steviemay17

I'm kind of fascinated to see how this works out with Sibideh and Kimpioka, the main thing we keep hearing about is pace, and of course we are crying out for some in the team, but is that the trait we really should be looking for in a striker? I've had a bit of a fascination over the years between our leagues and the English leagues, from the point of view of which players thrive in one setting but look honking in another, and often come back to interviews where English players talk about the relentless pace of the game up here. Of course it's overly simplistic, but I do think there's something to the theory that the Scottish game is played at a crazy pace and a lot of physicality is nullified as a result, so players who have that bit of composure and footballing intelligence to find and understand space are the ones who thrive. On the flip side, a lot of English football is very "samey" these days with players clearly coached the same way in academy sides and technically solid, so anyone with extra physicality tends to stand out because they break the cycle of sideways passing by using their physical traits and a lot of players aren't used to that. Thinking back over recent years in terms of Saints and the players who have really stood out are the ones with footballing intelligence, the composure to actually take a second to think and see the space in the chaos around them. For me that's players like Wotherspoon, Swanson, McCann, MacLean, Jody Morris, Chris Millar etc. In this current team, Carey isn't on their level, but he's the one who stands out because he tries to think on the ball rather than just relentlessly running. The only exception for us that really comes to mind is Michael O Halloran, his footballing intelligence and anticipation was nonexistent but his pace was incredible, yet once he was figured out and lost some of his quickness he offered nothing very quickly. In his prime he could've been a genuine mid-Championship level striker down south, it's also why I think Dan Phillips will probably end up moving for 1-2 million in the future once he goes back down there because his physicality will allow him to bully a lot of players and he'll look outstanding. Working as a scout for a team down south for a while, when it came to strikers, the management team were obsessed with guys like Innih Effiong who was genuinely rotten for Ross County but was unplayable at a decent level down there because of his physicality, it's also how carthorses like Ikpeazu got big moves as well. Looking at some of the more prolific strikers outside the OF over the years, the vast majority were particularly average at best when it comes to physicality: Adam Rooney, Billy McKay, Lewis Moult, Kevin Van Veen, Liam Boyce, Lawrence Shankland, Michael Higdon, Stephen Dobbie, Kris Doolan, Greg Stewart, Steven Fletcher, Nadir Ciftci (not the imposter that we saw). There will be more, and not all of them are star names but all good strikers at this level. Even looking back through the list of top scorers earlier in the center to guys like Riordan, O'Connor, McFadden, Goodwillie, Stephen Thompson, weren't thought of as pacey players either and players like Boyd, Stokes, Naismith etc probably fall into a similar category. The only out-and-out pace merchant who's consistently good that I can think of is Martin Boyle, so honestly I'm excited to see if what we have now makes a difference. It also makes future recruitment interesting, because if we're signing players from down south who aren't overly prolific then they'll get a lukewarm reception at best, but maybe there's something to recruiting strikers who fit the model of player who have had success here rather than looking at raw stats. It probably also means nothing if the rest of the team is slow and can't string any passes together in fairness

Maybe Levein is still bitter about the whole 4-6-0 and plans to keep us up in the playoff against Dundee United fielding a 0-6-4 formation before sailing off into the sunset

does anyone know how much we're paying Crawford? Have to think it's at least 2k a week if nobody can come close to taking it on and honestly wonder if it's around double that

Obviously he'd end ups coring a goal that puts us down, but May going on loan to Livi and scoring the playoff winner over Dundee United would be beautiful

Could end up being a Liam gordon type signing who just needs a chance at the top level and excels, could be a Brad McKay and just isn't quite good enough for the level but would rather we take a punt on someone like Smith who might develop and either become a mainstay or go on for a fee over the Ali Crawford type signings every single time

Does this mean we can now unleash a "£10m" strike force of Kimpioka and Jephcott if they were allegedly touted for £5m moves at fairly recent points in their careers?

I do wonder how much of him was arrogant enough that win given the ultimatum, to half arse the approach with the new formation in an attempt to demonstrate that "this is what happens when you deviate from the masterplan" and he thought it would give him more time

Burnley just giving us players so we can play this friendly later in the week?

Regardless of what happens this season, at least we might have some of the joy and intrigue that football should bring coming back to us again. A few worried posts about how these signings are "gambles" and that's because they are, but isn't that kind of the point as well? CD's signing policy felt like it was to remove every last bit of "gamble" out of the club, it was signing proven players who turned out to be exactly what we knew they were going to be. There's so many I've lost count but Considine, Carey, Murphy, McGowan, Clark, Crawford and so many more have turned out exactly as we knew they would - solid enough, just about kept us in the division but there was no joy, no mystery, their ceiling had been hit, they weren't going to improve, they didn't really have anything to prove and we were never selling them for a fee so it was money down the drain. Our signings this summer might turn out to be pish, we might end up going down, but under CD and that playing style/policy we were never going to trouble the top six and would go down eventually - What we're doing now might put us down quicker, but it could also make us fun to watch, push for a top half place and Euopean football again and we might even get lucky and sell a few for decent fees to make up for the mess that's happened behind the scenes lately. Of course I'm worried about this season, but at least I feel a bit interested and excited to see how these players and also the manager develop, it's better than having the same old pish like before. Also slightly disagree that two year deals on these types of players are a huge risk, if they're dreadful there will always be an English League Two/Conference team who'll take them on, but nobody is ever going to take the likes of Considine or Crawford off our hands, so the gamble does feel lessened.

Largely unreliable but I also sign McLelland for Saints on FM because his attributes for bravery and leadership are off the charts, even if that's half true, this team needs some leaders so you never know

I'm kind of fascinated with every announcement when it's said "x has signed subject to international clearance"... has it ever, ever been denied?

I get this isn't really what we should be looking for in a manager, but it's kind of nice to be back to the Tommy Wright days where we have someone who will happily fight anyone and probably win, it brings a level of intensity and fear.

Is the rule still that we can only loan one player from the same team per season? Means Watkins would have to be on the patented 2 year deal despite being well over 30

I really never saw a situation where I would fall out of love with football but Saints are really testing my limits these days. I can already see it in three years when we've gone back-to-back relegations and struggling to stay afloat, a long-form article somewhere on "how the double winners fell" and how hard it is to maintain success at the top level, where in actual fact the club has self-inflicted the following: Pissing off the entire fanbase, then doubling down with the whole shambles vs Rangers Wasted what I presume is around £2m in transfer fees on utter sh*te Signing players just to release them Running with a squad of 30+ senior players, I'm really struggling to need more than one hand to count how many I would miss if they left Rammed the team with ageing players on multi-year deals, giving us zero flexibility in the market and meaning an entire rebuild is needed in two years Replaced our Cup-winning Captain with someone who had never played senior football in his life because his brother was good and someone who was at Millwall - neither lasted more than six months I'm sure there's tons more, but the post mortem from this isn't really going to reveal any surprises once it all goes fully t*ts up.

The only thing that could really make this worse would be CD pulling out the classic TW move of claiming that MOH is actually a striker and having to sit through that experiment again