Sons' sorrow

[SonsofAnarchy]

1 hour ago, The Moonster said:

Who would you appoint, Sons of Anarchy?

A good servant, Scotland capped, good attitude towards football.  I think Wilson could connect to the players on a personal level and have a similar impact to Ian Murray.  We should take a chance on him.

[sonsanorak]

That the same Mark Wilson currently maanaging full time Airdrie?

[BallochSonsFan]

We're not relegated yet.

We should never have lost on Tuesday night, largely because we should never have been playing on Tuesday night. Bonnyrigg deserved to win it in the first game at their place and justice was done that they took the victory in the replay. It's a massive failure. It's not particularly surprising to anybody who has actually watched us over the past couple of years. Stevie Aitken's team doesnt really do confident, attacking football.

But we're not relegated yet.

No matter who was in charge of our team right now, we'd still be favourites for relegation because we're a part time team in a largely full time league. Aitken deserves a lot of criticism for the squad he's assembled. Throwing money and a 2 year deal at Mark Brown was crazy. Throwing money at Ryan Stevenson was crazy. Building such an imbalanced squad was a big problem. Aitken deserves a lot of criticism for those failings and he's made matters worse by playing uninspired, unadventurous football in games where we've all left feeling that the 3 points were there for the taking. I also think his comments after Tuesday's game could well come back to haunt him - how does his squad of players react to being thrown under the bus in the local press?

But we're not relegated yet.

I don't have faith in Aitken. I think we were sneaking games and securing points playing terrible football and that it's been a real slog to watch us. But until Aitken is either sacked, resigns or his contract expires and he walks away, he's still the Dumbarton manager and he deserves a shred of basic respect. Nobody has to like the style of football he plays. Criticism of his talent as a manager is absolutely fair game. But he deserves a degree of basic respect. Pie and Bovril exists for fans to chat about football, amongst other nonsense. The criticisms may be well deserved, but they should absolutely be the made in the right way.

Best case scenario is that he somehow secures our Championship status, walks away and lets the next Sons manager shape the team in his vision. Until that happens, Aitken might not deserve the universal backing and unquestioning support of the Sons fans but he does deserve a basic degree of respect.

[sonsanorak]

I'd disagree with the best scenario bit. If he can put together a good enough season to keep us up, why would we expect him to walk away?

St Mirren done much the same with Danny Lennon a few years ago; kept them up at the expense of attractive football and was thanked and shown the door. Not saying that contributed to their decline thereafter however.

[George Parr]

For what it's worth, I thought Aitken's criticism of the players in the local press was reasonable. They deserved to be called out and if any of them take a strop off the back of it they should not have their contracts renewed.

[Sir Kenneth of Eadie]

Sorry guys! I'm in the wrong place. Looking for the superior junior forum. Ah! Found it. Thanks!

[The Moonster]

Clydebank

 

[O'Kelly Isley III]

2 hours ago, BallochSonsFan said:

We're not relegated yet.

We should never have lost on Tuesday night, largely because we should never have been playing on Tuesday night. Bonnyrigg deserved to win it in the first game at their place and justice was done that they took the victory in the replay. It's a massive failure. It's not particularly surprising to anybody who has actually watched us over the past couple of years. Stevie Aitken's team doesnt really do confident, attacking football.

But we're not relegated yet.

No matter who was in charge of our team right now, we'd still be favourites for relegation because we're a part time team in a largely full time league. Aitken deserves a lot of criticism for the squad he's assembled. Throwing money and a 2 year deal at Mark Brown was crazy. Throwing money at Ryan Stevenson was crazy. Building such an imbalanced squad was a big problem. Aitken deserves a lot of criticism for those failings and he's made matters worse by playing uninspired, unadventurous football in games where we've all left feeling that the 3 points were there for the taking. I also think his comments after Tuesday's game could well come back to haunt him - how does his squad of players react to being thrown under the bus in the local press?

But we're not relegated yet.

I don't have faith in Aitken. I think we were sneaking games and securing points playing terrible football and that it's been a real slog to watch us. But until Aitken is either sacked, resigns or his contract expires and he walks away, he's still the Dumbarton manager and he deserves a shred of basic respect. Nobody has to like the style of football he plays. Criticism of his talent as a manager is absolutely fair game. But he deserves a degree of basic respect. Pie and Bovril exists for fans to chat about football, amongst other nonsense. The criticisms may be well deserved, but they should absolutely be the made in the right way.

Best case scenario is that he somehow secures our Championship status, walks away and lets the next Sons manager shape the team in his vision. Until that happens, Aitken might not deserve the universal backing and unquestioning support of the Sons fans but he does deserve a basic degree of respect.

Only a couple of idiots are disrespecting Stevie Aitken, but that should not deflect from what I feel is a desperately disappointing decision.  The aspect of strengthening the squad in January has been canvassed on here but I wonder just what is the likelihood of players being attracted to come here in the light of recent events ? 

A fresh start would at least have provided some potential uplift for a squad short of just about everything, and the wording on the OS has to be viewed as a triumph of hope over experience - I'd be fascinated to know the truth.

One thing's for sure, even fewer of the dwindling support will be willing to further grin and bear it.

[The Moonster]

2 hours ago, sonsanorak said:

I'd disagree with the best scenario bit. If he can put together a good enough season to keep us up, why would we expect him to walk away?
 

It's a fair point. But there's a large part of our support that I think have their minds made up and I'm not even sure Stevie keeping us up would change that. If he's hearing "chuck it Aitken" from the stands and "resign now" on twitter every second week he may well feel he's taken us as far as he can, if he does manage to keep us up.

If he keeps us up it will be due to an upturn in our performances, if he does that then I'd be happy for him to stay. A lot of "ifs" there though.

[pleslie99]

I don't think anyone on here has disrespected Aitken. Yes we have came out and stated our wishes for a change but it's not happened. We have 6months of the season left. It's time to see if the players can react to tuesdays result starting with Saturday against Hibs! I dont think even if he keeps us up he will stay on.
Hopefully the signings, if any, made in January will be specialised players and not utility ones which seemed to be the plan at the start of the season which clearly hasn't worked.

[squeezeboxson]

3 hours ago, sonsanorak said:

That the same Mark Wilson currently maanaging full time Airdrie?

Yep my thinking too!

Because we will fork out what would be a decent amount of money to pay off the current management team and then further money in compensation for a manager who is only a matter of weeks into his current job with a full time side.

[DumbartonTheSons]

If we do stay up then I'd be content for Aitken to stay.

He'd have achieved the club's aim for the season as far as I'm concerned.

And that would mean that we'd have won games between now and the end of the season. The crux of it just now though is that the way we're playing, bar a couple of deflections and a penalty here and there, I genuinely can't see us winning another game this season the way we're playing.

[squeezeboxson]

18 minutes ago, DumbartonTheSons said:

If we do stay up then I'd be content for Aitken to stay.

He'd have achieved the club's aim for the season as far as I'm concerned.

And that would mean that we'd have won games between now and the end of the season. The crux of it just now though is that the way we're playing, bar a couple of deflections and a penalty here and there, I genuinely can't see us winning another game this season the way we're playing.

The thing is we have looked bad in so many games this year but we have also looked decent in others. Hibs, Morton (a) and Raith to name a few. We are inconsistent and if we could sort that out at the same time as turning the good performances into better results through a bit of cutting edge then we will be fine.

The problem is that we struggle with anything in the final third of the pitch, imo.

Edited December 8, 2016 by squeezeboxson

[DumbartonTheSons]

The thing is we have looked bad in so many games this year but we have also looked decent in others. Hibs, Morton (a) and Raith to name a few. We are inconsistent and if we could sort that out at the same time as turning the good performances into better results through a bit of cutting edge then we will be fine.

The problem is that we struggle with anything in the final third of the pitch, imo.

I'm in agreement that we're inconsistent. But only in some areas. For the most part, we defend relatively stoutly and the only time we've been thumped is by Ayr.

It's the final third as you say, that we struggle. But the biggest thing for me is the way we struggle up top. If we were creating loads of chances and hitting the post and bar all the time and opposition goalkeepers were having blinders, that'd be one thing.

But we just seem so devoid of any creativity. The best we get is crosses hurled into a general area from wide, or balls just lumped forward without any sort of aim. There's no movement up front, there's no space being made, it all looks so lethargic. The last time we looked the same and albeit it was only one player, was when we had Steven Craig upfront. Only now, instead of only having him to deal with and try and squeeze some sort of urgency out of, we need to do it with all of our forward-thinking players. None of them display any urgency, ideas or nous for attacking at the moment, and that's the biggest thing for me just now.

[thomas 62]

44 minutes ago, squeezeboxson said:

The thing is we have looked bad in so many games this year but we have also looked decent in others. Hibs, Morton (a) and Raith to name a few. We are inconsistent and if we could sort that out at the same time as turning the good performances into better results through a bit of cutting edge then we will be fine.

The problem is that we struggle with anything in the final third of the pitch, imo.

Looking at all UK leagues bar the odd upset, the table positions at the end of the season match ££££££ .Sadly that's the way it goes.

Hope you stay up.

Edited December 8, 2016 by thomas 62
Wrong

[Jan Vojáček]

I'm not sure I would say we are inconsistent. I've seen us put in the exact same performance far too many times this season. We are reasonable at the back, though a lot of that is down to Alan Martin's heroics rather than good defending. It's unsurprising that in the only off game he had we lost comfortably. 

We have very, very little creativity in midfield, and our strikers have next to no service to work with. In saying that, when they do get a good chance, they normally fail to hit the net.

Having a look through the goals we've scored this season is an indication of why we are struggling. As 'Dumbartonthesons' points out, we actually create so little going forward that the goals we do score are quite similar. Now I'm not expecting us to string together 40 passes and play some stunning football, but we haven't really scored a well worked counter attacking goal this season as an example. For a team like us who sit deep but do have players with a bit of pace on the break that's poor. We've benefited from a lot of mistakes (though you do have to take those opportunities) and we've also had a weirdly high number of penalties.

Forfar 2-2 Dumbarton:

Grant Gallagher header from Craig Pettigrew assist (nice goal to be fair)

Garry Fleming (contentious) penalty

Failed to score against East Fife

Dundee 6-2 Dumbarton

Wright/Buchanan Both goals came from centre-backs after we lumped balls into the area

Dumbarton 3-3 Peterhead

R.Thomson bundling a ball that was lumped into the area home

David Smith, decent header from a decent cross

Ryan Stevenson penalty

Dunfermline 4-3 Dumbarton

R.Thomson tap in after 'keeper spilled a free-kick

2 x Mark Docherty penalties

Dumbarton 1-0 Dundee United

Mark Docherty penalty

Morton 1-1 Dumbarton

Own goal after a ball was hit into the box

3 Games without scoring

Dumbarton 1-1 St Mirren

Andy Stirling tap in, well worked goal albeit against a shambles of a defence

Raith Rovers 3-2 Dumbarton

Ryan Stevenson thunderbolt

R.Thomson tap in from a ball lumped into the box

2 Games without scoring

Dundee United 2-1 Dumbarton

R.Thomson, good composed finish, poor defending, but the sort of finishing we need to say more of from Thommo.

Dumbarton 2-2 Dunfermline

J.Thomson tap in after some hilarious defending

Fleming half-volley (good finish) after yet more comical defending from a ball hoofed into the box

St Mirren 0-1 Dumbarton

Need I say more?

3 Games without scoring

Queen of the South 1-2 Dumbarton

Stevenson thunderbolt

Fleming contentious penalty

Did we actually force the Bonnyrigg 'keeper into a serious save over the 180 minutes we faced him? I can't remember him making one I wouldn't have expected him to. That's where our issue lies.

[GoTeamGaz]

1 hour ago, thomas 62 said:

Looking at all UK leagues bar the odd upset, the table positions at the end of the season match ££££££ .Sadly that's the way it goes.

Along these lines, if anyone's looking for a good stocking filler book, I highly recommend Soccernomics (though when I  read it it was called 'Why England Always Lose' a more attractive title!)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0007586523/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_yMEsyb84EQJA0

 

also if, like me, you hate yourself & want to make yourself feel utterly dejected then there's also 'The Elusive Fan' which is a look at what European Football Clubs can learn from the US in terms of attracting fans & creating a match day experience to protect the clubs finances. 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001DYK0ZW/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_PREsybKEPXYT9

[optimistic]

Got to say, no matter how desperate it gets, I will not abandon my team, I will be in attendance, maybe the occasional away game is too far, cos I like to start my work between 5 and 7 on a Saturday, or the occasional family commitment I can't get out of, but I will never stop supporting the sons, 

I've said already, cheering and applause shows support, so booing shows poor performance, , we pay our money, every manager expects this, whether it's 1000 fans or 60,000 fans, managers are thick skinned, that's why their in the firing line, they know how to ignore it, but they also have to respect our opinions.

[O'Kelly Isley III]

9 hours ago, DumbartonTheSons said:

 

 

I'm in agreement that we're inconsistent. But only in some areas. For the most part, we defend relatively stoutly and the only time we've been thumped is by Ayr.

It's the final third as you say, that we struggle. But the biggest thing for me is the way we struggle up top. If we were creating loads of chances and hitting the post and bar all the time and opposition goalkeepers were having blinders, that'd be one thing.

But we just seem so devoid of any creativity. The best we get is crosses hurled into a general area from wide, or balls just lumped forward without any sort of aim. There's no movement up front, there's no space being made, it all looks so lethargic. The last time we looked the same and albeit it was only one player, was when we had Steven Craig upfront. Only now, instead of only having him to deal with and try and squeeze some sort of urgency out of, we need to do it with all of our forward-thinking players. None of them display any urgency, ideas or nous for attacking at the moment, and that's the biggest thing for me just now.

 

It's not only there, the midfield is pisspoor, hence the back four continually lamping those long hopeful and invariably hopeless long balls.  I'm fed up reading on here about us having players who should be good enough to keep us in this division.  Really ?  Who, other than Alan Martin, would cause a sideways glance from other Championship clubs ?

As for the midfield, Todd has thus far been an utter lightweight non-event; Thompson and Stanton do not look Hibs and Celtic-class respectively, ie they are very ordinary and play in fits and starts; ditto Stirling, but again add lightweight; Stevenson looks done at this level and carries an attitude whilst Gallagher is honest, limited and crocked.

Craig Pettigrew has been slagged-off and lampooned on here, it's time some others were put under the spotlight - happy to oblige.

[RandomGuy.]

Dumbarton fans complaining about poor managers and poor tactics as if thats the worst thing they can encounter, not realising the true horror that they'll now face is a decade long obsession from the Junior fans