Annan vs Dumbarton, Dumbarton vs Annan

[O'Kelly Isley III]

36 minutes ago, The Moonster said:

"The players froze on the biggest game of the season"

Sorry Stevie, but the players have froze at every big game. First top of the table clash at Stirling? Shipped 6 goals. Chance to extend our lead at the top? Lost at home to Elgin. Chance to extend our lead again before a crucial top of the table clash? Shipped 5 goals to Albion Rovers. We somehow get ourselves a draw at Stirling and keep the title race alive only for us to lose the next 3 matches. One final chance to give it everything at home to Stirling and we seemed happy enough to play for a draw. 

Anyone who attended our previous gane with Annan said it could've been 8 or 9. The fact he learned nothing from that, sent the team out in the same manner and got absolutely dicked proves he's not fit to manage at this level, certainly not for a team with aspirations of promotion. The sad thing is, even if we do somehow end up bagging him, we have a deluded board with absolutely no football knowledge picking his replacement. There is only one direction of travel here. 

It has all been said Moonster, but you have summarised it pretty well there.  It has to be added though that delusion was also evident in quite a few of our supporters earlier in the season when although it was obvious that we were shitfesting our way to points all that mattered was 'the league table'.  How did that work out ?

As to Farrell's position and the DFC Board, I've already had two supporters of decades standing contact me to say that they will not be renewing season tickets if the manager remains in place, and I will probably join them.  And none of this is based solely on last night, that was just the icing on the cake.

With this Saturday's game being pay at the gate there could be a horrendous turnout in the home end.  To be honest though, they could offer free admission and it probably wouldn't make a bit of difference.  And I'm not sure I want to see Annan take pity on us by strolling around in second gear.

[cedrick1]

Yes refer my earlier post . A gesture on admission is least club can do but still not enough to make one attend

 

[Jordo1872]

Not much to add to what has already been said. An absolute embarrassment of a performance. 
 

Faz talks as if that’s a one off performance, a blip, an unexplainable off night for the players, when the reality is those sort of performances have been consistent all season. Even when we were managing to win games at the start of the season we weren’t doing so with any sort of conviction. And we’ve imploded far too many times, three 6-0 defeats and shipping 5 at home to Albion Rovers shows we are nowhere near good enough for promotion.

We’ve set up defensively in pretty much every game I’ve watched. A sign we have little creativity or confidence in the players to take a game to the opposition. We are mentally weak. Wylde a particular embarrassment last night but plenty others have shown similar frailties. The manger is out his depth.

Well done to Annan. Excellent from the first whistle and played positive attacking football. The type of football that wins you promotion. Best of luck in the final.

I’ll be finding something else to do this Saturday unless Farrell is binned.

 

 

[cedrick1]

I had thought and wsd confirmed last night

The resigning of most of the squad . This squad imo would have struggled in league one so did we accept a while back we weren’t going up and squad us built fir L 2

the table on an earlier post shows us 8th since February and us perhaps an indication of what next season me bring ???

[BallochSonsFan]

Farrell's tactic works so long as every player is 100% at their best. Its never pretty. It can be effective. Unfortunately all it takes is a couple of bad performances and it falls apart. Last night we had a team of terrible performances. Farrell has no plan B and his subs actually made things worse. We ended up with a 3 man midfield against a team with dangerous wide men. What did he think would happen?

I can understand why the board wanted him signed. Its a reflection of how poor our board is and how limited our means are. But they took a massive risk doing it so early and we're in the same position as last summer - stuck with a manager whose side flopped in the big games and who has absolutely no credit in the bank with fans.

He shouldn't have been offered a deal before Easter. At that point we'd have been justified in not offering one given how badly our form collapsed. The board has some serious questions to answer, but we'll get nothing from our chairman - Dumbarton's multi winning hide and seek champion.

[Clarko_son]

I think all the above points are spot on, I listened to the interview last night and my first thought was his comments about players freezing and not playing well on the night are all well and good. However...

He's not learned from some absolute pumpings in big games and this is a squad that he assembled in the large majority and has offered deals to most of for next year. If the players froze or weren't good enough then that sits with him. We were awful last night, I gave up after 80 minutes, not because I thought i thought we could anything remotely positive but to see how bad it could get. Eventually even the self-loathing became too much

[FifeSons]

I’m not going to bother coming, despite having spent decent money on travel. Farrell and the board can go f**k themselves.

Edited May 10, 2023 by FifeSons

[BallochSonsFan]

I left after the 6th, so missed the final whistle. Take it the manager and players disappeared sharp and went straight up the tunnel?

[Bring Back Paddy Flannery]

19 minutes ago, BallochSonsFan said:

I can understand why the board wanted him signed. Its a reflection of how poor our board is and how limited our means are. But they took a massive risk doing it so early and we're in the same position as last summer - stuck with a manager whose side flopped in the big games and who has absolutely no credit in the bank with fans.

He shouldn't have been offered a deal before Easter. At that point we'd have been justified in not offering one given how badly our form collapsed. The board has some serious questions to answer, but we'll get nothing from our chairman - Dumbarton's multi winning hide and seek champion.

I genuinely can’t understand in the slightest why they felt the need to offer him a deal when they did. Absolutely no one was coming in to take him based on one good spell of results with his record of complete failure. Had the idiots in our boardroom not offered him that deal we could be heading into the new season with a fresh start without the need to pay anyone off or an entire fanbase having the fear about what will happen next season. A lot of his good results were achieved through shitfesting with a huge slice of luck, it was never convincing. Even if he had somehow managed to drag us through the playoffs I would’ve still been happy to see him move on. 

The board have made a monumnetal arse of it over this new deal and it is the biggest indication they have given that they are not remotely fit for purpose. 

[FifeSons]

The Trust rep on the board can get to f**k as well. What was she doing signing off on a new deal. She’s not exactly done a good job of representing the supporter’s voice.

[Silverton End]

30 minutes ago, BallochSonsFan said:

I left after the 6th, so missed the final whistle. Take it the manager and players disappeared sharp and went straight up the tunnel?

He applauded the fans at the end apparently.

These wahoos will be there on Saturday shouting " don't worry Stevie, next year Stevie, next year"

[BallochSonsFan]

12 minutes ago, Bring Back Paddy Flannery said:

I genuinely can’t understand in the slightest why they felt the need to offer him a deal when they did. Absolutely no one was coming in to take him based on one good spell of results with his record of complete failure. Had the idiots in our boardroom not offered him that deal we could be heading into the new season with a fresh start without the need to pay anyone off or an entire fanbase having the fear about what will happen next season. A lot of his good results were achieved through shitfesting with a huge slice of luck, it was never convincing. Even if he had somehow managed to drag us through the playoffs I would’ve still been happy to see him move on. 

The board have made a monumnetal arse of it over this new deal and it is the biggest indication they have given that they are not remotely fit for purpose. 

The argument that the board would make is that the club has limited resources and Farrell had started the season well. Players were attracting a bit of interest and they felt that extending the manager's contract would potentially encourage players to commit to the club because of the continuity with the manager.

Which isn't a terrible basic argument. Its the timing that was always suspect.

The problem is that we did it far too early. If we were in a good position at Easter then extending Farrell's contract makes sense. Doing it a full 2 months earlier was idiotic. Easter would have been a fair reflection of the season and on balance we'd be looking for a new manager. Nobody would have extended Farrell's contract based on our overall form by Easter. Late Jan/early Feb was a reflection of our form in the first half of the season. Things went belly up after that, but by that point Farrell had his extension.

A more competent and confident board would have waited. The board should have waited until we were closer to the end of the season to decide if he deserved another contract. But the club board is neither competent nor confident and the picture now looks an awful lot like a decision made by a chairman who is hopeless out of his depth. Farrell talks a good game and Mackay believes every word of it. Its no justification for keeping Farrell, but I wouldn't trust the club to appoint a proper replacement.

Farrell should have been sacked last summer. We kept him and it created a lot of bad feeling within the support. The board aren't going to sack him this summer. We extended his contract and it would now be even more expensive to sack him than it would have been this time last year. Which means starting next season with even more bad feeling. Fans have every justification in wanting Farrell sacked. That we're almost certainly not going to and aren't in a position to do so should be an even bigger red flag. That fault sits with our utterly inept board of directors and our hopeless chairman.

[BallochSonsFan]

12 minutes ago, FifeSons said:

The Trust rep on the board can get to f**k as well. What was she doing signing off on a new deal. She’s not exactly done a good job of representing the supporter’s voice.

Its a 3 person board. Stephanie can't make decisions like that on her own. If it came to a vote then she'd need another board member to agree with her.

There's a reasonable argument that our rep on the board isn't as effective as previous reps. Perhaps now fans will appreciate the job Alan Findlay did.

But equally folk should appreciate some of the difficulties Stephanie is facing. We have a 3 person board at the club. From the outside looking in, there's a clear lack of leadership and a serious shortage of ability within the club. Its a situation that even the best football people would find challenging.

Dumbarton are a dumpster fire and have been for at least the past 2 years.

[Jeremy Clarkson]

1 hour ago, BallochSonsFan said:

I left after the 6th, so missed the final whistle. Take it the manager and players disappeared sharp and went straight up the tunnel?

Lynas came over and apologised to fans, Long shook a few fans hands when they said it wasn’t his fault. I think a couple also applauded but made sure to keep a distance and most went straight down the tunnel.

[FifeSons]

1 hour ago, BallochSonsFan said:

Its a 3 person board. Stephanie can't make decisions like that on her own. If it came to a vote then she'd need another board member to agree with her.

There's a reasonable argument that our rep on the board isn't as effective as previous reps. Perhaps now fans will appreciate the job Alan Findlay did.

But equally folk should appreciate some of the difficulties Stephanie is facing. We have a 3 person board at the club. From the outside looking in, there's a clear lack of leadership and a serious shortage of ability within the club. Its a situation that even the best football people would find challenging.

Dumbarton are a dumpster fire and have been for at least the past 2 years.

I think AF did a great job - and I'm not just saying that because I know he reads this forum sometimes!

We've had some good boards and some terrible ones. This one definitely sits in the latter, but for all the moaning, I don't really know what can be done.

Edited May 10, 2023 by FifeSons

[the snudge]

Some of these players when they leave will go on and have stand out seasons at other clubs. Happens all the time to Dumbarton. Shows you where the faults lie.

A sinking ship only has one trajectory.

[The Moonster]

24 minutes ago, the snudge said:

 

A sinking ship only has one trajectory.

Ironically enough it will be a pirate who fucks off with all the treasure when it's sunk too.

[O'Kelly Isley III]

3 hours ago, Jordo1872 said:

Not much to add to what has already been said. An absolute embarrassment of a performance. 
 

Faz talks as if that’s a one off performance, a blip, an unexplainable off night for the players, when the reality is those sort of performances have been consistent all season. Even when we were managing to win games at the start of the season we weren’t doing so with any sort of conviction. And we’ve imploded far too many times, three 6-0 defeats and shipping 5 at home to Albion Rovers shows we are nowhere near good enough for promotion.

We’ve set up defensively in pretty much every game I’ve watched. A sign we have little creativity or confidence in the players to take a game to the opposition. We are mentally weak. Wylde a particular embarrassment last night but plenty others have shown similar frailties. The manger is out his depth.

Well done to Annan. Excellent from the first whistle and played positive attacking football. The type of football that wins you promotion. Best of luck in the final.

I’ll be finding something else to do this Saturday unless Farrell is binned.

 

 

Farrell won't be binned before Saturday, not because the tie is remotely recoverable but because any decision should wait until our season is officially ended, which will be around 4.47pm on the 13th of May, ie Saturday.

And that's where the worries set in.  If the Manager is retained there will be a dramatic and immediate effect on season ticket sales and probably a range of other commercial aspects such as player, jersey sponsorship, etc., as well as wider business interest.  The DFC Board of Directors would be extremely ill-advised to think that a blizzard of upbeat Emails will see the troops rally round in traditional fashion.

No, better that they sit down with SF and either enact any Gentleman's Agreement that may have formed part of the contract renewal (I'm hoping here rather than expecting) or seek to negotiate a contract termination in the best interests of all parties - if that means they rattle the owner's cage for money then so be it.  Grim as that prospect may sound, it will be hee-haw compared to the alternative.

[FifeSons]

Isn't the general manager big pals with Farrell and (ludicrously) had a say in his appointment? Imagine any negative emails will be filed straight in the bin. Apologies if I'm confusing them with someone else, but I'm sure it was someone in an administrative role.

Edited May 10, 2023 by FifeSons

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

As an outsider reading this, id say i agree the club looks like a dumpster fire, but given youre ground is worth a fortune in potential redevelopment money this throwing the toys out the pram and threatening boycotts isnt a great idea. When we boycotted at Cappielow (26 paying customers but the media forgot about the 300 watching from hill) that became the agenda ‘no fans’ etc. the same thing could be seized upon. Your club do your thing but i fear the worst if you all stop turning up. Why not go and protest Farrell? I get theres a massive amount of frustration after a serious bottle job but its still your team.