Lichtielegend

I'm all in favour of Jim experimenting for next season in the remaining games, even more so after big Dunc's pish. Next two games, a front pair of Gaston and Boruc with Norey in goals.

Signing is tainted, send him back.

Will be a good signing for you. Sad to see him go.

Pretty conclusive and, with the way it manifests itself with the fouls and cards stats, suggests that a major factor might be an official subconsciously appeasing the crowd?

Brownlie's first season in the then First Division doesn't get near enough credit. I don't think a part time team survived in that division in the 5 years prior or the 10 years after we did it. I'm not sure the issue is being relegated, more the manner of it. We ended up going down with a whimper under Brownlie and the malaise continued the following season. We're going down with a whimper this year and continuity is not the way to address it. If we looked at clubs relegated from the Championship over the last 20 years with less than, say, 25 points and looked at their performance in League One the following season, I reckon more clubs would have got relegated again rather than bounce back up. One for @SimonLichtie to compile.

Of course it's with hindsight. There aren't many managers who call it quits at the right time. It's somewhat ironic that perhaps the only 2 Scottish managers who did time it right were people close to Dick Campbell (Sir Alex and Walter Smith)

Unless the money wasn't on the table unless he agreed to such a clause. However, with recent rumours regarding contracts (such as the Scott Allan wages) I wouldn't be surprised if were on the hook for the whole of his contract (£120k for a 20 month deal ffs)

I think a lot of people (myself included) at the time of DC's departure thought that Petrie had a good thing going at Links Park and therefore the incentive wasn't there. In an ideal world, Campbell would have stepped up down as manager in 2022 (he had taken us as far as anyone feasibly could) and we could have made an appointment from a position of strength and could have looked for someone with a view to long-term. Petrie would have been the ideal candidate and, at that time, I think he would have jumped at it.

I wasn't too upset when the youth setup got wound down but I think things changed in the last 5-10 years in terms that there does seem to be the finances, which might not have been present before. The change in rules for substitutes means there is an opportunity to get youngsters on the bench without taking experienced players out.

McIntosh signing will be a real insight into McIntyre and how players feel about him, imo. He's the only one that played under him at Cove.

I could believe this if I had any trust in his ability to sign decent players. Boruc - not one aspect of his game is better than Gaston's and I'm not convinced he's any better than Adams. Delaney - Has been fairly anonymous in the few games he has played, attacking and defensively. Walker - Showed decent glimpses defensively, poor distribution Teale - Could find half a dozen defenders as good or better in League 1/2, results in Ricky playing on left of back pairing which causes problems Mackinnon - No idea what he offers our midfield. Robinson - I've seen some shite Arbroath teams in my time - he wouldn't get a game for any of them. Playing him is disrespecting the SPFL. Murray - Like Mackinnon, I can't work out what he offers us. Reilly - Barely played but showed glimpses. Even if he did have any success rate signing players, would we really have any confidence in him building a team out of them? I wouldn't. Campbell's time was up and he (as well as the board) did us dirty but no one can convince me we wouldn't have had a better chance of staying up if he was still here. Good part-time managers don't tend to stay part-time managers too long which results in a dearth of 'proven' candidates and it is a completely different task to full-time football so doesn't always translate. Airdrie are a good example, actually. Their squad is fairly modest for this level yet they are extremely well drilled and try to play with a clear style. As much as you can try, you can't implement that in 4 hours of training per week. At part-time level it is really about recruitment, personality and man-management. As stated above, McIntyre's recruitment has been poor. You can see from his interviews that his personality is hardly inspiring. As for man-management, we've had the Bird/Hylton and now the McKenna/McIntosh incidents along with the shabby treatment of Ali Adams. When I think of the money wasted on full-time players over the last 2.5 years, with absolutely no on-field benefit, I wonder if we wouldn't have been better off trying to get some kind of youth system up and running again. Gold might not be the answer for first team manager but he'd have loads to offer if we did something like that.

McIntyre is merely a symptom of a deeper malaise but he absolutely has to go. The level of player he's brought to the club has generally been abysmal and he's lost the backing of players who have performed at this level for us.

It also resulted in complacency. Campbell never even bothered trying to sign people to compete for starting spots in defence (other than right back) for about 3 years, choosing to get defenders who would be happy to sit on the bench for 90% of the season. Liam Henderson might be an exception, but he was another that was lauded for his versatility and never really played in defence.

As an aside, the 4 league meetings between us this season have seen an extraordinary number of players picking up injuries.

Do it now. Give it Goldy til the end of the season.