forkboy

He's a central midfielder, if there's one thing Ross County do it's sign central midfielders!

It's only interim. I honestly prefer that, rather than rushing to hire some retread from Roy's Filofax this means they can hopefully conduct a proper search for a new manager.

It is fair bleak that Yogi is not just a serious candidate but one of the better ones. I still think Rhys McCabe is one of the better candidates, but couldn't blame him if he would rather wait for a better gig to turn up

On the other hand, maybe don't do arm chair diagnosis of a football manager who you don't know personally? It's a bit weird

It's time for Willie McStay 2: Electric Boogaloo

Well he punched Sean Higgins, one of his own players, during his first time as manager, & has fallen out with plenty of other players for no discernible reason. I think if you're being generous you'd say he's a figure who can really motivate some folk & absolutely gets up the back of others.

Only if the question is "Which hopeless pundit should Radio Scotland get rid of next?" Actually, that's not fair, there's probably 3 or 4 worse. I think Willie McStay still has him beat, because at least there was that promising start before he brought the whole house of cards down in a hissy fit a 3 year old would be proud of.

You'd hope they'd look at Rhys McCabe and see if he has any interest. Not many other names that come to mind unless Jürgen Klopp fancies lower pressure next gig once he steps down from Liverpool

Ummmm aye, alright Derek.

Big in the sense of very challenging

Yogi was the first name that came to mind. Maybe if it's just until the end of the season but him in charge full-time gives me the fear because it's not as if his track record for signing players is any good. Probably what's needed is massive change in how the club is run, top to bottom. But at his age I can't see McGregor being willing to do that. And even if we did we'd still have to find a miracle worker to turn results around in the short-term, having wasted the transfer window

Has he considered just trying the job himself? At least avoids paying off a third man in a year...

Shame it went down like that but probably for the best. Not that there's any obvious choice for a replacement.

Basically right, but just to be pedantic, he's actually brought in 7 through January.

Looking back at the thread you quoted yourself from, at least one of us predicted it right Although a 30% hit rate on the January signings might end up being overly optimistic. And not to toot my own horn too loudly but I did worry about it all going sour & him not necessarily being in touch with reality all the time. Can't say I expected it to go this wrong this quickly though. I don't disagree that his new signings will need time to get bedded in, but then because of his attitude to long contracts they won't get it! By the time they are settled they'll be off back to their home clubs. And we'll be in exactly the same situation in the offseason regardless of whether or not we have been relegated. This was perpetually a problem in Adams' second spell at the club once we were in the top flight, the most ineffective scattershot attitude to building a squad, huge turnover of players every 6 months. How much of that was on him & how much was on his da the Director of Football I can't say, but it lingers in my mind constantly about Derek.

He's never going to get eviscerated by County fans because he was manager for our best teams. There's too many good memories to treat him like Malky, even as it becomes increasingly clear he's not up to the job. Especially as he's always come across a bit weird and angry, a bit of a wallopper, so you were always going to have some folk defend his weird press statements as mindgames and 4D chess etc, because he was no different a decade ago. But he had vaguely more sense last time he was here; seemed to know the difference between creating an us and them attitude in the dressing room & just shitting all over everyone including his own players. Whatever he's doing isn't working, and considering the turnover during the window he can't just blame the players he inherited.

Off a short pier I'd hope.

Aye, loan players are still professionals who mostly (there'll be exceptions of course) take pride in their work & if nothing else will be trying to impress on loan to either increase their chances at their home club or to put themselves in the shop window. The problem is if the loan signings just aren't very good. Entirely agree with whoever it was that said that the constant squad turnover doesn't help any, & it's been a long term problem, & apparently one that Adams thinks isn't a problem for some reason. Guys who've played together for several years get to know each others strengths & weaknesses & play to them & cover for them & all that quite important stuff. The "cobble a new squad every 6 months" thing is also made worse by the fact the players brought in often seem to be pretty hopeless. Get that getting folk to move up north might not be the easiest thing but christ, there has to be serious questions asked around the scouting department on top of everything else. The first that comes to mind being do we even have one?

Fucking hell. That's a bit bleak.

Can you do us a solid then? Let me know when it's appropriate to be sceptical about stuff like falling right back into the old Adams habit of completely changing the squad every 6 months, driven by a transfer policy that reeks of "throwing a whole lot of shit at the wall & seeing if any of it'll stick". Tah

It's honestly pretty bleak. My inclination is always to be pretty charitable to our own academy kids but there's not a lot in the last 20 years to get excited about. Alex Cooper & Mark Ridgers both got sold before they could really have much impact & have gone on to have alright journeyman careers, I had hopes for Tony Dingwall but that never really amounted to much, & Greg Morrison is in a similar basket. Ross MacIver is at least playing regular football even if it's at League One level, but did he is near the top scorers there with 9 this season. You obviously hope Josh Reid & Dylan Smith come good but it's fair grasping at straws when you're looking at Ross MacIver as one of the ones closest to a success story, & I don't think he ever actually started a game for County. Is the problem that there's some fatal flaw with the youth academy that means it only attracts rubbish? Because I'd have though just statistically the odds were we'd have fluked into someone who makes the grade at some point in the last 2 decades. Is it a reluctance to just give guys first time playing time because so often we're either in a relegation scrap or a promotion fight? I have no answers, but it's a real bummer whatever the answer is.

I have no idea if this is true or not because I'm about the single least IN THE KNOW supporter alive, but it certainly sounds plausible. Adams being told to apologise, doubling down & then being made to do it seems in character for the man who punched Sean Higgins. (I probably shouldn't hold on to something that happened over 15 years ago but man it's hideously unprofessional & if it happened in any other walk of life Adams would have been out on his arse pronto)

Lord knows I wasn't exactly a Malky defender but we're even worse than we were under him. Which is the kind of miracle I can do without. It's nothing against Adams previous runs, fond memories. But I was dubious about him coming back because I remember the negatives of the last time he was here. And low & behold, massive squad turnover every 6 months is apparently back. I can accept County getting relegated, it's happened before, it'll presumably happen again, but that's hardly justification for getting humiliated by a team 8 points off the top of the Championship. And that's what it was yesterday. It's fine & well for Adams to say the players aren't up to it but what's his plan other than presumably signing Jordan Slew whenever he's out of contract? Why did he take the gig if the squad is that shite & there's no funds to do "a full reset"? What I don't get is it started off well enough, 7 points from his first 3 games. Since then we've lost to St Mirren, Dundee, & been turned over by Aberdeen & Partick, with just the draw against Hearts. I'm not saying this is what it is, because I'm not in the dressing room & I'm not a mindreader, but it's like there was a new manager bounce exactly as long as it took everyone to realise the manager is a bellend. And you can get away with that when things are going well but it's been a while since things have been going well at County. That said, you could it'd be easier to just cut bait & get shot of him, but then we're back to the original problem, who is taking this squad & turning it around over the next 4 & half months? Man, I don't know. I suspect it doesn't matter because I don't see Adams being punted this soon by McGregor, it's one thing to be brutal to a Dick Campbell or Willie McStay but quite another to someone like Adams who has been at the club on & off for so many times. Couldn't really give a crap about Samuel being put out on loan, & it being ICT makes sense because they are the only team at that level that's remotely nearby. So that doesn't even come into the consideration.

Ah, Derek Adams. A very strange man. Is it mind games? Is he the angriest man in Scotland? I dunno, I'm not a mindreader, can only take his words at face value. Does he realise that we can watch English League Two games? The highlights are on just now on ITV4. It's a brutal league.

HR people are deranged, I think it's mandated at their interviews.