Gianfranco Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 It’s a shame they never qualified for the World Cup. I was looking for a team to support at it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim McLean's Ghost Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 Cedric called up to replace Yaya Toure. A clear upgrade for Ivory Coast. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Brightside Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 Sum boi 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swello Posted March 21, 2018 Share Posted March 21, 2018 4 hours ago, capt_oats said: On a training related tip, are they usually in on the first week of international breaks or are they getting more of an opportunity to break each other because they bloody love it. Also...there he is lads. What an image. Elliot Frear must wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat when it's training the next day - look at the size of the wee chap 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YassinMoutaouakil Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 Fight club > footgolf 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Grimes Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43492302 Classy article 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swello Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 20 minutes ago, Frank Grimes said: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43492302 Classy article Yeh - my heart sank when I saw the headlines in the Tabs about "dream moves", etc - but he comes over very well in that interview (I assume the reason it's come back up is that the press in NI have been asking about it). He's a prime age for a keeper now and if he gets capped as well as finishing the season strong with us, I'd imagine that he'll get the kind of move he wants/deserves. I've probably said it before - but I'm still amazed that a keeper that good was kicking around the depths of English football. It's not even as if we had to do a "repair job" on him - he's been good since day one.... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 (edited) 47 minutes ago, Frank Grimes said: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43492302 Classy article He covers quite a lot of that in more depth in the excellent long read by Scott Mullen in the Evening Times that @Swello linked to the other day. I still have my doubts as to how serious the interest was from Celtic. Given the circumstances with the Gordon injury and how quickly the window was closing I always felt it more likely that Carson was just one of a number of 'keepers they enquired about and they were working to a budget for a 3rd choice goalkeeper anyway which is presumably why they baulked and quickly moved on when we quoted a price (and rightly so as they got Bain in for free and he's pretty firmly in the "does a job" category). In honesty, Carson deserves a "big" move but he deserves to get a move to a club where he'll be viewed as a first choice rather than just a stop gap. Carson kind of alludes to that himself in the Times piece: Quote "“My Granda is always the pessimist and said ‘what if you don’t play and you’re not the character to sit on the bench’. You think fair enough but you have to back yourself. My Granda would have been gutted if I went and sat on the bench, so he’s delighted I stayed where I was." One of the most interesting parts is that he reiterates the "platform" aspect of Motherwell and Scottish football: Quote “The manager [Stephen Robinson] sold it to me for a platform,” said Carson. “I’ve done well over the last four or five years wherever I’ve been. I was speaking to Michael McGovern the other day and he said ‘you’re flying up there’ and I just told him I’m not doing any better than I was before. It’s just the platform. If you do well you are in the spotlight all the time. This is something that Burrows and Robinson have been saying consistently and it's a key part of "the model" and how we sell the club to players. While it stands to reason to an extent it's really interesting to hear Carson articulating that as he does. Essentially saying that he's someone who's been consistent in the English lower leagues with barely any recognition but 6 months up here and his profile has increased more than it had in 5 years in the English lower leagues. Add that to the Kipré call up and I'd hope that the club will be absolutely rinsing it in their pitches to potential recruits ahead of the summer window. Johnson, Heneghan and Moult have all got moves off the back of their time here while Kipré and Carson have now had international call ups. All these pieces are validations of "the strategy" tbqh. Edited March 22, 2018 by capt_oats 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 (edited) 1 hour ago, Swello said: Yeh - my heart sank when I saw the headlines in the Tabs about "dream moves", etc - but he comes over very well in that interview (I assume the reason it's come back up is that the press in NI have been asking about it). He's a prime age for a keeper now and if he gets capped as well as finishing the season strong with us, I'd imagine that he'll get the kind of move he wants/deserves. I've probably said it before - but I'm still amazed that a keeper that good was kicking around the depths of English football. It's not even as if we had to do a "repair job" on him - he's been good since day one.... 100%. It's probably quite a timely reminder that last season we gave Craig Samson the gloves seemingly on the basis that he was still hanging around rather than looking for a new goalkeeper. In a broader sense while there's been seethe from certain sections of our support that's ranged from quiet mutters to full blown heads gone about the general transfer policy and us picking up "jobbers" from the lower leagues and reserve sides in England (and it's a fair enough criticism when you're looking selectively at Laing, Kennedy, Fletcher, Robinson, Taylor, Blyth, Clay, Lucas et al) this season's highlighted the value that definitely exists in that market. It's just a case of having the staff in place to make the most of it. That's especially true in terms of the "why don't we sign from the lower leagues in Scotland" argument, can anyone honestly say that if there was a goalkeeper like Carson kicking about the seaside leagues we wouldn't be aware of him (and that we wouldn't be priced out the market even if we were aware)? We paid £10k for Carson...plus a % of any sale granted but still, £10k... While Carson was rated by Hartlepool fans it's worth pointing out that Main, Aldred, Hartley and Dunne all arrived at the club to less than stellar reviews from fans of their previous clubs. Each of them would be fairly reasonably fall into the "success" bracket". For me it doesn't really matter what league we're recruiting players from as long as they're the right players. I've said it before but there should be credit here to Robinson and the scouting staff since even the players we've signed this season who have perhaps underwhelmed have still offered more than some of those brought in under McGhee's watch last season. It should be taken as evidence that the league we're recruiting from only tells part of the story having a manager who has a clear idea of what he wants and an genuine awareness of who's available with a scouting network to facilitate that is huge. Edited March 22, 2018 by capt_oats 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YassinMoutaouakil Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 Kolo Toure is Ivory Coast assistant manager. Hope Cedric continues his policy of bodying anybody with Celtic connections. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 Kipré appeal upheld. To the surprise of no one. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swello Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 I'm more frustrated than happy TBH - a decent game totally ruined by a woeful referee and two potential points down the drain for us. Has happened too often this season. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YassinMoutaouakil Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 Not that the SFA would give a f**k, but we've surely got a pretty good case that Thompson should never referee us again. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swello Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 (edited) He probably won't anyway as he'll no doubt be given top 6 games and unless we are in the Cup Final and he's given that - it was probably his last time refereeing us (assuming all this chat about him retiring is true). He's clearly spent his last season as a referee carrying out a twisted vandetta against us for reasons that we'll never know. Or he's just a shite referee Edited March 22, 2018 by Swello 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 (edited) Wee video on fan ownership 1 year on posted via Supporters Direct Scotland. Given I was posting earlier about how things seem a lot more together with Robinson in terms of recruitment along with the platform the club is providing players and the fact that we've been consistently able to kb offers that in years gone by we'd probably have been expected to roll over for it's probably worth acknowledging the fact that while it's still clearly a work in progress the fan ownership model seems increasingly viable for us. Edited March 22, 2018 by capt_oats 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 Friendly reminder that some folk were raging we gave him a year extension on his contract a couple of months after he signed his initial deal. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swello Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 1 hour ago, capt_oats said: some folk were raging we gave him a year extension To be fair, it was just one folk Clearly, some players have got the potential to play at a properly high level and most don't - Kipre is definitely in the former category. He's made some pretty big mistakes this season and had some off games - but I think most people that have watched his general play this season can see that there is a really good player there. At 21 and with less than 50 first team appearances in his career, he's already better than tons of defenders that we've had over the years and I think he'll only get better. It all remains to be seen but I'm guessing that the early contract extension might be one of the best pieces of business we've (ever) done. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted March 22, 2018 Share Posted March 22, 2018 (edited) 30 minutes ago, Swello said: To be fair, it was just one folk Clearly, some players have got the potential to play at a properly high level and most don't - Kipre is definitely in the former category. He's made some pretty big mistakes this season and had some off games - but I think most people that have watched his general play this season can see that there is a really good player there. At 21 and with less than 50 first team appearances in his career, he's already better than tons of defenders that we've had over the years and I think he'll only get better. It all remains to be seen but I'm guessing that the early contract extension might be one of the best pieces of business we've (ever) done. On this point, massive props to the club for using a 14 second video to not only promote the player to their own fanbase but basically advertise the player, complete with impressive stats to pretty much every club, analyst, scout, journalist and agent that follows their socials account at exactly the point at which the player is quite high profile with the Ivory Coast call up (and the rescinding of the red card). We've said for years that the club need to be smarter at talking up their "sellable assets" they're really doing it just now and not in a crass way either. Not only that they're tagging accounts like SPFLRadar etc to widen their own reach. The socials game from the club is absolutely on point right now, they seem to have found a nice identity with their #content that sits nicely with what the image they're trying to project. The fact they're reaching out and tagging other online outlets is interesting as well. That sort of engagement isn't something that I've really noticed other clubs doing so far. Edited March 22, 2018 by capt_oats 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antiochas III Posted March 23, 2018 Share Posted March 23, 2018 (edited) Tbf they kind of had to tag SPFLRadar as it was his work they were quoting but I get what you mean. The Media side of the is night and day from a few years ago. Edited March 23, 2018 by Antiochas III 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
well fan for life Posted March 23, 2018 Share Posted March 23, 2018 We are quite clearly looking for a big bid for Kipré in the summer, but the way the club is going about it is clever. International call up, stats to back it up. I think people occasionally forget that a year ago he had never played a game of professional football. He’s undoubtedly got the attributes to play at a high level. I just hope we get to see the big man hammer home a header and go tonto before the season is out. Edit: I see Ciftci and Kipré were at the Edinburgh City game. Fully invested in a sitcom of those two. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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