capt_oats

Aye. We've seen 3 players you'd genuinely label as 'out' - Souaré, Spencer and Wilkinson. Folk like Maguire, McGinley coming back plus Mahon etc leaving really just speaks to the idea of how mental our squad sizes have been for years if you're wanting to run a Reserve side in erm...Reserve? It feels like a lot of the the undeniable bloat we've carried has been precisely that *type* of player. Did we really need a Petravicius or Manzinga, a Harry Robinson or even a George Newell? In hindsight they just ended up here to pad out the squad. Tbh, as far as whether a deadline day siging is a show of desperation or patience, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. It depends on the player we get in.

It still tickles me that it was Alexander who signed him (and Goss) given the way #Grezza wanted to set up and play vs Slattery's strengths and the fact that he's someone who broadly wants to get on the ball (and be fouled). Agree that he has a high ceiling and that much is clear when you look at his CV (Toulon tournament etc) and you're probably right about the low floor part as well however I think he's someone who fits into a team set to play a specific way. I'd genuinely be curious to know which players are closest to him in similarity of profile. He has quite a specific skillset.

He's played 1569 league minutes this season so it works out at him being fouled every 24.9 minutes.

Playing against the hammer throwers in this league has clearly taken its toll. https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/sport/football/aberdeen-fc/6325642/scottish-premiership-2023-24-stats-top-performers-this-season/

As @Gianfranco he was absolutely murder for us when Robinson signed him. I'm maybe being unfair but I've always thought he has an issue with complacency and as I've said before based on some of the stuff he's said publicly he seemed to view himself as a first pick whilst his performances suggested otherwise. His uptick in performance when Alexander came in post-Robinson had the energy of someone trying to prove a point to a new manager and his form seemed to dip again the season after he signed his extension (although there's every chance that's explained by Hammell getting the job). In that respect it'll be interesting to see how his performances go at Dundee once his move becomes permanent and whether he gets complacent and lapses again. We've been talking a fair bit on here recently about the idea of the culture of the club with us losing players like Lasley, Hammell through to Aldred, Hartley, Tait and Campbell: players who'd come in, set standards and elevate those around them. When Lamie came in as part of our apparent 'Friends of Declan' signing policy it kind of felt like he was the opposite of what we needed as far as club 'culture' goes. We put this video out not long after he signed and...dunne the vibes just seemed off from the start IMO.

If we wanted to be arseholes about it, assuming the PCA is announced during the window, we could follow St Mirren's lead and recall him in the way they rinsed St Johnstone for £75k or whatever it was for Cammy MacPherson. @RandomGuy. will know the details of that better than me. I believe the last time the Dundee/Lamie thing happened they tried to heavy lean us to make it permanent during January which we (clearly) knocked back. I think it was Alexander who said at the time "we didn't need another bag of balls".

The interview wasn't really for me tbh but it's not really worth getting into it.

Aye, I saw that reply from Burns about us not being able to afford Watt's wages and my initial thought was "and St Mirren could?". Full disclosure, I'd genuinely forgotten that he was at St Mirren but I'm fairly sure they weren't paying the full 10k p/w or whatever it is he's on.

Not to bring the thread back to the video (which if McGarry's mailout is correct McMahon is paying for himself) but I noticed this write up presumably by the PA. Like, that's all fine, and it's been pretty clear to anyone who has been paying attention and isn't being deliberately thick that the investment by Anderson and Cormack is what he's been talking about when he said we need investment. However, see if you're having to clarify and explain all that stuff after the fact...it's probably fair to say that the video didn't land, regardless of the number of Twitter views the Tweet got. It seems the piece was written by McCafferty so there's a bit of context as it was him who posted that pretty disingenuous Tweet about the finances and comparison with Killie the other week.

Ally Gorrin signs for Forest Green. And in other former player news...

The Thelonius Bair Hype Train:

Of the two I think Penney is the easier to imagine since the fact that he's been without a club since last year means I don't think it's a given he'd go straight into the team ahead of Gent - it'd probably be more straightforward option to balance Gent getting game time as part of his loan and Penney being able to work his way up to some sort of acceptable match fitness. Having two loans for the same position presumably with expectations of game time feels far more messy for a number of reasons. Similarly, I don't quite have a handle on Kettlewell's preference to squad building but the fact we started the season with Souré/Gent and SOD/Spencer gave us one younger option along with an experienced alternative. Either way I don't follow Matt Penney on IG so I don't know his posting habits enough to tell whether that Story was some sort of (not very) cryptic hint or just something he put up to remind folk he still kicks a baw. We certainly need both a LWB and RWB though.

This will be why eh?

How curious. I noticed this Tweet just there and a quick check on their forum has Exeter City wanting to sign oor Thelonius. Bair mention in their thread starts here: https://www.exeweb.com/forums/threads/garys-january-transfer-window.64079/page-406#post-2273244

I see McGarry's saying that McMahon is footing the bill for this himself in the new mailout that's just landed (go and sign up etc).

Aye. Exactly that. Nah, it's more a case that once you see some of the campaigns the agency/studio have worked on then the final thing makes a bit more sense. It doesn't make it any more/less objectively bad and all the various criticisms stand but at least it's in line with a house style and I don't think there could be an argument that what was delivered is particularly out of line with that. Whether it's the right tone for what we're trying to do (what are we trying to do? who is this actually for?) and quite how/why we landed on them as the preferred option is probably a question for Jim McMahon. I mean, did we supply a brief and ask for pitches from various studios or did we just go straight to Leith and say "we've heard of you, we like your other campaigns can you do us something like that?".

After @thisGRAEME pointed out that it was Leith who worked on the creative and knowing the style of their other campaigns I think it's fair enough to assume it was deliberate and they knew what they were doing. Which is kind of a relief in so much as we haven't produced this in-house. There are questions/arguments that can be made about what process we went through to land on this as a creative direction, how appropriate the messaging is and how effective the video is - what were we actually trying to achieve with it? And the response to that really comes down to how generous you're willing to be to those on the board. The issue for me really comes down to the point @Busta Nut made last night to say "that's it?". If that's the extent of the board's thinking then it's no wonder we've struggled to attract serious investment.

Nah. It's just objectively bad. Tbf, there's a lot going on that you may/may not be aware of that's probably provoked as strong a reaction from folk on here. Basically the club have been floating the idea of seeking external investment as a route to go down for years. In the announcement that accompanied the details of his stepping down McMahon indicated "The final stages of a fund-raising initiative are almost complete and will be ready to be shared early in the New Year." Cool. In that case you might hope to see something credible/viable put forward. Bearing in mind they have been talking about this for years the fact that *this* is what they've delivered presumably in line with their own brief is utterly galling. Add that to the less than ideal timing of our interim CEO saying that he's of the opinion that we don't need a Head of Digital, Brand and Comms in the interview the club published the other day and tbqh it has sent folk for a walk. I'll not lie, my head has fully detached and is currently orbiting the moon. Our interim CEO spent part of his 40 (FORTY) minute interview clarifying that we're not in financial difficulty (we reported cash in the bank of £4.2m at the end of last season), one of the WS board members was on the telly earlier backing this up and reinforcing the point that we're seeking investment to work alongside the ownership - yet the messaging on this video is "Taylor Swift gies some dosh..." What.The.Actual.f**k? To be clear, Russell and Brannan left the club for West Ham at the end of the 21/22 season and it appears that the board made a choice not to replace them so we've effectively been operating without a head of comms since then and it's shown. Tbh, it's increasingly looking like the people who made that decision simply don't understand why the job is important or quite possibly they don't even understand what the job *is*. Again, this is something that has been a regular point of annoyance that you may have noticed if you drop into this thread. The Burrows/Russell/Brannan era media output was over-earnest (we exist to improve people's lives you know) and it rubbed folk up the wrong way at times (the post-match interviews you mentioned definitely grated after a while but they'd committed to it as a bit so stuck with it) but for the most part they approached things with the right tone. There was some stuff that was 'quirky' but it was generally appropriate to the context eg: the Peter Hartley reveal etc but if there's one thing that Burrows did well it was treat the club messaging and its profile seriously. Besides the pointlessness of it this clip is just so wildly misjudged on every level and the fact that it seems like it's an "initiative" that the club board have been working on suggests that those involved are utterly out of touch and there's huge lack of understanding of an area in which we used to excel.

Cheers. I was genuinely curious who it was after seeing that.

Bring him home...