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3 minutes ago, 1320Lichtie said:

McIntyre with another good post match interview - confirms we are wanting more players in - shock horror - I would move heaven and earth to try get Sanders in

 

Ali Adams - what a game he had by the way for his first league game -  mentioned that one player was in a moonboot (presumably Walker) and one was away to hospital (guessing Delaney for a scan) 

I would have thought the other way around. Delaney in the boot. Walker away to hospital. 

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That was a grim watch today. With all the new faces naturally we looked disjointed and nothing was coming off for us (other than more injured players). We hardly got a break of the ball and a few found it hard to control the ball.  At timesI felt like I was watching a Dick Campbell game.

Ayr weren't much better but had the better chances to score and thankfully couldn't take them.

Overall a battling performance with a somewhat makeshift side and a point gained. As others have said Ali Adams looked confident and Scott Stewart put in another  man of the match performance. Hopefully we can take something from the return match next week.

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Unsure how anyone can be critical of Stowe after that, the lad put in a terrific shift in terms of effort and was lively throughout. He’s hardly played so to be quoting his goals and assists isn’t a true reaction imo. Jacobs very good again, the overall fight was there and there’s really nothing between most of the teams. Hopefully the break helps us 

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19 minutes ago, Smokerson said:

Unsure how anyone can be critical of Stowe after that, the lad put in a terrific shift in terms of effort and was lively throughout. He’s hardly played so to be quoting his goals and assists isn’t a true reaction imo. Jacobs very good again, the overall fight was there and there’s really nothing between most of the teams. Hopefully the break helps us 

Also played a lot centrally - the guys been playing the same amount as the rest of the guys and he was still flying the full 90 - easy to compare him to Hylton or Bobby Linn but it’s not even the same thing 

 

We didn’t get up the park much today but he had a really good ball across the box in the first half - great ball in for McIntosh off the post and for Bird header second half - also should’ve had a penalty with his play 

 

His energy was a joke and he did make poor decisions on a few occasions which gave the ball away in a promising area or lead to poor crosses out the park (both of them came from running at and taking on a player at a hundred mile an hour instead of getting a shot away or passing it)  but that’ll only improve with experience and games 

 

McIntyre seems to like him too and I’m sure he can improve his game considering the type of player he was 

Edited by 1320Lichtie
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39 minutes ago, lichtie23 said:

I would have thought the other way around. Delaney in the boot. Walker away to hospital. 

Possibly - not great if Delaney is in a boot though was hoping he’d maybe be ok in 10 days 

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Just now, 1320Lichtie said:

Possibly - not great if Delaney is in a boot though was hoping he’d maybe be ok in 10 days 

Walker couldn’t put any weight on his foot by the looks of it. My mate was close to it and texted straight away “he’s done, could be broken” 

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15 minutes ago, Smokerson said:

Unsure how anyone can be critical of Stowe after that, the lad put in a terrific shift in terms of effort and was lively throughout. He’s hardly played so to be quoting his goals and assists isn’t a true reaction imo. Jacobs very good again, the overall fight was there and there’s really nothing between most of the teams. Hopefully the break helps us 

No-one's saying he didn't put in a shift and look lively - I'd totally agree with that. I've absolutely no issue with the amount of effort he puts in at all - and I don't think anyone should be having a go at him at all. However the facts are he has played in 22 games this season and scored 0 goals with 0 assists. It's all well and good looking lively and getting on the ball, but if your final ball is consistently poor and you're taking pot shots from 30 yards when others are in better positions it breaks up a lot of our better chances in the final third.

All I'm saying is that in an ideal world it would be much better for everyone if he was getting regular game time at a level or two below and building up his confidence while learning the game. It's not his fault he's been chucked in at the deep end at a team scrapping for points four levels above the one he was playing at just last season. It's an absolutely massive jump. With 100 odd appearances in L1 or L2 to learn and adapt his game to the faster pace and sharpness and he could become a Championship player. This would be far better for his development than struggling most weeks for us in a struggling team. If he was playing in L1 or L2 right now and had made 22 appearances, there's no chance he'd not have contributed in terms of goals/ assists wherever he was.

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48 minutes ago, SimonLichtie said:

No-one's saying he didn't put in a shift and look lively - I'd totally agree with that. I've absolutely no issue with the amount of effort he puts in at all - and I don't think anyone should be having a go at him at all. However the facts are he has played in 22 games this season and scored 0 goals with 0 assists. It's all well and good looking lively and getting on the ball, but if your final ball is consistently poor and you're taking pot shots from 30 yards when others are in better positions it breaks up a lot of our better chances in the final third.

All I'm saying is that in an ideal world it would be much better for everyone if he was getting regular game time at a level or two below and building up his confidence while learning the game. It's not his fault he's been chucked in at the deep end at a team scrapping for points four levels above the one he was playing at just last season. It's an absolutely massive jump. With 100 odd appearances in L1 or L2 to learn and adapt his game to the faster pace and sharpness and he could become a Championship player. This would be far better for his development than struggling most weeks for us in a struggling team. If he was playing in L1 or L2 right now and had made 22 appearances, there's no chance he'd not have contributed in terms of goals/ assists wherever he was.

Logical of course but strange timing because today he really seemed to “come of age” at this level and made a very good contribution. If we had a better winger we could loan him to a L1 team, but we don’t. 

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1 hour ago, SimonLichtie said:

No-one's saying he didn't put in a shift and look lively - I'd totally agree with that. I've absolutely no issue with the amount of effort he puts in at all - and I don't think anyone should be having a go at him at all. 

 

Would you also say that he was the most likely player to score or create a goal in the last 30 minutes today, especially considering he should really have won a penalty?  Because that's exactly the same thing you disagreed with!  

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59 minutes ago, SimonLichtie said:

It's an absolutely massive jump.

Given where we came from and the players we have, its fair to say the majority are league 1/2 standard.

59 minutes ago, SimonLichtie said:

 

With 100 odd appearances in L1 or L2 to learn and adapt his game to the faster pace and sharpness and he could become a Championship player. This would be far better for his development than struggling most weeks for us in a struggling team. If he was playing in L1 or L2 right now and had made 22 appearances, there's no chance he'd not have contributed in terms of goals/ assists wherever he was.

So loan the boy out for 2-3 seasons to get those appearances you suggest, and he might come back a championship player lol

So because someone is 22, they need to go to league 1/2 play 100 games to get up to the Championship standard

Whilst i get the theory ( kind of ) we dont have time to wait around for 3 years for someone to come good. 

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2 minutes ago, ExiledLichtie said:

Would you also say that he was the most likely player to score or create a goal in the last 30 minutes today, especially considering he should really have won a penalty?  Because that's exactly the same thing you disagreed with!  

I'm saying I agree he put in a shift and looked lively.

I am disagreeing that he looked likely to score or create a goal, as unfortunately on the half a dozen occasions he had the ball in the final third in the second half he either chose the wrong option or delivered a really poor ball into the box. I thought we were much more likely to score from Jay Bird doing something from nothing, McIntosh driving into the box or a midfielder arriving late to get on the end of something, as that is where almost all of our goals have come from outside of Hylton.

Putting in a shift/ looking lively is absolutely not equal to looking likely to create/ score a goal. Anyway, hopefully the last comment from me on this for a while :lol:

Overall today I'm very happy with the point considering the incredible situation we've got injury wise. Ultimately it's no-one's fault at all, it's just a 'shit happens' situation. The sort of injury situation that hits a squad of players 1 season in 50 type thing. If we can just keep ourselves in the mix come the middle of February and hopefully be able to consistently name a solid 17-19 from there then we'll give ourselves a really good chance with the players we have and the attitude they've shown over the past few months.

Oddly I feel like come the summer, with the players we've got signed up for next season so far we'll be in as good a position as any of the last few pre-seasons, regardless of the division we're in. It really is unbelievable that we have 24 senior players at the club and literally 50% of them (not a Dick Campbell enhanced figure, the actual figure) are injured. Once you trim that down, we've got a really good squad of 18-19 who can definitely do it at this level, but the bulk of them are the ones out injured :lol: :( 

Finally - shout out to Keighan Jacobs. He quite clearly cant play more than a 30 minute off the bench role or he ends up fucked and walked all over, but he's shown he can play that fairly specific role for us. He's contributed more in the past 6 weeks performance wise than everything prior combined, a huge improvement. He's also been asked to play far more than the 30 minutes his legs have several times in the past few months due to the lack of numbers and while it's obviously shown in the latter stages of those games, that's certainly not his fault.

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Can’t believe we started the game with 4 defenders on the park for the first time this season (if you don’t count Stewart as a defender) and it lasted 5 minutes. Then we lost another 2. Down to 1 defender again. And he has a broken toe. 

Walker was apparently on crutches and could be out for the season. Steele needs an op so he is apparently out for the season. Hopefully Delaney not too bad. 

I just counted. Including Hylton who we don’t know if he is away or injured at the moment, we have 12 players injured in a squad of 25. 🤣 
From what I have heard from players on co-commentary over the past few weeks I think 5 are still medium to long term and the rest are either unknown or short term. 

Gaston - couple of weeks 
Steele - probably season
Little - long term
O’Brien - ?
Delaney. - ?
Walker - probably long term/season
Slater - back soon
McKenna - mid to late February 
Dow - running but still struggling 
Norey - pulled up in training ?
Murray - pulled up in training ?
Hylton - ?

Also Scott Allan out on loan  

 

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6 hours ago, m4d said:

Can’t believe we started the game with 4 defenders on the park for the first time this season (if you don’t count Stewart as a defender) and it lasted 5 minutes. Then we lost another 2. Down to 1 defender again. And he has a broken toe. 

Walker was apparently on crutches and could be out for the season. Steele needs an op so he is apparently out for the season. Hopefully Delaney not too bad. 

I just counted. Including Hylton who we don’t know if he is away or injured at the moment, we have 12 players injured in a squad of 25. 🤣 
From what I have heard from players on co-commentary over the past few weeks I think 5 are still medium to long term and the rest are either unknown or short term. 

Gaston - couple of weeks 
Steele - probably season
Little - long term
O’Brien - ?
Delaney. - ?
Walker - probably long term/season
Slater - back soon
McKenna - mid to late February 
Dow - running but still struggling 
Norey - pulled up in training ?
Murray - pulled up in training ?
Hylton - ?

Also Scott Allan out on loan  

 

Scott Allan not played since end of September either 🤣

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7 hours ago, m4d said:

Gaston - couple of weeks 
Steele - probably season
Little - long term
O’Brien - ?
Delaney. - ?
Walker - probably long term/season
Slater - back soon
McKenna - mid to late February 
Dow - running but still struggling 
Norey - pulled up in training ?
Murray - pulled up in training ?
Hylton - ?

Also Scott Allan out on loan  

Currently 'fit'

Ali Adams
Colin Hamilton (has a broken toe)
David Gold (been carrying injury for a wee while, hopefully now cleared up)
Darren Lyon
Keighan Jacobs
Scott Stewart
Joao Balde
Mark Stowe
Adam Mackinnon
Kenan Dunnwald-Turan
Leighton McIntosh
Jay Bird (carrying an injury the past 3/4 weeks, hopefully cleared up now)
Kyle Robinson

In terms of those who are out, the list from 'could make Ayr game in 10 days' too 'probably done for season' seems to be:

Norey - pulled up in training?
Murray - pulled up in training?
Slater - back soon
Gaston - couple of weeks (Welsh can be extended and be bench keeper to cover this)
O’Brien - 2-4 weeks?!
Delaney - 4-5 weeks?!
McKenna - mid to late February 
Dow - running but still struggling 
Little - long term
Steele - probably season
Walker - probably long term/season

So 13 'fit', 11 on the definitely injured list (these numbers could easily be considered the other way round, 'only' having a broken toe is considered fit right now :lol: ) , one out on loan and one who we don't know if he's still with the club. On that note - my presumption has to be Hylton is still at the club/ contracted. If he isn't and has left, it would be very poor for us not to have acknowledged this with some sort of update. So a squad of 25/26  and struggling to name 11 fit ones to play.....

Going by the above - hopefully we'll have 16/17 available in 10 days time which would be relatively okay. Looking at the longer term side of it, our squad of 25/26 is really probably only going to hit a maximum of 20 available players come the end of the campaign, if that.

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ToB surely gonna have to miss another couple of weeks minimum

 

I would love to know what the deal is with Delaney

 

I know it’s mental but we’ve no other choice than to go and sign a couple more players 

 

So aye It’s not really a squad of x amount when everyone is crocked - McIntyre says he does want to add more thankfully 

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On 01/01/2024 at 11:20, SimonLichtie said:

We've currently got a squad of 22 - people have to leave in order to bring in the 4-5 players we need. We can't have both - either people have to go out on loan or permanently, or we can't add much at all this window.

Any updated thoughts on this?

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6 minutes ago, ExiledLichtie said:

Any updated thoughts on this?

I still fully expect at least 2 players to leave the club this window. The three injuries yesterday make a massive difference, and ultimately we're going to have to go with a really inflated squad up until May due to the longer term injuries. With a squad of 24 definitely at the club and on the wage bill, I suspect we might be 1 in 1 out over the next few weeks - although outs will happen right at the end of the window for obvious reasons.

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