SGMilne

I see it still hurts. But we actually won the game the week after to finish 5 points off bottom

For United, I think the clear answer is Billy Dodds. If I recall, we were pretty comfortably in third place before we sold him to Rangers and then dropped like a stone, finishing 8th. The season after, we were very nearly relegated and would certainly have been if we hadn't bought pretty much an entirely new team across that season.

You never know. Changes to the English work permit system means the Scottish league and Scottish players are one of the few markets openly available to English sides without much issue. And £4m is peanuts. We sold Kerr Smith for £2m did we not? A striker with potential is always worth more.

Good starting lineup, nothing on the bench. And Hibs have a striker who can win points on his own. I pondered recently based on our form and how few goals we'd conceded whether we actually needed a new ball winning midfielder, but we definitely do, as today showed that when we needed to shore up the game, there was nobody who could come off the bench when even one of our starting XI is out. The bench at the moment is just awful. A goalkeeper we don't want. Two defenders who play the same position in a back three (because when the game is in its dying embers you don't want to move our least mobile defender out of that central position) Five lightweight midfielders who can't play that defensive role) A 16 year old striker. The final week of this window (the only week when any decent transfers seem to happen in January) can't come soon enough. I would hope we'll be moving on Niskanen (which will be more difficult than you might think considering he won't get a work permit to play in England) and Pawlett permanently and giving 2 of the 3 of Anaku, Meekison and Cudjoe loan moves to get experience.

We were good first half, but had a crap 5 minutes at the start of the second and that was that. As someone who generally doesn't rate Harkes, I think he's been far more effective in the attacking role than in central midfield (and when he was put back into there today he may as well have walked off the park). Tony Watt looked like he couldn't have given less of a shit today, which is potentially an indicator that he's away. Macleod looked full of energy though and I'd be keen to see him play longer. The one thing that has struck me over the last couple of weeks though is that the wingback position is crucial to our success, and I'm just not seeing enough from Freeman. He gets so much of the ball and does so little with it. I'd love to see us sign a better player for that position this window.

I'd rather we kept Behic, however, if we don't, it's been a good bit of business for the club. Free transfer, made a decent amount of money from him being at the World Cup and then no doubt sold for a good fee. If he wants to go, then fair enough, you shouldn't stand in his way.# Tony Watt is one I'm conflicted about. His goals return hasn't been great and if Fletcher is playing then he is on the bench or being played out of position. And he's no doubt on a lot of money and could potentially be a bit of an issue behind the scenes if you think back to rumours around Jack Ross's departure. But that being said, when he does play at centre forward he can score goals, and so while I wouldn't be upset if he did leave, I would be upset if he left without a suitable replacement already lined up. Meanwhile, we've all spent the last 5 months demanding we sign another goalkeeper, centre back and get a defensive midfielder in, and yet under Fox, in the last 11 games we have the best defensive record in the league. 11 goals in 11 games compared to 23 goals in 4 games under Jack Ross. Maybe we don't need those players as desperately as we previously thought?

Wrote it as 'both John Souttar and Keith Watson..." then came back in last second to add Lee Wilkie after I'd written the rest of the post. Consider me humiliated

In terms of players who were touted up at youth level and then never really made it at all, Islam Feruz (attitude) and Jordan Elfveron (injuries) come to mind. McConalogue is another shout as he was heralded as a youth sensation, did make some first team appearances but never looked anywhere near a player. As a Utd fan, I'd agree with the McCunnie suggestion. He looked tremendous under Alex Smith then his career was irreparably damaged by falling out with Ian McCall. Greg Cameron was also tipped for stardom and then just vanished. Were it not for injuries, both John Souttar, Lee Wilkie and Keith Watson would have achieved more. Derek Riordan should have achieved more. From a Football Manager perspective, I remember Gary Glen being massively touted by our Hearts researcher as a certainty to be a star, and that never happened. As a Scotland fan, I thought we were sorted with Jordan Rhodes coming through, considering his scoring record earlier in his career, but alas not.

Keys of Marinus is such a fun story. Hope you've enjoyed it.

It was only companions who would still be on modern day Earth. Which doesn't really explain Mel....

I've noticed a lot of negativity towards Djoum so far. Hopefully it's just that he's not quite match fit and needs to blend into the team; that wouldn't be out of the ordinary.

I know that it's an unpopular move on a Saturday night after a defeat to not believe the world is ending, but I just can't bring myself to be as actively angry and discontented as some. We lost 2-1 away from home to the team who is 4th in the table. It's disappointing and we didn't play particularly well (although we did look decent in spells) but we're not going to win every game. Current form in the league is LWWDL. Compared to the likes of Motherwell or even Hearts and Hibs it's not that bad. Could we go down? Yes, but realistically, 9 other teams look like they are a bad run of form or an injury crisis away from propping up the league as well. So while I'm not naive enough to think we're safe from the drop, I think we'll be alright. If we're not, f**k it, but at least I'll have spared myself from months or permarage.

This is it and everyone appears to see it apart from those who pick the team. This will come across as a daft thing to say but I don't think we've been outclassed by any team this season, and that looks absolutely incredible written down when you look at some of the results. But in literally every game we've played - with the exception of probably the Hearts game where they scored so early - we've gone toe to toe with teams and have conceded arguably against the run of play. But because the team are both physically and mentally weak, that's all it takes. They chuck it. In the first half against Celtic, I thought United played well until - through their own mistake - they conceded the second and then you saw a team completely give up. It wasn't like they were trying their best and Celtic were just too good; they simply stopped trying and opened the door for Celtic to do whatever the hell they liked. It was an absolute disgrace. So Tony Watt can say that we won't get relegated and based on the talent we have, he's got a point in theory. But because of the talent - and leadership - we're missing, it's a very real possibility.

I was thinking about this... I would imagine that like it or not, the chairman will dictate sales rather than the manager. So he'll have given the go ahead to sign X or Y on the assumption that certain players are moved on? I think you're absolutely right in your last point; if the club was open about it, then it would certainly help.

Would Smith not be a good option to sit in front of a back 4? So Erikssen Behic, Mulgrew, Edwards, Freeman Smith McGrath Levitt Watt Fletcher Anaku

Presumably in the absence of a manager, a bid came in and an opportunity to sell a guy who was on a high wage and was likely already earmarked to leave came in, so they accepted it?

I think you've kinda summed up the disconnect or the distrust that exists between the supporters and the club there. You heard Ross say he didn't, but you don't believe it. And that's a problem created by both parties. What is truth? In the last month or so we've had made up rumours of Jack Ross going after the Hearts game and Birighitti moving back to Australia that most people just believed. Tonight on Twitter I've been told by one guy that it is FACT that Liam Fox has "next to no influence in the dressing room" and is a "yes man". Maybe I'm wrong but chances are he knows it as FACT because he's read it in a WhatsApp group. FWIW my understanding, from speaking to - among others in the game - someone who worked in recruitment at the club during the Ogren era is that the way the transfer system works at Tannadice is... The scouting team look for players They pass their recommendation on to Tony Asghar Asghar takes it to the manager who has final say on who does or does not get signed The manager can suggest players of his own (so Mellon wanted and got Edwards, in spite of reservations from the scouting team, and also turned down the chance to get Niskanen because he didn't rate him)

It all comes back to recruitment and how poor it has been over the summer. The focus was all about signing a certain type of 'exciting' player to arrest our lack of goals last season, and attention completely slipped away from what is needed to prevent goals. Jack Ross didn't think he needed a tough tackling midfielder or any sort of defensive cover, and Asghar and his mate Sean McGee obviously agreed with him. Hence where we are now. Yeah, taken as individual signings, Middleton, McGrath, Fletcher, Anaku, Levitt and Behic are all the sort of players you want to sign, but they aren't the only types of players you want to sign, especially when Mulgrew is so close to retirement and the only right footed centre back is in his first year of playing top flight football. And that's compounded by selling off Butcher and Connolly who are absolutely the types of players you'd want in the team at the moment. We've just got too many similar types of player on the park. Slow defenders and soft midfielders. The takeaway from today simply has to be Harkes dropped and a defensive midfielder from literally anywhere in.

That point may not have been too clear in my post... There's a lot of people now criticising United for appointing Fox. A lot of these same people were quite happy with Ross's appointment, so maybe they aren't the best judges. But then at the same time they are also saying that because of the way the club has acted in recent years "no decent manager will touch us", even though Jack Ross is exactly the sort of manager who fit their criteria and they were all complicit in Ross being fired because like every Utd fan out there, they wanted him gone. But for whatever reason, people will find a way to blame it squarely on Tony Asghar. FWIW, if Sadat Anaku turns out to be a great signing, I wonder who will get the praise for it, considering it's Asghar's recruitment team who brought him over.

Yeah, that's why I've posted it on here There's just no point in posting on some of the other forums or even Twitter anymore. I'm not on some of the Facebook groups but apparently they are even worse.

If the appointment of Fox has shown anything it's that there's a large section of online football fans who have an obsession with perceived status and very short term memories. Fox, despite having us win in Livingston for the first time in a long time, get our first clean sheet since Alkmaar at home and then come pretty close to a point at Ibrox is a cheap option and is destined for failure, and that we needed an experienced name to come in (in spite of us hiring one of the highest profile available managers in the summer and is backfiring disastrously). Well...either an experienced name or someone who isn't experienced but used to play for us (Ferguson, Robson, Daly et al), because that's also a sign of intent, apparently. I get it, it's not an exciting appointment, but some people are discounting it as an immediately poor appointment because apparently there's this magic formula that says that the only way you'll get a good manager is if you hire one with a track record or a guy who used to play for us. This in spite of some of our best and most successful managers taking United as their first managerial job (McLean, Houston) and some of our most costly flops being ones who either had experience of used to play for is (Ian McCall, Jack Ross, Paul Sturrock, Mixu, Laszlo etc). Even looking at the last year, compare Courts with Ross. Results get no worse than some of the ones we saw under Ross while we finished 4th and never once embarrassed ourselves vs the Old Firm or anyone else under Courts. But he fits exactly the sort of profile some supporters want still. And I'm sure they were also delighted when we brought him in. There is no magic formula; there's no guarantee of success with any manager, but I suspect one of the reasons that assistant managers can sometimes do well when promoted to the top job is that they have the respect of the players, which is hugely important. Like everyone else, I was raging with the players for quite clearly downing tools under Ross, but the widely held belief is that the players were the ones solely at fault for that, and nobody looked to Jack Ross and asked "What has he done to get this sort of reaction and how is this not his fault?". Rumour has become fact, so let's assume that he did come in and piss of Charlie Mulgrew and Tony Watt who then rooted against him. How is that good management? How is coming in and immediately getting two of the most influential players in a side who finished fourth offside a good thing? It's not; it's nuts. Jack Ross seems to piss players off at every club he goes to, and outside of one season at St. Mirren, doesn't have a great track record. Like I say, I don't know if Fox will be a success for us - personally I think the coaching appointments are just as important - but I doubt he's any more likely or unlikely to be a success than any realistic candidate out there. Is he a frugal appointment? Yeah, of course, but is he a worse appointment? There's no way of telling. But now when I read social media, it's full of people saying that this was all some kind of pantomime and he was always going to get the job and boo-hiss to Utd. Again, that might be the case but i don't really see the logic behind it. What I do see is - much like any hiring process in any walk of life - when one of the candidates is already in the company and has been given a trial over a few weeks to do it, and has shown he's not too bad at it, then of course he's going to get the job. If I was Asghar and Ogren the exact thing I would want to see before I made that decision was how well he did at Ibrox. Surely Rangers at Ibrox is a good measuring stick to put against Celtic at Tannadice. Are people seriously saying that if we'd lost the Livi and Well games and got pumped at Ibrox he'd have got the job? Don't be daft. Unfortunately that's where we are now though; people egging each other on online to fuel paranoia about how United is run. The current picture is that Mark Ogren is a naive and distant hero who has unfortunately placed power in the hands of an evil megalomaniac who everybody in football despises and who hates all of the United fans. I don't know if there's just something comforting in being angry against those in power or that post Stephen Thompson there has to be someone to hate. I just don't get it. It's not helped by people saying that something must be wrong at Tannadice to go through so many managers, and they don't scratch the surface of that to understand that it's not as strange as it looks. Robbie Neilson: Offered more money at his favourite club with a bigger budget. Had he stayed, many fans were already saying that they'd give him until October. Why would he stay? Micky Mellon: Brought us safety in the league and got us to the semi final of the cup, but he was desperately unpopular among the players and staff (I know this from speaking to some of them at the time) and had there been crowds in at Tannadice observing the quality of football we played under him, he'd have been sacked sooner. Tam Courts: Offered an opportunity to develop his career abroad. Probably felt - quite rightly - that his stock was about as high as it was going to get with us, and also likely knew that he was always 3 defeats away from fans going mental about how he was a terrible appointment because of his lack of experience. Jack Ross: Absolute nightmare All four of those managers for one reason or another was on a sticky wicket with the United support. And let's face it, we - much like fans of just about any club - are a very demanding support. But we're also the heroes in our own stories and so reality becomes skewed and the perceived truth is that these guys didn't want to work under Tony Asghar, but otherwise would have loved to have stayed. And I know that inevitably someone's going to quote tweet this and say "That's clearly Tony Asghar writing this" (well, now I've said that they no doubt will) but I just think we need to get away from this boogeyman mentality. I don't know him, I've never met him and he might be a p***k. He's certainly thin skinned, but then when every day there's vitriol from the same people (have you read the likes of the Tek or East Football forums? Grown men post about how they hate him every day of their lives and there's now guys saying they hope Liam Fox is a massive failure so Asghar gets punted; think about that one for a moment) I don't really blame him for occasionally firing back. But let's say Fox is a success; will supporters come out and say "Fair play, they got it right." I doubt it.# Anyway, rant over; let's just hope Fox does the business

If those Mulgrew rumours are true, I actually think that's spectacular mismanagement from Jack Ross. You have a player who was one of our better ones last season and is clearly a strong character and a figure of massive influence in the locker room. What is to be gained from coming in and immediately getting on the wrong side of him? Why not work with him? Maybe over time try to reduce that influence and get him round to your way of thinking, but a bull-in-a-china-shop approach was only ever going to go one way.

Seems to me like the problems with this side are obvious and with 10 days left before the window closes, fixable. United largely have a group of talented individuals playing for them, but not a team. Who's at fault for that? The manager for trying to play a system that doesn't suit the players he has and the recruitment team for not assessing properly what type of player is needed to make that a team. Jamie McGrath is a good player for example, but having already signed Levitt and extended the contract of Harkes, was he the best player to spend budget on when we're crying out for a ball winning midfielder and already have a few other players on the bench capable of playing in that position? Probably not. Behic is a player with a good pedigree, but is he - with his instincts to play much further up the park than a 'left back' because he's a wing back - the right choice to fit into that side? Probably not. Does signing Watt and Fletcher - who both naturally play high up the park - help a team whose centre back partnership have zero pace and can't play a high line? Probably not. Is Jack Ross playing the best team available to him? Definitely not. He's putting out probably his best XI players but he's not putting out his best team. For me - and for so many others it would seem - we need to play a 5-3-2 or a 5-4-1 that allows Ross Graham to come in and support the struggling centre backs, puts Freeman and Behic as wing backs and then allows Levitt and McGrath potentially to play to their strengths. If he can't see it and just wants to persist with square pegs in round holes then he's part of the problem. With 10 days left in this window, there's some surgery to be done on the squad. That ball winning midfielder is essential, but some players need moved on.

The point I had made was that if Ross doesn't think the likes of Clark and Chalmers are either good enough to come off the bench - or in the case of Chalmers not even make the bench - then they need moved on. Nicky Clark is on £2500 p/w and Ross clearly doesn't rate him, so we need to move him on. He's a proven goalscorer at Premiership level in spite of being limited, and he'd certainly still be a good player in the Championship so I don't doubt there'd be someone out there willing to take him off our hands, even if it meant us supplementing his salary or giving him the difference up front. Yesterday I watched Robbie Neilson bring on 5 subs, each of whom could easily have started a game and the team would be as good if not better. Jack Ross made two subs and had no interest in bringing anyone else on, because they wouldn't have made any difference. We're not Hearts and don't have their budget but considering what we'll be paying some of those guys who are sitting on the bench good money, they have to be good enough to be called upon when the first XI aren't performing. Anyway, other points I'd made were... - Keeper needs dropped. He can't be as bad as he's shown so far, but when someone's struggling as badly as he is, surely the point of having two first team goalkeepers is that if one isn't performing, the other one steps up. As above, if Ross doesn't trust Erikssen, then we need to offload him and bring in someone he does trust - Liam Smith needs dropped and potentially moved on. I just don't think he's a good right back. In games at Tannadice, everything seems to go through him as well and he just doesn't have the attacking ability and over the last week he's shown he's an easy target for the opposition. Ironically, I felt he performed better in midfield and centre back last season than he ever has at right back. Freeman offers so much more going forward - Behich looks like he'll be a good signing. He had a horror debut but in amongst a lot of poor performers yesterday he got into the box to win the pen and has some dig about him - Cudjoe must play! He's the only player who seems to have a bit of attacking intent at the moment. He lost his man for the second goal but on the whole he did a lot of work tracking back and going forward - Defensive Midfielder is a must. When you are forced to play your best centre back in central midfield, then something's gone wrong with your recruitment. We need some dig in there - 343/352 might be a better option? Last season the trio at the back worked quite well. It reduced our attacking intent but at least we looked steady.

I think that's very well put.