CallumPar

You’ve held a lead for 147 out of the 180 minutes between the sides this season and won both games, having taken the lead in the 12th and 21st minute of each game. We have been much worse recently, than we were going into either of those games. We’ve scored 1 goal in our last 4 games, it’s hard to throw away a lead against a team that can’t score goals.

Didn’t realise either of these things, to be fair and it’s genuinely good to know. If he’s co-ordinating a group of scouts that are going to watch potential signings, then that’s fair enough and I’ve misunderstood his role. For clarity, my comments on this weren’t ever intended as an attack on him, my questions were aimed at the set up of this role/department and not the employee himself. As I say, from what I’ve heard, he is a good scout and helped identify a lot of the good players we signed when Crawford was here.

I believe the guy played a big role in finding talent when Crawford was in charge. If that’s the case, giving him this role has ended up making him totally ineffective in his scouting role now. edited to remove the references to deleted post.

I don’t understand why so much focus/frustration about transfers has been aimed at the board - Cook and Meggle in particular. I don’t know enough about what’s going on to know who’s to blame. I’d guess they just seem like easy targets, particularly if people are keen to shift the blame from the manager/players. If we believe the stories that terms were agreed with Dundee for Byrne, Ashcroft and Rudden, there’s not anymore they could have done. The players just chose a better option. But we should have had backups for all of them. To date, Kane instead of Rudden is the only alternative we’ve seen. We also didn’t really seem to have a backup option for Wotherspoon. I don’t know whose fault that is, but it seems like we’re making the same mistakes repeatedly both on and off the park and not learning from them. I’m also really questioning our scouting. We can’t identify targets that are good enough (based on signings we’ve made). But, particularly when we need to strengthen, I’m fed up of seeing our chief scout setting up drills for our first team’s warm up and sitting in our dugout every Saturday. Surely he should be out scouting players - it seems like an important part of the job. If our main targets are all players that McPake/Mackay have identified, having worked with them before, what is our chief scout actually doing to justify that role?

Taylor Sutherland has made a decent number of appearances? When did this happen? He’s an 18 year old kid that’s played less than 90 minutes of first team football for the club. edit to add - I’m not defending McPake here. I think he seems totally out his depth. But the number of first team injuries has constantly been between 7 and about 12 for 5 months now - and that’s not including guys playing through injuries. It’s absolutely mental to try and suggest that we do, or even should, have the depth of squad that can cover that.

These are very poor examples, since neither of these examples were loans that were made in the loan window. The media have reported that you can only bring in players from higher divisions in this window, but there are examples that disprove this. For example, we brought in Wighton on loan from Hearts in the loan window.

Completely agree with the first part. When everything’s going wrong on the park and we can’t get signings over the line, why are we even discussing things like that? Section North West getting emptier every week, fan engagement has gone so far backwards and we’re arranging a trip to St Pauli for directors and then actually bragging about it on social media. GTF with that nonsense. I would honestly expect so much more from the supporters trust. That’s absolutely ridiculous, how can a supporters trust be so out of touch with the actual supporters? Those in charge at the club seem so far from connecting with/caring about fans right now. Are they totally oblivious to how fans are feeling right now? Because it certainly feels that way. Regarding the second part of your post, I definitely did need to apologise. I’ve been a knob today and subjected everyone to my s**t - particularly you. We’re all frustrated/scunnered/fed up, but shouldn’t be taking it out on each other. Sorry again, hope all’s well with you. I’ll buy you a pint if I ever end up meeting you in person!

Aye, fair. It’s just something that’s annoyed me since the Aird thing, if I’m being honest. Add that to my frustration that we can’t seem to actually complete the signing of any of the players we need and I’ve gone on a stupid rant. Apologies to everyone. Especially @HoBNob. Nothing personal at all, I’ve just ended up ranting and venting aimlessly today and you seemed to keep prodding at me.

The club have had issues for years with information getting leaked. People within the club have been leaking stories for years. The courier and daily record get their info from somewhere - and the manager has denied a lot of the transfer rumours (even when true), so it’s not him. I remember someone leaking that Aird was signing a contract, just for Dundee United to phone his agent while he was on his way to East End to sign it. There’s been lots of examples of info being leaked like this over the years. People at East End can’t keep their mouths shut - as others have alluded to in this thread over the last couple of weeks. edited to remove a lot of the stupid s**t. Aware it’s far from the biggest issue, I’m just frustrated with the club right now.

Ashcroft's a solid championship defender. Old school centre half, dominant in the air in both boxes. Would back him to score against us, since we can’t defend set-pieces and he’s a big threat from them. Not got any pace, but his positional sense is very good and he reads the game well.

Also, can I just add - if there’s any truth in the ‘leaked’ info about us agreeing terms with Dundee for Byrne and Ashcroft, everyone involved with leaking this info and allowing Raith to swoop in, can f**k right off. I’d much rather we kept our business quiet and got it done, than had people spreading this info before anything’s signed, resulting in players getting better offers. That goes for the insiders at the club leaking the info and the attention seekers who then post it online to boost their ego.

I honestly have no idea what’s going wrong. But it’s clear that we can’t get deals over the line for players that we need. As a club, we need to get our s**t together.

100%. Can’t criticise Ashcroft at all. But we’ve apparently been targeting an experienced defender for 6/7 weeks now. Not added any, but Raith have added 2 (both on loan) in that time. Something’s not right at the club, if we can’t bring in the players we need.

3 of us posted that at the same time sums up our transfer business this season though.

Based on what though? A podcaster posting a rumour? The same ‘source’ posted in August about us announcing one or two signings one week. One being a former youth player. I would imagine the player he was speculating about is the same one that’s playing for Raith Rovers now. I think the other player being speculated about was another that didn’t sign - who went to Inverness and is now at United. So I’m not sure I’ll trust his rumours.

I think people just want to believe these things, so they can moan about it. If any of those things are true, it is ridiculous. But I’d be very surprised if that’s the case.

Are we at the stage that every single rumour posted on social media, or heard in the pub, is now accepted as being factual?

I don’t think his decisions were the issue. He wanted to be the centre of attention and clearly absolutely loves himself. Some of the bookings were ridiculous too and he had to make a massive show of every one of them.

That point helps nobody. Think it’s clear that was the bottom 2 going up against each other. We were better than them first half, conceded a goal and looked really vulnerable again after that. The confidence has gone. No idea how we didn’t score towards the end, but I also thought Mehmet had chucked one in the net towards the end and MFW saved us with some really last ditch tackles.

Kane is exactly what we’ve needed up front. Been a decent first half. In better conditions, O’Halloran makes it 2-0, rather than losing his footing right after we scored. 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 is working well so far.

Based on the warm up, looks like Hamilton in the middle of the back 3 still, with Comrie at RWB. Maybe we’ve just opted against playing with a midfield?

Would imagine Hamilton and Otoo are the other way round, but this would be how I expect that team to line up. Unless we’re mixing it up and going 4-3-3? O’Halloran and McCann could be wide in a front 3, with Comrie at RB. I’d love it, but can’t see it.

Allan and Chalmers dropped.

If we’re going to end this slump, it has to be today. We need to attack Arbroath, I’m fed up of our negative tactics and our lack of ‘plan b’ once we concede, which means we collapse. If we’ve signed 2 strikers on the last month and haven’t got a game plan that creates chances for them, that’ll just be such a waste. Both teams low on confidence. Early momentum could be really important. If either team concedes early, they could get hammered if the team in the lead continues to attack them. I know it seems unlikely when you look at the goals scored column for both teams, but both defences are so low on confidence that it might happen. If we weren’t in a relegation scrap with Arbroath, I’d be wishing Jim McIntyre well at his latest club. Got a lot of time for him, after his spell with us. Really wish he’d gone on to have a better managerial career overall. Also like Arbroath as a club and as an away day. But, it’s us against them, so I hope they lose this battle.