Double Winning St Johnstone FC Thread

[mizfit]

Must’ve forgot the signings right at the start of the window.

[Theyellowbox]

56 minutes ago, Kyle said:

If we go down, I think Considine makes a lot of sense. If we stay, not so sure. One you’d probably want to take a look at on trial before committing to a contract, but then he’ll feel he’s got nothing to prove. 
 

In respect of Grieve, I’m disappointed at how this has all panned out. Tommy Wright asked for a Head of Recruitment years ago, specifically did an interview on it to try and convince the chairman to do it. It finally happens a year after he leaves  and you’ve got to wonder if the current manager ever really bought into the idea. From the outside looking in, it certainly didn’t always seem like a knitted together strategy. I can’t see the the person who wanted the likes of Bair, Vertainen, Cleary etc being the same person who wanted Crawford, Ciftci as an example. I’d like to have been a fly on the wall when they were discussing targets. 

I actually think the club had a good January. Jury’s out on some players and others haven’t had a chance yet, but they pulled together a decent selection of players. I’d have been interested to see what Grieve/Davidson could’ve pulled together in the summer, when the prices aren’t so high and there loads more options available.

Hope this isn’t just an excuse to have a scapegoat for this disastrous season. Grieve didn’t come into the club until the end of July so it’s pretty hard to blame him for the summer (and the previous 2 windows) which caused most of the damage to the squad. He also doesn’t pick the team. Still feel that, regardless of what happens this season now, a full review has to take place at the end of the season. Things have to change at the club, off the pitch everything has felt very half arsed for a long time now (what other club in Scotland would do absolutely nothing to celebrate a cup double with their fans, for example) and on the pitch 21 home league goals in 2 seasons too is just dreadful and that’s the games people pay to see when they buy a season ticket. More positivity, more engagement both off and on the pitch is the minimum requirement. 

If we go down, I'd see Considine as a Paul Heggarty style signing (for those old enough to remember). A very experienced head guiding slightly younger and jittery players through games.

I agree that actually, the last window wasnt that bad. If you look at the last 12 games rice the window closed, we are on par in terms of points to anyone outwith the Glasgow two and a lot of that is down to the signings. 

[RandomGuy.]

3 hours ago, mizfit said:

Must’ve forgot the signings right at the start of the window.

Just 3 signings before we got back to playing 3 weeks into January.

It was a good start but more could've been done. We ended up pumped by an average Hearts side, then drew with Dundee at home, because we hadn't got any real game changing quality in and settled before these games.

Dundee game a real missed opportunity. 26 days into the window and at home, we end up with just 2 January signings featuring, one of whom goes off injured early as we're forcing him to play to gain fitness quick, the other a CB. Would we win that if we have more attacking quality in the squad and settled?

January window was good by the end and answered a lot of existing problems, and offered some answers to future problems, but it could've been better and quicker and we could've had even better results since too, IMO. 

[FrankChickens1]

Received my 50% off home kit which I bought in a moment of weakness after receiving the email for which the club seem to have apologised.

Even though I expected it to be poor quality I remain surprised by how bad it is - other than the Binn sponsor being part of the kit it honestly feels like I could have got it on from a dodgy beach stall somewhere.  I only ever buy St. Johnstone kits and even then only every few years at 50% off (and then never wear them), but is this how it is now?

I did however buy the cup final kit but never thought about the quality as it was miniscule despite being bought to size.

At least we aren't Castore

[Mr Heliums]

9 hours ago, Theyellowbox said:

I agree that actually, the last window wasnt that bad. If you look at the last 12 games rice the window closed, we are on par in terms of points to anyone outwith the Glasgow two and a lot of that is down to the signings. 

Simplistically the success or otherwise of the January window will be best measured by whether we stay up or not. There might long-term implications too: our January spending and our resultant bloated squad will have a knock-on effect on our summer plans and therefore next season.

But if we have to judge at this moment I can't see January as successful. Cleary is the standout, but our priorities, surely, were to build a decent midfield and sign a striker who'd score goals. We did neither. Just look at Saturday: our standout midfielder has been with us over a decade; the big-name striker signing still hasn't scored; the one we now pin our hopes on is a player Davidson has been trying to get rid of for the best part of two seasons and one who – let's not kid ourselves – would never have been a first choice pick if Chris Kane hadn't had a season-ending injury. 

Three of our January signings have hardly touched the ball – surprising given the manager's stated priorities at the time were to only sign players who'd improve the first team.

Edited April 8, 2022 by Mr Heliums

[RandomGuy.]

13 hours ago, The Saintee said:

I wonder what Cautious Callum's pet journalists will say about this 

Decided to target me, for whatever reason.

The petty side taking has destroyed our entire season and it doesn't look like stopping even when one of the two main protagonists leave the scene.

I've never had anything personal against Davidson, the local boy turned club legend is genuinely dreamland stuff for supporters. I've never been "against" him, I just don't think he's done a good job this season and have said as such. The warning signs have been there since the Summer window started without any PCA deals in place, to me.

I've put a stupid amount of unpaid hours in this season trying to help Davidson, and the club, in any way I can, so aye, folk having a go at me and trying to paint me as being on anyone's "side" except the clubs side can fucking ram it. Stuff I do/did was probably fucking hopeless but at least I tried something to help I guess. I won't be involved in any tit for tat shit with folk determined to paint me as something I'm not, had years of that already on here, so that's me out for a while and away to enjoy life. Hopefully Davidson "proves me wrong" and shows he's learning, I'd be as happy as anyone if he got it right and moved the club forwards again.

[mizfit]

[NYD1997]

19 minutes ago, Mr Heliums said:

Simplistically the success or otherwise of the January window will be best measured by whether we stay up or not. There might long-term implications too: our January spending and our resultant bloated squad will have a knock-on effect on our summer plans and therefore next season.

But if we have to judge at this moment I can't see January as successful. Cleary is the standout, but our priorities, surely, were to build a decent midfield and sign a striker who'd score goals. We did neither. Just look at Saturday: our standout midfielder has been with us over a decade; the big-name striker signing still hasn't scored; the one we now pin our hopes on is a player Davidson has been trying to get rid of for the best part of two seasons and one who – let's not kid ourselves – would never have been a first choice pick if Chris Kane hadn't had a season-ending injury. 

Three of our January signings have hardly touched the ball – surprising given the manager's stated priorities at the time were to only sign players who'd improve the first team.

We have brought in Hallberg who is a big improvement on who we had in there. Crawford has been able to play his game the way he has shown flashes off. Maybe Bair was the answer but Hendry has came back on fire and you don’t drop a player playing like that.

[mizfit]

I’d say Mahon and Bair would’ve been our starters had Hendry/McCart not got back on form.

However after all the anger at the driver on Saturday I forgot to post this belter of a rumour I heard.

Apparently Zander Clark has signed a Blackburn PCA, and fallen out with the club and Elliot Parish will be our number 1 for the split.

[Valentino Bolognese]

3 minutes ago, NYD1997 said:

We have brought in Hallberg who is a big improvement on who we had in there. Crawford has been able to play his game the way he has shown flashes off. Maybe Bair was the answer but Hendry has came back on fire and you don’t drop a player playing like that.

Tend to agree with this. Half a dozen or so players that had never seen each other before were hardly going to come out the traps as a coherent, well-oiled team. Given the normal difficulties of the January window, made worse by Covid, I think the club did as well as could be expected and possibly better. Given the volume of players signed there were always going to be flops. 

However as others have said there are 2 big factors. Firstly, it's meant spending a lot of money and caused a lot of disruption to sort out a mess entirely of the club's own making, so you don't get a pat on the back for that, you sort out the root cause. Secondly although the form table is strong we've hardly turned into world-beaters. We've gone from catastrophic to poor. We're just lucky that poor seems to be good enough in this league this year to keep you up. But it's not going to get the turnstiles going next season, whether we stay up or not. 

[The Saintee]

32 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Decided to target me, for whatever reason.

The petty side taking has destroyed our entire season and it doesn't look like stopping even when one of the two main protagonists leave the scene.

I've never had anything personal against Davidson, the local boy turned club legend is genuinely dreamland stuff for supporters. I've never been "against" him, I just don't think he's done a good job this season and have said as such. The warning signs have been there since the Summer window started without any PCA deals in place, to me.

I've put a stupid amount of unpaid hours in this season trying to help Davidson, and the club, in any way I can, so aye, folk having a go at me and trying to paint me as being on anyone's "side" except the clubs side can fucking ram it. Stuff I do/did was probably fucking hopeless but at least I tried something to help I guess. I won't be involved in any tit for tat shit with folk determined to paint me as something I'm not, had years of that already on here, so that's me out for a while and away to enjoy life. Hopefully Davidson "proves me wrong" and shows he's learning, I'd be as happy as anyone if he got it right and moved the club forwards again.

Have these clowns even done their job this season and offered  the slightest bit of a critical review of Davidson?

[Kyle]

4 minutes ago, The Saintee said:

Have these clowns even done their job this season and offered  the slightest bit of a critical review of Davidson?

No. They have however managed to shift the blame to every other employee at the club, supporters, pitch, mental attitude. No doubt it’ll be the gradient and the angle of the sun that will be responsible for us being shit before Davidson gets any flack. 

[Radford]

pROpeR FOotBaLl mEn. 

[FrankChickens1]

46 minutes ago, RandomGuy. said:

Decided to target me, for whatever reason.

 

That is absolutely embarrassing from Thomson.  Full-blown humiliating. What a total w**k.

[PauloPerth]

33 minutes ago, Valentino Bolognese said:

Tend to agree with this. Half a dozen or so players that had never seen each other before were hardly going to come out the traps as a coherent, well-oiled team. Given the normal difficulties of the January window, made worse by Covid, I think the club did as well as could be expected and possibly better. Given the volume of players signed there were always going to be flops. 

Probably fair. We got a lot of business done in January, and were proactive in the fight against relegation.

Compare and contrast with Dundee who did next to nothing, other than wait until the window closed then sacked their manager. The difference in points between the two clubs since must be significant.

I standby what I said about not many have been a big improvement on the players we had, but as well as contributing themselves, the additions have had the knock on effect of improving the players that were here.  
With the exception of Clark, just about every one of our players was underperforming before Christmas, big change now.

And, as with everything to do with this season, it brings us back to the question of why we didn’t do it in the summer. Even just 3 or 4 fresh faces.

[Valentino Bolognese]

What's going on with Craig Bryson BTW? 

I think it was over a month ago he was 'nearly back' and I think (might be confused) that that very recently there was talk of him being back in the squad.

 

 

[The Saintee]

5 minutes ago, Valentino Bolognese said:

What's going on with Craig Bryson BTW? 

I think it was over a month ago he was 'nearly back' and I think (might be confused) that that very recently there was talk of him being back in the squad.

 

 

Acclimatising to Scottish football after all the time out?

[mizfit]

Acclimatising to Scottish football after all the time out?

Rehabbing with Wotherspoon today.

[tree house tam]

All the so called Journalists from the area that cover Saints are out of touch complete oddballs. Would rather not criticise Callum in case they get kicked to the wayside, just like Thomson has before. Have some self respect you fucking maggots.

As for you Cosgrove, use my name on the radio again and I'll be through your door for appearance money you c**t.

[PSJ.84]

That’s just weird from Thomson. Embarrassing stuff.