Coventry Saint

Yeah, agreed: plus, he was playing with his head up, moving with the ball, looking for options, etc. He was also getting himself into spaces in the first place. Cautiously optimistic about him (based on 10 minutes )

I'll agree to disagree on the fitness thing - but it's a proven fact that sharpness will take a while to come, and that heavy training will blunt that sharpness in the very short term. We'll see a different team in two games' time, and not just because we're hopefully signing players. Re McGinn... yeah, it is concerning, though as with the rest of the team, he did wake up slightly in the second half - but that might have been because Dunfermline were backing off and giving him more space. They hounded our midfield in the first half. If we brought in a new DM (though it's not an immediate priority), I think McGinn's place in the side could be in trouble.

Yeah, we are so far short. If you think, Erhahon was our third-choice LB by the time the season ended and right now we literally have nobody else who could play there. He was also our only attacking outlet down the left for much of the match, too, which is hardly going to help him concentrate on his defence. I did notice Djorkaeff ran on to the right hand side of the pitch, but then repeatedly popped up on the left, so I suspect that might be his preferred position (Not blaming him - all our shape had gone by the time we were chasing a goal at the end.) If it was up to me, these would be the absolute bare minimum incoming: 2x CH 1x LB 1x versatile L/RB 1x pacey winger 1x striker And even then we're probably a bit short/praying we're lucky with injuries.

The other thing to bear in mind is that really intensive summer training is designed to benefit the players' fitness in January and February. It won't necessarily have short-term benefits. It's not an excuse, but our players' legs will still have been heavy from double sessions in Spain. Proper sharpness will come from playing hard matches. That said, Dunfermline looked very good in the first half. Hard to say how much of it was us being shite or them being good, but for a young team I thought they were very promising.

Fucking hell, we're bad

Ehhh... Not really. I actually came in to show some 'drawing with Queens Park in the League Cup' solidarity, but then saw someone moaning about a lack of midfield creativity and it seemed easier to just post a wee pic of Tony. Half of me wants to be reassuring, but the other half is aware of how gash we were last season following an identical result, so...

I reckon we're going to (attempt to) convert McPherson into a RB.

Yeah, the article mentioned financials but I wasn't taking that too seriously. Ok, interesting feedback though, cheers.

Article in the Sun today says we're after Tyler Garratt, who has been training with you. Is he any good? We are completely without a left back at the minute.

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I posted similar on BAWA a few days back. The nature of the League Cup now is completely out of sync with the transfer window, clubs' activities and fans' expectations. The only upside is that pretty much all diddy teams are in more or less the same boat. Look at how impressive an utterly gopping Saints side looked against a (with hindsight) clearly-not-ready Killie last summer. The fact is, clubs need about five friendly matches to get their house in order and look at some trialists, run the rule over players, etc, but that simply isn't feasible any more.

100&. I'm honestly no conspiracy theorist, but I'm even wondering if Coleraine's random approach to that other manager was just smoke and mirrors. "Why would we have sought permission to speak to him if we were going to employ Kearney..." is a reasonable and believable little line to throw out there. It's fine. We move on, and I'm happier with that sexy b*****d Goodwin in charge.

I've done a fair bit of media training... I might get a pitch in.

Exactly: compare the trajectories of the two sides since then!

Realistically he only has 12 months left on his contract. We may get a much higher figure if a bidding war starts up, but 500k for a player we only signed 6 months ago would be pretty incredible for a club like ours. Even if it would be impossible to replace him with a like for like goalkeeper. I think 500k is the right balance between being an amazing fee for a club our size, and also not being so high it prices buyers out the market. I just hope it doesn't drag on all summer as we will need to reinvest any income in the squad. Edit: I wonder if Jordan Holmes would come back up; Clangers spoke very highly of him.

Yeah, I think that's just an error. I'm actually in the 'I think he was awrite' camp, but I know lots of people aren't. I'm hoping we can bring in better.

Believe it or not I actually try not to be too pedantic on here... But he was literally telling someone to remember the name

FFS It's Kyle, and it's Magennis.

It seems you're either the sort of person who actually watches football matches and therefore realises that statistics only tell a tiny portion of the whole picture, or you're randomguy.

I've broken him.

An observation you're happy to repeat here, without modification, despite it being disproved under a little analysis? I think that counts as trolling, tbh.

Spot-on. We conceded 13 goals in Hladky's first four games, and then didn't concede more than two in a game for the rest of the season. We only conceded more than one goal in five of those games. So yeah, his average goals conceded figure gets dragged up massively by the 'gelling' period at the start of the calendar year, while Samson's gets dragged down by playing some kickabout borderline-friendly games last summer.

You're right: the stats are identical, and that does surprise me. The only real comeback I have is that it proves how misleading stats can be sometimes. If you look a little closer, it helps to clarify somewhat: Three of Samson's games were shite League Cup matches, against an early-season Killie, and then QP (an incredible goalless draw) and then a cruise against Dumbarton. Then, we played games where the matches were all but over by half time (3-0, 4-1 and 3-0 half time scores): Aberdeen and Hearts both took their feet off the gas in August and September respectively (and Aberdeen did again in October), which was lucky for us because we could have been facing double figures instead of the four-goal concessions we ended up with. This is similar to people pointing to Kearney's 19% win ratio and wondering why he was popular: it's very difficult to describe how non-competitive a squad we had in the first half of the season, and Samson was a huge part of that. On the other side of the coin, yes, we were still mainly shite after January, but we were at least competitive to a degree, and you didn't feel like the keeper was going to chuck a goal in every game.