Handsome_Devil Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 Just now, capt_oats said: One from the **** Academy. Next Big Thing sort but not really. IIRC was on loan at Hearts last season but bumped back to them halfway through the season. Certainly looked skillful at times, I would be surprised if he doesn't eventually turn into a solid enough top-flight player. Less convinced he'll do so instantly mind. If there were such a market, i would still be putting a cheeky tenner on Stevie Mallan. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busta Nut Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 19 minutes ago, capt_oats said: One from the **** Academy. Next Big Thing sort but not really. IIRC was on loan at Hearts last season but bumped back to them halfway through the season. Ah yeah I remember him being at Hearts now. I am not sure he did anything for Hearts. If he's on the radar then hopefully does us a turn 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MurrayWell Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 9 minutes ago, Busta Nut said: Ah yeah I remember him being at Hearts now. I am not sure he did anything for Hearts. If he's on the radar then hopefully does us a turn Think he started off okay with them, then fell away. Not sure he's the hardest worker based on the opinions of a couple of Jambos I know. I see Devine has also been told to find a new club, just in case anyone wants to start another right-back rumour. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaag97 Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 (edited) Whilst I don’t have huge amounts of optimism around this team (no change from last season) - I’m reasonably confident that we’re good enough to avoid the relegation scrap - and potentially a wee bit more if we can sort out our ability to get the ball in the pokey. that said - I don’t think this squad is currently good enough to be challenging for top six - and that 7th-10th season doesn’t give a lot of excitement either up or down. Feels so far, like it’s going to be a pretty vanilla season. Edited August 8 by Gaag97 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neil86 Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 45 minutes ago, capt_oats said: One from the **** Academy. Next Big Thing sort but not really. IIRC was on loan at Hearts last season but bumped back to them halfway through the season. Aye, pretty much. Bags of potential/talent but for whatever reason just hasn’t happened. Think he can play in the ten or wide as well. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 18 minutes ago, MurrayWell said: Think he started off okay with them, then fell away. Not sure he's the hardest worker based on the opinions of a couple of Jambos I know. I see Devine has also been told to find a new club, just in case anyone wants to start another right-back rumour. If we're throwing names around and talking about players who did f**k all for Hearts last season I wondered if we'd consider re-visiting Scott Fraser. I know he's been fairly heavily linked with Dundee but I don't know if it's just the fact that he also played with United but I have it in my head that he'd be a fairly obvious Spittal clone. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Handsome_Devil Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 (edited) 15 minutes ago, Neil86 said: Aye, pretty much. Bags of potential/talent but for whatever reason just hasn’t happened. Think he can play in the ten or wide as well. I only saw glimpses of him at Hearts but I think he struggles out wide without a lot of pace. I can see him following a very similar career path to Spittal in the sense that the talent is there, he'll just need a lot of refining and maturing to become a good top-flight 90-minute midfielder rather than just being first sub on or off but with a flashy highlight reel. As such, I'd have absolutely no interest in taking him on loan for a season. If we elected to commit to him (and accept the frustrations of his learning process) for three years, that'd be a different consideration...a Mallan or Fraser as just suggested above, in their late 20s, would hopefully deliver more consistency immediately, Lowry would definitely be more investment but if it goes well there'd be substantially more return. A classic hypothetical really, if we're actually interested in any of them! Edited August 8 by Handsome_Devil 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MurrayWell Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 New comments from Kettlewell suggest Callachan is out for months (I'm as shocked as you are), Blaney out for six weeks. Doesn't sound like he'll risk Miller this weekend. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swello Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 I'm not sure what we're shopping for over the next couple of weeks but it feels to me that we've got the basis of a very solid team but we're lacking the sort of weirdo/maverick that makes things a bit more fun and drives everyone mad when they only do it every few weeks. Type that into Wyscout. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaag97 Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 For anyone still undecided - personally I think there’s two shoe in candidates (not me!) to go alongside the two other vacancies and that’s where I think I could potentially be. If anyone wants to know - here’s a list of things (good and bad) I think we should be working on (and I could help with, in line with strategy): the good: 1. Comms has been MUCH improved in recent years and think this is on a greatly improved trajectory - and now attention should turn to the technical side (maximising usage of CRM, effective segmentation of fans, personalised / localised campaigns and new club / society integrations. 2. Solid membership base - much more active amongst core. Invigorated focus on increasing contribution where feasible and spending time / effort bringing in those around the periphery is key. Further afield and international membership growth and membership benefits giving an incentive for locking in etc. The good opportunity (but needs work) areas: 1. Granularity of fan engagement and getting it right. An example being the recent fan survey. Done with the best of intentions - but in all honesty, the way it was administered means it’s not worth the paper it’s written on. rewritten and relaunched survey, including regular focus groups / workshop ideation sessions (I’m a certified member of the Market Research Society so this is a strong area of mine). 2. Commercial strategy & partnerships - we can’t go down the route of “anything and everything” - if we do this we encourage investment from the wrong places - or we don’t get the right value for money / strategic priority areas focussed on. Researching and due diligence is key here (alongside networking and knowing the right people). For example - the types of organisation we want to work with would be different for gym / infrastructure / training improvements compared with community / fan focussed partnerships. We’re not after a few quid for the sake of it - let’s be honest, there’s not a huge queue of people looking to chuck money at us - so being able to clearly explain the benefits to the potential partners will be critical to ensuring they want to get on board. 2. Fan ownership hive thinking - let’s look to create a pan-European/ even global “think tank” - where we can look to learn, get involved and even potentially create multi club partnership models. This would have the benefit of both improving the wider aims of fan ownership as an ideology - but also have benefits and economies of scale that can come from multi market sources. I’m a big fan of the “think strategically, act tactically” mantra - and feel this would serve us well. The bad: the current synergy and influence (and comms) of club and society. At times it feels like club vs. Society and that’s not great. As the majority shareholder in the club, we should have more influence - gained by both thought leadership and drive / determination. As we see from the people standing for election, we have so much talent and experience in so many areas - we need to be driving with our best foot forward. Ultimately the society should have been more involved (at least publically) than they were in recent negotiations. As a society, we should not just be having an opinion on things - we should be actively bringing things to the table. There’s a bunch of other things - but that’s what springs to mind immediately from my sunbed on holiday in Turkey 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
camer0n_mcd Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 6 minutes ago, capt_oats said: We'd be quicker just saying who's not injured. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MurrayWell Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 If Callachan was to be an attacking midfield option for this season, you'd imagine that will be a huge priority now. Feel for Kettlewell and the players who have picked up injuries, but this is happening way too frequently now. There is of course a huge element of bad luck, which nobody can control, but adding to the squad with players with real histories of bad injuries probably doesn't help. FWIW I still think we'll be absolutely fine once we have more of our first choice players back and add a couple more, which now looks to be a necessity rather than a 'would like to have', but the number of injuries is concerning. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaag97 Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 2 minutes ago, camer0n_mcd said: We'd be quicker just saying who's not injured. Sigh. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
redstarcvedza Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 8 minutes ago, MurrayWell said: If Callachan was to be an attacking midfield option for this season, you'd imagine that will be a huge priority now. Feel for Kettlewell and the players who have picked up injuries, but this is happening way too frequently now. There is of course a huge element of bad luck, which nobody can control, but adding to the squad with players with real histories of bad injuries probably doesn't help. FWIW I still think we'll be absolutely fine once we have more of our first choice players back and add a couple more, which now looks to be a necessity rather than a 'would like to have', but the number of injuries is concerning. Ryan Jack on a short term pay for play deal ? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capt_oats Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 Just now, MurrayWell said: If Callachan was to be an attacking midfield option for this season, you'd imagine that will be a huge priority now. Feel for Kettlewell and the players who have picked up injuries, but this is happening way too frequently now. There is of course a huge element of bad luck, which nobody can control, but adding to the squad with players with real histories of bad injuries probably doesn't help. FWIW I still think we'll be absolutely fine once we have more of our first choice players back and add a couple more, which now looks to be a necessity rather than a 'would like to have', but the number of injuries is concerning. Aye, I mentioned to @crazylegsjoe_mfc the other day on here that there's not much we can do re: impact injuries or injuries picked up during a game (eg: Paton, Blaney) but if we're seeing a trend in muscle injuries that's Callachan and Stuparević out with (Hamstring) now then you can probably ask questions of that. Of course it may not even be what we're doing it may simply be that we're continuing that gamble of signing players hoping we can manage their fitness. I'm sure it's something we've always done but it feels like it became an actual strategy around the time Robinson signed Charlie Dunne. Callachan missed the whole of last season with an ACL so there's that. As you say, if we're picking up players with known injury issues then you can't really be shocked when players start dropping with injuries. He's on a 1 yr + 1 option, absolutely nothing against him but it kind of feels like this injury ruling him out removes him from the equation a bit in so much as we know where we stand squad-wise. It's better that he's out of consideration (again, honestly, no offence Ross - get well soon and all that) than continually sitting waiting in the hope that he's fit again in a couple of weeks on him getting back to fitness then breaking down. Of our seven midfielders that's three of them out long term (Slattery, Paton and Callachan) plus Nicholson. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Handsome_Devil Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 20 minutes ago, Swello said: I'm not sure what we're shopping for over the next couple of weeks... A new physio department from top to bottom should be high up the list! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desp Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 The Callachan thing is indefensible. Some serious questions need to be asked to the management and the medical team. The guy doesn't play during the cup games, appears out of nowhere on the opening day to play 20 minutes and is now out for months? That's f**king disgraceful. Can't quite recall if it was @Vietnam91 who alluded to it, but we're now likely to need to chuck away even more of the Bair money at solving this problem. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busta Nut Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 I honestly am a lot more positive in person, but fuuck me man! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desp Posted August 8 Share Posted August 8 Just now, Busta Nut said: I honestly am a lot more positive in person Lol 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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