Doonhamer19

McKenna is the one I'm least bothered about on my list and as I said I don't care if he goes. My main point was that the idea we can can lose everyone in the squad and replace them all with better players is stupid. It hasn't worked for the past 4 years and there's no reason to suggest it would work this year. There aren't enough good footballers who want to come to Queens to replace them all, and those that do will want higher wages than those we currently have. I imagine the reason we have so many young players is because they get paid less.

Well it won't end up being 17 because people like Paton and Dabrowski won't stay, and 4 of those 17 are already contracted anyway. And I wouldn't massively care if a few more of them went, but I'd still offer them contracts. Because using the McKenna example - in the last 2 games he came into the team as Brydon was suspended and he did fine. You can either get rid of him and sign another squad option who lets be honest will be of a similar quality, or you can keep him and focus more time on signing the new first team players. I think that Bartley should be focusing on signing first team players who will relegate the average players to more of a squad role. This replacement of the deadwood with (hopefully) much better players keeps a bit of continuity within the squad while improving it at the same time. We got 5 points in the first 7 games this season; to me a big reason for this would be the large squad turnover. We essentially lost the playoffs in those games. Take McKechnie - he's an alright footballer but has hardly set the world alight. Given his presumably low wage however and the fact he knows the rest of the squad (he does football coaching with Harry Cochrane etc) is it worth keeping him as a squad player rather than signing someone else who may or may not be better? If you replace Ruth/Reilly with a good player and then McKechnie takes their place in the squad, the quality has still improved overall even if McKechnie isn't someone you'd immediately want to re-sign. I feel that with the pool of players available, it's not going to be possible to sign hundreds of decent alternatives, so you may as well keep those in the squad who haven't been entirely tragic throughout the whole season. Of course I won't be heartbroken if lots of them were to go.

Contracted for next year: Wilson, P McKay, Brydon, Gibson Burns, Johnstone Reilly - although likely to be terminated?? Re-sign: Paton, Dabrowski - even if they are unlikely to accept an offer Cochrane, Todd, East, Logan, Hendrie - they are all good enough to start or play a significant role in League One Connelly, Murray - I would offer Murray a contract ahead of Connelly (15 goal contributions is a good return) but I would be happy to see them both stay McKenna, McGrory, McKechnie - important to consider the likelihood of finding anyone better for their role in the squad and their wage. McKenna has looked better at centre-back and could be an alright squad option Muir, Cowie - promising young players Botterill Resign: D McKay, Quitongo, Morrison, Ruth, Irving, McMahon, Kabia, (Reilly) - none of them look to be of the required standard, perhaps harsh on McMahon given I’d keep Muir This would leave a squad of 17 senior/first team players so would allow room for Marvin Bartley to sign a few players he thinks could make a difference. I don’t doubt that if we had Dabrowski, Logan and Brydon from the start of the season we’d have reached the playoffs, so this current squad would only need a few quality arrivals to replace the deadwood leaving to have a chance of faring much better next season, especially given Cove Rangers are likely to be an inferior side to Dunfermline. There should certainly be a focus on getting a couple of more experienced players to complement the younger players. Of course in practice not everyone offered a contract will stay, but that doesn’t mean the next few months can’t be lived in the blind hope that next season will be comparatively easy (until it all comes crashing down after a humiliating defeat in the first game)

When Gibson was sacked, Queens were ahead of Kelty in 7th place and 6 points off the playoffs. Marvin Bartley has come in and added 4 players to his squad, and is currently ahead of Kelty in 7th place and 6 points off the playoffs. I'm not sure I would class that as "outstanding". There may have been a slight upturn in performance but the comparative results between the two managers has been extremely similar, as @Artemis pointed out in a previous post. Even in individual games WG and MB have fared similarly. For instance, both beat Edinburgh and Peterhead twice but also dropped points against Kelty and Clyde. Each of them picked up points versus Airdrie. As you said this is probably a result of the style of player Wullie Gibson signed (targetting a back 5 system) being more effective against particular teams. For this reason I don't think any judgement, positive or negative, can be made about Marvin Bartley himself until he has played a few games with a full squad he has assembled himself.

I think all things considered this is a good appointment. For a start, he's not called Grant Murray so he's already off to a flyer. Obviously there's the questions surrounding his experience, but Livingston are well coached and Dougie Imrie recently left them to be a success at Morton, so there's no reason he couldn't do the same.

Please, please, please stop the obsession with signing a target man striker. There is no need for one in our squad, and it just leads to ugly football that hinders our chances of winning, especially against weaker oppostition.

I wouldn't mind a cup run either, but this is not the competition to do it in. Even when we were in the championship we hardly ever got out of the group - the whole thing is designed to keep the Premiership teams in it as the group format requires consistency and ability, and lessens the impact of luck. Not only would we have to get something against St Johnstone, we'd also have to win against the rest of our group, which is, evidently, unlikely. For me, it is best to treat this as an extension of preseason. As for the game, I am fully aware it wasn't our best performance but I was merely suggesting it wasn't completely awful. As the negatives have been well documented I was highlighting the things I thought were alright. I hope to see better performances in the future, and haven't completely lost hope about our chances in the league.

It obviously wasn't a great performance but the overreaction on here is mental. This is the first game of the new season, with a new squad, in a competition that (let's be honest) no-one could care any less about. We cannot write off our whole season because we lost a glorified friendly. And the performance wasn't even as bad as people are making out. At times we passed the ball nicely and kept possession well. We created chances, certainly more than in any game at the end of last season. Think McKechnie's early miss, Connelly had a couple of shots after good footwork and Quitongo looked a reasonable attacking threat at times. This isn't taking away from the criticism, which definitely needs to be made, but the game was not a complete disaster - I for one thought our 2 goals were absolute crackers. In terms of the formation, I would stick with the 3 at the back, at least for the next couple of games. If that is what Wullie thought our best way of playing was, and how he focused his recruitment, he shouldn't discard it after one failure. Use it for the next couple and give the team some practice with it; that is what these games are for. If it still doesn't work, change it after. I would like to see Wullie at least put himself on the bench though - we could have done with him today. I'm not giving up on this team yet, and I am still looking forward to the start of the season (just about). Hopefully we bounce back against Ayr.

All preseason lineups and substitutions. The substitutions aren't player for player but by position (e.g. vs Raith Rovers McKechnie was subbed on for Paul McKay but played at RWB). My thoughts: Wullie seems to be favouring either a 3421 or 3412 formation, which so far I like as it allows Connelly to be more central than where he was at the end of last season where he was stuck out wide. Also Todd and Quitongo have both played very well in their positions, Quitongo's form being especially pleasing due to the doubts (myself included) around his ability upon signing. I've also been pleased to see so many youth players given a chance, particularly Lewis Gibson who looks to be a real player, getting an assist today as well. I would use a similar team in the league cup next week, although that depends on the fitness of those who haven't played so far. Does anyone know if Gibson has decided whether he will be a regular first team player this season? Obviously he hasn't played himself so far in preseason. I would imagine he would be very good at RWB though! I now can't wait for the season to start as we look to have a good squad, certainly better than last year already. Hopefully the campaign doesn't end up being too disappointing... /// Raith Rovers highlights incase you haven't seen them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvyAnYaRxdQ Today's trialist was confirmed to be Ross Irving in this article: http://www.qosfc.com/news-5799. If it has been confirmed, does that mean we are signing him? I didn't think the trialist names were publicly disclosed by clubs.

That was a problem with the board and Allan Johnston though? If you, like me and many others, believed a new manager could turn our fortunes around, and that AJ was a major problem, surely you had some sort of belief in the squad at his disposal? I think we did show improvements when Wullie Gibson took over showing the squad weren't completely useless. How many of our strikers have been given contract offers for next season? None out of the 13 total offers. The rest of the squad were Championship quality; as I said before, if we had talismanic strikers like the previous seasons we'd have stayed up comfortably. The strikers take up 1 or 2 positions in our lineup; they shouldn't define the quality of our whole squad. We lost 13 of those 19 games by one goal. I'm not suggesting this team would have been anywhere near challenging for the playoffs even with a striker that can score, but 3 more goals in those games or the nine that we drew could have kept us up. We had a record of 6 wins, 3 draws and 3 losses against the rest of the bottom 4. We 'won' that mini league. And I'm not sure saying we only got 7/9 points in our last 3 games is a strong argument for last season being our worst ever team. For me that shows remnants of grit, desire and determination instilled by our new manager Wullie Gibson, and the fact that the squad was capable of performing. Obviously we all have our opinions, but I don't think the relegation should blind us to the fact that our team wasn't actually any worse than our previous ones. We would have got relegated in the COVID curtailed season, saved by a ridiculous ppg ruling. Stephen Dobbie rescued us in the playoffs before that, and a 2 month purple patch aided us in the shortened 20/21 season.

I completely disagree with this. Our squad last season was the best we've had for the last 4 years, in terms of quality "all over the park". To me it says a lot that we've signed 10 players from our relegated squad for next season, and there's not one of them that the majority (or even a significant proportion) of people are unhappy about. There are also 2-3 more people who the club would have received no complaints about should they have been re-signed (Rae, Fitzpatrick, maybe Cooper). Yes, we got relegated so our opponents will be worse. But, as everybody knows, we still need a better quality squad than last season to get promoted this time around. We should no longer be fighting to survive; we need to win matches. It takes a lot to unanimously please a football team's support, and the fact the new contracts of 10 relegated players from the "worst team in the club's professional history" have done just that proves something for me. We have been saved in recent seasons by strikers that can score goals. In each of the three seasons before our relegation one we had one of the two best stikers in the league. The season before last we had Connor Shields (who was the second best striker behind Liam Boyce) and then signed for Motherwell; we also had Ayo Obileye who was the second top scorer in the league (I'm not suggesting he was a better striker than Shields). The 2 seasons before that we were single handedly saved by the indefatigable Stephen Dobbie (and COVID-19). The season before last, two of our better players were Rhys McCabe and a certain Daniel Pybus. Yet people were not disappointed to see them released. Last season, we were entirely competent against teams our standard (Dunfermline, Morton, Ayr). We just bottled it against any teams better than us. The lack of experience and belief (and obviously ability) in Allan Johnston's final squad as manager ultimately ended our status as a Championship club. But the ability was not worse than before. Ultimately we got relegated because our top scorer in the league last season scored a grand total of 7 goals, with second top on 4. If we had a talismanic figure up front like beforehand we would have comfortably stayed in the division. Personally, last season's squad was the first since 17/18 that I've felt any sort of connection with. They didn't do that by being the worst I've ever seen. The amount of games I came out of thinking that we should have got more from that. The squad didn't get worse, the league got better, and we got slightly unlucky. Edit: Just looked back at the post and it's very long, sorry!

I have a screenshot of the guy at left mid when the goal went in if that helps.

It looks like we were playing 442. McKechnie was RM when the goal was scored so that must mean the trialist was a LM. Wullie wasn't involved - was he taking a look from the sidelines for this game or is he looking to take a more secondary role this season? I suppose Todd/East/Connelly didn't play so they could have just been playing new signings and younger players. There was also no Paul McKay. Does anyone know how far away he is from a return from injury? He'll obviously have to build up match fitness again so it'll be good if he's back sooner rather than later. Unfortunately the goal was scored from McKechnie's side so we can't see who the trialist was in the video Kilmarnock put up. It was a great finish though.

We only have 3 senior central midfielders (Cochrane, Wilson, McGrory) as well as McMahon and Johnstone, so I'm not surprised he's looking for another. Yes, Todd could fill in at CM but he was preferred at LM last season, and I think he'll continue to be first choice at LM. Although then again, Gibson's dodgy maths might end up looking closer to the truth if this were the case. I'm not sure I'd be too devastated if Cochrane were to leave though. McGrory and Wilson are both very able, and we would get some sort of fee for him given he is still under contract. Also, I imagine his wages will be amongst the highest in the squad. Cochrane is a good player, but never seems to have a run of games without injury, which for me stops him from reaching the next level as a footballer. I think that we would be able to replace him.

I was wondering about that as well. Excluding youth players we currently have 17 in the squad and he wants 4/5 more. He is a football manager not a mathematician though! *** He named GK, ST and a midfielder as positions he'd like another option in. I assume that a winger (hopefully Fitzpatrick but probably not) and a defender would be the other 2. I think we need a leftback as I'm not sure we can go into next season with Quitongo as our only option there. I'd like Cooper to stay as he looked competent enough last season, but like Fitzpatrick he probably has other offers. If we sign another GK, we can only assume Cowie will be out on loan; if he was good enough as backup last season he definitely would be this season. Hopefully a league 2 club would want him, but I imagine he'll go to Dalbeattie Star or another Lowland league team - being a first choice goalkeeper is more important than standard at this stage I think.