Player contracts and transfers

[ancientsaint]

might not be all that bad -the Herald says Tomas Tisas is training with us.

[The Blue Saint]

Saints have done their best to kill the feel good factor with every opportunity since the cup win.

[MrBored]

might not be all that bad -the Herald says Tomas Tisas is training with us.

 

If only we had the funds to pay his wage.... LAUGH OUT LOUD

[Broon]

That was a depressing read. I understand the importance of investing in the facilities but you have to still maintain the squad. Tommy is correct, a couple of players isn't going to make a huge difference considering the cuts to the squad plus the increased revenue.

It seems a little shortsighted. We have a chance to capitalise on a strong squad, great feel good factor in the town and a healthy asset base (inc Stevie May). Getting both May and Wright signed up after the cup final May have added an extra 100 season tickets. If the team does poorly this season after being neglected then interest in the club will fade and an opportunity missed.

Lets see how this plays out. To me, Steve Brown needs to get in front of the media and explain to the fans what's happening.

[shiresaint]

Extremely worrying, no new deal yet, when it has been spoken about for months, for our most prized asset and manager, late off the mark with season tickets, website never being updated and now no budget for the manager however long he is there for to stengthen. We must have made a decent amount in prize money to cover a reduced budget and allow the manager to at least replace those he has released!?

Edited July 8, 2014 by shiresaint

[Davey]

might not be all that bad -the Herald says Tomas Tisas is training with us.

Phew!!! The leagues in the bag

[Havana Saint]

Reading TW this morning, you clearly see the frustration from the man and no wonder! 

 

He has achieved so much for our club in such a short space of time, yet with just over a week to go until a MASSIVE game, we have brought in no new blood despite freeing up many contracts on several players and more importantly even our own manager is unclear about his own contractual position!!

 

We are all passionate about our beloved club and we will let a lot of things go, knowing our background and financial policies.  Having said this however with the "bad boy" in the trophy cabinet for the first time and so much uncertainty regarding pushing on for the future it is poor and very frustrating.

 

You simply cannot defend the indefensible.

 

Not good enough St Johnstone, very sadly not good enough at all.

[slambrother]

Saints have done their best to kill the feel good factor with every opportunity since the cup win.

Agreed, I've never been one to moan about the club but the way things have been handled post cup win has been really dissapointing. I understand the whole keep to the budget thing but ffs. By this time I thought at the very least we would have had a contract extension signed by May, Wright under contract for another 2-3 years and maybe at least one signing in as a morale boost ahead of our European games. The way things are going I'm not overly optimistic that we'll achieve any of these before the start of the season!

[ancientsaint]

Tsitas is an economics student - maybe been brought in to sort the budget.

[pete1967]

So looks like we will be going into the new season

without any new players , uncertainty over our managers future and uncertainty over stevie mays contract

why are the board acting like this after one of the clubs most successful seasons ever?

[Edstar101]

This has to have an impact on May's thinking re whether he wants to stay a bit longer or not.

 

Have a real hollow feeling in my stomach this morning. That shouldn't be the case after the heroics of last season.

 

I can understand the financial commitment required to upgrade the facilities, and these will bring longer term savings to the club and make perfect sense, but I fear the lack of a well thought out Business Plan here......the upgrade work HAD to be interdispersed with securing / improving the squad and ensuring that the good feel factor around the club was maintained. In this, the club have spectacularly failed.

 

Once again, it will be up to the players....get a decent away result a week on Thursday and follow it up with getting through to the next round and the supporters will be lifted again......crash out of Europe and I fear we are in for a rough few weeks at least

[St Mikey]

http://www.transfermarkt.com/thomas-tsitas/leistungsdaten/spieler/175835

Not much game time in the 2nd tier of Greek football. His old club have been promoted to the top division. Supposedly had a trial at PSV.

Disappointing on our budget. I presume its due to seeing if we progress in the Europa league to be fair.

[The Special One]

Well it's been good while it lasted, time to go back to living within our means

[patsy]

Has anyone got any links to this TW interview

[sixties saintee]

Ok. I stand corrected, this is beginning to sound quite bad. Reminds me of Steve Brown after the Motherwell game when we qualified for Europe, quickly pointing out that it was financially bad and we should hope for nothing.

I really wanted to give the club the benefit if the doubt, applaud their appeasing new fans and young families, but if they can't even agree a contract with a really good manager who really wants to stay then something is far wrong.

 

My thinking now as well Montrose

[St Mikey]

Has anyone got any links to this TW interview

http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/sport/football/wright-we-couldnt-offer-a-contract-to-goodwillie.24696099

[Das Rave]

Strange times indeed. After all the lauding of the Broons running of the club, this feels a step too far.

 

I would like to hear from the chairman on the budget/signing policy for this year.

 

Granted we have a good starting XI but a couple of injuries/suspensions could see us stretched very easily

[Cagey]

Well it's been good while it lasted, time to go back to living within our means

We have alwayss lived within our means. Surely our means are better this season than they have ever been.

I am worried how this will effect the players. Will it have a knock on effect & clubs lack of ambition transfer to players.

Will lack of competition for places result in comlacency.

This has been the worst close season . All that hope & expectancy kicked the feck out of us.

[Shaggy Jenkins]

They don’t make it easy at times, they really don’t.  32 years of going along I am probably too far gone now to stop, but what message is this sending those newer or lapsed fans.

 

Damage was done in the past and people drifted away, it has taken 3 euro adventures and one cup win to finally get people of Perthshire interested, a bit excessive but the fact is it seems people are interested again. 

 

I understand the need to balance books etc but this is awful timing.  I know there must be good reasons, however it seems hard to believe without explanation. Especially when the statements coming out seem to effectively say we are skint.

 

To the peripheral fan it smacks of the ‘usual Brown penny pinching’ or the ‘lack of ambition’ or ‘diddy teamness’ or whatever excuse people that stay away like to use. 

 

Quite frankly if there is no investment in key areas of the team and it goes belly up, then no one from Saints can  ever come out and complain about lack of support from the fans again.  It’s a two way thing.

 

However on the up side we do still have a decent squad, if slightly older in certain areas, if we can bring youth through then all the better.  We are clearly in the managers estimation 3 players short, wither that’s 3 players for top 6 or three player to be relatively safe, time will tell.

 

Still one hell of a gamble and if we are scrapping down the bottom could see any extra people through the doors never to return.

[Kyle]

Obviously not happy about this, but at least we know what we're dealing with now.

 

When you look at the squad, it is still reasonably strong;

 

Goalkeepers

Alan Mannus

Steve Banks

Zander Clark

Mark Hurst

 

Defenders

Dave Mackay

Gary Miller

Steven Anderson

Frazer Wright

Tam Scobbie

Brian Easton

Ally Gilchrist

Gareth Rodger

 

Midfielders

David Wotherspoon

Lee Croft

Chris Millar

Gary McDonald

Murray Davidson

Scott Brown

Liam Caddis

Craig Thomson

Dylan Easton

 

Forwards

Stevie May

Steven Maclean

Michael O'Halloran

Chris Kane

 

Some positions are better covered than others - we should be fine in goal, in defence and on the right wing. One more injury in the middle of midfield or up top we're down to kids or possibly playing someone in a position they're not necessarily comfortable in.

 

This is my attempt at a silver lining. Obviously unhappy with the situation, but not really particularly surprised. I can't believe the positivity I had for this coming season has all but evaporated with what has been a pretty terrible summer so far.

[patsy]

Can I get a refund on my season ticket?

[The Blue Saint]

It's days like this that I'm glad I didn't buy a season ticket.

[MrBored]

Fundementally, we still have a decent squad, although a little thin on the ground if injuries come about. Of the other sides in the league, apart from Aberdeen (and maybe Dundee) I can't think of any who have improved their squad that much, so there isn't a reason why we shouldn't still be optimistic about the coming season.

 

I suspect Steve is thinking that with no Hibs or Hearts the away support will be down (although Dundee will make up some of that) and the league still doesn't have a sponser. The improvement of the facilities must be costing a shit load though.

[sideline]

I can almost picture the nightmare scenario now with May being sold right at the end of the transfer window and Muzz being released due to injury concerns.The manager is then given a meagre portion of this to get some new players but shock horror all the targets are gone and we get weak players for the sake of having someone. If we want to buy all the teams know we have money so inflate their prices.

[blueheaven]

Have to admit this is a little bit concerning. I'm all for the financial prudence that has got us where we are today - I don't think any of us would ever cry out for overspending. But the board has always supported its managers in the transfer market and I can't recall there ever being a summer where we haven't been able to sign any players. Tommy Wright deserves their backing after what he has achieved, but it actually feels like the opposite is happening and his ability to prepare us properly for the new season is being impeded. He has actually wasted his time working with Goodwillie. If we weren't ever in a position to even offer him a deal, he could have been doing other things with his time. And we have a huge match only a week away.

 

From the outside looking in it doesn't look good at all. I had hoped Steve Brown's chairmanship would mean fresh ideas and more willingness to embrace some modern approaches, but I've seen very little of that so far. The club just seems to be frustratingly slow off the mark at everything: too slow off the mark to tie up Tade on a contract this time last year; too slow in getting season ticket info out; not pro-active enough in getting details from Cup Final fans and appealing to them to come back; too slow in giving the manager his budget so he could get his targets signed up; too slow getting new strips out; not pro-active enough in seeking out a new shirt sponsor; too slow in updating the website; taking weeks to publicise the new season fixtures; putting ticket info on the website for the Luzern match but not even telling us how much the away tickets are. I'm sure there are individual circumstances behind all of these things, but put together as a whole it doesn't come across well at all. My impression of the club right now is that it needs to get its act together pretty quickly. A crying shame, really, when you look at how fantastically well things have been going on the field.