Pull My Strings
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Posts posted by Pull My Strings
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1 minute ago, SGMilne said:
So they have to get this striker signing right.
Watt today was ok considering he was playing his first minutes in about 4 months. I don't think he should be played up top alone though.
Middleton was pish. No anticipation, sluggish and did very little.
I don't have too much faith in Freeman or McMann though.
Perhaps Sibbald in centre mid and Grimshaw at right back would be better?
Certainly don't think we need both Docherty and Grimshaw in midfield. Both destroyers and we shouldn't need two destroyers against teams sitting with with 10/11 men behind the ball. Mochrie, Glass and Meekison all looked more capable of working the ball and making worthwhile forward passes.
Not convinced that either Freeman or McMann are good enough to be playing in a team hoping to win the league. Well I am convinced, tbf, but not in a good way.
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41 minutes ago, SGMilne said:
Listening to the interviews on the BBC and on United's own platform, I can't really disagree with too much Goodwin said other than he thought Meekison was excellent.
Shit result, really slow in the final third, but apart from one mistake from Denham which ultimately cost us a goal, I don't think we were particularly troubled defensively.
We desperately need to work on movement in the final third and to sign a target man striker though. And Goodwin desperately need to work on a strategy to break down teams who sit in. But then so did Neilson and all the other managers we had in the Championship.
Disappointed, but I'm not panicking any time soon.
Add Shankland and you've got Neilson's team which ran away with the Championship. Of course that team was incredibly pedestrian apart from Shankland so, ...
Edit: so just need to sign someone as good as Shankland and we're laughing. Nae bother.
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11 hours ago, Pull My Strings said:
If his head's screwed on property. Otherwise he'll wander around aimlessly until the ball is played directly to his feet and then run with the ball until he comes up against a challenge and then throw himself to the ground, 40:60 chance of getting a free kick.
Ahem.
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Just now, ArabianKnight said:
Think some United fans need to check their negativity. A penalty miss (Watt didn't hit it hard enough FFS) and a couple of worldie saves and we should have won that.
Nothing about the performance today has me worried.
First competitive game of the season and folk hounding the whole team and manager out the door.
No wonder we are where we are right now.
There's an element of truth in that but it's difficult to be measured after the last 12 months. Very poor from Watt, Middleton, Grimshaw (and others I'm sure). The young guys who came on were better but we're crying out for a good centre forward. It won't Watt and until we get a new guy in I'd go with MacLeod, who at least plays that position.
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More intensity required but it's early days. I don't think Tony's the answer at centre forward. A more negative man might point out the parallels with Aberdeen's performance v Darvel.
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6 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:
Please tell us it was either a goalkeeper howler or chronic central defending by McMann.
Neither, I'm afraid. Easy ball into the right back area, cut back and a tap in. It's a static camera stream with no replays so I wouldn't want to point the finger at this stage but not the keeper or McMann at fault.
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27 minutes ago, Fife Arab said:
in for Chalmers and I’m sure meekison in for Chris.
Meekison also fit to start? Ooft. No Sibbald. Does that suggest he'll be going sooner rather than later.
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1 hour ago, 1320Lichtie said:
f**k sake was hoping he’d miss Gayf
eta - always really highly rated Watt. Won’t score anywhere near the same amount as Shankland but he’s a clever player who should make a massive contribution in this division
If his head's screwed on property. Otherwise he'll wander around aimlessly until the ball is played directly to his feet and then run with the ball until he comes up against a challenge and then throw himself to the ground, 40:60 chance of getting a free kick.
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2 minutes ago, 1320Lichtie said:
When is Watt due to be fit by?
Start of the league season, apparently.
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2 minutes ago, skinny arab said:
Could be a negotiation tactic from the club in trying to get a fee for him be claiming he’s still part of the first team squad, however given the reasons for his absence I don’t expect to see him back.
Could be simply that United are happy to keep him until someone buys him, or at least takes him off the wage bill without a fee. He'll be in the Levitt and Fletcher camp (we'd be happy for you to stay but you can go for a fee/no pay-off) rather than the Mulgrew, Birighitti camp (you're finished here, please go).
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Watt as Vice Captain is a bit of a statement. Hope Goodwin knows what he's doing.
Watt's clearly an excellent footballer but he seems like a guy who needs to be "managed" more than most. He's not a self starter. Goodwin presumably banking on the extra responsibility dragging a bit of extra motivation out of him.
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Would be great if Behich were to come back. He'd be a massive asset in this division.
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1 hour ago, Pens_Dark said:
I would guess that within the conditions of this rebate it might state that if the ST holder doesn't claim it then the club will automatically keep the rebate.
If that was the case the cynic in me thinks that the club have deliberately communicated this via a paywall news article to help curtail as many people coming to claim as possible. Maybe a bit far-fetched and word gets around anyway but would anything really surprise Utd fans given the past year or so?
Tbf, it's all on the official website now. It's not a great read.
Fill in this form if you want this voucher, that form if you want a different voucher but please don't claim it at all and we'll write your name on a brick in the tunnel so the players can see that you're one of the proud Band of Brothers who donated forty quid to the coffers.
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1 hour ago, SGMilne said:
It kinda is though. If you overspend and achieve then there's no problem. If you overspend on spectacularly bad recruitment then you have to make it up later.
Last season Ogren put a lot of money in and in the case of McGrath especially, pushed the boat out for little return. None of this would be talked about if the players we spent money on did well.
Same with managers. They recruited managers poorly.
FWIW I don't think we've cut the squad to the core either; we've got plenty of options - a lot of them young tbf - and the one area where we're especially light we're now looking to bolster.
If you overspend and make a massive loss then you either need to keep pouring your own cash in or cut back, irrespective of how well or badly the team performs. You seem to be arguing against a point that no one is making, certainly not in here and nowhere else that I've seen (bampots lurking in the corners of the internet notwithstanding). From what I can see no one is complaining that Ogren hasn't spend enough (or has spent too much money or really making any comment on the level of spending).
Re. "cutting the squad to the core", that was more a reference to the frantic cost cutting at the end of the summer window and then again in January after spunking relative fortunes only a few months earlier. Selling Clark and loaning out Watt (and Chalmers and others) isn't simply a recruitment issue. Unless by recruitment you mean "all staffing considerations" in which case you're getting closer to the truth.
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26 minutes ago, SGMilne said:
II'll use your post as the one to quote but I'm replying to most of the responses...
I think the moment anyone says anything negative about fan attitude, the suggestion is that I'm tarring everyone with the same brush, and I'm not. As I said, "The one thing I absolutely don't get is the entitlement some have - and I don't think that really applies to anyone who posts here - regarding how money should be spent at the club" This is an absolutely fair reflection of some of the fan sentiment online.
Even this morning I've seen multiple tweets suggesting that Ogren is responsible and needs to sell now.
There are some fans who believe that its the owner's responsibility to bank roll a club and the moment things go wrong, they turn on him and want someone else, as if there's this conveyor belt.
Also, let's be perfectly honest, a significant number of fans won't have run a business and don't really get the concept of cash flow. And that is in no way to be taken as an insult, even though I'm sure it will, so they won't get that the club needs money coming in regularly and that if everyone took this rebate it would have an impact.
Tannadeechee is correct; other clubs are better run because they recruit better. That's all it comes down to. United have a long recent history of looking to sign marquee players ahead of the right players. It's happened time and again.
It did rather sound like you were trying to characterise a majority view. If that's not the case then fair enough. You can find all sorts of deluded idiots on the internet if you look hard enough and no doubt some are United fans expressing the views you describe. They aren't substantial enough in numbers to be worth worrying about, in my opinion, and I don't think they're really relevant to this discussion.
And I think "recruit better" is too pat. Overspending one minute and then cutting the squad to the core the next because you're panicking is not about recruitment. Neither is pretending to scour the globe for a coach and alighting on the guy already in the building, twice. Falling out with successive managers so they have to be replaced every summer isn't about recruitment. Leaving a broken model running long after it was shown to be dysfunctional isn't about recruitment.
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58 minutes ago, SGMilne said:
There's a fair amount to digest with the interview.
First though, fair play for someone at United going out and talking to the local press rather than the softball in-house media stuff we've seen for the last few years. This isn't just a United problem, loads of clubs now only talk to their own in-house media or a preferred journalist who would never run anything bad so he could always get the transfer gossip first...
I've seen fans on social media complain about the in-house media stuff over the last few seasons, so how typical is it that the moment they do an interview with the Courier, some of those same people then complain about that, and demand that they should be able to read it for free. Why? 10 years ago you wouldn't think twice about buying a newspaper. At what point did things stop having any sort of value? I get that some of the information - as it directly concerned season ticket transactions - should have been put on the website first, but apart from that, the content is fair game and DCT have to pay the wages of Alan Temple and everyone else involved in putting it together.
As for the content, well people are entitled to have their viewpoint and if they want to take the rebate or not is up to them. Personally, I don't see any problem with the club appealing to people not to take it. They are a business and they have to look at cash flow. If supporters don't take the option then it improves cash flow and will result in more money available to be spent on other things. Less money = less signings, cutbacks, redundancies etc. It is the way of the world.
The one thing I absolutely don't get is the entitlement some have - and I don't think that really applies to anyone who posts here - regarding how money should be spent at the club. A whole generation of United fans has been brought up to believe the club should run at a significant loss because there will always be a chairman out there who will make up the shortfall by spending his own money. It has happened since the mid-late 90s, so therefore it should always happen. Yes, United fans are incredibly loyal, we turn out in numbers, we buy merchandise, and we support the club through thick and thin, but to be fair, so do the supporters of almost every other club in the land. What we don't do is invest enough to sustain the amount we spend, because for the last 30 or so years we've had a chairman willing to spunk his cash away. And what that's led to is a massive level of entitlement, where two points are made by a lot of people...
Point 1: "Why should we as fans pay for the club to be run as we would like it?" Maybe because we're the customers and are the primary point of cash flow without the TV income and bigger travelling support of the Premiership? Without customers, there is no United (and I fully agree with the idea then that the customers should be listened to and consulted more. It shouldn't be the closed shop under Asghar, but neither should it be the leaky ship helmed by Derek Robertson where anyone would be told anything) so we do need to accept that cash flow is dependent upon us putting our hands in our pockets first and foremost.
Point 2: "Ogren is responsible for all of this. He needs to sell up and go". I get it; United has been poorly run over the last 2 or 3 years, specifically because of recruitment. If we'd made two or three different signings last season we'd have stayed up and none of this would be a problem. But surely nobody could fault Ogren for putting his hand in his pocket? He's spent a ridiculous amount of money on a team he'd probably never heard of 6 or 7 years ago and that helped us get promoted and get into Europe. Why can't he say "Enough is enough, the club has to be able to wash its own face". And why now, just because some people don't like him anymore, should he sell up? And if he's going to sell up, are people just expecting him to walk away for nothing or for a huge loss, just because we as fans want someone else to throw away their own personal fortune for our benefit? I know a few wealthy United fans who have made their wealth through being good business people; none of them would be willing to buy the club, because they've told me directly that all they'd get for throwing their hard-earned cash away is abuse the moment anything goes wrong.
I don't think that's a United problem, it's a football fan problem. We just think paying the tab is someone else's responsibility and the moment one person stops, then the next sucker on the imaginary Sugar Daddy conveyor belt will replace them.
I'm not sure that's a fair reflection of fan sentiment at all. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's a gross misrepresentation. I don't want the owner to be throwing money around all over the shop but neither do I want him complaining when he's spent that money badly. It's his money, it's his business. My preference, and that of the vast majority of the support I suspect, is for the club to be run in a competent, sustainable manner.
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13 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:
I no longer have a season ticket but if I did I would forego the voucher.
Whatever Ogren’s motivation (and I certainly can’t work it out) he’s sunk a huge amount of money into the club. Yes there has been mismanagement but getting rid of Ashgar is a huge step in the right direction in rectifying the management problems at the club.
I don't disagree but why make the stupid offer in the first place if you're then going to try to row back on it. It just feels insulting. I was fairly sure when I renewed that we were going down and I was content to pay for the ticket without the need for a discount voucher. It just feels grubby, like the offer during the covid season that we'd get a sizeable discount on the following year's ticket and then they made it extremely difficult for anyone wanting them to honour that promise (only available after loyalty period had ended, no guarantee you could keep your seat, etc.).
It leaves a bad taste in the mouth. If you can't afford to honour your promises then don't make those promises in the first place.
I won't apply for vouchers because I agree that we're skint and the money is needed elsewhere but I also won't be asking them to put my name up in the tunnel, ffs.
This summer should have been a chance for a fresh start for the club but very little seems to have changed in terms of fan engagement. No updates or highlights from any of the pre-season games, maybe the media team are too busy firing out tweets advertising hospitality and tatty leisurewear every five minutes. I'm not impressed.
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19 minutes ago, ArabFundamentalist said:
Because I don't know who some random Dundee dud is?
It's the dud who was previously a dud at Falkirk and is consistently injured. Not sure his name would add anything to the analysis.
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2 hours ago, Accent-Unknown said:
One big thing about Asghar leaving is that the any rumours about signings has basically stopped, at least in Scotland. The only player the Scottish press have linked us with is Doidge, and the other rumours (like Lovre Rogic) have been from us trying to find players overseas.
None of the signings that have actually happened have been leaked beforehand. The club seems to be a lot more interested in just keeping it's head down.
Not sure about leaks but there were strong rumours about the first three signings several days before they signed.
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In terms of numbers and squad balance we're probably quite well set to play a decent 433 if we can get a big, strong centre forward. Two players, just about, for every position and mostly one established pro/one younger guy as cover/competition.
Could probably lose one or two wingers/attacking midfielders and add another physical centre forward and right sided centre half ideally but not much more needing done beyond that.
Walton
Grimshaw - Denholm - Holt - McMann
Docherty - Glass - Sibbald
Middleton - New CF - Watt
Newman
Freeman - Bisland - Graham - Duffy
Meekison - Mochrie - Moore
Cudjoe - MacLeod - Fotheringham
Grimshaw probably intended to play midfield so maybe another first choice right back coming in at some point. I quite like Freeman but I'm not convinced Goodwin particularly rates him.
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19 minutes ago, Kempes said:
Overall, how do Utd fans rate Behich?
He's excellent. Better going forward than defending but I think that's inevitable for that type of player.
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Decent pedigree for each of these guys, I think. The keeper appears to have just signed for Luton so presumably he's pretty well regarded to be getting a move to a Premier League team (albeit clearly not the finished article). 22 games in the Championship in the season before last.
The other chap again at a decent level club.
If nothing else this fills a couple of gaping holes in the squad without taking up too much of the budget.
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1 hour ago, Junior_Arab said:
Craig Samson got u-21 caps. Jamie Langfield got a B cap and several call ups to full Scotland squads, thankfully without playing.
Tbf both Samson and Langfield are miles better than that clown we had last season.
Not saying much, admittedly.
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12 minutes ago, Loemba90 said:
I think Newman will be in goals until we get a new keeper signed. Birighitti won’t be involved IMO, just be a bit of brinkmanship until they agree on a deal for him to leave. When we get another keeper in and he becomes third choice hopefully that will be the hint he needs!
Yeah, Birighitti will be gone as soon they can find someone to take him and, eventually, if they can’t find someone he’ll be paid off. Can’t be starting the season with the keeper being booed from minute one and he would be. United have made some particularly thrawn decisions in recent years but surely can’t be that obtuse.
Surely.
Right?
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Dundee United 23/24
in Scottish Premiership General Chatter
Posted
Not convinced. This is a poor United and still regrouping against an upwardly mobile 4th tier team. Doesn't feel worse than taking 9 (nine) from Celtic last season and many other results.