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Slipmat

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Everything posted by Slipmat

  1. Kelty should be fine. Five consecutive defeats looks poor, but they have been against the top 5 teams in the table. I would certainly expect them to start picking up points agains over the next 4 or 5 fixtures. Stirling are unpredictable, but do have the easiest run in on paper. It all comes down to how they perform in the head-to-heads against the other 3. Queens are in a shocking state, the three most winnable games are all at Palmerston which given our horrific home form mean we probably won't win any of them. Annan's form isn't quite as impressive as I'd imagined, it's as much a case of the other 3 clubs sliding towards them as them stringing a series of wins together. However, they do look capable of getting results where maybe a couple of months ago they would have been stick-ons to get beaten. As bad as they are, I wouldn't be surprised if Edinburgh throw a spanner in the works by getting something from their matches against one of the above. So, I'll go with 6th Kelty, 7th Stirling, 8th Annan, 9th QOS.
  2. I'm starting to wonder when exactly the BOD reached their decision to collectively walk away en masse. It's extremely unlikely that they would only have first considered and discussed this option and made their minds up over the weekend prior to the AGM. Looking in from the outside there seems to have been no attempt made to identify successors, nor to replace a failing manager who, let's face it, should have been dismissed in October/November if the season was to be rescued and a top-four / secure mid-table place secured. We're now at the stage where if they were to sack Bartley, any incoming manager would have maybe 3 or 4 matches at most to turn things around given that the recruitment and installation of a new manager usually takes 3-4 weeks, so it's far too late to do anything about Bartley now. The whole situation reeks of them having washed their hands of the club in the autumn / early winter period, and the longer they have let a shambolic situation continue the less attractive the club are becoming to new investors, or potential managers for that matter. This season has gravitated from a position of optimism, to one of disappointment, then frustration, and now downright worry, but still they appear to be sitting on their hands doing nothing except counting down the days until they depart. For example, what is the contingency plan if, say in six weeks or so, no new board is in place Allowing the club to potentially slide down two divisions in three seasons and not replacing dud manager(s) is a clear dereliction of duty to both shareholders and fans. And yet they have the nerve to call themselves "fans" too... Just had to get that off my chest.
  3. Yet he has said on several occasions that football management is a 24/7 job. Perhaps this is evidence that Bartley is living in a parallel dimension where there are more than 24 hours in a day which allows him to spend 24 hours managing Queens, an additional 4 hours doing media work, and time to squeeze in some sleep all in the same day. Other features of this dimension that differ to the one the rest of us live in are that Queens play well against the teams above us, single goal defeats are good results, Mumbongo has the potential to be one of the best strikers in Scotland and Bartley is a good manager who knows what he is doing.
  4. I know we've discussed how in-house interviews aren't going to be tough on the manager, but it makes me wonder what the point of doing them at all is when we have to wait for nearly 3 minutes into a 5 minute interview before the interviewer actually asks him a question. Edit to add that my first question after conceding 4 goals wouldn't be "should we be taking more shots" but "do you think we were punished for playing such a high defensive line?".
  5. Unfortunately for us it's Bartley who is making a high percentage of those errors.
  6. The one thing that was in our favour - goal difference - has tonight taken a thumping thanks to Bartley's insistance on persisting with that high line that gifted Falkirk chance after chance. An absolute tactical shitshow. I get the feeling Brydon was holding back a lot of criticism of Bartley's tactics in his interview at half time. The only reason I can guess at for Bartley not having exited yet is because the car booked to drive him away has square wheels and the doors keep falling off.
  7. The first half hour we looked like rabbits in the headlights on the verge of shipping a bucketful of goals, MacIver's miss then reversed the momentum for a good half hour when we actually looked like the better team. Once again Bartley's tactics brought about our downfall though. Rather than go with a back 7 as predicted he went with no defence at all and a midfield 9. Why on earth have the backline playing on the edge of the halfway line? Sheer stupidity and negligence. Even Brydon said as much at half time! McKay totally at fault for the second goal. I'll be happy if he never dons Queens socks again. Despite the scoreline I actually thought Connelly, Logan, Todd and McClelland played well. Stone couldn't be faulted for any of the goals. Good luck to Falkirk next season. Too good for this division, and if you keep this squad together must be in with a shout for top four in the Championship next season. You've suffered for too long.
  8. Only one change from last week. Reilly had to be dropped after committing the cardinal sin of scoring a goal.
  9. I remember that the club refused to pay for an operation for Craig Barr and if I recall correctly he had to arrange and pay for his own rehab away from the club. Another poor show, albeit from a previous board.
  10. Gibson has always been the type of guy who rubs people up the wrong way, but if what he says in the article is true - particularly the part about not being allowed to play - it confirms that Hewitson has indeed taken us back to the Harkness days. No chairman or board member should interfere or overrule a manager when it comes to team selection in my opinion, but both Harkness and Hewitson seem to be guilty of doing so. The fact that Wullie had to play McKenna in the position that he would probably have picked himself to play in seems to have ended McKenna's career too, as I don't think he's kicked a ball for anyone since leaving us. Gibson can be an immature wee f@nny at times, and certainly has a whole poke of chips on his shoulder, but it must be galling for him to see Bartley blundering away with no suggestion that his jacket peg is shoogling.
  11. We always play better against the teams above us according to Marvin & Sandra*, so we should really be looking to bag 21 points out of the 24 remaining. * and yet despite this "fact", we somehow still always lose to Hamilton and Alloa.
  12. Were they journeymen cardboard cut outs by any chance?
  13. According to wikipedia, yes, for Blackpool. "On 29 October 1955, in a 6–2 home defeat by Preston North End, Farm became one of the few goalkeepers to score a goal. He injured a shoulder and replaced Mudie at centre-forward, where he proceeded to open the scoring with his head."
  14. Maybe the board members have been too busy gaming to get round to sacking him?
  15. My player of the year for us has been injured since the middle of September. Says it all.
  16. Am I the only one who found it ironic that just as our players were about to kick-off the first half the PA is playing Phil Lynott singing "attack, attack, attack, attack, attack, attack, attack is what we lack" ?
  17. For the first goal I'm not sure how every defender failed to notice Goss lurking at the back post. You would think size of the guy and the bright gold shirt would make him hard to miss. Kilsby, who must have been caught well out of position by the time he saw the cross coming in, was never going to match Goss in a heading contest. Nwideni was totally un-marked so Stone was left to both look after him and guard the whole goal. McKay was missing at the start of the move and somehow managed to find himself standing in the one place where there were no Annan players as the cross came over. Cracking cross by MacIntyre by the way - pity he never delivered like that for us. I would say Todd was most at fault for the second. It looks like he is meant to be marking Douglas but as the ball comes across he seems to just jog back ballwatching before stopping completely before the ball has even cleared the first defenders. McClelland, the next nearest defender to Douglas, couldn't rescue the situation as he'd managed let Goss get in front of him.
  18. I'm not sure. It may just be my take on the interview, but I thought I sensed for the first time he's a worried man. As for the Brydon comment, does it not dawn on Bartley that despite having nearly 30 players at his disposal, with probably close to a dozen who could be described as defenders it seems that only one (Brydon) is capable of following his instructions?
  19. ... and if it hadn't been for those pesky voters, we'd be in the Premiership...
  20. It's interesting to note that in the chairman's statement regarding the current board stepping down he stated that the club is in a healthy state financially. This makes me wonder just how much of a salary Bartley is hoovering up if the only reason he is still in post is, as we suspect, because of the damage it would do to the bank balance if he were to be paid off in full.
  21. Well, last summer I was impressed with Accies recruitment most out of any club in the division and thought you were going to win the title with Falkirk a distant second. I couldn't foresee Queens being outside the top 4 and would have thought anyone suggesting we'd be 4 points off the play-offs with 8 games remaining as being slightly disingenuous. If they had said they meant four points off the relegation play-offs I would have thought they were on the wind-up. I mean, we couldn't possibly be that pish... could we?
  22. The financial hit taken in sacking Bartley may be cushioned to some extent if it means that some disillusioned fans like myself start returning to watch games. Home crowds are currently hovering around the 800 mark. Getting shot of Bartley would see them boosted by 150 or 200 in my estimation. I certainly have no intention of going back until that numptie has been emptied.
  23. To be fair, it could be because we only play well against the teams above us. Apparently.
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