The Arbroath Thread

[timlichtie]

17 minutes ago, SimonLichtie said:

 

We haven't seen Innes Murray play a single minute for us this season while fully fit so it's impossible to really judge anything from him. So looking outside of his time at the club - he's proven himself a good quality L1 player. Above that level we don't know. 

I’m sure it was Innes who made a great run from the right wing today and hit the post. Maybe we will see more of that in the future.

I would be in favour of having him and Mark Stowe next season.

[101]

54 minutes ago, relichtie said:

I don't think we were ambitious enough after the Campbells left. Did we ask Scott Brown (who went to Ayr) or anyone of similar stature.? His contacts or someone in the same bracket would have far more contacts at the top that JMac. Loanees from Celtic or other top clubs instead of Irish lower level or players from lower level clubs could have given us the quality to turn around the unbalanced squad left when the Campbells left imo. 

Can't see Brown would have been tempted by Arbroath.

It was clear as day when Campbell went the squad was a mess with limited time and presumably money to sort it out I think it would have been a stupid decision for him to come to you guys so early in his career.

If you go down I don't think Jimmy Mac is too bad an option to get you back up. Obviously the golden manager of that league is Allan Johnstone either way if you go down next year should be a open field for promotion.

[Moorie]

4 hours ago, lichtiekev said:

Controversial but off u pop Jim

Another 5 goals conceded,

Planning should be underway for next season to make sure your competitive in league 1

I know a lot of Cove fans say they’d stayed up if they kept McIntyre but I don’t see it. They took a few hidings under him too.

To me he’s similar to the likes of Yogi and the old guard mangers who’ve had their time.

 

[Moorie]

56 minutes ago, relichtie said:

I don't think we were ambitious enough after the Campbells left. Did we ask Scott Brown (who went to Ayr) or anyone of similar stature.? His contacts or someone in the same bracket would have far more contacts at the top that JMac. Loanees from Celtic or other top clubs instead of Irish lower level or players from lower level clubs could have given us the quality to turn around the unbalanced squad left when the Campbells left imo. 

I’m surprised that McIntyre got the gig. Seemed such a lazy appointment and what many chairman seem to think is the safe option.

You guys seemed to do a lot of good work off the pitch I’d thought it been a young up and coming man you’d have gone for. To me Arbroath job does seem appealing 

[Tattie36]

A “good” manager or a “good fit” manager will get the best out of a squad even if they are of limited quality.

E.g. :

Dave Bakie took a team that ended up flat last in 96/97 and won promotion the following season with many of the same players.

Paul Sheerin took a Jim Weir team that was relegated in a play off to champions the following season.

Dick Campbell took a team from the brink of relegation from the league altogether to champions the following season.

Thats just recentish examples with us, there are loads of other examples we could find for other teams.

My point is that some managers just work with a team and some don’t. There’s nothing I’ve seen so far that makes me think McIntyre is a “good fit” for us even if he has a fully fit squad of his own players. Yes, some of our players are poor, some are not match fit etc etc. however a good manager would manage to get the best out of what he has. Getting destroyed in games week in week out ain’t that.

[RedLichtie86]

2 minutes ago, Tattie36 said:

A “good” manager or a “good fit” manager will get the best out of a squad even if they are of limited quality.

E.g. :

Dave Bakie took a team that ended up flat last in 96/97 and won promotion the following season with many of the same players.

Paul Sheerin took a Jim Weir team that was relegated in a play off to champions the following season.

Dick Campbell took a team from the brink of relegation from the league altogether to champions the following season.

Thats just recentish examples with us, there are loads of other examples we could find for other teams.

My point is that some managers just work with a team and some don’t. There’s nothing I’ve seen so far that makes me think McIntyre is a “good fit” for us even if he has a fully fit squad of his own players. Yes, some of our players are poor, some are not match fit etc etc. however a good manager would manage to get the best out of what he has. Getting destroyed in games week in week out ain’t that.

Bakie had a preseason to sort out that team plus could sign players all the way up until March. No transfer window pish then.

Paul Sheerin had 1 player from the Jim Weir team. He had to rebuild that whole squad.

Campbell had the rest of a season to keep us up which he did. East Stirlingshire were worse than us. Then he got a preseason and a transfer window to sort out the squad.

McIntyre has had none of that yet so trying to compare how those managers did is pointless.

[Tattie36]

9 minutes ago, RedLichtie86 said:

Bakie had a preseason to sort out that team plus could sign players all the way up until March. No transfer window pish then.

Paul Sheerin had 1 player from the Jim Weir team. He had to rebuild that whole squad.

Campbell had the rest of a season to keep us up which he did. East Stirlingshire were worse than us. Then he got a preseason and a transfer window to sort out the squad.

McIntyre has had none of that yet so trying to compare how those managers did is pointless.

Ok maybe I didn’t express it the way I wanted to.

What I’m saying is that a good manager could take a squad of suspect quality and ability and get them performing to at least a reasonable standard - not getting pumped week in week out. 

[ExiledLichtie]

17 minutes ago, RedLichtie86 said:

 

McIntyre has had none of that yet so trying to compare how those managers did is pointless.

He also started out being able to get good results with a very limited squad.  Its just got worse and worse.  I think we need to be ruthless here.  Another way of looking at it is to say that McIntyre has had an audition for the role.  And he's not shown anything to merit being given another window and a rebuild.  

[relichtie]

Hear what everyone is saying but still think we could have been more ambitious in our manager appointment. The club have layed out a lot of money on the infrastructure around the ground, new frontage, scoreboard, club shop in the Abbey gate etc and it will be a shame if we slide down the leagues after these last few seasons. As a club we need to be prudent, but it will cost us financially to drop to Lg1, and it might have been that a higher profile manager appointment would have paid off, and maintained our Championship status. 

[Vimto90]

Remember Arbroath fans shooting down anyone who dared to suggest they could be relegated or that their great seasons were the exception rather than the rule. Look a bit silly now eh. Arbroath are a decent league 1 team who were punching above weight. Like Cowden, Dumbarton before them who stayed up a few years in the championship.

 

Great away day & looking forward to it next year. 

[ExiledLichtie]

4 minutes ago, Vimto90 said:

Remember Arbroath fans shooting down anyone who dared to suggest they could be relegated or that their great seasons were the exception rather than the rule. Look a bit silly now eh. Arbroath are a decent league 1 team who were punching above weight. Like Cowden, Dumbarton before them who stayed up a few years in the championship.

 

Great away day & looking forward to it next year. 

I don't remember a single Arbroath fan doing that at all.  So no.  Nice try kiddo.

[Tattie36]

12 minutes ago, Vimto90 said:

Remember Arbroath fans shooting down anyone who dared to suggest they could be relegated or that their great seasons were the exception rather than the rule. Look a bit silly now eh. Arbroath are a decent league 1 team who were punching above weight. Like Cowden, Dumbarton before them who stayed up a few years in the championship.

 

Great away day & looking forward to it next year. 

Crack on and provide us with evidence of this utter guff.

Yes, we have 1 or 2 fantasists on here but I think you’ll find that pretty much all of us  are very realistic and understand what and where we are. Even after 21/22 I don’t remember a single fan suggesting that we would ever get close to that again.

No delusions of grandeur at all.

[timlichtie]

Yesterday’s thumping was what I was fearing week in week out when we got promoted. Absolutely no delusions whatsoever.

For a large part of the last 5 seasons we ground out results based on the incredible performance of the trio, Gaston, Little and ToB. This season our luck has run out with injuries and, to an extent, age. It happens. 

[Its not only a game]

11 hours ago, relichtie said:

I don't think we were ambitious enough after the Campbells left. Did we ask Scott Brown (who went to Ayr) or anyone of similar stature.? His contacts or someone in the same bracket would have far more contacts at the top that JMac. Loanees from Celtic or other top clubs instead of Irish lower level or players from lower level clubs could have given us the quality to turn around the unbalanced squad left when the Campbells left imo. 

Really , really hard to get a manager that wants to try FT to come to a PT team, that frankly have been “ punching weigh above their weight” for years.

You guys had a vintage period;

Unusual  to have such a successful management team as Campbells for a few years ;

Unusual to have such a high quality of PT players of O’Brien, Little, McKenna, Galston and Linn etc at the same time.

A vintage period as I said and rarely repeated.

[lichtie23]

Any faint hope I had of avoiding the drop were extinguished yesterday. After a really positive opening 25 minutes we went to absolute shit. The goals we conceded were criminal again. Boruc is a very good shot stopper but under a crossed ball he is pub standard. He doesn’t command the 6 yard box at all. I also noticed that even tho Gaston was named as a sub he was walking about at HT in his tracksuit and trainers. 

8 more games to go then some well deserved time off for the downtrodden Lichties faithful. 

[North Terrace Gazza]

10 hours ago, relichtie said:

Hear what everyone is saying but still think we could have been more ambitious in our manager appointment. The club have layed out a lot of money on the infrastructure around the ground, new frontage, scoreboard, club shop in the Abbey gate etc and it will be a shame if we slide down the leagues after these last few seasons. As a club we need to be prudent, but it will cost us financially to drop to Lg1, and it might have been that a higher profile manager appointment would have paid off, and maintained our Championship status. 

If you are really serious about being a permanent fixture in the championship then FT football is a must. Tarting up the stadium just isn’t enough. I appreciate that you have energised the locals and increased your fan base but to go to that next level full time was required.

[Tattie36]

32 minutes ago, North Terrace Gazza said:

If you are really serious about being a permanent fixture in the championship then FT football is a must. Tarting up the stadium just isn’t enough. I appreciate that you have energised the locals and increased your fan base but to go to that next level full time was required.

I 100% agree. There has not been a part-time team in the modern era that has stayed in the second tier longer than 5-6 seasons. Ourselves and Dumbarton are the only ones I think.

The question is though - do we want to put ourselves at financial risk for potentially little or no reward? Or are we happy yo-yoing between the second and fourth tiers? I know what most of our fans and probably the board would answer. I’m not sure which I favour either way.

Personally, I think that if we want to be regularly dining at the medium sized table then we need to at least look into it. Not necessarily now but in future if we get back up to the Championship, maybe we already have? Plenty of other teams of our size have managed it and you just have to look back at history to see that it really is a requirement to staying long-term at this level.

Oh and while we’re at it, and to add more controversy to the discussion, I would like to see us reinstate a youth team. It seems to be a requirement to joining the top 4 leagues and many much much smaller clubs have a youth setup, very extensive in some cases. I don’t live in the town but I understand there is some kind of loose affiliation with a local club so perhaps that’ll be enough?

Edited March 17 by Tattie36

[1320Lichtie]

No Arbroath fan has any delusions of grandeur or haven’t realised how amazing the last 3 seasons (before last and this) have been that’s absolute nonsense and simply completely untrue

 

I would also be hesitant in writing too many players off. Look how poor that Montrose team looks on paper and they’re flying in L1. 
 

The board and club have to start planning for next season. Who they want the manager to be (still think McIntyre has not really had a fair go at it) will be the biggest decision. Then after that the group of players we need to try and keep to build a new squad around. Have to say I’m not overly bothered about a lot of them. McKenna, Gold, Stewart are the main 3 I would say and ToB if he’s not completely broken by next season. Handful of solid guys already contracted and then others who could potentially be the same if we were to keep them eg Lyon.
 

The signings going forward, in the main a lot of them will have to be guys we want to be here for a sustained period of time. That’s how teams like us and Montrose to a lesser extent have done well. It’s a core of guys and team effort.  All the faces coming in and out over the last 2 year has absolutely fucked that and any togetherness and identity we had. 
 

No revisionism on DC either please. The guy had become toxic, we’d played the worst football I’d ever seen last season (actually played a lot of last season without a striker ffs, remember that ) and then this year he went and fully lost the plot. Was absolutely time to go and we’d be in this same position whether he was here or not.
 

 

Edited March 17 by 1320Lichtie

[SotesBornalichtie]

I said when the Campbells left that my gut feeling was that we would be relegated, irrespective of who the new manager would be. 

When McIntyre came in we had a few good results and he had the team playing good attacking football rather than the long boot it up the park and hope for the best that the Campbells played. Then followed a unprecedented series of injuries that we never recovered from. He has been forced to play makeshift sides with half fit players and players playing out of position against full time teams. Little wonder then that we are where we are.

To put all the blame for our position on McIntyre's shoulders is unjustified and my personal opinion is that he should continue as manager for the foreseeable future to give him the chance to build a team capable of pushing for promotion next season.

Realistically big name ex-players like Scott Brown, Duncan Ferguson etc have little or no interest in managing a small part time club where they cannot work with players every day.

[RedLichtie86]

1 hour ago, North Terrace Gazza said:

If you are really serious about being a permanent fixture in the championship then FT football is a must. Tarting up the stadium just isn’t enough. I appreciate that you have energised the locals and increased your fan base but to go to that next level full time was required.

FT is not a must IMO.

Getting the PT team squad balance correct is a must.

We went into this season with 3 defenders and another 1 injured until October. Far too many midfielders of a similar roles and generally not enough quality on the bench when key players dropped out.

With the budget limiting the squad to 20 players you need to make sure that whomever drops out is replaced with someone of near enough equal quality. But we started this season with about 8 or 9 first team quality players and the rest were not good enough. Lack of competition for places has led to complacency. And desperation forced situation where players played with injuries.

Lack of any youth/reserve team just adds to the problem of lack of competition (Lack of match fitness or potential recovery from injury), flexability on squad rotation (meaningless challenge cup games) or help cover for injuries or suspensions (this season as evident) 

A PT team can compete in this division if you setup correctly as proven by our first 3 seasons. But past 2 seasons we have been totally disjointed and are reaping the costs.