capt_oats

The narrative around this and the sort of language used is pretty weird. We had the initial "test the resolve" chat around Turnbull when the lowball offers of c.£1.25, £1.5m and £2m were being floated but I don't remember there every being language like you're seeing about McCann. As @Radford says it's smart to have the £3m figure out there (and for avoidance of doubt that's what I was getting at when I posted in here about Rooney et al a while back). If a club wants him they now know the price that Saints will have a think about - it's up to the buying club to match the valuation.

Because he's Ricki Lamie?

Grimshaw's a weird one. He was originally signed by Baraclough as a midfielder before he was recalled by Man U and sold to Preston. When we took him back he kind of found a niche as a right back but was back-up to both Cadden and Tait at RWB/right back for ages but as @RossBFaeDundee says he made the RB position his own in the season we finished 3rd and pretty much kept Tait on the bench that season. However, the reason SOD came in was that Grimshaw's form kind of went off a cliff at the start of last season whether that was a result of the extended Covid break or just he didn't really deal with being first choice particularly well IDK but his levels definitely dropped and both Carroll and McGinley were out with long term injuries which left us short of full backs. Hence O'Donnell doing us a turn because he lives 5 minutes away. It's been mentioned a fair bit in our thread but yesterday was Grimshaw's first first team game since the New Year loss to Accies. He's been out since then with glandular fever which is why there's a fair amount of frustration that we chose yesterday to give him his first start in 8 months AND stick him alongside a boy making his debut who's new to Scottish fitba' (experienced as he is). I've no idea what Alexander's position on Grimshaw or O'Hara is as Grimmy hasn't been available to him since January while Lanarkshire's #1 concussion specialist has been out the side more than he's been in it since Alexander came in.

Aye, in the list of players I have concerns about at the moment Donnelly isn't even close to bothering the top end. (It's Stevie Lawleff who's currently #1 in my Ari Gold GTFO list in case anyone is wondering). Equally Maguire is someone I'm happy enough to have around the squad but asking him to start every week and play the role he's being asked to (whatever it is) definitely isn't the one. It depends who else we're looking at. How true it was IDK but we were one of the teams quoted as having had an interest in Odoffin who plays in the same area of the park as Donnelly, arguably even the same role as Donnelly. It's academic now given he signed for Rotherham but let's say it's true that we were interested it suggests it's an area of the park we're looking at.

Whoever said that definitely sounds like an extremely smart and incredibly cool guy. In fairness, Alexander's said we're still looking to make signings, Burrows has said we'll be signing more players so there's no reason to disbelieve them and without knowing who we're actually speaking to then it's difficult to judge one way or another whether they will or won't be what we need. Ultimately, with the squad as it is and everybody fit, our "best" starting XI probably only includes a couple of the players who folk may consider weaker links.

Aye, from my POV I'm not having a heads gone over it it just feels like it's another opportunity to progress in the cup chucked (given our record against Dundee) and the kicker is that it seems to have been wilful as a result of having a bit too much faith in the "squad" to get a job done and a feeling that we've been using the LC as a means to rotate the squad. In his post-match Alexander even refers to the group games as "pre-season", which I suppose it technically is but it's a bit of a tell. Don't get me wrong, I don't think it's a case of Alexander not taking it "seriously", or not being bothered about winning he absolutely would have as I'd imagine he's got "League Cup Run" in his list of KPI's from the board. Last season under Robinson we were 1-0 up against St Johnstone at the same stage and chucked that with 2 mistakes, the season before we were put out at the same stage by a Hearts side who were relegated with 8 games to go and we didn't lose to in the league. It really is just another "kick in the nuts". We're clearly still in the market for players and the likes of Kelly, Van Veen and Slattery have all at the very least shown the potential of being good signings so I'm not going to get bent out of shape about our transfer business at the moment. In fact if it could be sped up a bit that would be absolutely smashing thank you very much. As an interesting factoid, of the starting XI today 6 were at the club when Alexander was appointed and it's difficult to imagine he had much to do with Lawleff being brought in given he arrived inside a week while Alexander was still getting his feet under the desk.

The thing with Woolery that's kind of notable is that he's the one of the few players who doesn't seem to have been rotated in or out. He's started 6 of the 7 games we've played so far and played the full 90 in 5 (and 84' in the other). Barry Maguire's another in so much as he's started all 7 although that really feels like it's because we've not had any other options for his position. As an aside, and I'm not pining for him to be brought back in, I notice Robbie Crawford has had his arse firmly parked on the bench since Airdrie.

I mean, he managed to get himself sent off against Hibs in injury time of a game we comfortably won 2-0 so...aye!

To Devils Advocate that, look at the fall out of the St Johnstone game on Motherwell Twitter...you've had a certain section of fans wanting SOD dropped to the point that they were even taking shots at him while he was wearing a Scotland shirt, folk were wanting Ojala in the team the second he signed and Stevie Lawless?...nah, sorry I have nothing. Was it a good idea to just think "f**k it...it's the league cup, it's Dundee, I've a bunch of players who need minutes...what's the worst that can happen if I just chuck them all in?" On the upside, Alexander looked particularly grouchy in his post-match interview and it's fair to say there are a few players that he's given a very decent run in the team to...so I wonder if this "kick in the nuts" might speed things along a bit in terms of recruitment. In and Out.

Aye. Like, if there's no Reserve league running this season (is there? IDK?) I get his rationale in wanting to get the squad as a whole up to speed. Like yourself and others in The Thread this isn't really a heads-gone from me more just a frustration. Last week we made 1 change from the game against Hibs - Shields in for Watt. Today we had 3 changes from the game against St Johnstone and 4 from the Hibs game. Maybe I'm being unfair and the changes were injury related (I know KVV was apparently carrying a knock for example) but given how we've chopped and changed the team specifically in the League Cup and carried ourselves generally in the competition then it's hard not to draw conclusions. In a way I'd be much more concerned if that had been our "best IX" out there who had put in a performance/result like that against Dundee. As it was we had a back 4 and a front 3 who had never played together. Consider me stunned we didn't look a coherent team.

Aye. I realised this about 10 minutes ago. That said, we skipped the group stages last season on account of the EUROPA qualifying rounds so it didn't really feel a like-for-like comparison with this time around.

I didn't say you were:

I love the guy but Charlie Dunne is never a left back. The last time I saw him play there was our SC game against Ross County (or The Great Ross McCormack Homecoming Game - we lost 2-1). It was genuinely painful to watch.

I mean, I understand not playing O'Connor purely because I've a feeling that he's only here as cover and to try and develop. The Watt thing though. It's like some 4D chess where we've said "right Tony, you've been playing well but we need to give Shields some game time to get minutes in him. Would you mind parking yourself on the bench for a couple of games and we'll give you 30 mins in the 2nd half?"

What happened to Charlie Dunne? I saw he was subbed off pretty early, 27 mins?

It was 2nd phase from a throw. Ball hit the post and it was a save rather than a clearance. I mean I'm not precious about it, right now to me a chance is a chance regardless of whether it's from open play or a set piece.

Van Veen had one early-ish doors that Clark got down to his left to save. Was the one van Veen had in the 2nd half that was cleared off the line from a set piece?

Tbh, it's just been a very weird start to the season. I thought the Hibs performance was...good? and the St Johnstone game was fine. Not a great performance but I'm strongly of the opinion that we never actually play well at McDiarmid Park anyway so I'm judging it more on the result and the fact we created a pile of chances. Flip it to the League Cup though...where we've been bouncing players in and out of the side and we've seen poor performances and results. Not to kick him or anything and I'm not picking on Lawleff specifically but it seems relevant that he hasn't started either of our league games but he's started 4 out of 5 in the LC. I get that today may have been a case of him getting a run out after popping up with a lovely assist for Watt's goal last week but I don't think I'm being controversial in saying that if we're picking our "best" XI then he doesn't start. In a sense we're in the same place now as we were before the game. We still need a few players...we already knew that and Alexander's already admitted that we're still looking to bring players in.

19/20 - we lost 2-1 at Fir Park to the Hearts side who were relegated with 8 games to go.

It's something that we've been doing for a while. I'd guess that the logic behind it is that Kelly has better distribution than any of our centre backs (he does). It's generally worked alright when we've had van Veen on the park as a focal point who can pull the ball in or Watt.

As others have pointed out Grimshaw's not kicked a ball for the first team since the New Year game against Accies in January, Ojala is 5 minutes in the door and was making his debut so that's a back 4 who have never played a first team game together. In midfield Donnelly's just back from a long term injury and Slattery's another who's just in the door. Up front Van Veen's carrying a knock so wasn't in the squad and we started with Watt on the bench (again). @thisGRAEME's post sums it up but looking at that starting XI the number of players in there who are either playing their first games after long term injury or are just coming back from long term injury or are simply squad players (or not good enough) makes it feel like we've consciously treated the game like a training match (which has been a theme through the group stages of the tournament) and that's where the frustration lies. Edit to add: absolutely none of that is shade on Dundee in a "we were playing our Reserves/weren't trying" type of way. Fair fucks on winning.

I mean, we are a work in progress but that's the thing when we stuck out arguably our best XI we got, for the most part, a decent to good performance against Hibs to the point we were 2-1 up at HT. You can get away with half arsing your way through the group stages given the nature of it but f**k me...when it comes to the actual real stuff apparently deciding to use a tie to "get minutes in the legs" doesn't half stick in the craw. And that's where @thisGRAEME's post is especially spot on.

I've no strong opinion either way on O'Hara but I think it's fair to say that had he been available before now he'd at least have offered the opportunity for some rotation in the midfield. However, as a long term solution I don't know...and I'm not even sure what he'd be the solution to. Asking where he fits in the side isn't exactly a new question and we're not the only support who have asked it. As has often been said he doesn't have the discipline to hold down the DM position and I'm not sure his excitable puppy style translates into being effective in the other midfield positions. A creator he is not. Here's his record under Alexander last season. 10 appearances and managed the full game in 5 of them.

Not at all, it was discussed a while back our wage to turnover ratio for the 19/20 season was about 85%. We turned a £346,690 profit that season. The discussion in this thread is here. The Swiss Ramble Twitter thread is here:

Well, the thread has been running for 5 years so that works out at roughly 2.25 posts per day which feels marginally less tragic but even still...f**k. Anyway, to the point of obscure lower division English league players. I noticed this article thrown up on a Twitter search. Coincidentally Alexander had him on loan at Salford from Bolton.