The Partick Thistle thread

[NavyBlueArmy1876]

19 hours ago, JagsCG said:

I think McDaid would be doing well to get a gig at any championship club these days let alone one that should be building a squad to challenge at the top. He was pretty atrocious  by all accounts with Falkirk in League 1, and barring a short run of decent form (ironically when he had been scheduled to join us on loan during the covid season) he was fairly uninspiring at Dundee. That said he might be doing well in LOI. 
 

I think Stephen O’Donnell will either stay as a squad player at Motherwell or another bottom-half Premiership club might take a punt on him so unlikely to return but would take him as a McMillan replacement. Would be pleased to sign McInroy permanently but not that bothered if we don’t. Wonder if Kevin Holt will get a contract extension at United presuming they get promoted? If not could have a few championship offers. 

 

Aye McDaid looked poor when he was with us but tbf he was playing with utter jobbers like Ben Hall, Brad McKay, Gary Miller, Steven Hetherington and Michael Ruth (none of whom could even perform basics such as running, tackling or heading the ball). He also only started 8 games and then got injured and sent back to Dundee in January

I've been to a couple of LOI matches over the years and although there are some good players scattered through the clubs, the overall standard is abysmal. Probably equivalent to the bottom of L1/ top of L2 here 

McDaid would be a poor signing for Thistle imo 

Edited April 19 by NavyBlueArmy1876

[Broken Algorithms]

31 minutes ago, oneteaminglasgow said:

Rovers also have all that “conservatory money” to spend, whereas we don’t. 

The only new addition we've had on that front since the summer has been John Potter. Everyone else was there before the new board took over.

Fwiw, if the "conservatory" money was that good, Daniel O'Reilly wouldn't have left us in January.

[Michael W]

40 minutes ago, oneteaminglasgow said:

Rovers also have all that “conservatory money” to spend, whereas we don’t. 

You outbid us for Dan O'Reilly and then left him on the bench before he got injured. This left us short in defence. 

A big part of the new board has been controlling costs. Indeed, the increase in backroom staff was my only real concern of the new regime, as this obviously must be paid for. What has been eliminated are the McGlynn contracts including automatic increases and the daft spending on some players, with a better focus on costs to prevent them spiralling. We had no money to bring players in at the start of last season as McGlynn screwed the budget with players receiving significant incresses, decimating available funds even with departures. There is a proper cost structure in place now to prevent this happening again. This seems like something that ought to be obvious and which we should've been doing anyway, but we weren't. 

[DiegoDiego]

1 hour ago, Michael W said:

What has been eliminated are the McGlynn contracts including automatic increases and the daft spending on some players, with a better focus on costs to prevent them spiralling. We had no money to bring players in at the start of last season as McGlynn screwed the budget with players receiving significant incresses, decimating available funds even with departures. There is a proper cost structure in place now to prevent this happening again. This seems like something that ought to be obvious and which we should've been doing anyway, but we weren't. 

I don't wish liquidation on them or anything, but if McGlynn took those financially irresponsible practices with him to Falkirk, I wouldn't be too unhappy.

[milhouse]

Coaching is important, but given that most "Sports Science" is complete quackery, I'd rather we spent money on trying to sign the best players we can.

The organisation should be as lean as possible in all areas to maximise money which can be spent on players.

Edited April 19 by milhouse

[BigMadMental]

5 minutes ago, milhouse said:

Coaching is important, but given that most "Sports Science" is complete quackery, I'd rather we spent money on trying to sign the best players we can.

The organisation should be as lean as possible in all areas to maximise money which can be spent on players.

If you sign the best players and don’t have the resources to look after them properly then you run into problems.

Team have struggled to finish 90mins strong all season and several players have pulled up with injuries which are linked to overuse. Lawless being the one who has come out worst. 

This is why we can’t get out the championship. 
 

 

[A Diamond For Me]

Take it for what it's worth - which is nothing - but I heard that we offered Daniel O' Reilly a deal (he was very good against us in the playoff), Raith offered significantly more than we could and Partick presumably offered him more than Raith.

[Nightmare]

7 minutes ago, BigMadMental said:

If you sign the best players and don’t have the resources to look after them properly then you run into problems.

Team have struggled to finish 90mins strong all season and several players have pulled up with injuries which are linked to overuse. Lawless being the one who has come out worst. 

This is why we can’t get out the championship. 
 

 

I'm not sure what the overall point to this prolonged rant is. Do you want us to start outspending Dundee United, Dundee or Kilmarnock to try and get out of the division?

You're talking about having a lack of squad depth due to resources, but also appear to also be suggesting that we should be sacrificing the size of squad to sign more coaches and sport scientists so that the players we do have will develop into better players or be less susceptible to injury. This seems a bit of a contradiction.

Now you're saying Lawless got injured due to overuse, but a few posts back you complimented Brian Graham for featuring so much at such a high level this season. Brian Graham is older than Lawless and has played just as many minutes, so what's your point there?

What are you actually suggesting? It feels like you're just howling into the abyss.

Edited April 19 by Nightmare

[Fuctifano]

Up until Adeloye and Lawless' injuries I don't think we'd been that bad for injuries this season, from Thistle Archive site we've played 42 competitive games so far and here's what each player has missed

Lawless : 1 (and counting obvs  )
Muirhead: 1 -and that was suspension
Stanway: 1
Fitz: 2
Graham: 2 - 1 of which was suspension
Milne : 2 - as Graham
Alston: 3- but hasn't missed a game since he signed as signed before the final LC Group game
Bannigan: 4
Neilson: 6- some of that would be international duty plus he didn't sign til after the LC group stages so not sure he's missed a game injured
McInroy- 7 - again he didn't sign til after the LC groups so 3 games injured at most

That's a reasonable core of guys who have missed next to no game time

Then we come to (list isn't comprehensive):

Williams: 11
Adeloye: 11
McMillan : 12- mostly at start of season IIRC
O'Reilly 12
Robinson : 17
Ngwenya: 20 (didn't sign until after LC )

Considering we had about a ten minute turnaround between last season finishing and this one starting, I think we've done OK to only have McMillan from last season's guys miss any significant time.

Robinson's recent career history is injury plagued and I don't know whether we took a punt on O'Reilly knowing he was injured but hope it would clear up sooner than it has.

The issue for me was that was had no depth in certain positions, one of which is now biting us severely with Lawless injury.

 

Edited April 19 by Fuctifano
misread Bannigan numbers

[BigMadMental]

1 minute ago, Nightmare said:

I'm not sure what the overall point to this prolonged rant is. Do you want us to start outspending Dundee United, Dundee or Kilmarnock to try and get out of the division?

You're talking about having a lack of squad depth due to resources, but also appear to also be suggesting that we should be sacrificing the size of squad to sign more coaches and sport scientists so that the players we do have will develop into better players or be less susceptible to injury. This seems a bit of a contradiction.

Now you're saying Lawless got injured due to overuse, but a few posts back you complimented Brian Graham for featuring so much at such a high level this season. Brian Graham is older than Lawless and has played just as many minutes, so what's your point there?

What are you actually suggesting? It feels just like howling into the abyss.

How is it a prolonged rant? Because I am replying to other people who have an opinion on it? 

Achillies injuries are commonly caused by overuse. The club were recruiting a lead physio and a sports scientist for months on end to no avail. 

I didn’t compliment Graham for playing at a high level. I pointed out that it’s obvious he is putting in extra graft in his own time and perhaps on his own dime while others may not be. Because the club can only offer so much in terms of educating players on how to look after their bodies? Isn’t that a fair point?

I’m not suggesting anything really. But the original point was around our skeleton back room staff and the impact that it has on the players.

Some people have the archaic view that this doesn’t matter and I don’t have that opinion, it’s as simple as that. 

Whether we have good players or not - we are skint and it shows. 

the actual original discussion was surrounding the fact that because of our lack of funds, and our lack of resources, we struggle to develop players a wee bit due to that. My simple point was that if we had more money available we might be able to invest a bit more in the back room side. 

 

[Nightmare]

2 minutes ago, BigMadMental said:

How is it a prolonged rant? Because I am replying to other people who have an opinion on it? 

Achillies injuries are commonly caused by overuse. The club were recruiting a lead physio and a sports scientist for months on end to no avail. 

I didn’t compliment Graham for playing at a high level. I pointed out that it’s obvious he is putting in extra graft in his own time and perhaps on his own dime while others may not be. Because the club can only offer so much in terms of educating players on how to look after their bodies? Isn’t that a fair point?

I’m not suggesting anything really. But the original point was around our skeleton back room staff and the impact that it has on the players.

Some people have the archaic view that this doesn’t matter and I don’t have that opinion, it’s as simple as that. 

Whether we have good players or not - we are skint and it shows. 

the actual original discussion was surrounding the fact that because of our lack of funds, and our lack of resources, we struggle to develop players a wee bit due to that. My simple point was that if we had more money available we might be able to invest a bit more in the back room side. 

 

Rant might have been a harsh word. "I'm not suggesting anything really." - fair enough, that's kind of all I was clarifying. Because it feels like this whole thing was going round in circles, and I didn't know if you had an actual suggestion as to how we could make better use of our resources, or if you were just... saying things to say them.

 

 

One thing I would argue is that I'm not sure the injury situation is anything other than bad luck. You get injury crises at all levels of football. Dunfermline in our division being a particular example of one this year, but even as far up the food chain as Liverpool. That's a club who I'd assume has a pretty state of the art setup in terms of training, sports science, etc and have still had to field plenty of youth players this season due to injuries. It's not like they have a lack of squad depth either.

So to suggest that Lawless got injured because he was overplayed and Graham is putting in graft in his own time because the club can't afford to train him properly is speculative at best. If we spent an extra £30k or whatever on a sports scientist this season, would it really have changed much? I doubt it.

[BigMadMental]

11 minutes ago, Nightmare said:

Rant might have been a harsh word. "I'm not suggesting anything really." - fair enough, that's kind of all I was clarifying. Because it feels like this whole thing was going round in circles, and I didn't know if you had an actual suggestion as to how we could make better use of our resources, or if you were just... saying things to say them.

 

 

One thing I would argue is that I'm not sure the injury situation is anything other than bad luck. You get injury crises at all levels of football. Dunfermline in our division being a particular example of one this year, but even as far up the food chain as Liverpool. That's a club who I'd assume has a pretty state of the art setup in terms of training, sports science, etc and have still had to field plenty of youth players this season due to injuries. It's not like they have a lack of squad depth either.

So to suggest that Lawless got injured because he was overplayed and Graham is putting in graft in his own time because the club can't afford to train him properly is speculative at best. If we spent an extra £30k or whatever on a sports scientist this season, would it really have changed much? I doubt it.

I think some professional Advisory on how the training is structured is probably something the club would benefit from. This is probably happening but at what level, I don’t know. Unfortunately this does cost ££

while they were both players, Doolan and McDonald themselves really might not have the experience or know how. I’m not suggesting they are running the players into the ground. But ultimately this is their first venture into management and had been largely asssociated with training youths prior to this, which is completely different.

the point around Lawless overuse injury wouldn’t strictly be because he played too much. Has he trained too much? Trained too little? Does he do too much close to a game? Not enough recovery after a game? That sort of thing. 
 

there was a rumour that he was injured and playing with it but not training, and saving himself for games? Muirhead playing through an injury too apparently? So it seems like an area that needs work.

You’re right that injuries are bad luck and happen to all teams. One thing ringing around firhill a lot this season has been the fitness levels and that the team seem to tail off.

some people prefer to rant at doolan about his subs or his tactics but I suppose I like to look at this stuff more and have a bit of an interest in it.

we have come up against some right fit teams this season. Livingston looked like they could have played another 90mins against us at full pelt. It would be good if we could say that about ourselves. 

 

Edited April 19 by BigMadMental

[third lanark]

3 hours ago, Michael W said:

You outbid us for Dan O'Reilly and then left him on the bench before he got injured. This left us short in defence. 

A big part of the new board has been controlling costs. Indeed, the increase in backroom staff was my only real concern of the new regime, as this obviously must be paid for. What has been eliminated are the McGlynn contracts including automatic increases and the daft spending on some players, with a better focus on costs to prevent them spiralling. We had no money to bring players in at the start of last season as McGlynn screwed the budget with players receiving significant incresses, decimating available funds even with departures. There is a proper cost structure in place now to prevent this happening again. This seems like something that ought to be obvious and which we should've been doing anyway, but we weren't. 

How many times- we didn’t outbid you for o Reilly- you only offered him 6 months while we offered him 18 months and he lives in Glasgow.

 

You had the funds to easily replace him with Ashcroft despite a number of other clubs seeking him.

rather bizarrely however both o Reilly and Ashcroft immediately picked up injuries and have barely played for their new clubs 

[third lanark]

3 hours ago, Broken Algorithms said:

The only new addition we've had on that front since the summer has been John Potter. Everyone else was there before the new board took over.

Fwiw, if the "conservatory" money was that good, Daniel O'Reilly wouldn't have left us in January.

He would as you know because he was only offered a 6 month deal- no travelling since he stays in Glasgow and an 18 month deal.  We do not have the funds this year to outbid raith.  Last season etc certainly but not this season we can’t match you in terms of wages

[third lanark]

45 minutes ago, Nightmare said:

Rant might have been a harsh word. "I'm not suggesting anything really." - fair enough, that's kind of all I was clarifying. Because it feels like this whole thing was going round in circles, and I didn't know if you had an actual suggestion as to how we could make better use of our resources, or if you were just... saying things to say them.

 

 

One thing I would argue is that I'm not sure the injury situation is anything other than bad luck. You get injury crises at all levels of football. Dunfermline in our division being a particular example of one this year, but even as far up the food chain as Liverpool. That's a club who I'd assume has a pretty state of the art setup in terms of training, sports science, etc and have still had to field plenty of youth players this season due to injuries. It's not like they have a lack of squad depth either.

So to suggest that Lawless got injured because he was overplayed and Graham is putting in graft in his own time because the club can't afford to train him properly is speculative at best. If we spent an extra £30k or whatever on a sports scientist this season, would it really have changed much? I doubt it.

We had sports scientists in during the Archie era- however we still picked up significant injuries 

[oneteaminglasgow]

There’ll be guys playing at absolutely every level of football carrying knocks or injuries. I distinctly remember Aymeric Laporte talking about playing through injury a couple of years ago because Man City had a few other centre halves out at the time, so it seems it’s just part of the game. I don’t think you can, therefore, criticise us for it.

I honestly don’t think I’ve seen a game where I’ve thought this team is noticeably fitter than we are. That’s not to say that there aren’t improvements that could be made - of course there are - but i don’t think it’s an area where we’re particularly lagging behind.

On O’Reilly, I was also under the impression that we just offered a longer deal than Raith. We may also have offered him more money, I don’t know, but I also believe that if Raith wanted to match our offer, they could have. 

[Broken Algorithms]

Just now, third lanark said:

He would as you know because he was only offered a 6 month deal- no travelling since he stays in Glasgow and an 18 month deal.  We do not have the funds this year to outbid raith.  Last season etc certainly but not this season we can’t match you in terms of wages

 

1 minute ago, oneteaminglasgow said:

 

On O’Reilly, I was also under the impression that we just offered a longer deal than Raith. We may also have offered him more money, I don’t know, but I also believe that if Raith wanted to match our offer, they could have. 

I know for certain he's on more money at Partick compared to ourselves. The longer term deal will have influenced things, but he got offered more money by Partick than the did by ourselves in January. I'm not going to claim we're a charity case or that our budget won't have improved compared to last season, but we're nowhere near a situation where players won't weigh up their options.

O'Reilly found himself in a position where he signed for us on a short term deal and his value grew due to circumstance. He was well within his rights to push up the money he was on. He was out the game for a wee period of time and that will have had an impact. 

Ashcroft had offers from other clubs both at our level and from the top flight. He was going to sign for Dunfermline but changed his mind at the last moment. 

[jagsfan57]

1 hour ago, A Diamond For Me said:

Take it for what it's worth - which is nothing - but I heard that we offered Daniel O' Reilly a deal (he was very good against us in the playoff), Raith offered significantly more than we could and Partick presumably offered him more than Raith.

I am not sure we offered more than Raith - just a longer deal.

[Michael W]

19 minutes ago, third lanark said:

How many times- we didn’t outbid you for o Reilly- you only offered him 6 months while we offered him 18 months and he lives in Glasgow.

 

You had the funds to easily replace him with Ashcroft despite a number of other clubs seeking him.

rather bizarrely however both o Reilly and Ashcroft immediately picked up injuries and have barely played for their new clubs 

To be fair, Partick also offered him more money than we did, in addition to the longer contract. We got him on a fairly cheap deal on the basis he didn't have a club at the time, but on a wage which was a lot less than he'd be earning at Hamilton.

A fair point on Lee Ashcroft, although this did involve Dan O'Reilly's wage being freed up and a couple of other players on admittedly smaller wages leaving the club - one on loan but one permanently. Similarly, Zak Rudden was part-paid by Jamie Gullan (one of our highest earners) being sold. That looked a fantastic piece of business, but unfortunately it backfired. 

[Claudia Gentile]

21 minutes ago, Broken Algorithms said:

 

I know for certain he's on more money at Partick compared to ourselves. The longer term deal will have influenced things, but he got offered more money by Partick than the did by ourselves in January. I'm not going to claim we're a charity case or that our budget won't have improved compared to last season, but we're nowhere near a situation where players won't weigh up their options.

O'Reilly found himself in a position where he signed for us on a short term deal and his value grew due to circumstance. He was well within his rights to push up the money he was on. He was out the game for a wee period of time and that will have had an impact. 

Ashcroft had offers from other clubs both at our level and from the top flight. He was going to sign for Dunfermline but changed his mind at the last moment. 

Seriously, the amounts wouldn't be much different. Raith and others  offered Aero Muirhead more money than he is on at Firhill. However for all the difference in money other aspects came into play.

Either way it hasn't worked out for anyone. He has barely played for us and the guy tlyou got from Dundee was injured shortly after joining.

Neither I feel are down to training or facilities available by the way @BigMadMental.

I was up where the team train sometimes this morning and we had about 20 out-fielders with a fitness coach. The manager and assistant were they too. The players also are monitored and filmed at times because we do have analysts working on various aspects of the data collected.

Edited April 19 by Claudia Gentile