Airdrieonians 23/24 Championship Thread♦️

[airdrieman]

38 minutes ago, The Real Saints said:

Thoughts? I imagine he'd be coming in as our second-choice keeper (in the assumption/hope that Dimitar Mitov stays).

Can’t begrudge him a move to the Premier League. All the best to him. If you can boil our promotion and current position as a club down to one moment, it’s that penalty save at Hamilton. Should be thanked and remembered by Airdrie fans for a long time. 

Excellent shot-stopper, good size and, while I wouldn’t say it’s the first attribute that comes to mind, I think his command of his penalty box is pretty good. Despite it being so key to how we play, I actually think his distribution is under-rated. With the way we play a goalie making a mistake or two is inevitable, but you also wouldn’t last if your distribution wasn’t excellent. Really comfortable and confident with the ball at his feet and he’s been a key component of the bulk of our attacking play, and a few goals too. 

His positioning and decision-making could be better. Especially when coming or already out of his box, and I sometimes think he’s beaten too easily at the near and back post last season (though admittedly that’s probably more the full-backs fault than his). 

But I’d say he’s probably comfortably the best Airdrie goalie I’ve seen in my 22 years supporting the club and he’s always looked likely to get a move to the Premier League eventually. Not as good as Mitov but I actually think he could play for you now and be good enough. I think people forget too how young he is, especially for a goalie. Only going to get better. 

[ShineOnYouCrazyDiamonds]

Would’ve wanted to keep Ballantyne and Rae but if I had to pick two out of the four big names yet to sign on that I’d desperately want to keep it’d be Telfer and Frizz. If we get Johnson in I think he’s a more than good enough replacement for Rae and as much as I like Cammy, Megwa deserved to keep his place in the team after Cammy’s injury so clearly he isn’t irreplaceable. I’m choosing to remain optimistic and to keep faith in McCabe

Edited June 10 by ShineOnYouCrazyDiamonds

[Passionate]

38 minutes ago, AJ77 said:

In other news I believe Adam Frizzell has resigned, still awaiting Telfer decision, could be later on in the week.

Good news on Frizz if confirmed,  Telfer is the major resigning if it happens,  he made the midfield tick last season..

[Jack Reed]

10 minutes ago, Passionate said:

Good news on Frizz if confirmed,  Telfer is the major resigning if it happens,  he made the midfield tick last season..

That news is very welcome,

[DiamondDownSouth]

Thanks to Rae & Ballantyne for your services to Airdrie - the scorer and saver of the sixth penalties that got us promoted and for that they will be remembered. Both joined us from what were fellow League One clubs to better themselves and they did that by helping us to get that promotion.

Goodbye and good luck to both.

Edited June 10 by DiamondDownSouth

[Mr November]

Just now, DiamondDownSouth said:

Thanks to Rae & Ballantyne for your services to Airdrie - the scorer and saver of the sixth penalty that got us promoted and for that they will be remembered. Both joined us from what were fellow League One clubs to better themselves and they did that by helping us to get that promotion.

Goodbye and good luck to both.

I think mostly for Rae it’s another good example of what the board and management want Airdrie to be. Young players joining the club, doing well for Airdrie, improving under good coaching and moving on to a higher level. For all we’ve lost a lot of experience this summer, things like that will continue to make us an attractive club for younger players.

[Aufc]

23 minutes ago, Mr November said:

I think mostly for Rae it’s another good example of what the board and management want Airdrie to be. Young players joining the club, doing well for Airdrie, improving under good coaching and moving on to a higher level. For all we’ve lost a lot of experience this summer, things like that will continue to make us an attractive club for younger players.

Yeah that’s the thing. We will be an attractive club for young players but also premier league clubs looking to send players out on loan. 

[Skyline Drifter]

1 hour ago, KD1711 said:

He is under 24 so if we offered him a contract we would be entitled to a development fee I believe. 

I dont believe so. Its up to season of 23rd birthday you can claim a fee so thats up to 30th June this summer. I'd imagine St Johnstone wont register him until 1st July. Even if you could claim though, you can only claim for training up to the age of 21. You signed him after his 21st birthday.

[RandomGuy.]

2 hours ago, Aufc said:

I wonder if the saints could give us ross Sinclair on loan as a swap

Is there a loan window to teams below the top flight once the window shuts?

I think there is, and I think Sinclair isn't likely to leave until that stage. We won't risk going to 2 keepers if Mitov is one of them, as it's still highly likely he moves on this Summer.

[Diamonds are Forever]

1 hour ago, Mr November said:

I think mostly for Rae it’s another good example of what the board and management want Airdrie to be. Young players joining the club, doing well for Airdrie, improving under good coaching and moving on to a higher level. For all we’ve lost a lot of experience this summer, things like that will continue to make us an attractive club for younger players.

 

I think the club have done brilliantly in the last few years, and I think some kind of version of what we're doing is probably the only way to progress over the long term without significant investment. My concern is that when players are only on 2 year contracts, at most, we're going to struggle to make much money off these players, and definitely struggle to maintain a good side over a few seasons.

That's not a criticism about not getting players tied up for longer, it's very difficult for us to get players to agree to sign up for 2 or 3 years because they don't want tied down for that long. I'm not sure what the answer is, but it's all very well being known as a side who can help develop players, but that means little if they all just move on for better things at the end of their contract and we receive nothing - which has happened a few times in last couple of season. Plus any development fee we are due will always be limited as they haven't come through our youth system.

Like I say I don't want to sound negative because the last 3 or 4 years the club has been excellent in it's decisions. But if we're going to continue with this strategy we'll need to find a way of ensuring we get a better financial return when players move on.

Edited June 10 by Diamonds are Forever

[David Fernández]

10 minutes ago, Diamonds are Forever said:

 

I think the club have done brilliantly in the last few years, and I think some kind of version of what we're doing is probably the only way to progress over the long term without significant investment. My concern is that when players are only on 2 year contracts, at most, we're going to struggle to make much money off these players, and definitely struggle to maintain a good side over a few seasons.

That's not a criticism about not getting players tied up for longer, it's very difficult for us to get players to agree to sign up for 2 or 3 years because they don't want tied down for that long. I'm not sure what the answer is, but it's all very well being known as a side who can help develop players, but that means little if they all just move on for better things at the end of their contract and we receive nothing - which has happened a few times in last couple of season. Plus any development fee we are due will always be limited as they haven't come through our youth system.

Like I say I don't want to sound negative because the last 3 or 4 years the club has been excellent in it's decisions. But if we're going to continue with this strategy we'll need to find a way of ensuring we get a better financial return when players move on.

I think it was always going to be difficult to get a fee for the likes of Josh Rae as he had already played a season of Championship football with Queen of the South and we done well to get him as there was interest in him from down south.

I think the strategy is to develop and sell young players who we gave them their professional debuts or had only a handful of games with a bigger club, it's much easier to do this with players who are less established as we would be more likely to get these players tied down on longer term contracts. 

We were successful in selling Justin Devenny to Crystal Palace and I think our next assets that we'll be looking to develop and sell on are; 

Dean McMaster 

Lewis McGregor

Gavin Gallagher

Liam McStravick 

Mason Hancock 

Dylan MacDonald (even although he's just joined)

McCabe has a proven track record of developing young players so these players that I listed are likely to only get better.

If we're able to maintain ourselves as an established championship team whilst aiming to at lest sell 1/2 players per season that would put us in a great position financially and help us to compete better with teams around about us who would be able to offer more money.

 

[Diamonds are Forever]

3 minutes ago, David Fernández said:

I think it was always going to be difficult to get a fee for the likes of Josh Rae as he had already played a season of Championship football with Queen of the South and we done well to get him as there was interest in him from down south.

I think the strategy is to develop and sell young players who we gave them their professional debuts or had only a handful of games with a bigger club, it's much easier to do this with players who are less established as we would be more likely to get these players tied down on longer term contracts. 

We were successful in selling Justin Devenny to Crystal Palace and I think our next assets that we'll be looking to develop and sell on are; 

Dean McMaster 

Lewis McGregor

Gavin Gallagher

Liam McStravick 

Mason Hancock 

Dylan MacDonald (even although he's just joined)

McCabe has a proven track record of developing young players so these players that I listed are likely to only get better.

 

If we're able to maintain ourselves as an established championship team whilst aiming to at lest sell 1/2 players per season that would put us in a great position financially and help us to compete better with teams around about us who would be able to offer more money.

 

 

 

That was partly my point though, a lot of the discussion around us being good at developing players revolves around players that we won't make a penny from - Rae, Smith, Easton, and potentially the likes of Frizz. There probably isn't any solution to that as it's just the reality for a club at our level.

I was just looking forward trying to see how our strategy might work in the future, any young players need a group of established, experienced pros to play alongside. I have no concerns at all about our ability to bring in talented youngsters and give them good coaching, I do slightly worry about our ability so maintain a solid core of players that isn't going to get picked apart every year, which will make it harder for these youngsters to come in and excel. I think it's how we manage that that will decide how succesful we are in future seasons, rebuilding the core of a team every year whilst also trying to bring in youngsters is asking the manager to work wonders.

As I said up until now the club have done brilliantly so I'm happy to go with it and trust them.

[cb_diamond]

If Telfer leaves I suspect the fans Facebook page might become the first non P+B entity to enter the headstone thread

[++Ammo - Airdrie++]

1 hour ago, cb_diamond said:

If Telfer leaves I suspect the fans Facebook page might become the first non P+B entity to enter the headstone thread

This.

Or "Telfer wasn't really that great anyway, Gav gals a far better player"

[Mr November]

1 hour ago, ++Ammo - Airdrie++ said:

This.

Or "Telfer wasn't really that great anyway, Gav gals a far better player"

I enjoyed Josh Rae’s mum laughing at someone suggesting we have a better keeper coming in.

[David Fernández]

Just caught up with all of the comments on the 'Facebook Group' Jesus wept, what an absolute binfire of a page!!

[Chapelhall chap]

From the penalty shootout we've now seen Dycey,Cal Gal, Cammy, Justin and Josh departing but we've still got Rhys and hopefully Adam. It's the breakup of that day's side but life goes on. 

[++Ammo - Airdrie++]

6 hours ago, Mr November said:

I enjoyed Josh Rae’s mum laughing at someone suggesting we have a better keeper coming in.

Even she knows mate.

I get some folk are absolutely livid about certain players going because they were good for us, but no-ones seen the replacements. Right up to missing that sitter at Hampden, I think my choice of word for Todorov that day was "donkey', and by FT that night at Firhill in the P/O semis, I had tears in my eyes for the big man, but would I be raging if he left? Absolutely not, because MOST people at this level are replaceable, and in fairness, Rhys is only signing guys who WANT to be performing at that level and moving to bigger/better paying clubs, and if that means rebuilding 5/6 main players every 2 years, then it means that on the park, things are going well.

In summary, I'm not losing my shit or my smile before a balls kicked in anger

[Kenny_m]

20 minutes ago, ++Ammo - Airdrie++ said:

Even she knows mate.

I get some folk are absolutely livid about certain players going because they were good for us, but no-ones seen the replacements. Right up to missing that sitter at Hampden, I think my choice of word for Todorov that day was "donkey', and by FT that night at Firhill in the P/O semis, I had tears in my eyes for the big man, but would I be raging if he left? Absolutely not, because MOST people at this level are replaceable, and in fairness, Rhys is only signing guys who WANT to be performing at that level and moving to bigger/better paying clubs, and if that means rebuilding 5/6 main players every 2 years, then it means that on the park, things are going well.

In summary, I'm not losing my shit or my smile before a balls kicked in anger

We're obviously not where we would want to be but if the "expected" goalie brings his 2 mates, Aiken & Megwa, and we resign Telfer & Frizzell then that would uplift everyone, well most.

[++Ammo - Airdrie++]

20 minutes ago, Kenny_m said:

We're obviously not where we would want to be but if the "expected" goalie brings his 2 mates, Aiken & Megwa, and we resign Telfer & Frizzell then that would uplift everyone, well most.

Exactly that mate, that's more or less what I meant.  A couple of wins in July with the new squad and it'll be "Cammy who?".

Alternatively the replacements could be absolutely dugmeat and it all goes Pete Tong, but that's fitba!