Double Winning St Johnstone FC Thread

[Kyle]

What an utterly tremendous post, articulates how I (and I’m sure many others) feel. 

[Total stranger]

25 minutes ago, steviemay17 said:

It was just on the general contact us section of the page, unfortunately it's a send form so I can't actually fully remember what I had said.

It was mainly along the lines of it was heartbreaking to see so much incredible work from Saints since being promoted just being pissed away.

With the sales of McCann and Kerr we were given the football is a business, bottom line trumps all treatment, yet when it comes to a manager who is ruining the club, that's where we decide past achievements and tenure has to be respected. I know it's deeply unsavoury to hope someone becomes unemployed, but I'm pretty sure he'll get his contract paid up or paid until he finds a new job so there are levels to it.

The thing that really brings me down, is that Saints are so much more than just a football club to me. I have no actual connection to Perth, I was born in Dumfries and lived there until a few years ago, I was taken to a game against Motherwell as a kid when visiting family and it just stuck with me, I didn't follow my Dad's lead and support Celtic, I loved the community feel and felt proud to be a very small part of it, feeling like I belong to something I enjoy and being able to get behind something with a group of passionate people every weekend is the best thing ever. I pointed out that I'm confident Saints fans aren't expecting 6-0 wins or for a manager to revolutionize the game, but we've always appreciated those who gave their all for the club and all I ever want is to turn up and have some kind of belief that my team is going to give it a go, and think they can win any game if they play well.

It's really important to not go full rose-tinted glasses on TW, but he was a man I would go into battle for if he asked, his team did the same and I'm pretty sure we all appreciated every last drop of that. Some of his teams were miles less talented than what CD has had, but It's a hill I'll die on - at least there was a plan, at least I could see what he was trying to do. Of course it sometimes blew up in his face spectacularly, but he was trying to win games.

Every last bit of that has gone under CD. We're now full of journeymen who'll be gone in two years, likely with us in the Championship. He'll be gone, the Kerr and McCann money wasted, there will be no long-term plan, it will likely take years to stabilise and build again. One thing to TW's credit was he usually had someone lined up to replace the veteran players, he deserves credit for the work he did bringing on the younger guys. CD would just ring Alan Preston and find out which other 33 year old is no longer good enough for Hibs or Aberdeen and we'll give them a final decent payday.

I've never felt more disenfranchised supporting Saints, I noticed going to the Hibs game on the first day of the season there wasn't any excitement, it was part dread, part resignation and just part emptiness.

We are going nowhere under CD. Hoping not to be the sh*ttest team isn't a form of ambition, and We just need to bite the bullet and get rid. Sure the board might see it as a waste of money, but so was Hector-Ingram, so was John Mahon if CD stays in charge.

Well said that man you are right on every thing you have written

[Saint Stevo]

It was just on the general contact us section of the page, unfortunately it's a send form so I can't actually fully remember what I had said.
It was mainly along the lines of it was heartbreaking to see so much incredible work from Saints since being promoted just being pissed away.
With the sales of McCann and Kerr we were given the football is a business, bottom line trumps all treatment, yet when it comes to a manager who is ruining the club, that's where we decide past achievements and tenure has to be respected. I know it's deeply unsavoury to hope someone becomes unemployed, but I'm pretty sure he'll get his contract paid up or paid until he finds a new job so there are levels to it.
The thing that really brings me down, is that Saints are so much more than just a football club to me. I have no actual connection to Perth, I was born in Dumfries and lived there until a few years ago, I was taken to a game against Motherwell as a kid when visiting family and it just stuck with me, I didn't follow my Dad's lead and support Celtic, I loved the community feel and felt proud to be a very small part of it, feeling like I belong to something I enjoy and being able to get behind something with a group of passionate people every weekend is the best thing ever. I pointed out that I'm confident Saints fans aren't expecting 6-0 wins or for a manager to revolutionize the game, but we've always appreciated those who gave their all for the club and all I ever want is to turn up and have some kind of belief that my team is going to give it a go, and think they can win any game if they play well.
It's really important to not go full rose-tinted glasses on TW, but he was a man I would go into battle for if he asked, his team did the same and I'm pretty sure we all appreciated every last drop of that. Some of his teams were miles less talented than what CD has had, but It's a hill I'll die on - at least there was a plan, at least I could see what he was trying to do. Of course it sometimes blew up in his face spectacularly, but he was trying to win games.
Every last bit of that has gone under CD. We're now full of journeymen who'll be gone in two years, likely with us in the Championship. He'll be gone, the Kerr and McCann money wasted, there will be no long-term plan, it will likely take years to stabilise and build again. One thing to TW's credit was he usually had someone lined up to replace the veteran players, he deserves credit for the work he did bringing on the younger guys. CD would just ring Alan Preston and find out which other 33 year old is no longer good enough for Hibs or Aberdeen and we'll give them a final decent payday.
I've never felt more disenfranchised supporting Saints, I noticed going to the Hibs game on the first day of the season there wasn't any excitement, it was part dread, part resignation and just part emptiness.
We are going nowhere under CD. Hoping not to be the sh*ttest team isn't a form of ambition, and We just need to bite the bullet and get rid. Sure the board might see it as a waste of money, but so was Hector-Ingram, so was John Mahon if CD stays in charge.

Yep, brilliant post. My story is pretty similar - I'm in Fife and Dad, Cowdenbeath supporter (!), took me along to Saints as he was invited by a client through work. I met Alex Totten, got a look around behind the scenes and that was it, just fell in love with the place. I'm so disappointed that the cup double heroics have just been pissed away and the whole match day Saturday just feels flat for me.

Email address for Mr Flaherty is on staff profiles section of the website if anyone is interested BTW.

[low-life]

Ian's a decent guy. Know him pretty well. He's a good football coach and loves his football. An excellent email to him and good on him for getting back to you. 

[Hoose Rice]

So all things considered you want Davidson gone replaced by Wright, yeah?  

[steviemay17]

1 minute ago, Hoose Rice said:

So all things considered you want Davidson gone replaced by Wright, yeah?  

Honestly I think I would be excited at the prospect, but I'm not sure if everyone else would be quite as thrilled. There's a strange what if with TW, it felt like he spent his entire time fighting with the board to get bodies in to fill out the squad, I'm sure he was usually running with about 17/18 senior pros in the outfield positions and then complimented the rest of the squad with guys promoted from the youth team. He certainly wasn't in a situation where he could sign 25+ players and just face no consequences to them all being sh*te.

I think we're now past the stage of "yeah but who would you replace him with?" Our recent appointments of Coyle, McInnes, Lomas, Wright weren't always the obvious ones to me, if anything the appointment of CD made too much sense at the time.

I know my previous post was a long one, Saints to me is about passion and pride, we had that under TW, we don't under CD. The squad isn't a good one, it might take years to fix and I'll accept there's a decent chance we go down this year regardless, but I'd rather we actually stood up and tried to do something, rather than just bending over and taking a defeat every week and looking for anyone or anything else to blame.

It needs two brave decisions from the club. One to get rid of CD, I imagine he has friends in the media and certain agents who have media slots who will pan the club, but it also means taking a risk on someone who is in this for the long-haul. For me, TW has seen the grass isn't greener and would be someone who would happily stay here for another 5-10 years and we can try to pass it on to his successor again in the future, hopefully with lessons being learned.

Going for one of the "usual" types - Craig Levein (heard he was at the B team game today and that's a worry), Mark McGhee, or anyone like that would be akin to just sticking with CD. I do wonder if fans of other clubs might actually see TW as someone in that mold, potentially uninspiring, games passed him by and all that so my first choice would be someone new, but I'd take him in a heartbeat over Davidson for sure.

[Kyle]

We absolutely gave the massive budget to the wrong man. Wright managed to put the bones of a double winning side together on a shoe string and by having to argue for every penny he spent. Davidson has been given a fortune, both in terms of fees and wages, and we only seem to get worse with every passing window, albeit with a slight upturn after the last January window. 

[FrankChickens1]

1 hour ago, steviemay17 said:

Honestly I think I would be excited at the prospect, but I'm not sure if everyone else would be quite as thrilled. There's a strange what if with TW, it felt like he spent his entire time fighting with the board to get bodies in to fill out the squad, I'm sure he was usually running with about 17/18 senior pros in the outfield positions and then complimented the rest of the squad with guys promoted from the youth team. He certainly wasn't in a situation where he could sign 25+ players and just face no consequences to them all being sh*te

I think this is one of the most depressing parts for me. We could theoretically sack Davidson tomorrow and if it was TW it would be straight back to the budget old ways, because there is no money any more because Davidson has tied it all up in second/third years of deals for players who barely merit a first year. 

Its absolutely criminal what's been allowed to take place.

Considine could be done by the weekend never mind summer 2023. We still have Crawford to the same time right? Awful. 

[Valentino Bolognese]

9 hours ago, low-life said:

He's a good football coach and loves his football. 

I don't mean this in any way disrespectfully to the man as I've never met him, but this is the opposite of what I want to hear about our Chief Exec. 

I'd prefer someone with little to no interest in or knowledge of the playing side of football. They need to be dispassionate about coaching, focussed purely on the numbers and the people. Equally, I'd prefer someone with no prior relationship with the owners.

 

[low-life]

3 minutes ago, Valentino Bolognese said:

I don't mean this in any way disrespectfully to the man as I've never met him, but this is the opposite of what I want to hear about our Chief Exec. 

I'd prefer someone with little to no interest in or knowledge of the playing side of football. They need to be dispassionate about coaching, focussed purely on the numbers and the people. Equally, I'd prefer someone with no prior relationship with the owners.

 

Yeh I thought it was a strange one and still do. He knows the game for sure but isn't involved in the playing side,  its the administration side he's taken over. Have always found him a decent guy and wish him well and his cv certainly wont be just football based. 

[tree house tam]

2 hours ago, Valentino Bolognese said:

I don't mean this in any way disrespectfully to the man as I've never met him, but this is the opposite of what I want to hear about our Chief Exec. 

I'd prefer someone with little to no interest in or knowledge of the playing side of football. They need to be dispassionate about coaching, focussed purely on the numbers and the people. Equally, I'd prefer someone with no prior relationship with the owners.

 

Which is fine normally but that leaves Callum Davidson in complete control of the footballing side of things. COMPLETE CONTROL, let that sink in.

[SJFCtheTeamForMe]

41 minutes ago, tree house tam said:

Which is fine normally but that leaves Callum Davidson in complete control of the footballing side of things. COMPLETE CONTROL, let that sink in.

Isn't that what the Head of Football Operations manages? 

Boyds replacement... Whoever that ends up being. 

[tree house tam]

15 minutes ago, SJFCtheTeamForMe said:

Isn't that what the Head of Football Operations manages? 

Boyds replacement... Whoever that ends up being. 

But in the meantime, when Boyds on holiday mode....  

The c**t can't even manage a first 11.

Edited August 24, 2022 by tree house tam

[DavidReid01]

Also just had a call from Ian F regarding an email I’d sent in. I’m guessing over the last week, they’re perhaps starting to take notice that fans are now in a majority turning against the manager and it will effect crowds soon enough.

Good to get a response as mentioned previously, I’d think in years gone by it would’ve been completely ignored.

[Kyle]

51 minutes ago, DavidReid01 said:

Also just had a call from Ian F regarding an email I’d sent in. I’m guessing over the last week, they’re perhaps starting to take notice that fans are now in a majority turning against the manager and it will effect crowds soon enough.

Good to get a response as mentioned previously, I’d think in years gone by it would’ve been completely ignored.

Must be quite the task for him, I received a call this morning too following an email I sent to him. Seems like a decent guy and can tell he wants to improve the link between the supporters and the club. 

just for transparency, my email is below. StevieMay17 said it much better than I ever could but felt compelled to say something too. I’m not convinced things will change unless people make their feelings known. 

 Hello Ian,

 

I hope this email finds you well. 

 

Please accept my apology for contacting you directly, I have been contemplating sending an email for a while but feel, given the tone of your statement following Scott Boyd’s announced departure, that I now had to get in contact in respect of how the team is being managed as I certainly don’t want my continued attendance at matches as an endorsement of the unity you mentioned in the statement. 

 

I renewed my season ticket this year with absolutely no enthusiasm. I feel like this has been taken as a vote of confidence in what’s happening at the club but honestly, it’s not. My son was born in April so I wanted to get him his first season ticket and Davidson made promises that things would improve this season, that he would be more flexible and that we’d attack more, those were my motivations for renewing my season ticket, and below are just a some examples of why the manager no longer has my support. 

 

Firstly, it’s only fair to acknowledge the cup double was an incredible achievement and everyone at the football club deserves enormous credit for doing so, chiefly Callum Davidson for leading us to such unexpected and unrepeatable success. Some of the issues were present that season - 9 home goals scored in 19 games being the lowest recorded in a season in Scottish senior football history, at any level. Finishing 5th and winning two cups seems even more miraculous given than backdrop, perhaps a warning that the success was unsustainable. 

 

All of the above makes The downward trajectory since then even worse. It has been horrible to watch from the stands, like a slow motion tail spin that we are not able to get out of. There’s many factors for this but pretty much all roads lead back to decisions made by the manager. 

 

Losing McCann and Kerr last summer - McCann for a very low price considering his talent, impact on the team and the length of time still on contract - certainly a factor in that, but the manager’s recruitment policy outside of that was incredibly short term. From the outside looking in, it felt like he was trying to keep things ticking over whilst he waited for his move. Perhaps that’s not what happened, if not then frankly the manager’s judgment on what makes a good player should also be seriously called into question. That quickly proved to be folly as we were first drawn into the relegation battle and then in danger of being cut adrift at the bottom. The board thankfully sanctioned a spending spree to save us, although again it was Hendry returning from his loan that gave us the impetus to stay up more than anything, yet another example of the manager’s questionable judgment along with signing the likes of Ciftci. I really can’t understand why Hendry would be sent out on loan whilst other strikers who contributed very little remained at the club. I also can’t understand the manager sanctioning signings which have cost the club 6 figures, yet neither has been given a run in the team (in the brief outings, neither Bair or Mahon look particularly good so that may be why, but then why is the manager pushing to spend a fortune on players he either didn’t know enough about or didn’t think were up to it?)

 

This summers signings don’t really look much better. We lost 5 cup winners in the summer and each of the replacements look like significant downgrades on the players who have left, and given where they have come from are likely to be costing more than the ones who have left. The manager has said he wanted experience to replace experience, but he seems to have completely missed that you don’t need to be in your mid 30s to have experience, much of the experience who left were in their mid 20s. Most of the new guys will be on their last contract and I struggle to see what the motivation is other than picking up a wage every week. We’ve gone from having 5 or 6 sellable assets last summer to having none. I also can’t understand why the manager has signed 11 players and is still talking about signings in the plural, when he specifically said at the start of the summer he wanted to sign 4-6 new players. 

 

 

I’d also question the make up of the squad. We currently have 32 first team players, yet we have one recognised right back and 2 fit strikers who have managed one league goal between them in this calendar year. You look at the bench and there’s essentially nothing there that can change the game in our favour. All the players seem very similar to me, or are so far out of the picture that they’ll not get much of a chance to change a game even if they do make the bench. How many other clubs in the top flight would want the bulk of our squad? There’s a few notable exceptions but the vast majority would be taking a step down from Saints if they were to leave. 

 

No doubt our wage budget is much higher than it was under Tommy Wright, yet the strength of the squad is much weaker. I really wish another manager had been allowed to spend the money Davidson has. 

 

This has become a bit of a ramble, apologies for that, so I’ll just briefly outline other issues:

 

- the manager has inexplicably wed himself to a system that doesn’t work and hasn’t really worked at any time since he came in. We started with the 5-2-3 at the beginning of Davidson’s reign, but changed to a 3-5-2 which worked much better in the second half of the cup double season. Since then we’ve reverted back to 5–2-3 which doesn’t work. We don’t score goals, we don’t create chances, teams know how we’re going to play and most easily nullify us and there is precisely zero entertainment for a Saints supporter most weeks. 6 shots on target in our first 4 league games is disgraceful. We seem happy to just sit in and play for a 0-0 draw every week which is awful too. Davidson seemed to think the first half performance against Aberdeen on Saturday was good, it wasn’t. It was terrible to watch, we created nothing. 

 

- the number of strain related injuries we pick up. I don’t know what’s happening at training, but there’s no way we should be picking up so many hamstring, thigh strains, calf strains etc. 2 this week with McPherson and Montgomery, 4 hamstring type injuries in quick succession at around the time we played Aberdeen at Pittodrie in around February last season. These injuries are not bad luck, as much as the local press and the manager try and tell us they are. 

 

- downbeat attitude towards our club. We’re the 2nd most successful club in Scottish football over the course of the last decade, yet the manager continually talks us down rather than trying to build us up. Previous managers have always talked us up and I’ve always felt that contributed to our success. It galvanised the players and the supporters, gave us a sort of siege mentality. Davidson just talks down our achievements - beating Inverness over two legs being a bigger achievement than winning the double the comment that rankles the most - talks down our chances against the city clubs, accepts mediocre players and performances and tries to make out that they’re acceptable ‘for a club like St Johnstone’. That’s just not on, of everything this depresses me the most. Why is that mindset acceptable and continually perpetuated? 

 

We’ve played 8 competitive games now and it’s just a continuation of last season with absolutely no effort to be more flexible and there’s virtually no attacking intent and frankly enough is enough. I’ve never felt so disconnected to the club that I love and I’m sick of going to the games out of a sense of habit and duty, knowing that the football will be terrible, we won’t try to win and we’ll probably get beat without giving the opposition anything to worry about. I can honestly say I regret renewing my season ticket and won’t be next summer if things don’t change, I’m already having to talk myself into going every week, and I’ll not continue doing so for much longer if things don’t change. The fact this manager is still going to be signing players is a dreadful thought too. The Sunday Mail reported that we’ve got an offer in for Robert Snodgrass - 35 in September - and I’ve heard a couple of strikers mentioned who are also over 30. If we do sign them, we’ll have 15 players who are over 30 or who turn 30 this season, and the bulk of them are contracted until 2024. How is that in any way sustainable for any football club, never mind a small one with limited resources? 

 

I don’t like calling for people to lose their jobs and I’m sorry that it has come to this, but I can see no reason why Callum Davidson is still in post. There’s a multitude of red flags and more seem to be appearing all the time. We get beat most weeks, play Rubbish football, terrible, lazy recruitment, players constantly getting injured, poor interviews in the press, outwardly negative attitude towards the club. The double was an incredible achievement and he will always be a club legend but that shouldn’t buy him time indefinitely. He’s been given so many chances and resources yet refuses to change. Results haven’t improved, performances haven’t improved and those already recruited don’t really give me much confidence of a better season this time round.

[PSJ.84]

Apologies for my nosiness @Kyle, but how did he take the email? Appreciate if you don’t want to go into too much detail 

[The Saintee]

Some great emails here and it's also good to see that the club are responding personally.

 

For those who have spoken with him...what's the tone of the conversation actually like?

[Kyle]

3 minutes ago, PSJ.84 said:

Apologies for my nosiness @Kyle, but how did he take the email? Appreciate if you don’t want to go into too much detail 

I felt he was respectful of my view but was quite clear he couldn’t pass comment himself which is absolutely fair enough. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a call from him in all honesty, not sure that would’ve happened prior to his appointment. His passion for the club was clear too. 

[PSJ.84]

1 minute ago, Kyle said:

I felt he was respectful of my view but was quite clear he couldn’t pass comment himself which is absolutely fair enough. I was pleasantly surprised to receive a call from him in all honesty, not sure that would’ve happened prior to his appointment. His passion for the club was clear too. 

Fair play to him. Very decent thing to do 

[Theyellowbox]

So, how does the internal conversations go on the back of folk contacting the club?

Does Flemming have calls with Steve Brown regularly and will be flagging up that fans are venting to him? If so, Brown's reaction will be a mix of 'tell them to F off, CD is the man' OR 'We need to discuss how long this can go on for'.

I'd edge towards the former and while I get folk e-mailing the club with concerns, surely the point to vocalise this is at the games and frankly, unless you were in the stands, you wouldn't really get a sense of the fans feelings.

If/when CD starts taking more about understanding fans frustration over lack of goals, style of play and team performance, then you know a conversation has been had. But, nothing I hear from him makes me think he feels in any danger.

This may be a test of how much control of the club Steve Brown has given up. He may be of the mindset that any change of manager is no longer his call to make. Someone will remember better than me, but did we not change manager when Geoff Brown was ill and it was a bit drawn out?