Radford 72

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Everything posted by Radford 72

  1. Can you imagine any other business where hard work, dedication and competence drives standards up, then the customers just accept the acquiescence to how things used to be? Customers would just walk away. Especially if the price of an inferior product was only rising.
  2. Just look at who put the majority of it together. A lesson to learn moving forward is to ensure a manager has the charisma required to assess the personality of potential signings.
  3. He'd probably interview himself on his podcast.
  4. Saturday was definitely down in a large part to tactical issues but after that I guess the question becomes confidence or actual quality when it comes down to individuals. I'm wholly unconvinced it's not the latter I'm afraid. The lack of width is crippling. It's why I'd have Jaiyesimi in the team for Wednesday out wide.
  5. Is the consensus that this squad is rubbish? Probably? But is it unreasonable to suggest it's still being managed as poorly as it was under MacLean? Folk are posting evidence of it anyway. Both managers got an initial bounce but their records are now comparable over essentially half-a-season. Of course the argument will be that managers need time but they need to buy themselves it surely and 2 goals from open play from inside the area (i.e. breaking teams down) isn't doing that. Even that number is generous as the Kimpioka goal comes from a defensive error and the Keltjens one from Roos doing a Superman. There is a case we haven't scored a single goal under this management team from breaking a team down. NOT A SINGLE ONE. For me, there needs to be an improvement and very quickly or my patience is going to be fully exhausted. Actually, who am I kidding, it already is. Compare going down under Sturrock to going down under Stark. Look at the bigger picture. Levein was bored at home again so thought he may as well have a play at shop. And this is the result.
  6. I mean a sceptic would suggest that the Head of Media and Comms got the minutes then omitted the bit about Hercules since he'd taken the initial credit for setting up the partnership... Or maybe it was a genuine mistake...
  7. Proper banter years stuff. Maybe the Head of Media and Comms would be advised to remove the brag of setting it up from his LinkedIn profile. Absolute charlatans that managed to infiltrate the club.
  8. Team will be Kucheriavyi and 10 others. Every week until Levein leaves.
  9. Was David Martindale a poor reflection of a person? I don't think that is in doubt, but imagine everyone who went to jail took his attitude. I'd suggest the world would be a far better place. Continuing to beat on a guy who has turned his life around, has owned his crime and has shown remorse is so ridiculous. David Martindale is the perfect example of how a justice system should work. Do your time and try to better yourself. He's done both. He wouldn't be my first choice for the job but there are so many more worse options out there.
  10. Can I ask why? He's a fiery personality but, IMO, we need to take that gamble. The whole place needs galvanised and Norman Normal won't cut it.
  11. Steven MacLean should be toast. His threats are as hollow as they come and must surely only be alienating a group of players we need to get a tune out of for the next 7 months because, make no mistake, we cannot throw money at this again in January. Tactically he's hopeless as well. The only defence for him now will be he took over in a tough situation and hasn't had much time. But neither is a reason to keep a manager that is still under performing, but also showing zero signs of having anything about him. Sack him today before we fluke a win over the next fortnight then limp on for a few more weeks just doing more long-term damage. Continuity was never the right approach when Davidson was emptied but I tried to get behind the appointment and was open to what he talked about doing in the summer. Every manager deserves that. It's been a disaster though and I can't endure us making the same mistake as with Davidson and struggling on in this manner for a year plus longer than we should have. Act now.
  12. I don't think he was saying that. He was saying we'd been working on the 4-3-3 all week and when Kane got injured he went with May up front because, one, we'd been working on the shape and, two, because May and Jephcott would leave us no strikers on the bench. Whatever my thoughts prior to his appointment, I'm content that I gave Steven MacLean a clean slate when he got the job. I listened to what he said and tried to buy in. I think in the past I'd have kept my thoughts to myself about things right now to give him the sort of chance the argument will be that everyone deserves and because I know it's still very early days but, my God, my gut feeling is not good at all right now. Obviously I hope I'm completely wrong.
  13. You can't play two up front at Celtic Park. They bypass it too easily then you are effectively 8 against 8 in an attack versus defence exercise. Suicide. The other side of the coin is you have to ensure it remains 8 against 9 and not 8 against 10, otherwise you are just plugging the dam. The striker being able to take the ball in at least forces them to start again. Time for Stevie May to stand up and be counted as a senior player. Lone striker isn't his game but he needs to get the sleeves rolled up and get on with it. Get your body between the ball and the centre backs, take the hits and get your team up the park. As someone said above, today a perfect opportunity to show we can have a good shape and discipline and make it hard for the opposition. There will be no excuses if they can't display that they've been coached to do that. Just meekly accepting a pasting isn't acceptable. If this ends up the realms of embarrassment then, IMO, we should potentially be looking at making a managerial change within the next few weeks.
  14. I think we need to be honest and say we don't know. Being totally defeatist and negative doesn't achieve anything when we are still in the dark but equally it's never wrong to question things and not just bury your head in the sand. I guess we need to try and be optimistic that there is a plan in place that can be delivered.
  15. I think a big issue for Davidson was trust. He trusted Gary Rowett, not just in terms of loans but also guys we signed. Even players like Bryson, Butterfield, Solomon-Otabor had played under him. And whether people like the fact or not, there was an unhealthy relationship between Davidson and his agent, Allan Preston, when it came to bringing players to Saints. Contacts are vital for a club like Saints who don't have an extensive scouting or recruitment network and you'd hope it was given consideration before appointing MacLean. It was always something Geoff Brown saw as a priority. I also can't see any way our reputation hasn't been tarnished by the last 2 years. Paying inflated fees for players, paying bigger wages, settling up contracts and a big turnover of players. You go from being a club that rogues wouldn't waste their time with to ripe pickings. How we did conduct our business isn't too distant a memory though so hopefully we gain move back towards that model.
  16. I think we are in a quite a precarious position squad wise. I want to see a younger squad and our own players given a chance as that's largely always been the basis of what has been successful for us but there's no doubt it presents a risk with the current overall balance of the group. Eric Nicolson posted a squad of 21 players in a piece the other day but Parker and Steven aren't going to step up right now and Bair isn't in the plans so that's you back down to 18 already. Crawford shouldn't be in the plans and Booth has a lot to do to regain trust. Is Gallacher good enough? Is Kane fit? Are three games enough to judge Ballantyne off? What do you do regards the number one goalkeeper? Can Ferguson and Kucheriavyi contribute? Are Considine's legs still there? If you then ask yourselves, how many players in the squad can you really back and trust for a whole season... I'm not even sure we could field a team.
  17. Malcolm Murray came in on loan from Hearts in the late 80s.
  18. Davidson giving it his weekly chat about maybe changing things and playing one up front. But Stevie May running around by himself as big centre backs swallow him up is even less appealing than a back three. Neither of those are things (back three, lone striker) I mind generally but it MUST involve the right players. Back to basics means 4-4-2, however unfashionable it is these days. Two centre backs who just focus on defending. Head on everything, cutting out at the front post, sticking to your man. Full backs that block crosses and support a winger. Wide players that help the full back, keep wide and put crosses in the box. Central midfielders that are combative and spread play. A couple of strikers to offer each other support and get in the box. I know that's all a bit Football for Dummies but we need to get back to absolute basics, just as Tommy Wright would have done. Will Davidson though? I'd play Rudden and May together up front, Wright and Murphy wide. Obviously MacPherson and Phillips in central midfield. James Brown at right back. I don't actually mind which two from three he perms at centre back, they are all capable of doing the job asked of them in back four. Montgomery maybe worries me a bit as a pure left back but Tony Gallacher has played so little football.
  19. The first of those in particular would be absolutely chronic and would simply be a case of GS Brown using a site that it's proving a ball ache to build houses on. Would go a long way to tarnishing their legacy by plonking us out there.
  20. Radford 72

    Pitch

    There was one maybe? It sat out the back on the training pitch never moving for months though. Not sure it's even there any longer? Folk always quick to make excuses but Motherwell show that you can move from having a dreadful pitch to an excellent one. Their pitch was already very good before it underwent a huge maintainence programme last summer. This was their pitch in mid-May last year, days before a play-off that apparently meant we could only do the bare minimum to ours... That thread from Alan Burrows worth a read. What a club that is serious about the pitch does. And look at what they were unhappy with in the first tweet! We got fed some flannel about the play-offs and just blindly accepted it. The mob that came to do ours, the wheel fell off their bloody tractor on day one. So I'm glad the manager is now condemning the pitch in the strongest terms as this can't continue.
  21. I'm not sure that's strictly true but a 43-year-old Geoff Brown took control of the club for a few hundred grand in 1986. You aren't getting a look in now unless you have access to several million. There are local(ish) businessmen in that position I'm sure but do they have any interest in football or specifically St Johnstone, a successful club but by no means a sleeping giant with a large latent support? Foreign ownership for Saints would certainly be interesting because we are in such a different situation to most clubs. Folk look to get their hands on clubs where the current incumbents want out as you can drive the price down and that's where opportunity comes from, even if it means inheriting a debt. Saints are so different though. £5 million in the bank (although that will certainly be heading in the wrong direction now) and huge, fully-owned land assets. In theory, that means someone buying into Saints is in an enviable position of being able to drive the club forward from the word go but what does that mean in Scotland? Whilst they can't dive into anything, the situation really does need resolved too. In 6/7 weeks, the board of the the football club becomes Roddy Grant and an 80-year-old. That can't continue in the long-term.
  22. Any idea on potential locations? I remember SC telling me (presumably through SH) that this sort of thing was being looked at what must be at least a decade go as well. I'm sure he said he'd even seen detailed drawings of a bowl-type ground located at the old market, I think. Obviously that's now covered in houses. Memory can sometime play tricks but horrible feeling I also heard Oudenarde mooted as a possible site, which would be horrific, right up there with Aberdeen playing at Westhill!
  23. I will but it will be in no way an endorsement of Callum Davidson or the running of the club.