The Official Airdrieonians Thread - 2019/20 and beyond

[Diamonds02]

3 hours ago, CapitalDiamond said:

In defence of the club….. Falkirk announced a £1.2 million loss last year, they are on track for a £400k loss this year. Anything like that would kill us and yet that’s who we are stuck in a league with.

Even ignoring that historic spend, the match day revenue at both Falkirk and Dunfermline must be 3/4 times what we make and have a massive impact on playing budgets. Unless their “football program” is a shambles (as Falkirk’s had been for a couple of years), then you’d expect them to beat us over a season. That list of league winning managers that was posted, how many of them won the league again teams that were far better resourced financially? Dick Campbell maybe? 

We could all see that we were crying out for a solid centre half and ball winning centre mid ahead of the window, but do we want to gamble with the future of the club when realistically the league was already gone?
 

The sensible play may well be to hope for a play off miracle this year and invest next year if Dunfermline and Falkirk are replaced by the likes of Arbroath, Hamilton and Cove? 

it’s really difficult to watch. Feels unlikely we’ll go up and with Smith, Frizzell etc. likely to be watched by other clubs it might need a rebuild over the summer.

I think the challenge for the club is to work out how we do it without gambling with our existence if we fail. Last year was almost perfect but then a QP team dripping in cash and with Simon Murray finally in form picked our pockets at the last hurdle.

I don’t think that we look like a league 2 side, not many of them Would take the lead in the last 3 games. But our soft centre means this is our level (as squandering those winning positions shows).

The idea that buying the likes of Lachie Byrd and having a youth academy (which isn’t playing at the elite youth level) will get us out of this league I find far fetched, but if the board think it’s the best model given financial constraints then I think we all just need to buckle up and cross our fingers (unless anyone else is sitting on a few million and fancies taking on an unfashionable club).

Yeah wasn't really saying that it would on it's own but just think it's good that we are starting to think a bit more long term because as you say, we can't really compete with other teams budgets in the short term.

[AL-FFC]

1 hour ago, Jack Reed said:

We don't seem to have any players that can get stuck in and change or see a game out,come up against a bit of quality they seem lost to the cause ,we are not far away from being a good team but need to bring in a couple of streetwise players,I know we are not supposed to say any thing negative about the team on here but it's my opinion and it's there to be seen every week. ,

Telfer can turn it on against lower league one players you would think he was Messi but he isn't creative enough, Gary Oliver who I thought got a lot of stick for not scoring enough from our support but look at the work he does bring others into play trouble is trying to get players with that bit of creativity are few and far between McGlynns dealing in the loan market has been spot on in fact his recruitment we haven't had a single failure and some of the previous who folk wouldn't want near the team turned it round McKay, Nesbitt.  

Always a gamble with a rookie manager, but if you don't chance it you will never know but i think a lot of it may come from being pals with guys in the dressing room and not knowing how to make that change as a manager and dealing with them daily and not ruin a friendship there is also that bit of tactical naivety no one wants to admit they are wrong and said could probably be the same in football (a lot of our support have questions mcglynns thinking of not starting Burrell instead of Oliver and it shows why he is the manager and we aren't). If he can make better use of the loan market and strike up more connections in the game there's no reason why you cant gain promotion

[Jack Reed]

1 hour ago, dextermorgan said:

I'm heartened to see so many posters realise that Falkirk and Dunfermline are where they are because of their fanbase and budget. I personally think that Rhys has done a terrific job so far given his experience and some of the comments on his abilities are frankly ridiculous.

Yesterday could have easily gone in our favour but we have become so accustomed to the likes of Smithy missing sitters from five yards out that fans vent their frustrations about tactics etc.

As I have said in a previous post, all that is missing is quality and experience from the bench and that is where the finances kick in.

Aye famous words (if  only)

[Rhys McCabe Hype Train]

2 hours ago, dextermorgan said:

I'm heartened to see so many posters realise that Falkirk and Dunfermline are where they are because of their fanbase and budget. I personally think that Rhys has done a terrific job so far given his experience and some of the comments on his abilities are frankly ridiculous.

Terrific is a bit of a stretch.

Downing tools and surrendering any lead as soon there’s a bit of adversity isn’t exactly the calling card of a “quality manager”. And his inability to learn from mistakes is extremely frustrating.

Also seen a lot of the blind “keep the faith” posts popping up. It’s hard to do that when   when you know even at 3-0 up the team has the ability to implode. 

[Kenny_m]

21 minutes ago, Rhys McCabe Hype Train said:

Terrific is a bit of a stretch.

Downing tools and surrendering any lead as soon there’s a bit of adversity isn’t exactly the calling card of a “quality manager”. And his inability to learn from mistakes is extremely frustrating.

Also seen a lot of the blind “keep the faith” posts popping up. It’s hard to do that when   when you know even at 3-0 up the team has the ability to implode. 

I doubt PH will dump Rhys bearing in mind we gave Ian Murray 4 years (of failure) and probably it would have been longer. He's went down the young manager route which was always going to a learning curve and I'm sure he was well aware of.

 

[ShineOnYouCrazyDiamonds]

9 minutes ago, Kenny_m said:

I doubt PH will dump Rhys bearing in mind we gave Ian Murray 4 years (of failure) and probably it would have been longer. He's went down the young manager route which was always going to a learning curve and I'm sure he was well aware of.

 

Granted Murray ultimately did fail because the goal is and always promotion, but we were never this easy to beat under Murray and he inherited a really poor team and consistently improved it every year. McCabe inherited Murray’s team and fair enough he lost Easton and some others we had on loan but we still have the core of last season’s squad, Watson, McCabe, Fordyce, Frizzell, Gallagher, Smith, McGill were all regular starters last season, and we’re miles off last season’s form.

He’s a young and inexperienced manager who will learn as he goes, but it looks like we won’t be getting promoted anytime soon. An experienced coach or DoF working with McCabe while he learns the ropes could make a world of difference.

[Kenny_m]

1 minute ago, ShineOnYouCrazyDiamonds said:

Granted Murray ultimately did fail because the goal is and always promotion, but we were never this easy to beat under Murray and he inherited a really poor team and consistently improved it every year.

Yeh but Murray was already an experienced manager and until last season improvement was minimal, therefore why wouldn't we give a Rhys a chance to learn and improve remembering that there were a lot of calls for Murray to be relieved of his job prior to the start of last season. We can't go writing off a youngest manager in the country in less than a season in an undoubtably stronger league.

Of course he's shown naivety and made mistakes but it's far too early to tell especially since we still have loads to play for this season.

What I would like is for the board to push the boat out and use up our 2 remaining loans on players who walk into the starting 11.

[Jack Reed]

27 minutes ago, Kenny_m said:

Yeh but Murray was already an experienced manager and until last season improvement was minimal, therefore why wouldn't we give a Rhys a chance to learn and improve remembering that there were a lot of calls for Murray to be relieved of his job prior to the start of last season. We can't go writing off a youngest manager in the country in less than a season in an undoubtably stronger league.

Of course he's shown naivety and made mistakes but it's far too early to tell especially since we still have loads to play for this season.

What I would like is for the board to push the boat out and use up our 2 remaining loans on players who walk into the starting 11.

It's called serving your time ,like a trade if you are not corrected and shown proper way the mistake will be repeated ,bring anything to mind .

[Jack Reed]

16 minutes ago, Kenny_m said:

Yeh, I served my time for 4 years and I'm thankful they never booted me out in year 1 as I was pretty shiite then!

Aye that's good but you didn't have to boss other tradesmen and learn at same time,

[Jack Reed]

49 minutes ago, Kenny_m said:

I did, I was the player manager of the apprentices football team!

 

49 minutes ago, Kenny_m said:

I did, I was the player manager of the apprentices football team!

Probably never heard of that team then,I think you have something to do with running Airdrie team by what you are saying ,

[Kenny_m]

With regards to changing manager, sometimes we should be careful what we wish for. Stevie Crawford is favourite for the Dundee United job!!

[101]

2 minutes ago, Kenny_m said:

With regards to changing manager, sometimes we should be careful what we wish for. Stevie Crawford is favourite for the Dundee United job!!

Mainly because he is the current assistant rather than based on any of his previous managerial work.

Also if you put £200 on Tam Courts he would then be the favourite, that's how poor McBookies are.

[Kenny_m]

8 minutes ago, 101 said:

Mainly because he is the current assistant rather than based on any of his previous managerial work.

Also if you put £200 on Tam Courts he would then be the favourite, that's how poor McBookies are.

Don't get me wrong I would be shocked if Stevie Crawford got that gig, it's more the fact they are a pretty uninspiring bunch for a club of that stature.

[Jack Reed]

1 hour ago, Kenny_m said:

With regards to changing manager, sometimes we should be careful what we wish for. Stevie Crawford is favourite for the Dundee United job!!

Think Neil Lennon would be a good bet 

[papa57]

McCabe a good player, but not a good manager, 3 games on the trot they have threw a lead, one point from those 3 games, not good enough, will be lucky to make play offs

[Kenny_m]

13 minutes ago, papa57 said:

McCabe a good player, but not a good manager, 3 games on the trot they have threw a lead, one point from those 3 games, not good enough, will be lucky to make play offs

Whether they were deserved or not we received 2 red cards, conceded 2 pens, missed a penalty and had 2 important players suspended in these 3 games. It was a major factor on our points return and not what you want when playing the top sides in the league.

As long as our confidence hasn't taken a knock then I expect us to easily reach the play offs although we need to rack up a lot of points in our March fixtures.

[Jack Reed]

32 minutes ago, Kenny_m said:

Whether they were deserved or not we received 2 red cards, conceded 2 pens, missed a penalty and had 2 important players suspended in these 3 games. It was a major factor on our points return and not what you want when playing the top sides in the league.

As long as our confidence hasn't taken a knock then I expect us to easily reach the play offs although we need to rack up a lot of points in our March fixtures.

Confidence doesn't seem to come into it ,it's ability we need aye a bit more ,

[Sage Monkey]

Are we not getting overly negative around a bad statistic of three games and only one point. As everyone knows statistics can lie.

Remember that we were 3-0 up on the league leaders after 60 minutes at home, does that indicate a lack of ability? We went away to the top of the league and battled well to earn a draw that I for one would have settled for before the match.

Then unfortunately we were beaten by a Falkirk side that were undoubtedly the better on the day, so in my opinion, one poor performance in three. Every team has a poor performance now and again, let's lick our wounds and get on with it.

The major issue with my argument is what happened in the last 30 minutes against Dunfermline, and the same issue occured against Edinburgh (6-0 and 5-3 defeats) and Dundee (6-2 defeat) in all cases we collapse when down to 10 men, this needs to be worked on, as it shouldn't be happening. I am old enough to (comfortably) remember the early 90's when Alec MacDonald had us in the Premier League, and we were regularly down to 10 men, that team never collapsed, they simply rolled up their sleeves and scrapped it out, Rhys needs to instill some of that grit into the side.

[dextermorgan]

2 hours ago, Sage Monkey said:

Are we not getting overly negative around a bad statistic of three games and only one point. As everyone knows statistics can lie.

Remember that we were 3-0 up on the league leaders after 60 minutes at home, does that indicate a lack of ability? We went away to the top of the league and battled well to earn a draw that I for one would have settled for before the match.

Then unfortunately we were beaten by a Falkirk side that were undoubtedly the better on the day, so in my opinion, one poor performance in three. Every team has a poor performance now and again, let's lick our wounds and get on with it.

The major issue with my argument is what happened in the last 30 minutes against Dunfermline, and the same issue occured against Edinburgh (6-0 and 5-3 defeats) and Dundee (6-2 defeat) in all cases we collapse when down to 10 men, this needs to be worked on, as it shouldn't be happening. I am old enough to (comfortably) remember the early 90's when Alec MacDonald had us in the Premier League, and we were regularly down to 10 men, that team never collapsed, they simply rolled up their sleeves and scrapped it out, Rhys needs to instill some of that grit into the side.

I agree that we can't be too down about the points tally in recent games. If we lost those points against the bottom sides then I would worry. The trouble for many supporters now is the fact that we need to be about four goals up against a side so that we can relax. If our players misfire as on Saturday then we have big problems.

Personally, I believe that only Fordyce and Ballantyne and perhaps Devenney are worth their place in the defensive lineup. Take a look at the highlights this year and you will see the same players guilty of defensive errors and poor positioning.

Other managers always comment that we have "a way of playing". That is certainly true, the trouble is how to change it when we go behind or lose a player.

[Kenny_m]

No last minute loan signings incoming?