The Arbroath Thread

[Wee jeemie]

2 hours ago, The Moonster said:

Has he ever had what it takes? Dunfermline and Ross County the only two jobs he's achieved anything and he had plenty cash to play with. He's been absolutely shite and lasted a year or less everywhere else he's been. It was a honking appointment.

Exactly this , he’s been awful at every club since Ross co which he just got lucky with , I actually couldn’t believe he could replace McCanns dudes with even worse loan dudes that really couldn’t give a as long as they were getting paid , he totally destroyed that Dundee team which has taking till this season to turn around , , and I thought would be his last job , but he shat all over Cove as well , and now he’s shat all over my second team , I really hope he just goes back to being a PT to all the old grannies again after tonight , and Arbroath appoint a proper manager and bounce straight back up again 

[Tattie36]

I’ll ask a question - can anyone ever remember a manager at Arbroath (or anywhere really, aside from Ferguson at Manchester United), that started off with an atrocious record but turned it round by being given more time, transfer windows etc? Because I can’t.

I believe that you can tell in a pretty short time if a manager is going to be a success or not at a club. Our most successful managers in the last 25-30 years (Bakie, Brownlie, Sheerin and Campbell) all came in, mostly while the club was at a pretty low ebb and turned things around almost immediately. We are getting worse the longer McIntyre is here and that isn’t going to magically change imo.

[timlichtie]

I suspect the Club is likely to give things until Saturday before making a decision on the management. All the concerns that have been raised seem to be building to the same conclusion. If we had seen some real signs of progress then things would be different.

The critical issue now is next season. Do the Board, players and fans have confidence in the manager? Summer signings are already being discussed including existing players who might not want to stay unless things change. Will season ticket sales hold up? Definitely some big calls needed.
 

[Chapelhall chap]

At the game last night I had trouble recognising many of the Arbroath side assembled by McIntyre. It was also clear that they lacked much energy/tactics before the penalty award, to threaten Airdrie. The better chances were from Airdrie but maybe that's because I was in the wee stand.

Had the penalty been scored I would have been concerned but credit to our goalie for taking advantage of the "I'm taking it" chat

 Once we got ahead it was more comfortable and a relaxing trip to Gayfield at last: I think we'd lost 6 in a row recently.

Please take something off Inverness so I can relax a wee bit as I'm still looking down.

 

 

 

[Lichtielegend]

2 hours ago, Wacky said:

If that’s the case? Then you never know what could happen, going backwards to come forward is sometimes a good thing. Maybe when he builds his own team from the ground up they could both evolve into a stronger Arbroath? 

I could believe this if I had any trust in his ability to sign decent players.

Boruc - not one aspect of his game is better than Gaston's and I'm not convinced he's any better than Adams.
Delaney - Has been fairly anonymous in the few games he has played, attacking and defensively.
Walker - Showed decent glimpses defensively, poor distribution
Teale - Could find half a dozen defenders as good or better in League 1/2, results in Ricky playing on left of back pairing which causes problems
Mackinnon - No idea what he offers our midfield. 
Robinson - I've seen some shite Arbroath teams in my time - he wouldn't get a game for any of them. Playing him is disrespecting the SPFL.
Murray - Like Mackinnon, I can't work out what he offers us.
Reilly - Barely played but showed glimpses.

Even if he did have any success rate signing players, would we really have any confidence in him building a team out of them? 
I wouldn't.

 

Campbell's time was up and he (as well as the board) did us dirty but no one can convince me we wouldn't have had a better chance of staying up if he was still here.

1 hour ago, Dunning1874 said:

Seeing the number of shouts to sack McIntyre and offer him it, has Gold ever expressed any interest in becoming a manager? I know he's got his A Licence and runs his own academy but maybe that means he wants his focus to be youth coaching rather than first team management? If management is actually something he wants to do and feels the time is right then fair enough, but it feels like a club heading for relegation who've already gone through two managers in a season going down the route of "just ask one of the more experienced players who has their badges if they fancy it" can be the start of a spiral where they're out of ideas of what kind of manager they want and are just taking a shot in the dark.

Good part-time managers don't tend to stay part-time managers too long which results in a dearth of 'proven' candidates and it is a completely different task to full-time football so doesn't always translate. Airdrie are a good example, actually. Their squad is fairly modest for this level yet they are extremely well drilled and try to play with a clear style. As much as you can try, you can't implement that in 4 hours of training per week. At part-time level it is really about recruitment, personality and man-management. As stated above, McIntyre's recruitment has been poor. You can see from his interviews that his personality is hardly inspiring. As for man-management, we've had the Bird/Hylton and now the McKenna/McIntosh incidents along with the shabby treatment of Ali Adams.

When I think of the money wasted on full-time players over the last 2.5 years, with absolutely no on-field benefit, I wonder if we wouldn't have been better off trying to get some kind of youth system up and running again. Gold might not be the answer for first team manager but he'd have loads to offer if we did something like that.

 

 

 

[Lichtie78]

7 minutes ago, Lichtielegend said:

I could believe this if I had any trust in his ability to sign decent players.

Boruc - not one aspect of his game is better than Gaston's and I'm not convinced he's any better than Adams.
Delaney - Has been fairly anonymous in the few games he has played, attacking and defensively.
Walker - Showed decent glimpses defensively, poor distribution
Teale - Could find half a dozen defenders as good or better in League 1/2, results in Ricky playing on left of back pairing which causes problems
Mackinnon - No idea what he offers our midfield. 
Robinson - I've seen some shite Arbroath teams in my time - he wouldn't get a game for any of them. Playing him is disrespecting the SPFL.
Murray - Like Mackinnon, I can't work out what he offers us.
Reilly - Barely played but showed glimpses.

Even if he did have any success rate signing players, would we really have any confidence in him building a team out of them? 
I wouldn't.

 

Campbell's time was up and he (as well as the board) did us dirty but no one can convince me we wouldn't have had a better chance of staying up if he was still here.

Good part-time managers don't tend to stay part-time managers too long which results in a dearth of 'proven' candidates and it is a completely different task to full-time football so doesn't always translate. Airdrie are a good example, actually. Their squad is fairly modest for this level yet they are extremely well drilled and try to play with a clear style. As much as you can try, you can't implement that in 4 hours of training per week. At part-time level it is really about recruitment, personality and man-management. As stated above, McIntyre's recruitment has been poor. You can see from his interviews that his personality is hardly inspiring. As for man-management, we've had the Bird/Hylton and now the McKenna/McIntosh incidents along with the shabby treatment of Ali Adams.

When I think of the money wasted on full-time players over the last 2.5 years, with absolutely no on-field benefit, I wonder if we wouldn't have been better off trying to get some kind of youth system up and running again. Gold might not be the answer for first team manager but he'd have loads to offer if we did something like that.

 

 

 

I’ve been a pretty vocal opponent of a youth setup in the past, but Montrose seem to bring through players who can contribute so why can’t we. Could even have a few young lads from further afield in scotland, and house them up here instead of hopeless punts from down south.

[SmokeyJoe]

With 6 or so players only signed on for next season. I personally feel we need to get rid of jim asap. Defeat on Saturday will surely seal that. The longer he’s in charge the less likely others will sign on as it seems players aren’t in this fully with him and I don’t blame them 

[cb_diamond]

Just out of curiosity/pure nosiness what were McKenna's comments? Have seen that he has deleted them all.

Edited April 3 by cb_diamond
Spelling

[The Moonster]

1 hour ago, 1320Lichtie said:

 

 

I really do not think being a manager in the lower leagues of Scottish Football requires too much for a manager to be successful, don’t think it’s Pep level of tactics but being a likeable c**t that players want to play for goes a very long way. Maybe it’s kind of like that with Imrie? If someone like Gold got a shot at it he absolutely ticks all the boxes for that. The guys a diamond that is so important to have around the place. Would also imagine a player / manager wage would be very good… that incentive would definitely be a factor.
 

I think all that it will take to be a reasonable success here next year is to be a likeable guy that everyone can get behind - the league is much poorer and more forgiving than this one - the budget will be there and right up there if not the best in comparison to other PT teams and he will know plenty of players himself he’d maybe like to get on board - whether he wants to try it I do not know and whether it’s even a long term solution or not is another question. 
 

Stevie Farrell is well liked by everyone who works with him and the players will run through brick walls for him. You're welcome to the c**t.

[JoseMarooniho]

Not much happened around the penalty incident. Certainly far short of Hylton/Bird level. McKenna asked for the ball. Twice (?) denied by McIntosh. Given the obvious nature of the error, putting a lesser taker on the kick, I’m still raging that no one who could have influenced things (manager, coaches, captain, senior players) did. 

[ExiledLichtie]

19 minutes ago, Godlovessmokedhaddock said:

Cold light of day. What was I looking for before last night. Well in the first half I largely got it. There were tactics, ugly turn the defence as we’ve got them for pace. And it was pretty effective. ....

 

Amazing how people see the game differently.  I saw absolutely nothing like this!  What I saw was a team fortunate not to go in at half time 3-0 down, being saved by some desperate defending, and offering almost nothing going forwards in a must win home game.

[Anotherlichtie]

22 minutes ago, Godlovessmokedhaddock said:

Cold light of day. What was I looking for before last night. Well in the first half I largely got it. There were tactics, ugly turn the defence as we’ve got them for pace. And it was pretty effective. Defending, I haven’t heard the players talk to each other so much in weeks. Little was being a captain. 
But it went down the pan with the penalty. Second half the shape was strange and the sub’s other than Bird did nothing.

Boruc stopped a few shots, his kicking is improving. His running to through balls/ sweeping gives me the fear but other than the first minute I was wrong. But someone buy him some grippy gloves.

Walker had his best game, really battling and playing balls in behind the wing back as he had obviously been instructed gave Stewart, poty, great service. Teale has recovered from the misplaced pass against Raith. Little was the definition of a fighting performance. Lyon, who I didn’t rate to begin with was solid and given a horrendous task second half. McKinnon did well full of energy, lost his man defensively a couple of times but needed more instruction. Dow was quiet as he was man marking, but second half he was moved to inside right and no one was moved to cover for him. 
Gold battled, Macintosh had the pace of the defenders and won most of his headers. McKenna was great until the penalty, doing what he does best, working hard. Since the glory season he seems to have reinvented himself as Platini. Bit like that guy at the fives who used to be “a player “ Having to do everything and overhitting passes and complaining that the rest of the team are not good enough. McIntyre said afterwards McIntosh was the designated penalty taker. McKenna was in the wrong and compounded it with his social media posts. Unprofessional on the pitch, and broke the spirit of a fighting team performance. Leighton had no chance on the penalty with that shit going on.

So everyone has got very annoyed because there was some hope. I don’t think McIntyre is the solution, but was there any one better at the time that the board could attract? The club was in such a poor place, what young players would want to go to a mess of a team about to be relegated on loan. I imagine not many bigger clubs had changed their loan policy with Arbroath yet.

But the board has to take responsibility for the decline. They loved the hype but forgot the nuts and bolts underpinning it. It is easy to all pull in the same direction during success but their leadership and stewardship needs to show in the hard times. The disconnect with the fans is huge, there’s no ten minute interview with the chairman now. The terracing facilities are on retard. 
 

Do we trust the board to get us out of this?

 

What a load of absolute pish. 

[Anotherlichtie]

28 minutes ago, Lichtie78 said:

I’ve been a pretty vocal opponent of a youth setup in the past, but Montrose seem to bring through players who can contribute so why can’t we. Could even have a few young lads from further afield in scotland, and house them up here instead of hopeless punts from down south.

And Ireland 

[keptie]

If McIntosh was the designated penalty taker McKenna wants his ass kicked  all the way round Gayfield, selfish as f**k. Put McIntosh under even more pressure on the pen, though tbf was a good save right at the post. That whole incident just sucked the life out the team and support.

Edited April 3 by keptie

[Anotherlichtie]

27 minutes ago, SmokeyJoe said:

With 6 or so players only signed on for next season. I personally feel we need to get rid of jim asap. Defeat on Saturday will surely seal that. The longer he’s in charge the less likely others will sign on as it seems players aren’t in this fully with him and I don’t blame them 

Do we have a confirmed list of who is signed up next season??

[RedLichtie86]

Just now, Anotherlichtie said:

Do we have a confirmed list of who is signed up next season??

Walker, Tob, Steele

Gold, Murray, Stowe

McIntosh

thats it so far

[timlichtie]

1 minute ago, RedLichtie86 said:

Walker, Tob, Steele

Gold, Murray, Stowe

McIntosh

thats it so far

Don’t think Macintosh is a done deal. He may have an option. We could really use him.

[Lichtielegend]

McIntosh signing will be a real insight into McIntyre and how players feel about him, imo.

He's the only one that played under him at Cove.

[Hammerafc]

13 minutes ago, keptie said:

If McIntosh was the designated penalty taker McKenna wants his ass kicked  all the way round Gayfield, selfish as f**k. Put McIntosh under even more pressure on the pen, though tbf was a good save right at the post. That whole incident just sucked the life out the team and support.

McKenna was the designated penalty taker but McIntosh took the last one as McKenna was injured. McIntyre didn't seem to have an answer of who the penalty taker should have been other than McIntosh took the last one. Seems this basically led to both players expecting to take the penalty probably justifiably due to lack of clarity.

[HoBNob]

3 hours ago, The Moonster said:

Has he ever had what it takes? Dunfermline and Ross County the only two jobs he's achieved anything and he had plenty cash to play with. He's been absolutely shite and lasted a year or less everywhere else he's been. It was a honking appointment.

Queen of the South? Finished fourth which got him the move to Ross County. 

Considering how Cove done after he left, I'd say he was OK there aswell. 

Before this appointment the only outright failure he had as a manager was Dundee, as far as strike rates go for a lower league Scottish football manager that's about as good as it gets.