Coventry Saint

Tony Andreu off to Spain with us...

Re your final point, there have been rumours that that's not the case. But there've been all sorts of rumours recently so they could all be bollocks.

Seems far-fetched to me, too. The development fee is real, though, and still substantial. It's largely moot, anyway: St Mirren have never been good with money. We'll only find some mad way to spunk it on some absolute haddies.

He'll have more support in that area now, mind.

I still suspect he could do an occasional job from the bench for you, especially in a Hopkin-managed team. Sutton has always known where the goal is and, though he didn't play much for us in 17-18, he simply wasn't a Jack Ross type player (5'7" and fast). I can't hate John Sutton, even if he's playing for you guys. It's also an endorsement of the impact he must have at your training ground if Hopkin is happy for this to go ahead. Interesting that he tried to sign him when at Livi, too - he was strongly linked with a move away.

You implying skulduggery has taken place?

Good post, good insight, cheers. Re the bold bit, I don't actually think we're in as much of a mess as our boardroom-based fuckwittery makes it appear, though perhaps the next few weeks will confirm that either way. We have a solid basis of a squad that was reasonably competitive since February or so. Of the players we've lost, there's only a couple I'd desperately want back (McAllister and Muzek; I'm assuming Popescu is staying). We do need to start making some headway in the market, asap, and we urgently need to add some more quality around the edges. We've no left back, no wide players, and we need at least one more striker depending on what formation we're gonna play, but our defence and midfield are sound.

That's cool. I didn't mean to sound patronising, if I did. That statement from Mulraney was also classy as hell. Good guys, Alloa.

I'm absolutely buzzing. Love that man.

I'm genuinely a bit gutted for you guys, but I feel it's been in the stars that he'd be coming back to us at some point, ever since he joined in the first place. Very pleased he got you up & kept you up. Hope you find a decent replacement who repeats that this season. Best of luck.

Yorkshire-ish, IIRC. Two hours closer than Logan's journey (by car) but still a trek.

It's a very reasonable/sensible approach. We'd have been in much more trouble by Xmas if we'd not signed Adam Hammill, and I reckon we'd have been safe sooner if he'd stuck around, but sadly he just didn't want to live away from his family. Shame we couldn't have reached a similar compromise with him.

I'm sorry mate. Keen to see who you're lining up for us to replace Goodwin with.

You'd imagine there's a short conversation to be had there, which starts with: Josh, do you want to knuckle down and try to become a professional footballer playing for St Mirren FC? If he looks Goodwin our new manager in the eye and says yes, then I'd give him a fair crack of the whip.

One thing he will get is a huge amount of backing from the support. Our supporters have proven that they will back the right person to the absolute hilt, even if results aren't great, as long as they can see progress. Goodwin will be as respectful to the support as Kearney and Jack Ross were, and the fans will reciprocate. Re suffering fools gladly, I don't think we have many at the club now, the squad is thin but they are almost all good pros. There's a couple of players - Heaton, Kellermann - who are on contracts and who will be given a short while to prove themselves, but they may well be out the door sooner rather than later. I could imagine Kellermann finding his way to the likes of Alloa if Goodwin wanted to throw them a bone, and he'd be ok at that level.

That sort of thing only happens in football because very few other industries require a goalkeeper and a centre half.

Yeah, I liked him. Very good back-up... Or decent number one if we cash in on The Wall.

What's not to like: club legend, shortlisted for manager of the year, well-spoken, ambitious, fans' favourite, fucking handsome as hell, previous for winding up Neil Lennon (though who hasn't?). I honestly can't imagine who would be available/in our price range/willing to come to St Mirren* that we'd go for instead of him at such a strange point of pre-season. * who isn't sodding Yogi Hughes

You never did properly explain your irrational hatred of Kearney. Nor did you front up after he kept us up.

Oran's been given the full 'two-line statement' treatment that we usually reserve for the likes of Darren Jackson Edit: Here ya go. I particularly like the club crest: statement length ratio at play here. https://www.stmirren.com/news/club/all-news/2913-club-statement-oran-kearney?

Sorry, good save, I'd forgotten that.

Yeah, completely. I think there's a fine line between not being taken for mugs, and not being complete dicks. I hope we stand up for ourselves (I'm sure GLS is doing that!) without wrecking this guy's future. That Irish League Insider guy is a bit of an oddball, mind! On the one hand, you have to say fair fucks to him for calling this several weeks ago... on the other hand, he's a complete fruitloop

I'll be honest, I hope we're not doing that. It's not like he's going to a rival, and he's hardly trampled over us in a bid for fame and glory. I do believe he's possibly been at it over the past six weeks, but surely it's better to let all sides move on. He's essentially a good guy, I don't like the idea that we're deliberately fucking him over.

That's reasonable, though Jack Ross didn't even manage Alloa at Champ level and he turned out ok. I actually feel a bit bad for Murray - we were the wrong club at the wrong time for him and I can't help but feel we've trashed an otherwise promising manager's career. (And yes, everything in that sentence could be getting applied to Goodwin in a year's time.) However, I know we are a bit of a laughing stock at the moment, but let's not pretend we're in anywhere near as much of a state as we were at the start of the 2015-16 season when Murray was handed a ridiculously tough job with some properly unmanageable 'big character' players near the end of their careers in the dressing room. I forget who they were...