Nelly78

That’s doing a bit of a disservice to existing players. Our recovery started away to Kilmarnock on 4 December 19. That’s when Gordon and Booth began to play instead of Duffy and Tanser. We were undefeated in December.
McCart has been doing well, but I’m not sure he’s the main reason. More of a team/squad effort.

Time to sell the club Steve...
This guy could put a negative spin on a lottery win.
Right now, Steve Brown could be doing the following: 
Praising our superb recent run of form
Shouting about our superb home grown, young team. 
Encouraging fans to get behind the hunt for top 6. 
Encouraging fans to join in with FCU home and away to create an atmosphere.  
Encouraging fans to attend a Scottish Cup 1/4 final and support the lads get back to Hampden. 
 
Instead, he’s bleating about the budget, which according to Robert Thompson has jumped from 8th biggest 3 months ago, to 6th now. 
 
His negativity is unreal. He makes running the club seem like such a chore. Does he not realise that this has a wider effect? It’s dragging us down. 
Every time I read anything from him, I’m on an instant downer. 

If we are moving it, why stop at Murrayfield? We played there a couple of years ago. I'd prefer the club showed real ambition that would attract global attention, so maybe Wembley or San Siro? Plenty flights from Edinburgh to London or Milan.

I don't really think the club has done much wrong here. Regardless of what bits of the ground we give to Celtic, the home crowd won't change in size. So we either fill as many of the empty seats as we can by giving them to Celtic, or they stay empty, and I don't really get what the point of that would be. Personally I'm not convinced that it will have any impact on the result of the match - even when we've beaten them in the past, we've always been outnumbered in the stands. On the day, if Saints are winning then the chances are the Celtic fans will go quiet and all the atmosphere will come from the home fans anyway. If we're losing, it will be the opposite. I generally think the atmosphere is driven by what's happening on the pitch, rather than the other way around.
The only way to change this situation is for Saints fans to start turning up to these games in bigger numbers... but at £25 a ticket, the matches often being televised and our team often taking a humping, I find it hard to see any way that that's going to happen.

As we should all know by now, especially being Saints fans, fans don't win you trophies. Stop ****ing moaning and support your team.

I don’t get the constant urge to sign geriatric ex h*ns. 

Possibly, but I was responding to Havana Saint's suggestion that a good adult-and-child deal means that price can't be a factor in people not coming to games. If adults find it expensive, then they find it expensive. A deal that allows them to bring two children in for a tenner is absolutely meaningless if they don't have two children to bring. I don't live locally any more so can't go to every match like I used to, but if I did still live locally I'd be picking and choosing my games these days because that entry price is simply way too high for me.
Personally I think that a big part of Saints' potential market is adults in the age group of around 18 to 35 - that means adults who might not have kids yet, and also might still be quite early on in their careers so don't necessarily have much of an income. What does the club actively do to try to capture that market? Attracting kids to games is clearly important for the club, but how many of those kids are lost when they hit the age where they're too old to make use of these deals? I've always felt that we lose a lot of supporters when they get to around 17-18, and we won't necessarily ever get them back. Perhaps that's also part of the reason for the poor atmosphere being discussed in this thread.
 

Excuse my cynicism but why is it that every other fan can happily go to matches without any fuss or drama but these guys apparently can't? Exactly what are the unfair atrocities happening to them that for some reason don't seem to happen to anyone else?

I was a Rangers fan as a kid. All my family were CB’s. Do you know what made me switch allegiances? Actually going to games regularly aged 7-8 with my Grandad. 
 
There’s no reason that most of these boys couldn’t have switched allegiances if they hadn’t been hounded out of the club. 

Its not a case of caretaker of mediocrity it is quite simply a case of not having the size of support and finances that can match Aberdeen, a club that has just spent millions on their new training ground and plan on spending millions on a  new stadium. and have people on board that have many millions more than the browns in the bank.
We have to accept that we are going to be a club that will unearth some gems who will move on to biggest clubs and whilst it is annoying it will open the door for some other players who are maybe in the same position as matty was when he came to the club and will see us as a way forward.
Sad to see him go but players move on that is the world we love in.

I do often wonder how good the past 7 years could have been for Saints if we'd had a decent manager. 

I doubt we’d move Duffy along. Being very harsh there. He wasn’t signed to play this season, he was signed to develop then chucked in at the deep end. 

It's my daughter that left on a stretcher, thanks for the good wishes. She's in Ninewells getting treatment just now, we're hoping to have her home for Christmas. Thank you to the staff who helped her yesterday. 

I would take Ambrose in a heartbeat.  Think a few in here content to remember a handful of mistakes he has made in the last 10 years and use those as the basis to write him off as a "bombscare" without actually having watched him much.  Same sort of folk that wouldn't have taken Encklmann becuase he once conceded a daft own-goal.    
Hibs fans would take him back in a second, as would the rest of the Hibs defence (Porteous continually pointed to him as a key part of his development, talking him through games and adding composure and calm when they needed it most).  
Blood, sweat and tears sounds great but I would rather have a bit of calm and correct decision making.  

Amazing Saints
 
Some people might know that I've not been keeping well for over a year although I'm much better now. During my stem cell transplants Tommy and the players surprised me with a video of well wishes. Liam Craig organised it all with the help of Gary (will fix it!). Our wee club are so special. Just shows the lengths they will go to!

But he didnt. Just like he doesn't every time he gets those chances, see also the cup game at McDiarmid.
Hes scored 3 goals in 18 months, and was first choice for at least 7 months of that. You simply cannot argue that's good enough.

Welcome back sasha, what you going to blame Saints for this week?
Oh I see you've already started....
 
 
 
Got to love bitter parents
 

I may not be the best person to reply to your post but here goes.
My wife was diagnosed with MND in July therefore I can appreciate anyone who has been affected by this disease will have strong feelings and compassion for anyone who has been affected by MND in any way. When Fernando was playing for Rangers I thought he was a typical mostly overrated obnoxious individual in much like present day Scott Brown at Celtic. We as football fans should be able to support anyone (or their surviving families) when they are hit with a tragedy such as has happened to Fernando Ricksenns family recently.
  I would have liked to think that we as Saints fans could have been above such petty behaviour such as your post or the few Celtic fans who posted “ one less *** “ comments or Rangers fan who thought it wise to taunt the aforementioned Scott Brown about his late sister.  
I 100% back the club for allowing this tribute to FR and can also say it had absolutely nothing at all to do with our defeat today.
As I said my personal situation may well be clouding my views but I can see beyond my hatred of all things “old firm” in a situation like this and was happy to support the clubs decision.

Very sad to see a small number of people on here continually trying to imply that all Tommy has done for us is win the Cup (especially when they're doing things like making up the formation we supposedly played to make him look worse). He has consistently succeeded with Saints and delivered strong league finishing positions - a better run of league positions than any other Saints manager has ever achieved. I'll also repeat what I say on here quite often, which is that every single time we've gone through a slump of bad results under Tommy, he has successfully managed to pull us out of it. When people start trying to downplay our greatest ever manager's achievements I really start to wonder about what their agendas are.
And no I don't think he should be above all criticism - but surely there's some middle ground between criticising a manager and leaping straight to the knee-jerk reaction of calling for him to be replaced.

I honestly think there are some fans who wont be satisfied no matter what we the club/manager do. May is literally the poster boy of the cup winning team, one of our own and a player we sold for one of the highest fees we've ever received. If he is coming back, he'll be coming back whilst still in his peak years and with a lot to offer if we give him the chance to play his way into something like his old form. 
Reservations are understandable and I don't think this site has generally been too bad/negative about May, but jesus some of the stuff about him on that banter page and on twitter is mental. You'd think it was the second coming of Adam Morgan rather than a player who scored 27 goals in his only full season with us and who scored a double to get us into the cup final. 
If he does sign, I hope he actually gets a chance before he's being written off. Some of our support will be on his back immediately though, which is precisely the opposite of what a player low on confidence needs.

How can Tommy go from stating his number one priority this window is a striker, to now saying we need to shift players in order to bring in new ones. So what, we spent the budget on Duffy and Parish? The PR around this is pathetic and it makes Tommy and Brown look stupid.
Every single window this tired old line comes out, the clubs failure to present itself in the media appropriately is so poor and it's beginning to look like it's not a lack of resource, but just a lack of care and experience. The club needs freshening up and not just on the pitch.
 

Why? He does this off his own back and for nothing it should be added. He doesn’t owe anyone on here anything let alone an explanation or an apology. 
If you can’t go without a forum for three days and expect and explanation as to why it disappeared then that’s slightly desperate. 

Well today saw my lad play his last ever game for saints in a 4 4 draw against St mirren,  a young lad scored one John Robertson scored 2 and my lad scored a topbin screamer from 25 yards and set up Johns second with a minute left with some great skill in the box and a lay of to John, the journey has been fun but its now over, I'm not going to give the full story of what's happened this season but a complaint was made by myself as my conscious wouldn't allow me to let it to the young boys for next season, but I received no response from saints, thanks to all who engaged with me over the course of my time on here and the ones that listened to my point of view as an outsider looking in, and didn't abuse me for doing it, Ps number 49 tomorrow for saints one for the future 

Has ANYONE claimed that loans generally aren't better than reserves? 
Tommy Wright wanted McCann out on loan in January 2018 and in the summer but couldn't find a taker. Without the reserves, he'd have been playing no football at all for a year. THAT is the issue.

If that's the case - and I don't doubt you're speaking truth - then it's time to give Gordon and Kerr a run at centre back. Shaughnessy can play the last half an hour of the last home game to say his goodbyes and get his thanks, but we need to start looking to the future and if he's not part of it, he shouldn't be in the team.