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ShineOnYouCrazyDiamonds

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Posts posted by ShineOnYouCrazyDiamonds

    Airdrieonians 23/24 Championship Thread♦️

    in Scottish Championship General Chatter

    Posted

    37 minutes ago, ++Ammo - Airdrie++ said:

    Just sitting have a twitter catch up on our recent activity.

    Not even half way through ma steak bake and I've already read how Rhys has shown "no mercy" toward the championship by signing McMaster, the 2 Hibs boys and todorov.

    Just, wow.

    It’s odd isn’t it? I’m happy enough with the business we’ve done so far but we haven’t really made any marquee signings that obviously improve our first team. I think Todorov is a good signing and will give us an alternative up front that we lacked last season, but he’ll start the season behind Gallagher in the pecking order. McMaster I like but obviously he’s behind McCabe at the moment and still needs to develop to be a regular in the Championship. The two Hibs boys are a completely unknown quantity but is Aiken likely to challenge Frizzell, Telfer (if we keep them) or Devenny for a place in the team? I hope so. Is he more likely to have a similar role in the squad to what Stanway had? Probably. Would O’Connor start over Smith if we still had him? Probably not.

    I think all four could be very decent signings and they might all play a massive part in our season, but those signings hardly scream “no mercy” to the other Championship sides.

    6

    Airdrieonians 23/24 Championship Thread♦️

    in Scottish Championship General Chatter

    Posted

    15 minutes ago, Rob1885 said:

    Another one I'd have kept, I wouldn't describe him as particularly quick though.

    When we had him we had Leon McCann at left back and McCann definitely seemed to be the better player, quicker and better defensively, so I was actually a but surprised when Dunfermline paid a fee for MacDonald midseason. What MacDonald always had over McCann though was an absolutely killer cross.

    1

    Airdrieonians 23/24 Championship Thread♦️

    in Scottish Championship General Chatter

    Posted

    4 minutes ago, Diamond1924 said:

    Interesting to hear what people think about Kyle MacDonald. He would be a strong addition to the team. He had a few bad games under Murray but he had Euan Deveny in his pocket at EEP. He could probably sharpen up defensively but I think he offers way more going forward than Watson and looks much more suited to championship football 

    Based on their time at Airdrie I prefer Watson, but based on how MacDonald performed last season for Dunfermline I think you can definitely make a case that he might be a better option. No point signing him when we have Watson and Ballantyne though. We need a left back. I get that both Ballantyne (and MacDonald) can play on the left, but a naturally left-sided full back should be the priority.

    For the record if we signed MacDonald I’d be fairly happy with it, I just think right back’s the one position we don’t need to sign for at the moment.

    4

    Airdrieonians 23/24 Championship Thread♦️

    in Scottish Championship General Chatter

    Posted

    11 minutes ago, airdrieman said:

    Haven’t saw it mentioned on this thread, but @AJ77 mentions Euan East as a potential target on the QoS thread 👀

    Wikipedia describes him as a centre back that previously played as a striker. We’ve described Todorov as a forward that’s “capable of performing in defence”.  What’s the betting that at some point we’ve got East up front and Todorov at the back?

    4

    Airdrieonians 23/24 Championship Thread♦️

    in Scottish Championship General Chatter

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Zanetti said:

    It's generally the League One champions who go on to have a decent season. Playoff winners more often than not have gone straight back down. 

    Queen’s Park just finished 3rd and they were the first League One team to be promoted via the playoffs since Alloa in 2018, who stayed up a lot longer than most people would have expected (3 seasons I think?)

    However, the season before Alloa it was Brechin that went up via the playoffs and they finished the season with 4 points and hastily got themselves relegated to the highland league. They were promoted from League One alongside champions Livingston in 2017, massively different experiences for those clubs.

    0

    Airdrieonians 23/24 Championship Thread♦️

    in Scottish Championship General Chatter

    Posted

    Just now, renton said:

    Exactly where is his best position? Right up front through the middle, coming in off of wide? Staying wide and hitting the byeline?

    Last two seasons he’s played almost exclusively on the left of a front 3. Not prolific enough to be a centre forward imo, and he said himself last summer he prefers to play off the left. Works his socks off which I think can be seen more when he plays out wide as well as he’ll track back to help the full back defend. At his worst he’ll miss a few sitters and seem to lack confidence in front of goal, but at his best you’ll love him.

    1

    Championship confirmed squad lists 2023/2024

    in Scottish Championship General Chatter

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Tory Boy said:

    I'm sure Cammy Ballantyne signed a 2 year contract when he joined last summer. 

    Yeah although the club never disclosed the length of his contract this article from last summer has a quote from Cammy saying it’s a two-year deal.

    https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/local-sport/former-dundee-united-defenders-home-27129205
     

    Technically I don’t think we’ve had any official confirmation that McCabe and Fordyce are signed up for next season but I think we can assume they will be with about 99% certainty. Of those actually confirmed either by the club or the individual themselves we currently have more players on loan from Hibs (2) than players not on loan from Hibs (1).

    1

    The Official Airdrieonians Thread - 2019/20 and beyond

    in Scottish Championship General Chatter

    Posted

    33 minutes ago, D-Fens Foster said:

    So what is yer genuine expectations next season chaps ? Is it all about survival or can you kick on again maybe even a cheeky playoff push ? 

    I think looking at Queen’s Park, Partick Thistle and Arbroath all having promotion pushes shortly after promotion from League One does show that it’s not impossible for us to do similar, but I’d be happy with a season where I’m not worried about relegation. Hard to gauge genuine expectations before we know what squad we’ll have.

    6

    The Official Airdrieonians Thread - 2019/20 and beyond

    in Scottish Championship General Chatter

    Posted · Edited by ShineOnYouCrazyDiamonds

    Now that the dust has settled a bit I’ve started to wonder a bit more about who should be retained for next season and who we should be looking to improve on.

    Definitely Keep
    Rae, Fordyce, Ballantyne, McCabe, Frizzell, Devenny, Smith, Gallagher, McGill

    Debatable (keep or improve upon?)
    Watson, ATS, Telfer

    Prospects
    Deveney, Byrd, McMaster, McGregor, Bright, Dixon, Riley

     

    The Definitely Keep section is self-explanatory. I think we should be trying to have every one of those players in our squad for next season. That’s one goalkeeper, two defenders, three midfielders and three forwards. Definitely shows that the most important part of recruitment will be in defence, but we absolutely need to strengthen in midfield and up front too, and it might be that some in that category end up further down the pecking order if recruitment is good. Of that list I think we only know for a fact that Ballantyne is signed up, although I think we can safely assume both McCabe and Fordyce will still be at the club, and it has been hinted that Rae will be too.

    The next two categories are a bit more difficult to define, and I’ve decided to separate these players by age. The Debatable section includes only three players, and I think all three are players we should be looking to improve upon. That doesn’t mean we should necessarily get rid of these players, but if all three stayed, along with a few from the next list, you might wonder how much room there is in the squad for improvements. I don’t think any of the Prospects section would be good enough to play regularly in the Championship, but of those players I personally like McGregor (who made a great impact in the playoff final and has the potential to be a good impact player for us) and McMaster (very tidy DM but might not be ready for the Championship). I know McMaster is a loan but it has been rumoured he’s signed up with us now, so I’ve included him here anyway despite leaving out Stanway for obvious reasons. Deveney played a lot as well, but I don’t think he’s good enough at the moment to be as involved this coming season, and the rest have hardly played at all. Worth mentioning as well that Justin Devenny is of an age with these guys and is also a prospect, but Is far more deserving of his place in the squad. I think of these last two sections we can only afford to keep a few around the first team squad in order to leave room for better players to come in. I don’t know if we can afford to (or if it would even be in our interest to) send a couple of guys out on loan or set up a reserve team again. I personally think we should only be keeping two or three from these last two lists in order to leave room for better players to come in, especially considering we have Aiken and O’Connor joining as well.

    4

    The Official Airdrieonians Thread - 2019/20 and beyond

    in Scottish Championship General Chatter

    Posted

    Notice a couple of clubs are going down the player/manager route for this coming season, with Elgin appointing Ross Draper and Kelty Hearts appointing Michael Tidser. I know we were far from the first team to do it, and at the time of McCabe’s appointment there was at least one other SPFL team that had a player/manager (Wullie Gibson at QOTS comes to mind), but you do wonder if McCabe’s success has inspired other teams to give their more experienced players a chance at managing.

    2

    The Official Airdrieonians Thread - 2019/20 and beyond

    in Scottish Championship General Chatter

    Posted

    I think someone joked that some fans would be suggesting we sign Roberts on the facebook group as a way of having a dig against the posters on there, and somehow it’s turned into an actual discussion. He’s nowhere near the level required for the Championship, and wouldn’t even be the level required for the top end of League One if we’d stayed down. We obviously won’t be trying to sign him and I think it’s more likely he’ll sign for a team in League Two. Nothing against the lad, but that’s his level. We should be looking at established Championship players for this coming season.

    2

    The Official Airdrieonians Thread - 2019/20 and beyond

    in Scottish Championship General Chatter

    Posted

    Under no illusions about the Championship. The current squad without additions would go down. We wouldn’t dominate games often enough to get by on attacking strength as we have in League One. The squad also has nowhere near enough depth. The positive of that is that there is a lot of room within the squad. I think we can keep the vast majority of the squad that actually played a bit this season, and that will only amount to about 13-14 players, so there’s still room for plenty of better players to come in.

    Goalkeepers
    Rae
    New backup

    Defence
    Ballantyne
    Fordyce
    New CB
    New LB
    ATS (backup)
    Watson (backup)

    Midfield
    McCabe
    New DM
    Frizzell
    Devenny
    Aiken (new loanee)
    New CM

    Forwards
    Gallagher
    McGill
    Smith
    McGregor
    O’Connor (new loanee)
    New CF

     

    The omissions there are Byrd, Deveney, Telfer, McMaster (loan ended), Stanway (loan ended), Prince and Dixon. Three of them were almost entirely uninvolved that season which shows how small our actual squad was. I expect Prince to be loaned out again or play with the U18’s. Heard a while ago McMaster was signing with us and I do like him as a player, but wouldn’t mind seeing us loan him out to a League One side if that’s something we can afford to do. I wouldn’t be against Telfer staying but I think he could make way for someone a bit better/more consistent.

    2

    The Official Airdrieonians Thread - 2019/20 and beyond

    in Scottish Championship General Chatter

    Posted

    19 minutes ago, Mabawsa Ritchie said:

    Its an exciting time to be Airdrie fan, and unlike previous years its nice to be in a position to be talking about players we can take from other clubs as opposed to worrying about losing our best players to clubs in higher divisions. With this in mind, players worth considering from League 1 clubs who those clubs won't want to lose and may be keen to test themselves at a higher level.

    Stanger(CH) & Church(LB) from Alloa

    Callumn Morrison from Falkirk

    John Robertson from Edinburgh

    As has been suggested by others, Connor Smith and to a lesser extent Daniel O'Reilly were impressive in the 2 games v Hamilton. Although not a old fashioned dominant centre half, O'Reilly looked solid and with him being left sided, appears an ideal partner for Fordyce

    Interesting to see Brody Patterson has been freed from Hartlepool today. Would love to see Kyle Turner back also, but suspect he may have higher ambitions

    Those added to some experienced old heads and we can look forward to holding our own in the Championship.

     

    Was expecting Hartlepool to release Paterson and wouldn’t be surprised if we’re in for him. Would love Turner who I believe is out of contract but Thistle will want to keep him. If they lose in the playoffs would he consider a move to another team in the Championship? Possibly. Would we be able to offer as much money as Thistle? Probably not. Is he represented by Consilium Sports Group? You better believe he is.

    7
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