Mr November

Does anyone know if any of our players, other than Thomas Robert, are signed up for next season? I don't think the club announced anything specific last summer so I'm hoping not, though we obviously only found out about Robert midway through the season.

Have any of Murray's triple subs ever worked? For me they're normally the sign that the game is done. His subs weren't particularly great last season but having more subs available just seem to cause him problems, he makes a triple sub for no real benefit just because he can.

Maybe something like this? Currie J McKay - P McKay - Fordyce - McCann Paton - Sabatini O'Reilly - Roy - Carrick Connell If it is that then that's a formidable right side of the defence. I expected Roy or Connell to come in for Gallagher but surprised to see Robert dropping out, though not necessarily disappointed as he's been poor since the restart. Also the rare sight of Patrick Pyott on the bench. I wasn't sure whether I'd bother watching this but quite interested to see how Paton and Sabatini get on together and it's not like there's much else to do!

Cove Rangers 2-0 Airdrieonians Falkirk 3-0 Dumbarton Montrose 1-1 East Fife Partick Thistle 2-0 Forfar Athletic Peterhead 2-1 Clyde

I think this is pretty much how I feel. I’ve always supported Murray as I think there’s a decent manager in there, he certainly proved that at Dumbarton. This just isn’t working anymore though, for him or the club, and it’s hard to see him turning it round from here. I think Murray’s been unfortunate in that this season especially he’s clearly been given players he doesn’t really rate. However, it’s up to him to get the best out of the players that he has and while it’s a very tight league, this team should be doing better than 7th in League One. I wouldn’t be entirely against giving Murray a chance to build his own team in the summer but overall I think the club probably needs something new. Next season needs to be a fresh start. No signings that the manager clearly doesn’t want, no links with dodgy agents, just let the manager bring in his own team and see how we get on.

He’s a good ambassador the club off the park and seems like a good guy but Sean Crighton has been a liability at times this season. He’s had a poor season, certainly a big drop in performances from last season, and has cost us goals in more than a few games now. A player of his experience and standing within the club shouldn’t be getting sent off for a stupid tackle when he knows we have a lot of big games coming up. It’s far from our only problem but a captain and coach should know better than to have a heads gone moment like that.

Yeah no complaints about that, just a really stupid tackle to make. I think our commentator is generally fairly balanced (our co-commentator less so) but that’s as obvious a red card as you’ll see.

I don’t think we’ve ever announced the split but last season we had 15 or so young players making up the reserve squad and I think the majority of them were full-time, along with 10 or so first team players. It’s hard to tell this season as we got rid of the reserve squad bar 5 or so players but I think there’s slightly more full-time than part-time, though a lot of our regular starters like Currie, Carrick and Gallagher are all part-time as far as I know. We certainly can’t afford to go completely full-time, we saw how that worked out a few years ago, but a hybrid system has worked for teams at this level and is certainly a good option within the right set-up. I don’t think we’ve quite perfected that balance yet though. Coaching seems to be an issue as well, for most of the last two seasons I think Ian Murray has been the only full-time coach, maybe Sean Crighton too albeit he is a player-coach.

Airdrieonians 1-1 Partick Thistle Dumbarton 0-1 Peterhead East Fife 2-2 Cove Rangers Forfar Athletic 0-2 Falkirk Montrose 3-1 Clyde

This is linked to something I’ve mentioned before but we’ve had absolutely no consistency over the last 5 or 6 years. We’ve gone from a reasonable part-time team on presumably a fairly low budget, to a full-time team full of youngsters on two year deals, a very experienced but ultimately mediocre part-time team full of average League One players on two year deals and now a hybrid system. Looking at Arbroath and Alloa, the two best part-time teams over the last few years, both have had a lot of consistency within their squads. That doesn’t mean just keeping everyone for the sake of it but identifying the best part-time players, some young players released from full-time clubs as well as experienced players moving from full-time to part-time. We’ve pretty much tried all of those approaches at different times over the last few years but each time it hasn’t worked, mainly due to poor recruitment and a lack of balance in the squad. The current team and the 2016/17 full-time team probably have similar issues. Poor recruitment, no real quality in terms of squad depth and a lot of young players. I don’t think experience needs to be players on the way down, it can be guys like Carrick, Fordyce etc who are still a good age but have played at a higher level and are good players for League One. We probably don’t have enough of that though, as the bench is generally made up of younger, unproven players. It’s good to have young players within the squad, Findlay’s 2018/2019 team of experienced plodders were so slow, but getting that balance right is the most important thing. You’re never going to get every signing correct at this level but I feel particularly last summer a lot of the players we brought in have ended up being pretty pointless signings. You could argue they haven’t had a proper chance yet with the shortened season but Mbayo, Stokes, O’Reilly and Murdoch haven’t shown anything (admittedly Murdoch’s not played at all) and even Ritchie and Sabatini have been in and out the team. Currie, Robert and Connell have all been good but overall 3/9 isn’t a great success rate. Admittedly I was pretty happy with our recruitment last summer, we had a solid base to build on from last season and I hoped that the new players could add to that. Yes we took a few risks but on our budget we probably need to do that sometimes. Unfortunately some players who did well last season haven’t quite met the same standards this season (Crighton, Gallagher, McCann, MacDonald) and I think that’s shown how poor the recruitment has been. When those players aren’t performing we still don’t seem to have anyone beyond that who can come in and make a difference.

Not too convinced about this one but I suppose we are pretty short in midfield with Kerr and now Turner out.

While everyone else was out playing football, Paul and Jack McKay must have spent their childhood practicing endless throw-ins. I didn’t watch today’s game but glad that McKay played alright, if he can do a job at right back for the rest of the season then he’ll be a much better signing than any of us expected. Agreed on Scott Brown, I liked him last season too and he’s definitely the type of player we could be doing with. The hybrid set-up should be a good fit for players like him so I’d like to see us try and sign him in the summer.

I think it must be something like this, maybe 4-4-2 with Connell up front. Currie McKay - Crighton - Fordyce - McCann Ritchie - Turner Robert - Carrick - Connell Gallagher If Murray hadn’t talked about Jack McKay playing right back on the website then I’d be pretty baffled but that seems like the obvious lineup to me. As far as Murray’s team selections go, this one isn’t that odd to me and other than switching the McKay’s (I’m guessing Paul is injured?) is probably the team I would have picked.

I'd love to see the reaction if someone suggested Ian Murray had attacking tactical awareness in the Airdrie thread I can't say I know too much about the players Clyde and Peterhead have brought in but I still fancy Dumbarton to finish above Forfar and perhaps even Clyde, as the extra game in hand may not be as much help as usual given how many games are being crammed in. Is Chris Smith injured? I certainly don't think he's a great option and I'm aware it was probably a one-offbut based on performances he's been the best keeper I've seen in this league this season.

I think we've done ok in terms of the fixtures, good to only have one Thursday game, especially against Dumbarton who have a lot of games to play with a very small squad. I'm not convinced a 22 game season will happen but I feel we'll definitely need something from those last two games to confirm play-offs or hopefully more. For most teams having two home games to finish the season would be a good thing but given our record that might actually work against us! I feel much more confident about the rest of the season after today's signing though, feels like exactly what we need. I'm really interested to see how we line up on Saturday. I'd probably be looking to play something like this Currie Fordyce - Crighton - Kerr - McCann McKay - Turner Robert - Carrick - Connell Gallagher Fordyce did a solid job at right back last season and I'd much rather see Kerr moved back into defence. McKay and Turner would give us good drive in midfield, McKay can sit a bit deeper and Turner can push forward. That front four were excellent against Forfar earlier this season, with the option of moving Connell up and playing a front two if required. I suspect the lineup won't be too far away from this, though I think we'll have McKay at right back and Kerr in midfield.

Clyde 1-3 East Fife Dumbarton 0-0 Forfar Athletic Falkirk 1-1 Montrose Partick Thistle 1-1 Cove Rangers Peterhead 1-2 Airdrieonians

This is a brilliant signing. I like MacDonald but Kerr, Fordyce or McKay can all do a job at right back so I’m not too bothered about not bringing him back. We all know midfield is our problem area and Kyle Turner was excellent at this level with Stranraer. I really wanted us to sign him a couple of years ago but not surprised he ended up at a bigger club. He won Championship player of the month as recently as November, so I’m surprised Dunfermline are letting him go but I’m certainly not going to complain.

I think the assistant manager issue is a really good point. His best spell at Dumbarton was when he had Jack Ross as his assistant. People like to claim that Jack Ross was the brains there but that Dumbarton team were awful before Ian Murray was appointed (even worse than a truly dreadful Airdrie team), including Jack Ross' spell as caretaker. The way he managed to turn them around and just miss out on the promotion play-offs the following season was remarkable. The impression I get from the way they worked was that Ross would take a lot of the coaching while Murray focused on the management side of things, which is something I feel he hasn't been able to do at all here, particularly last season when he seemed to be coaching about 20 full-time players himself a few days a week. Dealing with that while also integrating part-time players in and managing the team can't be easy and I still think that's one of the main reasons we improved when Colin Cameron joined, rather than some of the ideas the usual conspiracy theorists have. At the very least he clearly seems to need someone to challenge him and bounce ideas off though. I agree that I'd be happy enough to see him get a full season with him as the main man in terms of recruitment and a proper coaching set-up, as I think there is definitely a good manager in there. Saying that, I can't say I'm fully convinced we will ever be more than play-off contenders under him, which possibly means it's time for a change. I suspect the board will probably give him another season anyway, as given the uncertainty over the last year or so, keeping someone who's done an ok job is much less of a risk than bringing in someone new who might not work out.

I think most Airdrie fans would happily see him leave at this point, though I'm still a bit unsure whether that would be a good thing or not. I was really excited when we appointed Ian Murray. He obviously had a very poor spell at St. Mirren but the job he did at Dumbarton was outstanding and I hoped he could have a similar impact at Airdrie. When he joined us we were sitting 6th after the first round of fixtures, albeit only two points off bottom and 11 points off top. We were a bit of a mess at the time, Stevie Findlay had signed a new team of average League One jobbers on seemingly decent contracts but they never really clicked. When Murray came in we had lost four of our last five games and were generally a bit of a mess. The football under Murray that season was pretty awful, there were a few games where we were fantastic but on the whole it was pretty stodgy, solid at the back but nothing going forward. After a mixed start he consistently stuck to a 5-4-1 formation that season given how poor we were defensively, the aim generally seemed to be keep things tight and sneak a goal rather than going out to attack teams. We almost snuck into the play-offs but ultimately we just weren't good enough and lost far too many games at home, generally without scoring. He had a pretty poor start to the 2019/2020 season. Whereas previously he'd staunchly stuck to the same system he flipped between a back five and back four for the first quarter and the team were a bit all over the place as a result. Eventually things clicked in a game up at Forfar where Nat Wedderburn had to come off injured, Kurtis Roberts came on and suddenly we looked a much better team. I'm not sure whether Murray had actually planned this when he made the change or it was just a fluke but either way, we finally looked like a good team. Including that Forfar game, we went on to win six games in a row, playing some great football throughout and even going top of the league at one point. The rest of the season was pretty much a mixed bag, some good performances, some not so good but we were on course to finish in the play-offs with a reasonable chance of going up given our record against Falkirk that season. Unfortunately, there hasn't really been any progress this season. It's very much been a case of continuing where last season left off, a mix of great performances but also some very poor ones. Overall, I think Murray's done a decent job at Airdrie, albeit not as good as I had hoped. The club had been a mess for a good few years before he came in. We've had seasons of having a very young (and not very good) full-time squad, a team of youth players and then experienced League One jobbers but Murray has turned us into a solid play-off level team, which is more than can be said for most of our recent managers. However, he's also been well backed by the board with a move to a hybrid setup, the biggest squad in the league two seasons in a row (albeit a lot of those players are young players who never played) and a new contract last season at a point where he didn't really deserve one yet. It's hard to judge him in terms of recruitment given we've had a Director of Football throughout his time here and more recently links with certain agents but our recruitment has very much been a mixed bag. We've consistently had the same issues under Murray which I think is the most frustrating thing. He's still very young for a manager but he's pretty experienced now and should really be learning from his mistakes. We've lost 14 home games throughout his time here without scoring a goal, 10 of which we lost 1-0. It's generally always the same story of being ok defensively but being completely unable to break teams down. This has been the case for teams lower down the league as well as teams at the top and ultimately is what has cost us in all three seasons, Raith beat us 1-0 three times last season but only finished 5 points ahead of us. I'm not necessarily against Airdrie keeping him on for next season but I can't say I'd be upset if he left. In each of his seasons he's pretty much performed to the minimum level expected but nothing more than that, though on paper that's certainly more than a lot of other managers have achieved. I think he'd do fine at Ayr, he'd certainly keep you up but I'm not convinced he'd do much more beyond that. I don't think he'd take it but in terms of managers in this league Stewart Petrie would be a much better choice.

He’s out of contract at the end of this season so I expect any compensation would be minimal, though he seems to quite well thought of by our board so I doubt they’d be desperate to let him go with our season still in limbo. Admittedly he still hasn’t had a full season but Murray’s done a reasonable job at Airdrie without ever being spectacular. I think his time at Airdrie probably looks pretty good on the face of it: stabilised us and made us a bit more solid in his first season, had us on course to finish 3rd and 4th in the following seasons and we’ve generally always been around or in the top four throughout his time. However, I don’t think there would be too many fans who would be sad to see him leave, as his time at Airdrie has been full of poor tactical decisions and strange recruitment (admittedly not all his fault). I think he’d do an ok job at Ayr and would probably keep them up this season but I’ll be surprised if he gets the job.

It probably doesn't help that over the last five or six years we've been part-time, full-time and now a hybrid but we really need some consistency over the next few years. We've gone from Bollan's solid part-time team on a presumably fairly low budget, the full-time disaster under Wotherspoon which was mostly young players, Findlay's mid-table League One jobbers and now the current hybrid set up. Most teams at this level have a lot of transfer activity every year but I think there's a lot to be said for having some consistency in the squad over a few seasons rather than drastically changing things every summer. I think the next few years are a great chance to build on that. I think this is probably a bit easier as one of the better part-time teams but Alloa and Abroath are very good examples of having a settled core group of players in your squad every season. Both teams have had a fairly settled squad for the last four or five seasons now which is undoubtedly a big part of their success during that time. Montrose are another good example, slowly building on a proven group of players every year and constantly improving. There's no point keeping players who clearly aren't what we need (I'm not advocating for Thomson or O'Reilly to get new contacts) but I think we should be trying to keep solid professionals like Fordyce, Carrick, Currie, Gallagher, Crighton etc around for the next couple of seasons and trying to build around them. We definitely shouldn't be going completely full-time any time soon, so while we are at least running a hybrid system the aim needs to be being the best part-time team in the country and look to build from there. Having a settled group of experienced players who can set standards for the younger players around them can only be a good thing. It's good to have young players like MacDonald, Edwards, potentially Robert and McCann that can come in, play regularly and then move onto bigger clubs but having a settled team around them ensures that we're not left building an entirely new team every summer and waiting until halfway through the season for things to fully click. I had hoped we were moving towards that last summer, with the same defence, McKay, Gallagher and Carrick all still here this season but unfortunately it hasn't really worked out, other than Currie, Robert and Connell none of the new signings have really done anything of note and we didn't improve the main problem area in midfield. I don't think we'd have been hugely better off if he was still here but why not keep Kieran Millar for another season and use Josh Kerr as a defender rather than bring in Dean Ritchie and Harlain Mbayo? There's definitely a balance to this as we don't want to keep a full team of guys who have shown they aren't good enough to win promotion but having some consistency would only help us move towards that.

I think that was Scott McLaughlin on the Pele Podcast a few years ago. The players were contracted to the last game of the regular season so were all out of contact for the play-offs. The story was something along the lines of contracts had to be at least one month long and after the final game the players were asked to sign contracts which were backdated by a couple of weeks so the contracts would only run until the end of the play-offs. The players were understandably annoyed at this and wanted contracts for the full month, which they eventually got but a contract dispute before the biggest games of the season is hardly ideal. I know Ballantyne loved cost-cutting but not contracting players for the play-offs when we'd been in them the previous three seasons is wild. The main thing I remember about that game was Steven Canning's handball on the line . Robert Dalzell has a good pic of that here.

I see someone’s posted an article on the Facebook page from one of the papers saying Stuart Millar has resigned. Seems quite abrupt and strange given only last week we were signing players with his comments in the announcement article. Interesting times ahead.

Stokes and O’Reilly are hardly regulars though. I’m not convinced we needed another striker, Gallagher hasn’t really got going yet but Connell’s done quite well and Roy is just back from injury. I’d much rather we brought in a midfielder, which is clearly still our biggest issue, than signed a striker who was poor previously and doesn’t seem to have improved since then going by his stats. We could also do without the conspiracy theories when him and his brother both start.

Maybe I don't miss football on a Saturday after all...