The Queen of the South thread

[Dougie Mills]

We could easily be outnumbered 2 to 1 by the away support for that cup tie!

[Otis Blue]

1 minute ago, Dougie Mills said:

We could easily be outnumbered 2 to 1 by the away support for that cup tie!

No problem, we'll happily bank the Tannadice pound ... you never know when it might come in handy ... just saying ...

[Distant Doonhamer]

12 minutes ago, Dougie Mills said:

We could easily be outnumbered 2 to 1 by the away support for that cup tie!

 

8 minutes ago, Otis Blue said:

No problem, we'll happily bank the Tannadice pound ... you never know when it might come in handy ... just saying ...

Exactly. 

[ALOREBURNE]

Well into Monday and Bartley is still in a job. Don’t think I have the motivation to attend Saturday.   

[19QOS19]

52 minutes ago, ALOREBURNE said:

Well into Monday and Bartley is still in a job. Don’t think I have the motivation to attend Saturday.   

Were you genuinely expecting him to be sacked? It's getting harder to make a case for him to stay (the biggest one for me is still - "who replaces him?") but given our record of holding on to managers too long then I really don't expect him to be canned this season unless we're in real trouble of relegation. 

[Otis Blue]

1 hour ago, ALOREBURNE said:

Well into Monday and Bartley is still in a job. Don’t think I have the motivation to attend Saturday.   

I think he'll get to the end of November at the least.  Yet again the season is done before the half-way point and its entirely damage limitation now.  I liked the Bartley appointment as it was something different for us but at the end of the day you can't ignore results or the league table in this game.  If League 2 or the doon playoff spot seriously starts to beckon (which wasn't likely last season) then we've got to stop pissing about and something has to be done.

It's highly likely we could suffer painful defeats to Falkirk and Dundee United during November, so he really needs to find something positive from somewhere soon.

[Greenacres]

1 hour ago, 19QOS19 said:

Were you genuinely expecting him to be sacked? It's getting harder to make a case for him to stay (the biggest one for me is still - "who replaces him?") but given our record of holding on to managers too long then I really don't expect him to be canned this season unless we're in real trouble of relegation. 

Nothing to do about who would replace him all about having to pay the remeining 18 months of his contract .

Iain McCall

Billy Dodds 

 

 

[19QOS19]

1 hour ago, Artemis said:

I think you’re absolutely right that Bartley won’t be sacked anytime soon. But what an easy gig that is - club stays full-time, presumably on the basis that it gives them the best chance of promotion back to the Championship but the manager only gets sacked if the team looks like it might be heading for League 2.
Even then, he might keep it because apparently there’s nobody else who could do any better. Again, I don’t know who would replace him, so I take your point. But it seems the bar for him keeping the job is incredibly low. It makes it seem like the people running the club are ok with Queens being in League 1. If that is the case, there wasn’t really much point in sacking Johnston or even Naysmith.

Can't argue with any of that. I think it's the dismal reality of our situation really. Sadly we aren't the gig we once were so I think the next lot of legitimate candidates for the manager's job could be even more depressing than Hughes and Hopkin etc. Bartley doesn't appear to be getting it right but I fully expect our next manager to be a pretty inexperienced guy as well. 

The one good thing for candidates ironically could be our BoD are very lenient. 

[JTulip]

Queens Trust increase shareholding

[Rjc-1988]

At the time MB seemed as good an appointment as we could realistically expect - played at a decent level, quite well connected, had been part of a successful coaching team at Livvy and a positive communicator. As we all know with a rookie Manager none of that guarantees anything and it is the ability to get your team playing well and winning matches that counts. Sadly, on both counts he is really struggling. The mistake was not giving him the job but the two and a half year contract. 
 

I am very concerned about the threat of relegation- from what I’ve seen we look no better than the teams in the bottom 3. There is a strong probability that results will not improve because the players are simply not good enough and the Manager has had ample time to get us on track and continually fails to deliver. We simply can’t afford to put ourselves in a position where the bottom 2 is any sort of possibility so the next few weeks are critical. More of the same simply can’t be tolerated much longer.

[Slipmat]

Here's a hypothetical question.

If in the wild realms of fantasy Bartley not only manages to turn this shitshow around, gets us into the promotion play-offs and we only go and win them (I know, I know, but bear with me though), and you had free rein to sign any of our current loan players on permanent deals and cancel any contracts which aren't due to expire until 2025 that you want to, how many of our current galacticos would you want to keep for a Championship campaign next season and who would they be?

I would only keep Gibson, Brydon, Mimnaugh, Cochrane, Botterill, Ambrose, Connelly and Walker - in that order.

Reilly, Houston and Church I would possibly consider but only as squad players at best.  And that's it.  A minimum of 18 and maximum of 21 players out the door.  Bloody grim stuff and yet another massive summer rebuild would be needed.

But as I say, it's a ridiculously unlikely scenario which has next to no chance of happening, so this is just me being interested to see what everyone else thinks.  Am I being too loyal or too brutal?  Thoughts?

[the_palmy_pie]

1 hour ago, JTulip said:

Queens Trust increase shareholding

Total waste of money IMO. Could have and should have been used elsewhere. You’ll never get fan representation on the board at Palmerston. 

[SUPERSOUTH]

What was the 50/50 number on Saurday.. Was it claimed?

 

[the_palmy_pie]

18 minutes ago, Slipmat said:

Here's a hypothetical question.

If in the wild realms of fantasy Bartley not only manages to turn this shitshow around, gets us into the promotion play-offs and we only go and win them (I know, I know, but bear with me though), and you had free rein to sign any of our current loan players on permanent deals and cancel any contracts which aren't due to expire until 2025 that you want to, how many of our current galacticos would you want to keep for a Championship campaign next season and who would they be?

I would only keep Gibson, Brydon, Mimnaugh, Cochrane, Botterill, Ambrose, Connelly and Walker - in that order.

Reilly, Houston and Church I would possibly consider but only as squad players at best.  And that's it.  A minimum of 18 and maximum of 21 players out the door.  Bloody grim stuff and yet another massive summer rebuild would be needed.

But as I say, it's a ridiculously unlikely scenario which has next to no chance of happening, so this is just me being interested to see what everyone else thinks.  Am I being too loyal or too brutal?  Thoughts?

I honestly can’t see anything changing under Bartley and this football club needs completely freshened up from top to bottom ( with a few exceptions ) 

everything is so stale at Palmerston. 

 

[Rjc-1988]

Botterill, Gibson, Brydon, Mimnaugh, Kennedy (whom I really liked but haven’t seen enough of him) and Ambrose. 

[the_palmy_pie]

1 minute ago, SUPERSOUTH said:

What was the 50/50 number on Saurday.. Was it claimed?

 

That’s asking a bit much Supersouth. 

[QoS99]

1 hour ago, Slipmat said:

Here's a hypothetical question.

If in the wild realms of fantasy Bartley not only manages to turn this shitshow around, gets us into the promotion play-offs and we only go and win them (I know, I know, but bear with me though), and you had free rein to sign any of our current loan players on permanent deals and cancel any contracts which aren't due to expire until 2025 that you want to, how many of our current galacticos would you want to keep for a Championship campaign next season and who would they be?

I would only keep Gibson, Brydon, Mimnaugh, Cochrane, Botterill, Ambrose, Connelly and Walker - in that order.

Reilly, Houston and Church I would possibly consider but only as squad players at best.  And that's it.  A minimum of 18 and maximum of 21 players out the door.  Bloody grim stuff and yet another massive summer rebuild would be needed.

But as I say, it's a ridiculously unlikely scenario which has next to no chance of happening, so this is just me being interested to see what everyone else thinks.  Am I being too loyal or too brutal?  Thoughts?

Botterill, Brydon, Cochrane, Minmaugh, Gibson and Reilly (squad player).
 

Connelly has the ability to be a very good Championship player but he doesn’t seem to show it (also gets injured fairly frequently) and Houston would both be maybes for me. Bin the rest though.

[Slipmat]

5 minutes ago, Artemis said:

If Queens have got 8 players, potentially 11, who are good enough for the Championship, why have they lost to every team in League 1 except Annan and Edinburgh and have only beaten those two plus Cove by the end of October? Genuine question - is it because they’ve had lots of injuries? I get that all 11 wouldn’t necessarily play at the same time anyway, but is it the case that they’ve never been able to get enough of them on the pitch at once? 

Well, looking at the eight that I'd keep individually, Botterill seems to me to be a capable enough goalie and wouldn't look out of place in Championship team, Brydon has been injured more often than not this season but is undoubtedly our best defender, Ambrose has experience of playing at a much higher level than anyone else we could likely sign and has held the defence together in Brydon's absence albeit with a couple of glaring howlers thrown in, Mimnaugh actually looks like a player with composure and ability who can read the game, is suited to Bartley's "philosophy" and our results have nosedived in his absence. Cochrane for me is usually played too deep (as witnessed when he improved dramatically at the tail end of last season when given a more advanced role), Gibson is Gibson, Walker could do some real damage with his pace, especially if we are relying on the counter-attack but doesn't seem to get more than 10 minutes when a game is beyond saving, and Connelly was a stand-out in his first season in the Championship - admittedly he hasn't been the same since he was singled out to be Gibson snr's fall guy.  He has also struggled for a run of games mainly through injury, but I do think we carry more threat when he is in the number 10 role.

So in summary I'd say that Bartley's style and system doesn't bring out the best in nearly all of these guys - Gibson and Walker are criminally underused, Cochrane is played in the wrong position, Brydon has missed most of the season, Mimnaugh is now in the same boat and we've suffered for it and Connelly has had a stop/start couple of seasons which has limited his game time.  Wrong tactics and an over cautious approach from the manager doesn't help.

[Biblemaster]

11 hours ago, Slipmat said:

Wrong tactics and an over cautious approach from the manager doesn't help.

I've said before, I don't think the players are that bad. I am now sadly coming to the conclusion that Bartley is another Ian Scott, a great coach, but not a manager.

 

I think the players look scared to take a risk and do something not in "The Game Plan" in case they get "out of position at a throw in", the statement that for me was the beginning of the end for Bartley.

[QoS99]

Out of players still playing, who would make it in the best eleven for players to have played for us? I’d go with:

Zander Clark

Shaun Rooney

Jason Kerr

Kevin Holt

Max Johnstone

Dom Thomas

David Norman Jr

Ian Wilson

Issiah Jones

Nicky Clark

Lyndon Dykes

That team would comfortably survive in the premiership surely.