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Dundee United 2018/2019


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On 17/11/2018 at 18:27, Eddie the Eagle said:

I feel your anguish, that made for some painful reading!
McNamara obviously has to take a huge portion of the blame but Mixu was also a bombscare of an appointment, some of his signings were horrific, not to mention Demel at right wingback......shudder...emoji33.png

Others probably don't agree, but I have a little sympathy for Mixu. He clearly cared about the club and obviously didn't appreciate how bad we really were when he took the Job (it probably dawned on by the time he gave the infamous "what's the fucking point of training?" interview after his second game).

He was clearly panicking, with his signings only making things worse. I'd still maintain the rot started by McNamara would have been tough to turn around by anybody we could have realistically afforded to manage us.

I wouldn't say Mixu's sacking was undeserved though. We really needed a fresh start in the Championship given the way we went down. McKinnon's most impressive work at United was probably detoxifying things around the club and generating a bit of positivity over Summer 2016.

Edited by captainkev
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4 minutes ago, captainkev said:

Others probably don't agree, but I have a little sympathy for Mixu.

I've a good amount of sympathy and respect for him, was handed a shambles with players who subsequent years have shown weren't good enough for the top league.

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1 hour ago, stumigoo said:

In the latest of a series of writings I put THIS together about the players that left us during, or at the end of, the 2015/16 season. It was not an easy list of players to write about...

Great, if somewhat depressing piece. It's funny to think how many of our 2015/6 squad have subsequently been relegated with other teams. By my reckoning it's 8: Blair Spittal and Chris Erskine (Partick Thistle), Ryan Dow (Ross County), Eiji Kawashima (Metz), Billy McKay (twice! - Inverness and Ross County), Robbie Muirhead (MK Dons), Euan Spark (Brechin) and Aidan Connolly (York). Any others?

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1 minute ago, Alert Mongoose said:

Demel was a player. If his legs weren't gone he could have been a cracking player. An important prerequisite though admittedly. 

Have we ever fielded a full amputee?

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1 hour ago, captainkev said:

Great read, if not an entirely pleasant one. I've really enjoyed this series of articles you've been doing. How far back are you planning on going with them?

As for that season, we almost everything we touched seemed to turn to shit. Whatever happened with the whole Stevie Campbell incident at the start of that year?

That said, it's pretty amusing to think we were a penalty shootout away from the Scottish cup final. Not that I'm sorry we lost that now. God knows how much more of an arse we'd have made of ourselves had we beaten Hibs.

Cheers for reading them. I didn't really plan for a specific season when I started but I'll keep going with maybe the 2009/10 squad as possibly the one I finish on (it gets a bit boring if everyone has retired so I'd rather have at least some players who are maybe now playing in the 4th tier of Bulgarian football).

With Campbell I think it was most definitely a McNamara/Jackson power play and it all seems to have stemmed from some kind of argument or incident at the youth digs involving player(s) who were maybe represented by Jackson and Campbell took the other side (or that is one version of the story I heard). McNamara had Thompson under the thumb so he took Jackie's side I think.

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1 hour ago, banana said:

"I'll be honest, I'm losing the will to live writing this list given the amount of absolute dross that featured..." :lol:

A rogues gallery to be sure. Looking at how many of them are now playing in very lower leagues or not involved in football, looks like the period ruined them as much as it did us.

It certainly took a great deal of patience on my part. I had THIRTY players to write about. Scandalous turnover in playing staff.

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1 hour ago, Sarto Mutiny said:

Great, if somewhat depressing piece. It's funny to think how many of our 2015/6 squad have subsequently been relegated with other teams. By my reckoning it's 8: Blair Spittal and Chris Erskine (Partick Thistle), Ryan Dow (Ross County), Eiji Kawashima (Metz), Billy McKay (twice! - Inverness and Ross County), Robbie Muirhead (MK Dons), Euan Spark (Brechin) and Aidan Connolly (York). Any others?

Not sure but there are certainly very, very few who have gone on to better themselves. In terms of their mental toughness it was certainly the weakest group of players we've ever had.

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1 hour ago, captainkev said:

Others probably don't agree, but I have a little sympathy for Mixu. He clearly cared about the club and obviously didn't appreciate how bad we really when he took the Job (it probably dawned on by the time he gave the infamous "what's the fucking point of training?" interview after his second game).

He was clearly panicking with his signings only making things worse. I'd still maintain the rot started by McNamara would have been tough to turn around by anybody we could have realistically afforded to manage us.

I wouldn't say Mixu's sacking was undeserved though. We really needed a fresh start in the Championship given the way we went down. McKinnon's most impressive work at United was probably detoxifying things around the club and generating a bit of positivity over Summer 2016.

I'd agree with all of that. Thompson also clearly panicked and knows f**k all about football so just gave Mixu free reign which resulted in some insanely expensive wages being dished out. I could see what he was trying to do with Demel and Kawashima, he wanted experienced professionals who could dig us out of a hole but the problem was he got the wrong experienced professionals and was then left with shit players he signed and a bunch of feeble 'footballers' left over from Jackie.

As is the standard practice at Tannadice we sacked McNamara months too late and if we had binned him at the end of the 14/15 season things might have been different (see also McKinnon 16/17 and Laszlo 17/18). 

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39 minutes ago, Mark Connolly said:

Am I right in thinking that winning our next two games will put us joint top?

It seems utterly ridiculous given the Csambles we dealt with at the start of the season.

You're right.  It's utterly ridiculous.  And I'm not complaining,  Our innate superiority shining through.  Or something.

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25 minutes ago, The DA said:

You're right.  It's utterly ridiculous.  And I'm not complaining,  Our innate superiority shining through.  Or something.

Shows 

A. What a good job Neilson is doing.

B. What a bad job Csaba was doing.

C. How shite this league really is.

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5 minutes ago, mishtergrolsch said:

Shows 

A. What a good job Neilson is doing.

B. What a bad job Csaba was doing.

C. How shite this league really is.

C. It's full of teams that know how to make things difficult.  I'm worried that we'll turn into one of them.

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3 minutes ago, mishtergrolsch said:

Shows 

A. What a good job Neilson is doing.

B. What a bad job Csaba was doing.

C. How shite this league really is.

A and B yes; C no.  It will still be a hard road right through this season and there will be tough games on the way.

However IF we can win the next two games and draw level with Ayr it will be an incredible start to Neilson’s reign.

 

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