The Falkirk FC Thread

[Dunning1874]

15 hours ago, ANEWHOPE said:

Hardball...have you met our board? An offer of £200k & he will be gone.

 

I'm not disputing that Falkirk fans have some legitimate grievances with their board, but the implication here that a Scottish Championship club accepting an offer of £200K for an 18 year old left back who has played less than 20 first team games and has been far from a stand out would constitute a capitulation is ridiculous.

£200K would be an outstanding sum of money to get for Gallacher and if that happened it would be a massive point in favour of your board that they've managed to get far more money for a young player than any other Championship club would dream of asking for, having already managed to swindle six figures out of Swansea for Botti Biabi previously.

[Shadwell Dog]

15 minutes ago, Dunning1874 said:

I'm not disputing that Falkirk fans have some legitimate grievances with their board, but the implication here that a Scottish Championship club accepting an offer of £200K for an 18 year old left back who has played less than 20 first team games and has been far from a stand out would constitute a capitulation is ridiculous.

£200K would be an outstanding sum of money to get for Gallacher and if that happened it would be a massive point in favour of your board that they've managed to get far more money for a young player than any other Championship club would dream of asking for, having already managed to swindle six figures out of Swansea for Botti Biabi previously.

I agree with you to a certain extent but I'm not sure its the figure that's the problem its more that our bod wont be hard to deal with. In the past there doesn't seem to have really been much in the way of negotiations when we've been selling our best young players. It very much comes over as us accepting the first decent bid that comes in as long as various add ons are attached to it which works in some cases like Kingsley but not in others like Arfield and McGrandles. I'd also like to see us trying to negotiate us getting some of their youngsters up here on loan as part of the deal. I woukldnt be against us getting the likes of 200k for him if it allowed us to strengthen the side ( we'd need a left back anyway as hes the only one we currently have ) but there's no guarantee of that unfortunately.

[ShaggerG]

You assume a lot Shadwell. (Unless maybe you're ITK? )

The fact that the board, as Dunning says, have managed to get some of the fees that they have, sometimes for players who have no 1st team track record, is quite impressive IMO. You've no idea either just how hard they've bartered to get the fee, add-on's, etc. Yes we've missed out massively on add-on's for McGrandles, ironically due to a tackle by our, now, own player but the board can't be blamed for that. I'm sure also that we did get some cash as an add-on for Arfield although I don't recall what the circumstances or figures involved were.

We also managed to get some decent cash for the likes of Taylor and Higginbotham, the latter of whom's career has nose dived since! 

[MrDust]

14 minutes ago, Shadwell Dog said:

I agree with you to a certain extent but I'm not sure its the figure that's the problem its more that our bod wont be hard to deal with. In the past there doesn't seem to have really been much in the way of negotiations when we've been selling our best young players. It very much comes over as us accepting the first decent bid that comes in as long as various add ons are attached to it which works in some cases like Kingsley but not in others like Arfield and McGrandles. I'd also like to see us trying to negotiate us getting some of their youngsters up here on loan as part of the deal. I woukldnt be against us getting the likes of 200k for him if it allowed us to strengthen the side ( we'd need a left back anyway as hes the only one we currently have ) but there's no guarantee of that unfortunately.

The figures we are now getting now is due to the lack of first team achievements, Botti, Blair and perhaps now Gallagher haven't played the quota of first team games or been an important cog in the team like the ones that have left previously. This part won't give our BOD much to bargain with, the well is pretty much dry as our manager fails to promote from the youth team. If Gallacher does move on, it's a miracle we managed to get fees as high for him and Blair, the cup final appearance sold Botti.

[Bainsfordbairn]

15 minutes ago, Shadwell Dog said:

I agree with you to a certain extent but I'm not sure its the figure that's the problem its more that our bod wont be hard to deal with. In the past there doesn't seem to have really been much in the way of negotiations when we've been selling our best young players. It very much comes over as us accepting the first decent bid that comes in

If we accepted the first decent bid that came in then at least three current players in our squad (that I know of) would be playing in England right now. Subject to your definition of "decent", right enough.

However, as the club don't publicise rejected bids then I guess they can't defend themselves against inaccurate assumptions like yours.

[ANEWHOPE]

I'm not disputing that Falkirk fans have some legitimate grievances with their board, but the implication here that a Scottish Championship club accepting an offer of £200K for an 18 year old left back who has played less than 20 first team games and has been far from a stand out would constitute a capitulation is ridiculous.
£200K would be an outstanding sum of money to get for Gallacher and if that happened it would be a massive point in favour of your board that they've managed to get far more money for a young player than any other Championship club would dream of asking for, having already managed to swindle six figures out of Swansea for Botti Biabi previously.

Not arguing that £200k would be an act of capitulation and don't agree that £200k would be outstanding.

Also completely disagree with your assessment of the Biabi transfer and the fact that Swansea are seemingly interested in yet another of our players suggests to me they don't feel as if they have been swindled, in fact the profit earned in selling Kingsley would to me seem a reasonable bit of business.

In addition to compare the deals with other Championship clubs is unfair as I don't see others consistently selling their players to an English Premiership team like we have, so a comparison can't accurately be made. So all in all your post is pretty shit! [emoji847]

[Jimmy85]

As an outsider I have to say I'm utterly baffled as to why the Falkirk board allow Shadwell to listen into the transfer fee negotiations. That's utterly insane. 

[Silvio Tattiescone]

How much is our plastic pitch holding us back in getting good players, or is it just deterring injury-prone hypochondriacs that we're better steering clear of anyway?

[falkirkzombie]

2 minutes ago, NewBornBairn said:

How much is our plastic pitch holding us back in getting good players, or is it just deterring injury-prone hypochondriacs that we're better steering clear of anyway?

 

think it only has 3-4 years left of its lifespan, i would love to see us go back to grass after that, problems however are i believe that the undersoil heating we have is now obsolete so this would also need replacing and there is no point in having grass if the club don't employ decent ground staff o look after it, also new training facility would be required 

[Gaz FFC]

The plastic pitch is going nowhere

[Ranaldo Bairn]

How much is our plastic pitch holding us back in getting good players, or is it just deterring injury-prone hypochondriacs that we're better steering clear of anyway?

The latter.
I can think of precisely zero injuries caused by the pitch.

[Reggie Perrin]

The figures we are now getting now is due to the lack of first team achievements, Botti, Blair and perhaps now Gallagher haven't played the quota of first team games or been an important cog in the team like the ones that have left previously. This part won't give our BOD much to bargain with, the well is pretty much dry as our manager fails to promote from the youth team. If Gallacher does move on, it's a miracle we managed to get fees as high for him and Blair, the cup final appearance sold Botti.

Having seen a fair bit of the U20s last year it seems to me that there is no one good enough to be promoted to the senior squad at the moment. Doesn't mean that the "well is dry" but that there is a bit of a gap before the next good batch of kids comes to the fore.

[Shadwell Dog]

2 hours ago, ShaggerG said:

You assume a lot Shadwell. (Unless maybe you're ITK? )

The fact that the board, as Dunning says, have managed to get some of the fees that they have, sometimes for players who have no 1st team track record, is quite impressive IMO. You've no idea either just how hard they've bartered to get the fee, add-on's, etc. Yes we've missed out massively on add-on's for McGrandles, ironically due to a tackle by our, now, own player but the board can't be blamed for that. I'm sure also that we did get some cash as an add-on for Arfield although I don't recall what the circumstances or figures involved were.

We also managed to get some decent cash for the likes of Taylor and Higginbotham, the latter of whom's career has nose dived since! 

The problem is that by selling players before they reach the first team your missing out on a series of players and so it's no surprise that the cupboard is currently dry. Players like Blair and biabi should now bein the first team but we only saw a handful of appearances from each. Some players like McGrandles had to move on as their contracts were running down but others were sold the first time anyone came in for them when there was no pressure to sell other than the boards financial mismanagement. If james mccarthy had come through our youth system he wouldve been sold for 400k or similar. We would never have held out lke hamilton and ended up with 1.7million. 

[MrDust]

22 minutes ago, Reggie Perrin said:

Having seen a fair bit of the U20s last year it seems to me that there is no one good enough to be promoted to the senior squad at the moment. Doesn't mean that the "well is dry" but that there is a bit of a gap before the next good batch of kids comes to the fore.

I'm not suggesting we have loads of players to make the step up but why are we giving new contracts to Finlayson 19yr old and Henderson 21yr old if neither aren't knocking on the first team door. How long till we think these players will be ready, neither feature on the bench.

We had O'Hara scoring a hat trick in the reserves last season, first team couldn't score in a barrel of fannies, surely O'Hara makes the bench...No it's the same so called experienced duds. Houston could have disillusioned O'Hara last season with leaving him to see how high he can jump, yet inferior Shepherd is afore him.

Shepherd is another one, four seasons since he has kicked a ball for us, unless you are counting one cross and hitting the post from 4yards out, yet we sign him up for 2 more years.

Our development team has suffered, dunno if the link to first team is now gone unless Houston's hands are tied or the coaching is to blame

[ANEWHOPE]

How much is our plastic pitch holding us back in getting good players, or is it just deterring injury-prone hypochondriacs that we're better steering clear of anyway?

Or just another excuse to add to Houston's already extensive list. So far we've had:

soft as putty players & opposition sides that won't play nice & let us pass the ball around.

Not long until he reverts back to blaming the fans for not creating better atmosphere.

[latapythelegend]

The youth academy has died because of the Forth Valley Academy. We should have steered well clear of it.

[PipoIsABairn]

1 hour ago, NewBornBairn said:

How much is our plastic pitch holding us back in getting good players, or is it just deterring injury-prone hypochondriacs that we're better steering clear of anyway?

I think some of the players who moan about the pitch at TFS should be asked to go play on some of the "grass" pitches like Tynecastle in the middle of winter. Even surface with consistent bounce versus literal frozen mud pit. 

[ANEWHOPE]

Having seen a fair bit of the U20s last year it seems to me that there is no one good enough to be promoted to the senior squad at the moment. Doesn't mean that the "well is dry" but that there is a bit of a gap before the next good batch of kids comes to the fore.

Bit worrying if that true but no reason to question your judgement. However I do have reason to question the judgement of Houston. Part of his reason for leaving his previous management job was his inability to see the woods for the trees whilst at United as he felt their was a dearth of young talent coming through there. [emoji15]

I've been to see a fair few development games the last few seasons, Falkirk games and others and making a judgement based on those is very difficult as it is such a pedestrian & uncompetitive game. For me we only see who has what it takes when given meaningful 1st team action.

[GMBairn]

6 hours ago, Shadwell Dog said:

I agree but Houston is never going to play him at centre half. As that appears to be the case replacing him with a decent right back would at least see some improvement hopefully.

Maybe I am remembering wrong but I thought it was muirhead who was all arse over tit in the away and home leg with simple balls over the top against utd? I can't remember him being overly impressive on the few occasions i have seen him at cb.

[GMBairn]

1 hour ago, latapythelegend said:

The youth academy has died because of the Forth Valley Academy. We should have steered well clear of it.

I remember thinking about that when I heard about it, an academy which has to service lower league teams isn't going to produce consistently high quality players and it seemed that we got more recruits through when we were running it ourselves. 

I don't know if that is an accurate representation though, the academy could have been on the slide before the change and subsequently gotten better but we are still waiting for the new players to get older, which lets be honest if they were really committed to the club they would put some effort into it and speed up the process.