Airdrieonians Off Season Thread 2016

[Cooper81]

2 hours ago, AFC1878 said:

I'd like to know how much of an influence the Ballantynes still have at the club, and what kind of relationship they have with Wotherspoon. They're still on the board and Jim is vice-chairman so they must have some sort of input.  

There must be growing concern within the Ballantyne family about the way the club is being run. Wotherspoon is majority shareholder, but does that give him the right to run the club entirely as he sees fit?

Is he consulting Jim and the board of directors on any decisions being made at the club or is he just doing his own thing? 

I can't se the Ballantynes wanting to bring in Dalziel to overlook the football operations  previously in the past the Ballantynes have put their trust in the managers and let them get on with it and in fairness maybe bar sandy stewart the Ballantynes have been very loyal to their managers where as Wotherspoon couldn't wait to get Bollan out the door and now is undermining McBride.

[Wasps1]

If you appoint a manager then you must allow him to manage 

Am sure over time it will work out but it's the damage that it does in the mean time 

Take it he is bank roiling the whole lot as the ballantynes seem to have taken there money and run 

The board meetings must be a exciting times 

Its going to be a long season for yous

[Afc01]

You can see what the chairman and ewb have come into the club and tried to do with their vision and plan. Unfortunately for them they didn't realise it was league 1 in Scotland that we are in, where you need some good experienced (been there done it) pros. They want a certain style of play that we will never change from and also bring thru our u20 team. It would have to be barcelonas u20 team for this plan to work cos our u20s are crap beyond belief. So where do we go now? Stay full time in a crap league throwing money at dross players or go back to being a traditional, normal league 1 team who missed the playoffs by a point last year, and that was with the team getting severely messed about with that cost us. I am struggling for any positives. 

[Bring Your Own Socks]

20 minutes ago, Afc01 said:

 I am struggling for any positives. 

You're playing QP at home next week

[She who dares gins]

The minute TW appointed King and EWB, I had serious concerns that he had no clue how to run a football club. Nothing I've seen so far has changed my mind.

So many people threw their support behind it lock, stock and barrel after hearing them spout their philosophy. It's league one for goodness sake. Get a manager who get a decent part time squad in a get us organised!

They tore us cautious types to pieces. Not such smarta*ses now.

[Airdrie76]

1 hour ago, Wasps1 said:

If you appoint a manager then you must allow him to manage 

Am sure over time it will work out but it's the damage that it does in the mean time 

Take it he is bank roiling the whole lot as the ballantynes seem to have taken there money and run 

The board meetings must be a exciting times 

Its going to be a long season for yous

Still going I see. Your interactions with Cooper81 are a delight to read  

Anyway, the Ballantynes are still there. Although granted won't be putting anything or much in. 

[cb_diamond]

4 minutes ago, She who dares gins said:

The minute TW appointed King and EWB, I had serious concerns that he had no clue how to run a football club. Nothing I've seen so far has changed my mind.

So many people threw their support behind it lock, stock and barrel and tore us cautious types to pieces. Not such smarta*ses now.

To be completely fair, most people threw their lot behind TW and the idea of full time and challenging at the right end of the league (which neither players nor managers have managed  for several seasons). I can't remember a single positive comment about EWBs appointment and plenty of sceptical people about IK.

[She who dares gins]

To be completely fair, most people threw their lot behind TW and the idea of full time and challenging at the right end of the league (which neither players nor managers have managed  for several seasons). I can't remember a single positive comment about EWBs appointment and plenty of sceptical people about IK.

Clearly I'm not most people then!

[Guest LonglivetheKING]

EWB in the interview says he still has a football brain and watches games every week.  

So why cant he fix our problems?

 

[carlukediamond]

He hasn't been able to bring in expierenced assistant.

Isn't allowed any loan signings or part time players ( though we have scullion on loan from hamilton)

Do i feel the club have gave 100% backing to McBride no chance and is being made the fall guy. The chairman said no loan signings why do we have scullion on loan then. The chairman said no part time players. The chairman agreeded the contract of Hugo on a 2 year deal and also appointed KIng which was a very bad appoitment. 

 

What have you got with part time and loan signings, full-time generally means no part time players. Having part time players doesn't work with a full time setup. As for the loan signings, tw has obviously thought the squad would be better placed so no loan signings would be required.

The squad is in the state it is because of Ian king, he's signed faria. Tw thought he could trust king with contract negotiations but we all know what happened. So an inexperienced manager trying to sign players isn't ideal

McBride has to shoulder the blame he's picking a team to fit ewb philosophy and its not working, he has to play his own system one that suits. He should have had the balls to say it's my way or no way.

[carlukediamond]

I can't se the Ballantynes wanting to bring in Dalziel to overlook the football operations  previously in the past the Ballantynes have put their trust in the managers and let them get on with it and in fairness maybe bar sandy stewart the Ballantynes have been very loyal to their managers where as Wotherspoon couldn't wait to get Bollan out the door and now is undermining McBride.

The balantynes will still be wanting the club to succeed, so why wouldn't they want someone in to try and sort out the football side of things. They still have money invested in the club so they will want the best. Wether it's dalziel / Danny Lennon or another scenario it remains to be seen what will happen.

[carlukediamond]

EWB in the interview says he still has a football brain and watches games every week.  

So why cant he fix our problems?

 

Because there aren't the players to play the preferred system, I am sure ewb would have wanted some of the players that king stalled on contracts.

[Cooper81]

31 minutes ago, carlukediamond said:

 

What have you got with part time and loan signings, full-time generally means no part time players. Having part time players doesn't work with a full time setup. As for the loan signings, tw has obviously thought the squad would be better placed so no loan signings would be required.

The squad is in the state it is because of Ian king, he's signed faria. Tw thought he could trust king with contract negotiations but we all know what happened. So an inexperienced manager trying to sign players isn't ideal

McBride has to shoulder the blame he's picking a team to fit ewb philosophy and its not working, he has to play his own system one that suits. He should have had the balls to say it's my way or no way.






 

 

What have i got with part time and loan signings.... look at our bench last night it was pretty weak.....some fans have suggested playing Scott Stewart in centre midfield but we can't as who will fill in at right back. I look at what has worked for airdrie in the past in the late 80s 90s when airdrie did well. The squad was made up of decent full time players but backed up with strong part time players. What is the point in having average footballer full time when you could potentially have two good part time players on the same wage and the two part time players will have more of impact. We have a core of good full time footballers in Stewart, Conroy, Russell, Ryan, if we had signed 3 good part time players and one or two good loan signings i dont believe we would be in the mess we are in. 

[diegomarahenry]

I would be concerned with Daziel taking a wage in exchange for any knowledge he could pass on. Apart from spending well in to 7 figures on players and not threatening to enter the premier league, he changed assistant manager every time we hit a slump, Ally Dawson, Mick Oliver, Frank Conner, Ian Monroe, Campbell Money. Managed to fall out with most of our forwards and turned up "tired and emotional" to a daily record fans forum then insulted the fans forgetting he was mic'ed up.

I wouldn't with that clown on any team, even Airdrie

[Cooper81]

I don't understand why our chairman just keeps it simple and look at what works for other clubs. Young at Albion Rovers was inexpierenced manager one of the the first things the Rovers allowed him was to find expierenced assistant in Stark. McBride in my oppinon should have been able to go out and find expierenced assistant. Jennow does video annalyis and Goram coaches the goalkeepers. TW has made alot of decisions and a lot of bad decisions and he shouldn't be excuseable just because he is the chairman, and the blame cannot all be put on McBride. The chairman at the beginning of this season should either have had expierenced manager in or inexpierenced manager with expierenced assistant. The manager regardless should decide whether we can sign loan players or not as the buck allways stops with the manager. The chairman also made a poor decision bringing Dalziel in just within matter of days before  the match why wasnt this done much sooner as we didnt have a game for two weeks, that way the management and the players would have known the clubs plans rather than bringing out uncertanity and rumours amongst the fans of what is going on. The same fans shouting at McBride last night should also be looking at the chairman who for me so far is getting of very lightly.

[DestroyedByMadness]

Where to start with yesterday's shitshow?

I certainly liked the 442 shape better but as the 1st half played out it was obvious we weren't creating enough.   The most obvious flaw was Fitzpatrick being played too high in the midfield with Conroy totally ineffective wide left.  For me, the obvious solution at h/t was to swap Conroy and Fitzpatrick to get Conroy's passing ability on the ball.

At that stage Gorman was marshalling the defence very well.  He actually seemed to have Stewart and Boateng defending better than normal with his leadership.

But in the 2nd half we changed it to a 3 with the players in centre mid takimg turns at sitting deep.

We lost our defensive compactness.

The 3 goals we lost were all a farce.   The first was a poorly defended corner.  Gorman went for it and missed.   Boateng was marking the scorer but failed to challenge (like he has repeatedly done),  and Rohan has really fucked up too.    The second was another frustrating goal.   The age old mantra for defensive headers under pressure are to get the ball away high, far and wide but for some reason Boateng repeatedly heads the ball short and down in front of him.   Conroy couldnt get the 2nd ball and we had Fitzpatrick, Leitch and the wingers high up the park, and our exposed defence was easily carved open by a quick theough ball.  The 3rd was a complete f**k up by Gorman but with sevonds remaining I'm still wondering why the ball was going backwards to him?

I can't figure where to start dissecting the utter horror show.   This is the second season that's been ruined under Wotherspoon's short regime but incredibly we're still not out of either the title race or play offs.   But we're not doing it with those players of tactics.

McBride's running of the bad hand he's been dealt has been poor.   He only has a handful of capable players at his disposal to start with.   Ryan, Stewart, Conroy, Leitch and Russell are a good start for any squad.   But the young goalie needs a break playing behind that defence.   MacDonald is possibly the worst defender since Gary Ogilvie.   Boateng is utterly horrendous too.   Mistake after mistake after mistake.   And we just can't seem to help ourselves with Fitzpatrick.   He was on here a few weeks ago saying his best position was sitting in front of back four but he was away like a headless chicken again yesterday.   And Brown has contributed nothing for 2 months now.

The least I'm expecting from the manager is to make good use of the resources he has available and I'm not sure he's doing that.    We've got to be hard to beat firstly and he voluntarily opened us up yesterday.

But that's the least of our problems.    Just who the f**k put this squad together?    TW said when he sacked (allegedly) his "mucker" "Kingy" that he was taking charge.   Yes, the guy who sold us Sumsky and Faria.   

Yesterday we were without our 2 under20 goalies (Kerr and Kinvig).  What happens if there's an injury to Rohan, we're down to our 17s goalie?

The last thing we need is another of TW's advisor Colin McGowan inspired "muckers" coming in to overhaul our operations.   McBride's comments tell me all I need to know about interference.  Dalziel was a manager at Raith when McGowan was a director there.    

Just what is happening at our club?

[Diamonds are Forever]

We seem to change formation at least once during every single match. Not only that we constantly have players switching positions within these formations. This is fine if you are Barcelona, you can call 'fluidity' and everyone thinks it's amazing. I'm afraid at this level with these players it just leads to a shambles, confusion and absolutely no accountability. Surely the biggest advantage of being full-time is that you have more time than anyone else to pick a system, a starting 11 and then drill them on it day after day. Build relationships and understanding all over the park, everyone knows where everyone should be and there is clear accountability if they are not. We have none of that, every 10 minutes we have players switching positions so no-one knows what is going on and when we lose a goal everyone just shrugs their shoulders, looks confused and nothing gets learned.

[carlukediamond]

I don't understand why our chairman just keeps it simple and look at what works for other clubs. Young at Albion Rovers was inexpierenced manager one of the the first things the Rovers allowed him was to find expierenced assistant in Stark. McBride in my oppinon should have been able to go out and find expierenced assistant. Jennow does video annalyis and Goram coaches the goalkeepers. TW has made alot of decisions and a lot of bad decisions and he shouldn't be excuseable just because he is the chairman, and the blame cannot all be put on McBride. The chairman at the beginning of this season should either have had expierenced manager in or inexpierenced manager with expierenced assistant. The manager regardless should decide whether we can sign loan players or not as the buck allways stops with the manager. The chairman also made a poor decision bringing Dalziel in just within matter of days before  the match why wasnt this done much sooner as we didnt have a game for two weeks, that way the management and the players would have known the clubs plans rather than bringing out uncertanity and rumours amongst the fans of what is going on. The same fans shouting at McBride last night should also be looking at the chairman who for me so far is getting of very lightly.

McBride needs to have the balls to stand up to the challenge or accept its not working and walk. If he's going in and can't see it's not working then that's the problem more than tw bringing in dalziel. After we went 1 up yesterday he changed the formation and lost 2 goals, is that down to McBride or the chairman. Granted tw has ultimately signed of on deals etc but it's McBrides team allegedly. Buck stops with him.

[waysider]

I was one of the people who welcomed TW into the club. I plead guilty and offer no apologies. The club had been stagnating. The Ballantyne family had saved the club but either had no more money to spend or decided not to spend any more. I offer no criticism of them for that. Along came TW who tried to make things happen. The fact that things have not paid off is a combination of bad luck, bad decision making by a number of people and possibly bad judgement by TW himself.

Obviously TW is trying to do something about it although most of us (myself included) have little faith in the person he has chosen.

Time will tell but even although the product on the park is deteriorating I hope at least some of the fans will stay with it. I for one would rather we tried and failed than continue the way things were. I would welcome another Q and A so that the fans can have a say and hopefully get an insight as to a possible way forward.

 

[Cooper81]

1 hour ago, carlukediamond said:

 

McBride needs to have the balls to stand up to the challenge or accept its not working and walk. If he's going in and can't see it's not working then that's the problem more than tw bringing in dalziel. After we went 1 up yesterday he changed the formation and lost 2 goals, is that down to McBride or the chairman. Granted tw has ultimately signed of on deals etc but it's McBrides team allegedly. Buck stops with him.

 

I don't blame McBride for the goals we lost i blame the players. You can set up allmost any formation and training throughout the week you like but you will lose matches defending like we did no matter the formation or training as some of is it very basic specifically the first goal.  When i was watching the game in first half it was a scrappy game and for us to win it we required a decent defensive performance. I wouldn't have started Fitzpatrick who isn't doing enough for me however you will struggle to find any two people who will agree with lines up and formations.

Goal 1- Boetang stood still and didnt challange for the header. ( not acceptable)

Goal 2- Neither Gorman or McDonald followed McCallisters run.

Goal 3- Gorman played a bad pass in a dangerous area which cost us the 3rd goal.