The Arbroath Thread

[lichtgilphead]

41 minutes ago, Brummo said:

Congratulations on your Championship survival.

Would hope that I could be as magnanimous in the same situation. Maybe you could try joining us in the bigger leagues soon

[CALDERON]

Well played staying up, absolute class away day.  

[lichtie23]

1 hour ago, Brummo said:

Congratulations on your Championship survival.

The championship. A league your team will never see 

[AUcal]

Nice one folks. Glad to see you lot stay up. Got there in the end

[keptie]

Nae bother, what was all the fuss about. The drama queen's can have a couple of months off now 

[Smokerson]

We’ve been very good since Xmas then hit the skids recently , Cove and Partick games we returned to our early season form. But bottom line is we’ve been better than two teams over the 36 games which is all we have to do really. 
 

Badly need a striker which was evident again last night. Hilson worked his socks off but we need someone bigger and physical who can hold it up and bring players into the game.  I don’t think Hamilton looked like scoring in the whole 90 mins last night 

[DUAFC]

Totally dodged a bullet in all honesty. 

Just as well Paul Hartley came along !

[Moorie]

Congratulations guys. 

[Lichtielegend]

A fair bit of surgery required to the squad for next season. Besides Gaston, McKenna and our back 4, we have a team of squad players. Guys that are just about good enough to play in a championship side but maybe not good enough to build a championship side from.

However, we look a much more solid side with Hetherington in central midfield. 

[DUAFC]

Surgery required off the pitch first and foremost. 

Hopefully big Rab stays as goalies have never been a problem 

[stevieKTID]

Well done Arbroath on securing your Championship status, my girlfriend's dad was over from The Netherlands for it and even got to meet his hero Bobby Linn after the game.

I really enjoyed the Arbroath TV commentators, the guy with the heavier accent sounds like a character.

[JoseMarooniho]

1 hour ago, DUAFC said:

Surgery required off the pitch first and foremost. 

Hopefully big Rab stays as goalies have never been a problem 

Take a day off eh. We’ve secured a fifth year in the Championship, don’t you remember where we were in 2016. And, do you really think Rab would stay after your DC/Pink removal. 

[Chippyminton]

I’m really happy for you that you’ve stayed up. Proper fitba supporters at the ground every time I’ve been, and proper fitba supporters on here. See yous next season.

[afc_36_0]

In January i said we cant draw our way to safety, i was wrong…..

Thank f**k for cove, hamilton and derek gaston this year.

Dick campbell, please stop signing randoms based on a youtube highlights video.

Thank you

[Old Timer]

Well thank god that's over. However a big improvement on recent performances, at least we had an attacking lineup. What a performance by Bobby.

 

[Leicesterlichtie]

If Gaston doesn't get our POTY, then it'll be a complete travesty. He will probably be our only representative in the championship team of the year too.

[Tattie36]

I would also add that even though Bobby was by far the best/most influential player on the park last night, I also think Hilson was really good. No he didn’t score, or even trouble their keeper but the amount of effort and running he did for the full 90 was unreal. Would definitely keep him, not to play as a lone striker of course but in support. You don’t have to go very far back to see how critical I have been about him but credit where it’s due. Also think that was Bitsindou’s best game for us.

Ps if it was true, what kind of folk fight in hospitality? Deary me.

[SimonLichtie]

A huge relief - the reality right now is that we've had a really poor season overall, and we've still managed to achieve our aim of staying in the division. In previous years teams far bigger than ourselves have paid the price for a poor season and dropped down a division and struggled to get back up. Despite an obvious lack of anything up top, we've still managed to scrape the required points together, and again the reality is that all these 'must win' games that people kept going on about every week didn't exist.

The tactical debate of the season seems a fairly straightforward one; Dick consistently felt our options up top were not good enough to justify two up, or to justify trying to grab more goals with what we had over shoring things up bigtime and focusing on not conceding and being hard to beat. This obviously resulted in us being awful to watch at times, picking up plenty of 0-0s and picking up a point instead of risking that point for a further two on the day..... Would we have been better being more attacking with the players we've had, at the expense of our solidity? We'll never know if we'd have had more or less points going more attacking with the personnel we have, but we do know we've stayed in the division playing the way we have. Personally I feel like playing Bobby Linn a wee bit more in the same 4-5-1 formation that suits us would hardly have been a disaster and would've at least added a bit of excitement at times to some really poor games this year... The treatment of the best attacking player at the club throughout the campaign has been very poor.

Going forward this summer will be better than last year, I have absolutely no doubts about that at this point. Everyone at the club, from top to bottom, is extremely aware of the failings of last summer and as we know things have been put in place to rectify this. I see people having a go at Dick about signing people he's not seen play/ 'youtube highlights' etc stuff. but the chances are very high that we'll sign multiple players this summer that he hasn't seen play, it's hardly uncommon for clubs that have recruitment teams in place/ a director of football etc. We've now got a really good recruitment team in place and some really positive stuff happening in that area, none of which was in place a year ago. I believe we've already got two stand out players in the divisions below ready to go for next year, with lots of other things going on in the background also. Our current squad of signed up players is also stronger than the one we finished last season with also IMO, so plenty of positive stuff on that front

Dick Campbell....... what an frustrating, infuriating and frankly bewildering at times manager he is. There are many things this season Dick has got wrong, but ultimately he has achieved the club's aim in every single season he has been our manager. I understand the feelings of frustration towards him over the course of the campaign, I really do, but he isn't going anywhere this summer. Personally, I think changing manager at this stage would be an absolute disaster for the club as it puts all our preparations for next season out which would put us months behind all of the clubs around us at this level, which would be very hard for a new manager to recover things from. The next time to 'review' things for me would be after a dozen league games of next season.

[ecto]

11 hours ago, TheRoundO said:

Another year for Bobby according to the BBC. Well deserved. He was excellent tonight. 

I heard he had been offered another year, but as he went off last night, looked a bit like a farewell 

[Tattie36]

Just now, ecto said:

I heard he had been offered another year, but as he went off last night, looked a bit like a farewell 

That’s what I thought too - definitely looked like a farewell.

He must be scunnered after that season - being our best player until the new year to then spend most of the rest of the season sitting on his arse. At his age, with realistically only a season or two left, he’ll want as much game time as possible so he may decide to drop down the leagues, play every week and enjoy himself.

Hopefully after a few weeks off he’ll decide to stay as, even though his recent performances have been variable, last night proved that he’s still got what it takes.