bolder in trimming down the numbers and go into the season with a tight squad. We can then work our way back up in January, and then allow for the natural filtering out of guys like Jensen, MacDonald etc.

On the contrary, I think the refs have been told not to give pish like that as pens this season. Which is correct, it was never a pen (we need Barron spending more time on the pitch to greaten the opportunity for him getting a career ending injury). Of course, there will - inconsistently - be pens given for that this season. One reason will be because the ref has initially given it, and VAR will not intervene and subsequently fans will not be able to tell the difference between the two incidents (nobody seems to get the fact that the same incident can both be not a clear and obvious errors in giving a foul, and not a clear and obvious error in not giving a foul). The second, most obviously (and has always been obvious since before we got the pish), is that there is no such thing as clear and obvious. It can't, and hasn't, been defined (definitively) and so it is impossible to have VAR with consistency. It doesn't exist.

I guess that the point will be that he can play in three or four different positions (three in our setup: CB, RB, DM, plus RWB). It's actually good for him in many ways that he can cover quite a few areas as it should mean that he has the best chance of being in the team for an extended period (he's immediate cover for Devlin for example). A bit concerning that he's not been given more minutes, but that could be because Thelin is more certain of Milne than the other guys, who he wanted to give opportunity before finally launching in the sea. Milne looks to me to be a solid player capable of consistency. He reminds me of Shaugnessy when he was with us, who was often overlooked for technically worse defenders and eventually moved on. It's certainly Milne's last opportunity I'd say. I hope he gets it and takes it. A bit disappointing that there's been no stand out signings this season yet, as has been the case for the past two windows (Clarkson our best signing last year and he was already here). Be nice to get someone in to get the fans excited. Molloy has the potential to be good, but it might not be this season, and Mitov will be a good goalie I'm sure. I think we should just spank our entire budget on a really ace winger and be done with it.

Agreed. When he left, he was a poor man's Shinnie, and whilst he'll undoubtedly have improved, I don't think he'd start. He wasn't a particularly great football player, but had workrate and tenacity on his side. I think that if we were in January and had had a good while to see if Nilsen is going to be good enough*, it'd be a better option, but I think we will hobble through making use of what we've got until then in that area. Hopefully that'll mean more of seeing Milne, and also leaving the door open for Polvara on his return. *I'm not convinced by Nilsen at all, but he's going to be starting for the foreseeable future (see Anthony Stewart), as he's the manager's man.

I'd have Milne over Jensen. Assured on the ball and intelligent. Keep McGrath further forward. He's good enough to be getting plenty of minutes this season, but that hasn't happened so far, which is a shame. He's exactly the type of player that should be making the step up from the young squad.

Clarkson didn't train the other day, and fairly certain he's out with a shoulder injury. It'll be McGrath in his role maybe, with Gueye out wide. Or besuijen in for Clarkson.

Went to see the Dons in training this morning and Morris didn't even look particularly great there. Big Gueye nailed a kid with one of his shots, which is a good sign. Richardson did a good run and cross but otherwise looked a little uninterested. Bojan was avoiding all physical contact. It wasn't the most exciting thing in the world, but good that the club does this event for free in the summer holidays.

I've been saying for years that shite like this just shouldn't be possible in the modern world. We've had teams thrown out or docked points for fielding inelligible players in almost season of league cup groups. They introduce technology, yet the app clearly doesn't tell teams who their suspended players are and doesn't allow them to pick one, and they have to screenshot the fucking team lines. It shouldn't be possible to make technology that bad.

Personally, I'd have started a simple "new season optimism" thread, and left the match thread for later in the week, but we are where we are. People these days simply don't value the technical and etiquette side to posting these days. I think we're a long way off being ready for the league, I don't think our starting eleven is brilliant, and the bench a good bit worse. We do seem to be able to follow Thelin's game plan, and I think that tactically we'll be okay. Morris is a very obvious weak link, and it might be too much to carry him through games. It's very difficult to play a high press if you have a guy that isn't proactive in the wing position, which is fairly key to the whole approach working. Of those on the bench, I think Duncan would be the most disciplined alternative, but he's limited in other areas. As I said previously, I had hoped that we'd have moved a couple on by now, but I don't see anything to suggest that will be the case. I don't like that we're still experimenting at this late stage, but that's the way it goes. During both Glass and Robson eras (less so Goodwin), I had hoped that Cormack would have addressed the turnover of players and the scale of the project and tried to temper expectations going into the season - asking the fans for patience. That didn't happen, and I think that we're in exactly the same position now. We're going to need a lot of patience in the opening weeks of the season until we get something like a team on the park. That'll include an allowance for any new signings that we make to turn out to be not that good, which will happen. As for the Saints game, I think it'll be classic with both sides going for it as usual. Maybe 5-7 victory or something?

Personally, I'd like to see Duncan or Boyd (or Marshall?) given a start in the wide role. We're playing Dumbarton, and we only need a draw. We need to see how capable our team is in terms of carrying a player, because given the state of the squad, we'll need to learn how to!

I'm hoping we don't see Sokler out wide, I'd rather we didn't get into the habit of it and start pretending he might be able to play there. Obviously not being Morris is a huge plus point that contradicts what I've just said. Sokler is okay there, but we need to be aiming for someone good in that role as it could be key this season. I just fear that Sokler will get shoehorned in there until January, regardless of the Miovski situation.

Yep, he's 347 times better than Shayden. Although it would also be nice to have a winger with some remaining pace.

Decent game, and Killie looked decent. Hopefully they qualify and have to play all the extra games and we pip them to sixth.

Exactly, typical of the lazy older generations. For what it's worth, I think that the Ghanian league is in the top five leagues along the gulf of Guinea coast.

I don't entirely disagree, Sokler was okay and had he scored his chance, nobody would have been questioning him. That said, there was a complete change when Miovski came on, that lifted the entire team. It's probably not as obvious on the telly, but he just dictates that whole part of the pitch with his movement and link up - the other players just come with him, when Miovski moves, everyone does. There's a huge part to Miovski's game, that isn't just scoring goals, that Sokler doesn't have at all. I don't think he'll get it either. He's an intelligent enough player, like Mackie or May, but lacks the quality and doesn't inspire in the way Miovski does. I feel sorry for him, he's the striker equivalent of Porterfield coming in after Ferguson. I think the fans will have to accept that we're going to take a hit in that area regardless of who we get, and we need to show patience. If Sokler is our best option this season, then we're going to need to be very shrewd in other areas to get the best out of him. That doesn't involve Shayden Morris, whose leaving the pitch also gave the team a big lift.

With Cochrane moving on, it wouldn't surprise me. He was a little suspect defensively at times yesterday, but a good player who'll definitely step up a level.

Yep, that was basically the situation. I think he'll have wanted guaranteed game time too, and we wanted Milne to come through, with Hancock just being in that grey area between not being quite good enough to throw in, but too good to not be playing somewhere. It's always difficult, especially when you're trying to challenge for Europe and managers are frightened to lose games (and their careers). We're always going to miss one or two, and I think Hancock will get a good move this season. Our problems are compounded by getting absolute dross like McGurry and Richardson in, who are supposed to be upgrades but end up not only being worse than going with youth, but also prevent that youth product from getting minutes because we feel obliged to play the new guys. The three minute cameo could have gone to Boyd, as opposed to Ambrose, last night as an example.

I'd like to see us try McGurry on a different continent.

He was notably quick off his line. Too quick on a couple of occasions, where he could have waited for the ball to come into his box, but good to see. Kicking was okay, nothing special, but didn't look afraid of the ball. Think he'll be a good goalie.

VAR missing was the absolute highlight tonight, getting home at some point before 23:00 always a bonus. Enjoyable enough game when we got going. Played some nice stuff at times, with Clarkson clearly being encouraged to try things, a lot of which don't come off, but hopefully fans will understand his role (I doubt it, I heard a lot of "stop deein that funcy shite" type shouts). The bench is a huge worry still, with nothing beyond Miovski. Morris was, and is, absolutely dogshit. He ruins the game because he doesn't know how to play it. He reacts to everything. Hopefully that's enough of his experiment. Sokler proving my point about Mackie, that was a classic Mackie performance tonight. Shinnie great, as was Clarkson. The fullbacks were fine and Rubi okay. Molloy very rash, and a worry. The idea behind Nilsen is a sound one, it's tactically great, but I don't think he's going to be good enough for the SPFL. Too slow and because of that, too many slack passes and being caught out of position. I like the way we're approaching it, but we're 4-5 players short, and that bench is honking.

Yep. Although I'm guessing that we'll be after a winger anyway, so we can just slot him in upon Morris getting found out again.

Maybe, but it doesn't seem that way. Leven didn't give the guys mentioned a look in when he was manager (obviously besuijen was away), so I think he'll have made it clear to Thelin. I'm not expecting him to have shifted all players on, but given the number of guys that aren't up to standard in that squad, I'd have expected to see things moving by now. We need at least a couple of those guys starting to be shifted out the door. It's just extra work having to deal with a large squad, and hassle a new manager doesn't need, he needs to be looking to build going forward rather than deal with yesterday's dross. A new manager can get maybe 5-10% extra out of a player by playing them in a different way, or other motivation, but he's not turning 5-6 guys who are nowhere near good enough into players. I really hope there is no expectation on him to be getting something out of these guys.

He was gash when he first arrived. Always a yard short of pace, meaning he couldn't get past any half decent defender. A decent touch and finisher, but a level below what we need (unless he's improved when he was away). Fans liked him because he was an exciting new player who joined in the January window as our only signing, and he got the benefit of the doubt for some time. He was always a technically decent, but average player. I can see why we signed him, but he'll likely never make it as there are too many parts to his game where he is just a level below.