The Airdrieonians Off Season Thread 2015

[Tory Boy]

Hardly a comparison Crighton was that solid a centre half he was one of the first players out the door ,just as Ricky Lamie was a year ago because Bollan thought he was just a big raw laddie (he's doing not to bad for himself) lets just face the facts Bollans not interested in youth at all just as he was a Livingston

We've got seventeen players signed up for next season and eight of them are 21 or under.

What are you wanting, the whole bloody squad to be kids?

[Neilly]

Airdrieyin obviously has a laddie in the youth set up who in his eyes is the next big thing but in reality he will be released and end up on the bench for Sauchie.

Seen it aw before.

[Diamond8]

Airdrieyin obviously has a laddie in the youth set up who in his eyes is the next big thing but in reality he will be released and end up on the bench for Sauchie.

Seen it aw before.

This or he's just one of them that's never happy.

[kerrdavidson95]

Jimmy Boyle had us bottom of the league playing youth when he left. It took Bollan coming in and adding experienced players to get us out of that situation.

[Old Diamond]

We are going to win the league by 15 points.

[Diamond Oracle]

We are going to win the league by 15 points.

Setting yourself up for a fall there.

We'll only win by 10.

[Tulloch Gorum]

Good to see us getting the defence sorted out in advance - feeling optimistic about a good season. Oh dear...

[toms]

Sean is an excellent signing.

[WeeDiamond90]

I think Van Zanten and Crighton are really good signings and we actually have a fairly solid looking defence going into this season, well certainly in comparison to recent years.

Not having one word of this p*sh that Bollan isn't doing a good enough job because he isn't playing enough of the under 20's squad or should leave because we signed Lithgow! Also the people suggesting that Boyle did a better job seriously need admitting to some kind of facility.

Any free agents left out there that anyone would like to see at the club who could fill the right wing/ creative midfielder role? Would like to see McHugh back at the club if Lister isn't able to recover from his injury

[glesgadiamond]

I think Van Zanten and Crighton are really good signings and we actually have a fairly solid looking defence going into this season, well certainly in comparison to recent years.

Not having one word of this p*sh that Bollan isn't doing a good enough job because he isn't playing enough of the under 20's squad or should leave because we signed Lithgow! Also the people suggesting that Boyle did a better job seriously need admitting to some kind of facility.

Any free agents left out there that anyone would like to see at the club who could fill the right wing/ creative midfielder role? Would like to see McHugh back at the club if Lister isn't able to recover from his injury

Surely caolon mcaleer would be worth another shot? Dont think bollan would take him back after what happened last year though. Wouldnt mind him back looked lively when he played

[Tulloch Gorum]

He was a handy player, but we played with wingbacks (Bain and Boyle) rather than midfield wingers last season, and it seemed to work well enough. Granted Boyle's away now, of course.

[AirdrieoniansLAD]

Early moves to sort defence is a welcome difference to recent years. Might not follow the usual pattern of still trying to sort out a first 11 till about February and then go on a promotion charge

[kerrdavidson95]

Darren Barr anyone?

[RAPID BENANO]

Darren Barr anyone?

Would never ever ever come to Airdrie with our wages

[touchedbymadness]

Jimmy Boyle had us bottom of the league playing youth when he left. It took Bollan coming in and adding experienced players to get us out of that situation.

In fairness, Jimmy Boyle had a marginally better record going into October 2013 than Bollan had going into October 2014. His team consisted on let down veterans such as Martin Hardie, who led a dressing room mutiny to try to get himself the manager's job, Garry Hay who left after a month, Coult, Buchanan, McCormack, Sinclair and O'Brilliant who were utterly dreadful, Colin Stewart was a bombscare,as was his loan replacement from Rangers etc.

Both managers now have a track record of going in to the Winter months on a downer then making the short term adjustments. Was that their fault or was the man setting the budgets asking them to conduct mission impossible.

Boyle had a far better record bringing on youth. Bollan cost us £60K with Coogans. We turned down £80k from Celtic in Aug 2013 holding out for more, but we sold him 12 months later for only £20k, he played a grand total of around 60 mins for us in 2014, marginalised by the, ahem, free scoring Keegan f'n Porker. Sometimes it's better comparing apples with apples. I like what Bollan does at times though, he's good at recognising what the key areas of the team to make us solid. Regularly we lack a cutting edge with him though, the football can be turgid at best. Boyle's biggest failing was constantly playing Blockley in centre mid where he constantly left the defence exposed.

Onto this season's squad, we seem to be short of a natural left back. We have Bain, O'Neill and Van Zanten now. Does either play LB, or is O'Neill going to be criminally underused this season again? Will Bain be the right midfielder alongside Gilfillan, Fitzpartrick and Morton, with Watt and Stewart being back up midfielders? We only have Prunty and Richford signed up for up front? Lister remains a possibility, but going into the season with 2x mid 30s strikers is not a good place to be in. Cox is a coq from what i recall, so we still need someone lively. Hugh McBob did a great job at the end of last season and is the kind of striker we need to compliment Prunty's abilities with Richford and AN Other as back up.

[kerrdavidson95]

Very good, comprehensive post, but there is no way that Jimmy would've got us safe in 2013-14. His squad building was unforgivable and his lack of tactical knowledge was galling at times.

I'd also say that Parker was in the side to offer a lot more than goals. His movement would often create space for other players, this stems from his experience in the game which is what we needed to stay in the league. I'm not sure Coogans would be able to offer that.

On the same budget, and on paper, we had a competitive squad. It was a thorough learning curve for Bollan, last season, I'm sure, and I'm probably not the only one who hopes he doesn't repeat the same mistakes.

[airdrieman]

In fairness, Jimmy Boyle had a marginally better record going into October 2013 than Bollan had going into October 2014. His team consisted on let down veterans such as Martin Hardie, who led a dressing room mutiny to try to get himself the manager's job, Garry Hay who left after a month, Coult, Buchanan, McCormack, Sinclair and O'Brilliant who were utterly dreadful, Colin Stewart was a bombscare,as was his loan replacement from Rangers etc.

Both managers now have a track record of going in to the Winter months on a downer then making the short term adjustments. Was that their fault or was the man setting the budgets asking them to conduct mission impossible.

Boyle had a far better record bringing on youth. Bollan cost us £60K with Coogans. We turned down £80k from Celtic in Aug 2013 holding out for more, but we sold him 12 months later for only £20k, he played a grand total of around 60 mins for us in 2014, marginalised by the, ahem, free scoring Keegan f'n Porker. Sometimes it's better comparing apples with apples. I like what Bollan does at times though, he's good at recognising what the key areas of the team to make us solid. Regularly we lack a cutting edge with him though, the football can be turgid at best. Boyle's biggest failing was constantly playing Blockley in centre mid where he constantly left the defence exposed.

Onto this season's squad, we seem to be short of a natural left back. We have Bain, O'Neill and Van Zanten now. Does either play LB, or is O'Neill going to be criminally underused this season again? Will Bain be the right midfielder alongside Gilfillan, Fitzpartrick and Morton, with Watt and Stewart being back up midfielders? We only have Prunty and Richford signed up for up front? Lister remains a possibility, but going into the season with 2x mid 30s strikers is not a good place to be in. Cox is a coq from what i recall, so we still need someone lively. Hugh McBob did a great job at the end of last season and is the kind of striker we need to compliment Prunty's abilities with Richford and AN Other as back up.

Boyle has a woeful record compared to Bollan or just about anyone else. He was man in the charge when we got humped 7 - 2 and 7 - 0 by Rovers and Thistle and during our disastrous play - off final against Dumbarton, an awful signing record where his policy seemed to be he's a free agent - sign him up, got us relegated from the first division and had us regularly in the bottom two in this league. Bollan's not perfect but there is no comparison.

Bringing on youth - point has been addressed in earlier posts. While in hindsight it was a mistake to keep Coogans - it seems logical to keep a hold of him and try and sell him for more. Parker was an excellent footballer, as said above. I'm not convinced Coogans was better or would have been able to offer what he did.

The football may be "turgid" but generally it's effective - which is what counts. Lack of cutting edge - I'd probably agree with this to an extent but if the football is effective and we win games I'm not that bothered. In Bollan's first season in charge we had players in different positions who were able to score (e.g Buchanan). Hopefully this will be addressed and will be something that returns as it was a massive advantage to us.

As for this season's squad - it's still early so difficult to say. I really like O'Neil and would be happy for him to play LB although obviously a natural LB would be preferable. I'd imagine Bollan is currently looking to strengthen the midfield so it's uncertain who will be playing where just now. Would imagine Gilfillan and Fitzpatrick would be starters though. I agree that we need at least another couple of strikers. Hopefully Lister will sign up but we can't rely on him as much as we have done. Jury is still out on Cox while Richford is an unknown entity. Boyle is finished at this level. McHugh would be a brilliant signing but still think he will end up in the Championship.

[Tulloch Gorum]

. Lack of cutting edge - I'd probably agree with this to an extent but if the football is effective and we win games I'm not that bothered. In Bollan's first season in charge we had players in different positions who were able to score (e.g Buchanan). Hopefully this will be addressed and will be something that returns as it was a massive advantage to us.

We weren't that bad in that respect this season, either. Outside of the top three scorers (Prunty, Lister and Fraser), the following all scored more than one: Fitzpatrick (4), McHugh (4), Blockley (3), Bain (2), P. Boyle (2), Gasparotto (2), Parker (2). None of them prolific by any means, by that adds up to 19 goals - and given how mean our defence was once it was sorted out in the winter, that's not a bad figure. Gilfillan, Lindsay, Morton, Proctor and Watt got one each.

[Diamond Oracle]

It's good to have the skeleton of the team signed up before the end of June for once.

On the assumption Lister won't be back I have the team looking like:

Think we need a new forward, another winger and a creative midfielder (if such a thing exists at this level) - supplemented by u20s players and we'll have a good squad.

We'll inevitably pick up a couple of loan players once the season begins as well.

[Tulloch Gorum]

Because the season's over and I'm bored, I've looked at the importance of the goals scored by players outside our top three (Prunty, Lister, Fraser). Basically, how many points did we gain because of those goals - so I've excluded, for instance, the value of Blockley and Proctor scoring in the 4-0 win over Brechin, since without those we'd have taken the three points anyway because of Fraser and Lister. That's obviously a crude measure, since it glosses over the actual dynamic of the game, but it's an indication at any rate. I've also excluded games we lost.

So, the points total from games that we won or drew thanks to those scorers is 26, which from a total points haul of 58 is not negligible. The difference between the points we would have gained without those goals and the points we actually did gain is 22, which would have left us with a points total of 36. Even I can't be bothered running the figures for a reconfigured league table by changing all of those results, but it might have meant a rather nervous end to the season for us, since Ayr only got 34 and very nearly ended up in the playoff.

So, although the total number of goals scored outside out top three scorers wasn't all that high, the fact that they tended to be "useful" goals makes a big difference. With a solid enough defence, you can gain a lot of points from one goal here and there. Of course, we'd all rather win 3-0 than 1-0, but given a fairly limited squad with only so many goals in it, the fact that they didn't pile up many "spare" goals (Blockley's and Proctor's against Brechin being exceptions) is a good use of them. Bollan, in short, got a good return from these players, who provided valuable goals. They got a goal here or there, and the team was well enough organised that these gave us the points, since we didn't concede many. Especially given that Lister missed nine games at the end of the season, that's a pretty valuable thing to have. We accumulated 21 points in those nine games - not even Bryan Prunty can carry a team on his own for that long.