The European football level St. Mirren FC 2024/25 thread

[CH01]

39 minutes ago, Ric said:

I think there would be a worry if O'Carroll was forced out in some way, and Robinson has moved quickly to promote Kerr.

My main worry is that he's gone off to work for a club that is funded by religious hate. I don't begrudge him his opportunity, but I couldn't solace taking a wage packet knowing that the same people paying me are essentially the same ones beheading journalists who they disagree with.

 

Thankfully most folk see this for what it is - a fantastic opportunity to better himself and work in a world class set up with facilities and players which he probably hadn't encountered before 

I doubt he has to worry about Sky Sports local reporters getting their balls nailed to the stadium walls should they call out his team selection

[Ric]

10 minutes ago, CH01 said:

Thankfully most folk see this for what it is - a fantastic opportunity to better himself and work in a world class set up with facilities and players which he probably hadn't encountered before

It is a fantastic opportunity, but you cannot ignore where Newcastle's funding comes from.

 

12 minutes ago, CH01 said:

I doubt he has to worry about Sky Sports local reporters getting their balls nailed to the stadium walls should they call out his team selection

That sort of rhetoric is pretty pathetic.

[AW saint]

Clubs have been looking at O'Carroll for a while. He knocked back Raith for their top job. 

He is already a coach for NI. 

Was only a matter of time. I just hope we got a good fee for him. 

Hopefully his departure will not cause a drop in our coaching levels. 

He has been with Robbo for a good while now. Fingers crossed Kerr can fill his boots. 

[Buddie Holly]

3 hours ago, Ric said:

I think there would be a worry if O'Carroll was forced out in some way, and Robinson has moved quickly to promote Kerr.

My main worry is that he's gone off to work for a club that is funded by religious hate. I don't begrudge him his opportunity, but I couldn't solace taking a wage packet knowing that the same people paying me are essentially the same ones beheading journalists who they disagree with.

is he away to ibrox?

[Friskysteed]

6 hours ago, Ric said:

I think there would be a worry if O'Carroll was forced out in some way, and Robinson has moved quickly to promote Kerr.

Where are you getting this from? 

It looks pretty obvious to me that he was head hunted or am I missing something. 

 

[TPAFKA Jersey 2]

44 minutes ago, Friskysteed said:

Where are you getting this from? 

It looks pretty obvious to me that he was head hunted or am I missing something. 

 

Think you’ve misread his post mate. 

[Friskysteed]

Doh!

[TPAFKA Jersey 2]

I see the U18s won again last night (5-1 in the cup against Alloa) and Evan Mooney scored another couple of goals. He seems to be scoring for fun.

Without getting ahead of ourselves, could he be the homegrown striker we've been waiting for, or if he turns out to be good, will he just be the next in line to disappear down south before he's barely kicked a ball for us?

[AW saint]

16 minutes ago, TPAFKA Jersey 2 said:

I see the U18s won again last night (5-1 in the cup against Alloa) and Evan Mooney scored another couple of goals. He seems to be scoring for fun.

Without getting ahead of ourselves, could he be the homegrown striker we've been waiting for, or if he turns out to be good, will he just be the next in line to disappear down south before he's barely kicked a ball for us?

He is a top talent. Alongside the legend Thommo's son we look like we finally have a couple of decent strikers

[TPAFKA Jersey 2]

1 hour ago, AW saint said:

He is a top talent. Alongside the legend Thommo's son we look like we finally have a couple of decent strikers

Yes but to my point, will he be whisked away before he’s had the merest whiff of the first team?

Also, how do the likes of Motherwell and Killie get to hold onto players like Lennon Miller and Danny Armstrong, seeing them progress to first team regulars, while the likes of Reid and Sutherland are off at the first offer? What are they doing that we are not.

I know that there are examples of bigger teams losing players too (Rangers/Gilmour and Celtic/Doak), but those were exceptional talents that were on a different level. 

Edited 3 hours ago by TPAFKA Jersey 2

[FTOF]

2 minutes ago, TPAFKA Jersey 2 said:

Yes but to my point, will he be whisked away before he’s had the merest whiff of the first team?

Also, how do the likes of Motherwell and Killie get to hold onto players like Lennon Miller and Danny Armstrong, seeing them progress to first team regulars, while the likes of Reid and Sutherland or off at the first offer? What are they doing that we are not.

I know that there are examples of bigger teams losing players too (Rangers/Gilmour and Celtic/Doak), but those were exceptional talents that were on a different level. 

Playing them in the first XI regularly.

Also, Lennon Miller is an exceptional talent. I also think the fact that his dad is a former professional football player has kept him quite grounded.

[TPAFKA Jersey 2]

6 minutes ago, FTOF said:

Playing them in the first XI regularly.

Also, Lennon Miller is an exceptional talent. I also think the fact that his dad is a former professional football player has kept him quite grounded.

Excellent point. 

[glenburn bud]

2 hours ago, TPAFKA Jersey 2 said:

I see the U18s won again last night (5-1 in the cup against Alloa) and Evan Mooney scored another couple of goals. He seems to be scoring for fun.

Without getting ahead of ourselves, could he be the homegrown striker we've been waiting for, or if he turns out to be good, will he just be the next in line to disappear down south before he's barely kicked a ball for us?

I was at the game last night, both full backs were very impressive as were most of the lads in the side.

They played really well and actually missed so many chances in the second half, it could easily have been 8 or 9.

[capt_oats]

49 minutes ago, TPAFKA Jersey 2 said:

Yes but to my point, will he be whisked away before he’s had the merest whiff of the first team?

Also, how do the likes of Motherwell and Killie get to hold onto players like Lennon Miller and Danny Armstrong, seeing them progress to first team regulars, while the likes of Reid and Sutherland are off at the first offer? What are they doing that we are not.

I know that there are examples of bigger teams losing players too (Rangers/Gilmour and Celtic/Doak), but those were exceptional talents that were on a different level. 

Danny Armstrong's youth career was at Accies and Wolves. He had 2 spells at Raith Rovers with time at County in between.

Do you mean David Watson?

Tbh, @FTOF's answer is pretty much the long and the short of it Miller is our youngest ever player we had him in the first team days after he turned 16 and have committed to playing him. It also helps that he sees the value in getting these games and this experience which means he's not agitating for a move.

That said, for every Miller, Turnbull, Scott and Allan Campbell ie: academy graduates who progressed to the first team there are plenty like Stuart McKinstry, Reece McAlear and Bailey Rice (who is perhaps the obvious Miller comparison in terms of narrative) - all of whom moved on from the Academy before we'd seen them in the first team.

Kettlewell was in the press the other day making the point that we lost two of our best in the u14 group to Celtic and Rangers through the summer.

There are broader factors as well, for all the 'investment' nonsense over the summer, we're financially stable and having just sold Theo Bair for £1.6m it probably means that there's less of an imperative for us to cash in which means we've been able to make that promise to Miller and knock back offers that were presumably short of our valuation.

Your man Caldwell was on The Warm Up a few weeks back talking about Miller and the implication is that the club, management, player and player representatives are all pretty much in alignment about how they view his career progression.

Ultimately we're in a position where we're very much beholden to what Lennon Miller actually wants. As soon as he decides he's ready to leave then he'll be away.

[Biscuits]

21 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Danny Armstrong's youth career was at Accies and Wolves. He had 2 spells at Raith Rovers with time at County in between.

Do you mean David Watson?

Tbh, @FTOF's answer is pretty much the long and the short of it Miller is our youngest ever player we had him in the first team days after he turned 16 and have committed to playing him. It also helps that he sees the value in getting these games and this experience which means he's not agitating for a move.

That said, for every Miller, Turnbull, Scott and Allan Campbell ie: academy graduates who progressed to the first team there are plenty like Stuart McKinstry, Reece McAlear and Bailey Rice (who is perhaps the obvious Miller comparison in terms of narrative) - all of whom moved on from the Academy before we'd seen them in the first team.

Kettlewell was in the press the other day making the point that we lost two of our best in the u14 group to Celtic and Rangers through the summer.

There are broader factors as well, for all the 'investment' nonsense over the summer, we're financially stable and having just sold Theo Bair for £1.6m it probably means that there's less of an imperative for us to cash in which means we've been able to make that promise to Miller and knock back offers that were presumably short of our valuation.

Your man Caldwell was on The Warm Up a few weeks back talking about Miller and the implication is that the club, management, player and player representatives are all pretty much in alignment about how they view his career progression.

Ultimately we're in a position where we're very much beholden to what Lennon Miller actually wants. As soon as he decides he's ready to leave then he'll be away.

Just how good is he?  And where do you think he’ll go?

[TPAFKA Jersey 2]

24 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Danny Armstrong's youth career was at Accies and Wolves. He had 2 spells at Raith Rovers with time at County in between.

Do you mean David Watson?

Tbh, @FTOF's answer is pretty much the long and the short of it Miller is our youngest ever player we had him in the first team days after he turned 16 and have committed to playing him. It also helps that he sees the value in getting these games and this experience which means he's not agitating for a move.

That said, for every Miller, Turnbull, Scott and Allan Campbell ie: academy graduates who progressed to the first team there are plenty like Stuart McKinstry, Reece McAlear and Bailey Rice (who is perhaps the obvious Miller comparison in terms of narrative) - all of whom moved on from the Academy before we'd seen them in the first team.

Kettlewell was in the press the other day making the point that we lost two of our best in the u14 group to Celtic and Rangers through the summer.

There are broader factors as well, for all the 'investment' nonsense over the summer, we're financially stable and having just sold Theo Bair for £1.6m it probably means that there's less of an imperative for us to cash in which means we've been able to make that promise to Miller and knock back offers that were presumably short of our valuation.

Your man Caldwell was on The Warm Up a few weeks back talking about Miller and the implication is that the club, management, player and player representatives are all pretty much in alignment about how they view his career progression.

Ultimately we're in a position where we're very much beholden to what Lennon Miller actually wants. As soon as he decides he's ready to leave then he'll be away.

I didn’t actually mean Watson, but you’re right that he’s probably a better example.

I didn’t actually realise Armstrong hadn’t come through the ranks. I suppose he’s a better example of simply Killie doing well to hold onto him full stop since he broke into their team and clearly demonstrated a fair bit of ability. 

Interesting background on Miller so thanks for that. 

I’m not overly convinced the finances play a huge part in this conundrum though. We are in decent nick on that front too at the moment, but when these players come up to renew their contracts there’s no way any of us can compete financially when EPL academies start flashing their knickers. 

[capt_oats]

7 minutes ago, TPAFKA Jersey 2 said:

I didn’t actually mean Watson, but you’re right that he’s probably a better example.

I didn’t actually realise Armstrong hadn’t come through the ranks. I suppose he’s a better example of simply Killie doing well to hold onto him full stop since he broke into their team and clearly demonstrated a fair bit of ability. 

Interesting background on Miller so thanks for that. 

I’m not overly convinced the finances play a huge part in this conundrum though. We are in decent nick on that front too at the moment, but when these players come up to renew their contracts there’s no way any of us can compete financially when EPL academies start flashing their knickers. 

Tbf, the finances thing was more specific to us in relation to Miller and why he's still with us than your point about Academy players getting hoovered up or being a St Mirren thing. It was simply the point that we have an asset that we're able to hold on to, there's no financial pressure on us to sell.

Ultimately though it's down to pathway, clearly every young player is different and there will always be a proportion who will be swayed by "big" clubs or in the case of Bailey Rice they'd happily play in the Lowland League rather than the Premiership because they're staunch but in a broad sense I guess there needs to be a demonstrable pathway for others.

I've no idea what the pathway to the first team is like for St Mirren at the moment but from sticking my head in to this thread now and again it seems to be an ongoing discussion about losing Academy players to EPL/EFL academies. Which again is true of all Scottish clubs, I know St Johnstone have a laddie signing for Arsenal and Celtic sold that boy to Millwall.

Fwiw, it's a hypothetical and it's not a dig as such but based on the way he handled Turnbull I have my doubts that Lennon Miller would have played 45 games for Motherwell by now had Robinson still been at Fir Park. Turnbull was absolutely running the show in our Dev team from 16 but he didn't make his debut until he was 18 and SR's argument was essentially that he needed to learn to do the "free stuff".

Which is fine and there's clearly an argument that he wasn't wrong to do so given the impact Turnbull had for us but that was 5+ years ago and the landscape has changed dramatically since then. If you have these sort of players then it's increasingly the case that you either use them or lose them even if that means giving 16 year old weans opportunities.

26 minutes ago, Biscuits said:

Just how good is he?  And where do you think he’ll go?

I mean, he's been playing (and excelling) at Premiership level since he was 16.

It's pretty much up to him where he goes, by which I mean, he won't be short of offers. He's not a particularly flashy player, he's just clearly good.

The interesting thing about the Theo Bair sale is that the two clubs that were in for him were from Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga which was new for us in that our market has usually been selling to England (and obviously Turnbull went to Celtic).

Assuming we're more visible on the radar of those sort of leagues then there's absolutely no reason why Miller couldn't replicate Ferguson, Hickey etc and move to Serie A. If that's what he wanted to do - he's already shown that he's levels above playing in Scotland.

[Coventry Saint]

13 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Fwiw, it's a hypothetical and it's not a dig as such but based on the way he handled Turnbull I have my doubts that Lennon Miller would have played 45 games for Motherwell by now had Robinson still been at Fir Park.

That's probably fair based on what we've seen of Robbo at Saints; Ethan Erhahon probably the biggest exception where a younger player has been fully trusted with a key role and then sold at (hopefully) a major long-term profit. Other young guys are getting farmed out on loan, sold (not Robbo's fault), or are being kept round the edges of the first team without being given many minutes (Fraser Taylor literally assisted our equalising goal in Bergen and has barely been seen since).

Prior to Robbo, Goodwin was awful with kids - I feel your situation with Miller is similar to ours with Dylan Reid, except Well actually followed through on promises to the boy. Reid was made our youngest ever player, and signed an extension, but then never got played and joined Crystal Palace. He may well have left even if we'd played him, but you never know. 

Will be interesting to see how things pan out with Struan Thompson. Obviously has the 'former pro father' box ticked, and the fact his dad is a Saints supporter and club legend as well... if we can't keep him (assuming he's good enough) then I think we can safely give up on ever keeping any top quality young player with us beyond 18.

[glenburn bud]

I heard Stephen McGinn asked the question on sportsound if he had asked his brother Paul how good Miller was, his reply was that Paul said he was the best young player he’d played with by a mile. 
 

My belief has always been that if you can see an exceptional talent at a young age, then fine you can protect them but ultimately if they’re good enough play them.

 

[RandomGuy.]

3 hours ago, TPAFKA Jersey 2 said:

Yes but to my point, will he be whisked away before he’s had the merest whiff of the first team?

Also, how do the likes of Motherwell and Killie get to hold onto players like Lennon Miller and Danny Armstrong, seeing them progress to first team regulars,

It's not just a you thing, but I do find it odd just how many folk think Armstrong/McCowan came through at Kilmarnock/Dundee and are in their early 20s when both were really well known for lower league clubs before their moves and are both turning 27 before Christmas. 

Edited 46 minutes ago by RandomGuy.