palmy_cammy

I don't think we can afford to start building a squad until that "possible start date" becomes a "probable start date" or even a "definite start date". As for signing targets, it's going to be a complete free-for-all, with most teams starting from scratch. I suppose the teams that did well enough last year might stick with what they know and re-sign a lot of last season's squad. Better the devil you now and all that. That wouldn't be an advisable strategy for ourselves though. Assuming we stick with Johnston, which unfortunately seems likely, hopefully he has learned some major lessons from last season. We basically require a whole squad, but priorities have to be; a reliable goalkeeper, actual wide men instead of 10 central midfielders none any better than the others, and an energetic partner for Dobbie. Of the ones released there isn't anyone I'm desperate to see return, but I'd be fine with Semple, Mercer and Lyon returning. Kilday, Murray and Hamilton would be acceptable.

Livi should be giving us an extra 10% for nicking McCrorie and sending us that dud Stewart. Fair's fair.

The only person that is likely to know this, also understandably won't answer. I'd hope so, but I suspect not. Pure speculation on my part, but I suspect getting Dykes back on loan from the January and then Jack Hamilton last season were the sweeteners in the deal.

Why do I get the feeling we'll be seeing some posts from "elyl kered" tomorrow?

I feel a bit sorry for Murray, he's definitely a talent but his time with us has been too stop/start for him to really progress. He's never had a consistent run of games to really kick on. That said he's never really put in strong enough performances to deserve a prolonged run. The closest he's had to a purple patch for us was probably in the playoffs last year, all against League 1 opposition. I think he could be a standout at the level below but talk of a move to the Premiership seems fanciful.

Hopefully the manager is on a similar contract to Oliver. Something like, he had to look like he knew what he was doing in 20 games to trigger the second year.

It's a real emotional rollercoaster just now between feeling genuinely sorry for all footballers at this level and below (and anyone else in any industry for that matter) facing uncertainty over their futures, and being absolutely delighted to see these shysters punted from the club.

He did shave his head. Perhaps he is planning on a return to this look.

Yes this unthinkable thought had crossed my mind, but I don't think it is a genuine concern. He will know himself he had a disappointing season, and even acknowledging the fact this wasn't especially his own fault, he strikes me as the sort of character who would want to put it right. I'm also sure he wouldn't want to leave Queens, and likely call time on his career, in such a fashion. He certainly deserves a far greater send off. The only real obstacles would be a lack of funds on our part, or a lack of fitness on his. I assume the external funding that has allowed him to join us for this second stint remains in place given he already has a contract for next season. I also see no reason why his fitness should be a concern. He seemed to have recovered from the hamstring niggles that plagued the tail end of the previous season, and he is meant to be more of a fitness fanatic in is latter years than ever before. I can't imagine he has spent his time during furlough getting back to his previous size. The biggest concern is probably that he simply can't face another season working under Johnston. His body language last season was not of a man enjoying his job. Whilst I'd like to think his love for the club is such that he wouldn't just chuck it, you couldn't exactly blame him. Plenty of our fanbase had done exactly that thanks to our manager's ineptitude.

Robby McCrorie - 9/10 A very good goalkeeper, right up there with the best we've had in my time following the club. He certainly has the potential for a big future in the game but talk of being Scotland's #1 is premature to say the least. I'd put him on a similar level to fellow ex-loanee Zander Clark. Kevin Holt - 7/10 Took a while to get going but soon became a key player for us with his much needed energy up and down the line, especially given Johnston's refusal to sign or play genuine wide men in midfield. Put in a horrorshow of a performance against Queens Park when he was inexplicably played at CB. Lee Kilday - 6/10 Just a bit meh really. Doesn't do anything heroically good, or horrendously badly. Genuinely tough to think of anything to say about him. Dan Pybus - 3/10 If you look up the word overrated in the dictionary you see a picture of Dan Pybus. I thought we'd evolved past players becoming fan's favourites because they run about a lot but here we are. Lewis Kidd - 0/10 A farcical signing who contributed nothing positive to the team. Jack Hamilton - 6/10 Looked like the perfect partner for Dobbie in the very brief glimpses we initially saw, finally got a run in the team and started to show that he was, before getting injured and disappearing to the fringes again. Definitely rough around the edges with lots of areas requiring improvements but young enough that he could fulfil his potential. Fitness is maybe an issue. Gary Oliver - 6/10 Much like the Kidd signing, all of our fans could have predicted how this one would go from the minute it was announced. He has ability, but is more interested in trying to win fouls than he is score goals. For his size he is good at holding the ball up, and he did chip in with a few goals. Never looked like building up any kind of understanding with Dobbie and didn't look comfortable in Johnston's favoured 4-3-3. We're stuck with him for another season, but I wouldn't be surprised to see him move on if there are any interested parties. Andy McCarthy - 0/10 Subbed before half-time against Queens Park never to be seen again. Squad filler, nothing else. Darren Lyon - 6/10 The closest we managed to replacing "7/10 every week" Kyle Jacobs in the holding midfield role. If that is where Lyon had played every week I suspect his season's rating would have been 7/10 as well. Better on the ball than Jacobs, but not as good in the air. Suffered by being asked to play in various different positions as Johnston grew increasingly desperate. Abdul Osman - 4/10 Has all the physical attributes to be an excellent combative midfielder aside from probably the most crucial. The definitive "pea-heart", he treats the ball like a hot potato passing responsibility onto someone else at the first opportunity. Callum Semple - 6/10 If you were judging him purely on games played then he would probably score 7 or 8 out of 10. Unfortunately he didn't play often enough due to his fitness. Another one who suffered from Johnston's erratic selection process in that he played when he shouldn't have, and then was omitted when he should have been playing. Unlikely to rejoin whilst Johnston is in charge I'd imagine. Hopefully Johnston goes and Semple stays. Faissal El-Bakhtaoui - 7/10 Another player that was overrated by our fans, but I suppose understandably so given he was a diamond in amongst the vast quantities of shite served up last season. It didn't always come off for El Bakhtaoui, and just like a lot of players of his ilk he drifted in and out of games as he pleased. He was a joy to watch when it did come off though, the Dundee United performance being the obvious standout. Michael Paton - 1/10 Paton was a lazy player first time around, but just about got away with it due to his ability and the fact he had a good team around him. This laziness combined with his advanced years meant that this was another signing destined for failure from the get-go. January signings Ross Stewart - 1/10 An absolute donkey. Michael Ledger - N/A I don't think I saw him play, possibly once as I had stopped going to the games by the time he started featuring. David Devine - 2/10 Lightweight and nowhere near reading for full-time adult football. A bit of an unnecessary signing who found himself immediately thrown in as a first choice player for some bizarre reason. Deimantus Petrevicius - N/A As with Ledger I didn't see a lot of him. Fluffing a one-on-one when clean through against Dundee was about the only thing I can remember. Iain Wilson - 4/10 Joined a team that was struggling and wasn't really capable of offering anything to alter their fortunes.

A predictable response, with the only surprise being that it came from someone other than Northfield. We can't afford to keep him either. There is not one metric that could be used for measuring a manager's success in which Johnston's performance last season would be deemed positive. He is an abject failure at this level. If we have to cut the playing budget to pay off his contract then so be it. He doesn't deserve the chance to manage us next season.

Unless we change the management position it really doesn't matter who we sign.

Yes you're probably right although plenty would disagree. I was genuinely delighted when Chisholm left. I wouldn't go as far as that for McIntyre leaving, but I was certainly pleased.

And probably used our lifetime allocation of diddy managers inexplicably being pinched from us when Dundee took Chisholm.

Is there as much clamour to sign ex-players amongst fans of other teams or is it a trait unique to our lot? It sometimes feels like a large section of our support think we are only allowed to sign former players! FWIW MacDonald would probably be a good signing, but it's pie in the sky at the moment. I can't help but feel we are a long way off signing any players due to the fact we simply don't need to.

We're covering old ground, but I suppose with no new things to talk about it's worthwhile. Chisholm will forever go down in the history books as the man who led us to our first Scottish Cup Final, but it is league form that a manager should primarily be assessed. For me - Chisholm underachieved with the tools at his disposal. He got the best out of a team largely assembled by Ian McCall but failed spectacularly at building his own team even with Davie Rae's chequebook. This approach ultimately led to us being relegated when we had to cut our cloth after years of crazy spending. Jim McIntyre had us punching our weight, no more, no less. James Fowler overachieved. Fourth is the highest we have finished in my time following the club and doing so in 2014/15 is the best achievement of them all given the strength of the league. Getting rid of him was a mistake that started a downward spiral we haven't recovered from.

We lucked out with the draw, I include that as one of the “stars that aligned” but I worded my original post poorly. Obviously it’s possible such a run could be repeated. The other circumstances are less likely to be. We had Dobbie playing at a level far below where he should have been due to his fitness/fatness. The same could be said to a lesser degree about Sean O’Connor who undoubtedly could have played in the top division, but probably wouldn’t have passed the medical. The death of Gretna gave us experienced players of the calibre of Tosh, McFarlane and to a lesser extent McQuilken, who I doubt would have looked at us twice in normal circumstances. We had an ambitious chairman who spent the necessary money to attract these key players. We had a bit of luck on the injury front that allowed us to play largely the same team and build momentum. We’ve seen some of the ingredients since; Zander Clark and Robbie McCrorie were successful young loanees on a par with Jamie McDonald, Chris Higgins was a colossus as captain in the mould of JT, Allan Johnston could pull strings like Tosh, and Dobbie came back an even better player, but we’ve not had all the pieces coming together at the same time.

That was my favourite part of the whole game! It probably summed Tosh up as a player; skill, passion and gallusness! It was right in front of where I was sat and I remember almost celebrating it like a goal. It gave me the belief that we weren't going to implode as we so often had on the big occasion (and this was the biggest of the lot) and that rather than clinging on, we were actually in control of what was happening. It was a crazy game that either side could have won but I think it was our greater belief that saw us through in the end. We had nothing to lose, whereas the Aberdeen players crumbled under the weight of expectation of being favourites I think. A lot of stars aligned for that team to be put together making something similar happening again very unlikely, which is a shame. It's also a great shame we weren't able to build on it.

He is contracted to June 2021.

We'll have lost more fans since January this year than we did to Gretna.

The prospect of Dobbie ever becoming manager gives me the fear. Even more so if he was to take over this rag tag bunch at such an uncertain time. Some players immediately stand out as being manager material and I'm afraid Dobbie doesn't fall into that category for me in the slightest. I don't even rate him particularly highly as a captain. This current group were crying out for leadership and it was nowhere to be seen. I don't doubt he is an influential character in the dressing room, as most senior players are. He has a wealth of experience, both good and bad, to pass onto the younger players and I'm sure his stature commands a lot of respect. There is more to management than that however, and his achievements as a player would soon lose their significance after a poor run as manger. I remember similar calls for fellow legend Jim Thomson to become manager and the less said about that the better. I'm not ruling Dobbie out completely as a future manager, but I'd much rather he cut his teeth elsewhere and was given the job on merit, than just walked into it because he was the nearest person.

He's from Bridgeton though which I think means it's okay if I've understood the article correctly.

18 crosses and a penalty.

Clearly the board foresaw the fixture cancellations and have been holding off sacking Johnston so that they don’t have to stump up compensation with no money coming in. The season will then become null and void, we’ll survive relegation and sack him in the summer when it will cost us less money. They aren’t indecisive shitebags at all, and are in fact geniuses!

Is the Ayr fan that ran on the park coming down for this one? Get him to bring his boots if he is. If he’d ran on and slipped this season he’d be in line for player of the year.