Tattie36

In a few short weeks during summer and into the very early part of the season Arbroath managed to renovate the main stand - new seats, wall, dugouts and reconfigured tunnel area and vip seating; demolish the front wall of the ground and build a new entrance building, new turn-style blocks and offices, resurface the concourse; install new toilets behind the seaside terrace; build new segregation in the corner along with a brand new media centre; upgrade the floodlights and do internal work on the hospitality. Obviously not to the same scale as building complete stands etc but that was all completed in weeks - if there’s a will there’s a way.

No chance. We may win (don’t think we will) but it certainly won’t be at a canter. We can’t score and barely create any chances, playing against a team who will be fired up and score plenty.

Not sure but I know they were still on general sale the other day. If we’d been doing a bit better then we would have sold out easily. Fitba fans are fickle as we all know. Check out our website. Even I’m not going and I live in Aberdeen and have friends from the Broch but I just need a break from the misery. Absolutely nailed on that we’re losing this and I can’t face another soul destroying Saturday afternoon at the moment.

Oakley is a fantastic player.

It’s not just the recruitment that’s the problem although it’s obviously a big factor. It’s also the tactics; chopping and changing the lineup every week so no continuity; bizarre substitutions - 5 at once, too late in the game or too early, midfielders for strikers, taking off players playing well etc etc and most importantly imo, the refusal to play strikers. I am convinced that if we had played with Linn and Shanks/Isiaka all game, every game then we would be sitting on at least 4 or 5 more points than now. Those extra few points could make all the difference come May. Dick would be getting a lot more sympathy and patience if only he would play to win every game.

It’s not my job to identify a new manager but I would seriously hope that the board have been actively looking at a replacement for at least a few weeks. The writing’s been on the wall all season and the club staying in the Championship is far more important than one man. Personally Petrie might be worth a punt - he’s worked wonders at Montrose, has strong connections with the club and would have a far greater budget etc to work with. Yes, Mo have up and down form but they rarely fail to score and I bet they never play without a striker with 2 or 3 sitting on the bench. Despite his successes and last season in particular, Dick has never really been an attack minded manager or had huge success with bringing in strikers - for every Nouble, Jack Hamilton, Dowds there’s been a Greg Spence, Luke Donnelly, Kris Doolan, Dale Hilson etc etc etc. Hopefully the new scouting team can identify decent strikers but will Dick even play them? The board have to be scunnered at buying, and in some cases boarding, players to sit on the bench week in week out. I would love nothing more than for Dick to turn this round but there are absolutely zero signs of this happening. If anything performances are getting worse yet some fans continue to bury their heads in the sand. I’ll ask again - who are these great saviour strikers we’re going to sign in January to turn our season on its head?? They don’t exist. We needed a fundamental change in how we play/lineup weeks and weeks ago but it’s the same shit every week. A change is needed or do we just sit back and watch the club circle the relegation drain for the next few weeks?

Yep. We could quite easily have none of our current back 4 left come May. Oakley will be gone, Little and Hammy could leave or call it a day and ToB might fancy a change. A huge problem for teams like us with no reserve or youth setup is that we have no depth or young guys coming through.

Better than #DickIn

Yeah I’ve been thinking about this a bit. Unless things are changed/fixed very soon then I could see us lose many of our best players and the ability to replace them with equivalent quality. Obviously age is catching up with some but others might just jump ship. A team on a downward trajectory will be very unlikely to attract good players. Could easily see us slip down to mid/bottom League 1 or even League 2 (refuse to think of worse) in a few seasons if we don’t buck up. I’m sure some will doubt that but it’s not that long ago that Dumbarton, Stirling, Brechin, Cowdenbeath, Falkirk and more recently Alloa, Dunfermline and QOTS were in the Championship. Some of them comfortably for many seasons. The losing mentality becomes a habit very quickly.

I’ll ask this question yet again - who is this magical striker or strikers that we’re supposedly buying in January? Bear in mind that this player/s will have to immediately turn us from relegation certainties into a team in promotion form. Can’t think of a single player in Scotland who would fit the bill, never mind players that will be available and willing to go to a team struggling like us. As it stands, we need 28-30 points in 20 games and we’ll have only around 16 games left come January. We need a miracle and one or both of Cove and Accies to be worse than us. Think about all of this for a minute.

10 minutes from possibly making it to the Premiership to abject in a few short months. All of it due to embarrassing recruitment and tactics. We should have had the pick of the available quality part-time players and loans in Scotland. Instead of playing to his strengths of being a great motivator and man-manager, Dick believed (still believes) he was some kind of managerial and tactical genius and went completely left-field - it has failed spectacularly. But that’s right Dick, blame the fans for expecting a few wins, goals and decent performances. Not one single Arbroath fan was expecting a repeat of last year, consolidation would have been more than enough.

Can’t wait for the usual suspects to come on and defend Campbell with the “give him time, it’ll come good in January” pish. The fact that we’re hurtling towards relegation due to horrific signings (or lack of), dreadful substitutions, tactics and starting line-ups has been so blindingly obvious since the very start of the season. We are terrible and no striker, or even two will make much difference to that. Thanks for the memories Dick it’s been great. Time to go now though.

Thanks for the memories Dick.

Come on ffs get some attack minded players on!!!

I’d love to know how Dick’s brain works. Playing against a team who’ve lost 6 in a row and start with a non attacking line-up. Keep your best striker and your most creative player on the bench. Go a goal down then swap your only “forward” for a midfielder. We never play the same line-up 2 games in a row so how can the team have any kind of consistency? The starting 11 last week did pretty well up until the substitutions so let’s completely f**k about with it today. This is getting beyond a joke but there’s still plenty defending Campbell and think that somehow things will click when we sign this mysterious goalscorer in January.

No striker yet again (I don’t count Hilson). Zero goal threat in that lineup. Dick is trolling the fans, his “I’m the gaffer” bullsh1t is going to get us relegated. Also astonished to see Bitsindou on the bench. He was walking with a very pronounced limp last Saturday.

Yes it would be a big punt taking one or both of those players but desperate times call for desperate measures. We are losing or drawing games by tiny margins so increasing the goal rate, by whatever means has to happen sooner rather than later. The outlay in wages for short term contracts would be more than worth it if they helped keep us up. Yes it’s a risk but surely being relegated this season would be much worse financially.

Very good point. I can see Oakley going back and definitely Hancock. Aberdeen won’t like seeing a very promising young player, who was on the fringes of their first team, warming the bench at a losing side every week. I could see him being recalled and loaned to someone else to get valuable game time. The others? Even if we don’t think some of them are good enough, it’s a squad game and we can’t afford to lose those kind of numbers.

No man is bigger than the club. Yes, Dick had been brilliant for us and deserved all the praise when things were going well, but this season has been a disaster for him, the club and the fans - all of it caused 100% by him I’m afraid. Yes there have been injuries and bad luck etc but every club has to deal with that. The board run the club, not Dick and I would imagine that they’re very concerned and probably furious at how things are going both from a playing point of view and also the current PR disaster that Dick’s antics are causing. A relative fortune has been invested and I am convinced that he’s drinking in the last chance saloon, and that the club are actively looking at options. If they’re not then we’re in even bigger trouble than I thought. He’s lost the plot and seems incapable of change, self criticism or humility. This is dragging us down metaphorically and more than likely literally. Personally, I’m praying for 6 weeks of extremely inclement weather, starting on Friday, meaning we can’t play until the new year. Then of course we will find this unsigned goal machine that half our support seem to think is waiting in the wings to save our season. I’ve said/asked this before but who can genuinely see where we’re getting 28-30 points from before the end of the season? Even if we do unearth a half decent striker.

Fixed it for you.

Dead man walking.

You can see what he was trying to do and I’m sure it made sense in his head. Take off all attacking threat and width and try to desperately protect the 1 goal lead, however it failed big time and we were lucky to escape with a point imo. Towards the end we were essentially playing a 9-1-0 formation when they had the ball and inviting them on to us - Corfe was practically on our 18 yard line half the time. Utter desperation and there was no need to play like that. Should have kept Oakley and Linn on and replaced Shanks with Isiaka. When we were 1-0 up v Hamilton we still had a threat up front and could easily have added more playing on the break. Cove would have had to take risks and would have left space for us to exploit. A big physical guy like Isiaka would have been a much better option than Hilson. Shambles.

What’s the alternative? Accept relegation?

I agree, It’s time. I say that with no pleasure at all, I’m very sad actually, but we have to try and save the season. Today’s game was always my personal line in the sand and if anyone thinks things are improving in any meaningful way then they’re deluded. The club have invested far too much to throw it all away like this. There is a decent squad there but bizarre tactics, lineups and substitutions, on top of the inexcusable striker situation, means we’re in what looks like an unstoppable relegation spiral. Yes, we played ok in parts today and there were some good individual performances - Linn; McKenna, his best game so far this season; Oakley - a superb player. It doesn’t hide the fact though that we had TWO attempts on target in 90 minutes in (yet another) must win game. Again, the opposition goalkeeper had a stroll. Defences and keepers must love playing us, we make them look good.

We lost all width when Linn and Oakley went off. Couldn’t help Oakley as it was an injury (i think and hope) but Linn should have stayed on for the 90. Bring on Isiaka as a straight swap for Shanks and keep the shape. As it was, we were just inviting Cove onto us and it was pretty inevitable that they would score once we tried to try and preserve the single goal lead. Why oh why does Dick think that the same ultra conservative tactics and crap subs week in week out is suddenly going to work? It’s like fecking ground hog day. “The definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.”