SimonLichtie

While that was obviously extremely poor, I was more impressed by Utd than I was disappointed with us, I thought they were excellent. Based on that, they should walk this division. Formation wise - I've banged on about this years and it's been proven time and again, we cannot play a 4-4-2 in this division. We get overrun in midfield and it actually makes us less of an attacking threat with our wide midfielders having more defensive duties than in a 4-5-1. We've seen this time and again over the past few seasons. It's not about getting our best 11 individuals on the pitch from the start, it's about getting our best team on the park. There's a big difference, and for us to play our best team we're going to have individual players who are good enough but don't quite fit into the starting 11 through no fault of their own. We absolutely must play three in the centre of the park, and if that has to be a defensive mid and two sitters in some games as opposed to a 4-4-1-1 then so be it. We have plenty of midfielders who are good enough to play in this division, but none of them fit into a two man midfield. I think if Utd played like that first 45 against anyone in this league they'd be a couple up at the break. However, it was far too easy and if we had played a more structured and less open formation we wouldn't have been walked through with as much ease as we were. Losing like that against a team like Utd playing in that way doesn't worry me hugely - if we put in that sort of performances against a team we'd expect to be bottom half this year I would however be extremely concerned.

I met your boss at a game up at Cove last season, he didn't seem as bad as you make out Easy I know it was Mercer, I know it was against Stenhousemuir, quick look at his profile under 'list of goals scored' and I've got it! Luckily the late 90s/ early 2000s has a lot of match reports I was able to recover from arbroathfc.org.uk, as well as some pictures. Personally I think it's wonderful having these fan reports from 25 odd years ago rescued and archived going forward, I think there must be 100+ reports from the org.uk website and they all give an in depth idea of what was happening both on and off the park at the time. Here's a picture of 'Slim Jim' celebrating his goal! A wee snippet from the match report describing the goal: The highlights of the second half was Hinchie coming out of his goalmouth, chasing the ball and tackling the opposition as he tried desperately to clear the danger - he eventually lost the ball but our capable defence swept up after him. At the other end the Warriors keeper tried to do the same thing but, from out on his left at the bye-line, cleared upfield to Jim Mercer who, in Beckham style, from the bye-line in the middle of the park hoofed the ball skywards, taking advantage of the light breeze, to put us 2 goals up in 62 minutes. This was also Dave Baikie's last game in charge, with rumours going round the Gayfield terraces of his imminent departure during the match.

I remember all of these very well - which is unfortunate in the case of the Spartans game I also remember McDonald mainly due to his ponytail at the time and remember him getting a rousing reception upon being subbed late on in the 4-2 game against Clydebank in which he got his hatrick. The Kevin Webster winner I remember vividly - cut inside his full back right infront of the away fans in the stand at Ochilview and then celebrated by running past the away support to the home end. After the game I'm fairly sure he said he didn't realise where the away fans were...... surely all of us celebrating in one half of the stand and the Stenny fans head in hands in the other should've given that away I'm not surprised you haven't mentioned the Stranraer away play off promotion game from May 2008 considering my memories of that have you in a slightly worse for wear state after the bus journey down Hope Sheffield is treating you well - I advise you to get up the road to Gayfield for a game this year

No idea what you're talking about, it says Craig Wight and always did so.... There will be plenty of wee mistakes here and there I'm sure - would encourage people to point them out like you've done so I can get them corrected

This is my childhood. It also features our worst ever run of 11 straight defeats. Part of that run included the following: 25/02/2003 - Last minute winner for Alloa. 01/03/2003 - Winning 1-0 in 89th minute, lose 2-1. 04/03/2003 - Lose second goal to end game in the last minute. 08/03/2003 - Last minute winner for St Johnstone. 15/03/2003 - 1-0 up with 23 minutes to play, lose 3-1. Three weeks later we played St. Mirren at Love Street, got awarded a penalty in the last minute to equalise. Andy Dow, who had been taking pelters all game from the St. Mirren support, decided to step up and take it instead of regular taker John Cusick. He missed. We lost 1-0.

While I appreciate the positive feedback, this is my favourite response so far Genuinely, all I really wanted to do was compare all of our top end appearance holders and see how our modern day legends like Ricky, Hammy, Bobby etc. compared.... Then the nerd in me took over, and here we are..... At least I now know there's a good chance of Ricky and Hammy breaking into our top 5 of all time fairly soon, and potentially getting close to the top end if things go well....

A 75 minute cameo appearance in a pre season friendly v St Johnstone in 2021 Had a brief stint with Peterhead during the second half of last season! This is one of many things still on my to do list! I believe/ hope that both the BBC and STV archives still have footage of us that hasn't been seen in 'modern' times... STV especially would've had two years of our highlights on Scotsport First in the early 00s. I'm certainly hopeful we can unearth more over time.... with everything now fully live I'm also hoping people may have older footage/ pictures etc. in lofts and other places that we could scrounge off them I've been told tales of this game over the past 20 years by various people, one that sticks is how people have begun walking round from the far side enclosure towards the exits at the other side with 10 minutes or so to go, Arbroath winning 4-2 and seeing it out, and by the time they'd gradually got over to the exits for full time we were 5-4 down One of 11 games we've played on Christmas Day! Our last one was in 1971 against Queen of the South: Any posters on here in attendance? All the positive feedback is great to hear and all extremely appreciated. It has taken a somewhat large amount of time/ effort to put everything together, but I honestly believe every minute of it has been worthwhile. I would say that just because I've put in the leg work, it doesn't mean it's 'mine'. The Arbroath Archive is the clubs archive - and we, the fans, are the club. I can't emphasise enough how much contributions in any way, shape or form are encouraged and appreciated

Something I'm hoping the social media profiles will be useful for is highlighting some things that, while they are on the archive itself, can easily get lost in amongst everything else. For example, I'd be very surprised if someone stumbled upon the previously unseen 20 minute long highlights of George Best playing at Gayfield for Arbroath Vics against ourselves to celebrate the Vics centenary, but through the wonders of social media I've been able to highlight them on posts on Twitter and Facebook. Both posts have a link to the highlights, and the Facebook post explains how we got our hands on them

Good news! We now have an online archive containing our entire history! The archive is now fully live and can be found here; Arbroath Archive. Below gives a rough idea of what we've got on there: · A record of every game we've played from 1878 until present day, with over 6400 total games in total, with game date (teams, subs, scorers, ref etc) where known, and highlights for modern day games · A match report for every almost every game with thousands of old reports from the Arbroath Herald & Arbroath Guide and dozens of other sources, as well as fan reports from the old arbroathfc.org.uk website for our games in the 90s and early 00s · A profile for every player who has played for the club containing their full playing record for the club as well as player info, a picture where we have it and a biography · Our all-time player appearance records, goalscorer records and clean sheet records · Hundreds of pictures, programme covers, a managerial timeline, hat trick heroes and lots more! As well as the site itself, we will be looking to keep our social media pages fairly active with regular posts on a whole host of things, such as 'Guess the Player', 'On This Day', 'Did You Know?' etc. as well as hopefully further articles/ interviews in the future. We have a fantastic history as a football club, and I'm delighted we have our full records online for all to see and hope the social media channels will help bring some wonderful stories of players, matches etc. to you all over the coming months/ years. If anyone wants to get involved or has any material they think we should have on the site it'd be great to hear from them. It'd be great if people we're able to share the site/ social media posts on their own online profiles to get things out there. Any and all questions/ contributions/ ideas etc. are welcomed and very much encouraged Facebook Twitter

I don't disagree to be honest - but with current personnel we've lightweight to say the least - ideally we'd have an enforcer in there alongside Slater or Allan, but without having one I'd just go with them as the two best technical players we can stick in there. If we're going to be lightweight in the centre of the park, we might as well have players in there who can play football. It's very harsh on him not to be in the 11 I'd chose, but based on things so far I see Balde as more of an attacking midfielder, where as I see Allan/ Slater as sitting more. If Balde played exactly the same way but had a more defensive mindset I'd definitely have him in ahead of the centre of the park ahead of one of them. Potentially Balde fits more into McKenna's position as opposed to in the middle of the park; however I think Mikey needs to be given the first 3/4 league games at least to try and play himself into some form. Depending on how things go we may end up having too go with a 4-1-4-1 instead of 4-4-1-1 with an enforcer type in the defensive midfield role and in that formation I think Balde fits in nicely as a central midfielder. Currently I think it's really difficult to get our best players all on the park, as there are several different systems that suit them best, but not one that fits them all.

Based on the last three games, I think playing 12 men and crowding the midfield is the only way we won't get cut open in there ..... I forgot to take out Balde after putting him in ahead of Slater It's past midnight and have just watched us get battered by Forfar, cut me some slack

There's plenty to be worried about, but for me it's clear we've got better individual players at the club than at any point during last season - but we're missing a couple of key positions and it really shows at the moment. Obviously the lack of left back currently is making a massive difference with so much coming down that side. As I said previously - I'd much prefer a left back we want signed at the end of July/ start of August than an average one signed for the sake of a few League Cup games.... it's rather important we get this sorted in the next few weeks.... Normally Dick's sub's infuriate me at the best of times, but I've no issue with them this evening - if you're not going to give players game time in July, when will you? Likewise with any starting line up's so far; we've had my preferred team on the pitch for 0 minutes so far, as we give everyone an opportunity and try to get up to match speed. Tonight was a competitive game for Forfar, but essentially a dead rubber for ourselves. Last season we got excellent results in our League Cup games which papered over the huge cracks in the squad, this year I think it's safe to say we've learnt a lot more from these games than last, and we obviously need to act on what's been learnt. I really don't understand how after two games where we've conceded 7 goals, struggled to retain the ball and not created enough chances without Scott Allan on the park he's still seen as having no place in there. Last season he was poor for 90% of the season, but he looks an entirely different player and looks properly fit having had a proper pre season and putting in a stack of work himself over the past few months. My take away from this pre season is that we should be looking at spending 4-6 weeks with Scott Allan in the centre of the park alongside two others with Allan looking to play in Bird/ Stowe who both make some very good runs in behind, with Bird also linking up very well with one touch triangle stuff. If he stays fit, I think he's going to be excellent for us. He is so, so much better than any striker we had at the club last season. Unfortunately Mikey McKenna, a key player for us, has massively struggled so far this pre season and he could easily find himself struggling for a place in a months time if that continues. In terms of the several comments I've seen about us being a 'pub side' etc. for 'only' having 18 players signed currently..... I've no idea how many players people think the other top part time teams have signed up currently..... or some of the full time teams in our division.... In terms of our lack of defence - again I'd say it was an embarrassment if it was the end of August, but it's not.... Signing wise I'm happy enough so far to be honest. We're much improved up top, Slater is proven in his ability and Stowe has a lot of potential - but obviously we need to add a further couple. I think the league will be stronger overall this year, I think we will be stronger individually but as a team/ unit we've quite simply not put it together at all yet and if we don't...... This won't be like last year - if we end up in a position where we're trying to scrape through until January again it won't work as we'll be a dozen points adrift and completely gone. Team wise, as things stand, I'd be looking at the following: Gaston Steele Little ToB Gold Stowe Slater Allan Dow McKenna Bird If Scott Allan wasn't working out I'd make the change from trying to build/ retain possession in the midfield too going more physical/ more down the channels..... we'll know by the end of September if there's any place for Scott Allan in the team/ off the bench/ at all in terms of what works for us/ doesn't work for us as a team. Quite simply, if we're looking for our back four to be playing long balls there's no place for him in that team. However, if Stowe/ Bird and Allan can form an understanding we could really be onto something. If it's a waste of time, I'd rather find out trying than starting day one with Ricky pumping it up into the channels as our form of starting an attack. No panic from me yet - however that could easily change in a months time

It's very odd to me that people like Scott Allan and Turan are getting called out over the past few weeks when there's multiple fan favourites who've been very poor so far. Mikey McKenna must have lost the ball a dozen times yesterday through poor passing yet I never heard a peep from anyone, but when Turan came on and played one poor pass a load of people were immediately on his back. Scott Allan didn't even play yesterday, we got battered and walked over in midfield, and instead of people thinking 'maybe he's not the problem' there's more on how we need him out ASAP . I'm fully expecting people to be happy when we don't play Scott Allan, but then pissed off about us playing long balls when he's not on the park.... you cant have it both ways. Ricky, Tam and Mikey have been really poor so far this pre season by their own standards; I'd say that's much more of a worry than any of the new signings or Scott Allan (whose a different player this season). I haven't seen a word said by anyone on Mikey so far, yet he's probably been our most out of touch player this entire pre season. Hopefully he can get back on it over the next few games and back to the player we all know he can be. If he continued playing as he has so far, he wouldn't get in my starting 11. I've no idea how anyone could look at yesterdays game and feel a need to comment on Turan in a negative way to be honest.... the majority of the starting 11 were really poor and well below par yet they're not commented on and a guy who came on for the last 15/ 20 min and yet again clearly showed he has some positives to his game that we can use throughout the season somehow get's it. Bizarre. Clearly we need a left back - the management are very aware of this fact. We've been trying to get this sorted over the past wee while, and I'd much prefer us to get the right player in that has been identified, as opposed to just signing a left back, any left back, to cover the position. What would the preference be - sign an average left back two weeks ago to play in the league cup, or hold off to get a good/ quality left back at the end of July in time for the league campaign? Personally I'm not overly fussed with yesterday as I still consider this to be pre season, and we were playing against a top 6 Premiership side. If we perform like that in 4/5 weeks in league games I'd have a very different opinion on things.

It is indeed I think picture is as follows.... Craig Wight, Ewan Graham, Paul Farquharson, Jim Gardner, Unsure, Darren Spink, Unsure, Unsure, Kevin McMullan, Mark Anderson Paul Brownlie, Steve Florence, Kevin Steele, Greig Henslee, Kevin Heenan, Gavin Swankie

Whatta team!

A lack of proper left sided full back currently makes things very difficult for Dow on the left hand side as he doesn't have the overlap he's used too; hopefully we can get something sorted there prior to the league starting to cover for Hammy until he's fully fit. Turan I think is taking a lot of unfair flack and I'm happy with what I've seen from him outside the box so far... he's not going to get us many goals, but he has shown he can hold the ball up and bring others into play, as well as good spacial awareness. As things stand he's our third choice striker and has shown more almost everyone who played in his position for us last season. I'm beginning to see what I think is our team fit in terms of formation/ line up as our standard and for me it's the 4-4-1-1 with McKenna in the 10, Allan alongside Slater/ Balde in the centre of the park with Stowe and Dow out wide and Steele/ Hammy in longer term offering good overlapping options. If we play a 4-4-2 then Stowe and Allan have no place in the team, and McKenna probably also struggles to get in that 11 with his best position by a mile taken out..... that's three really good players negated by the system we've chosen. If we play the 4-4-1-1 then we have to decide between McIntosh or Bird up top starting which is a downer IMO but it gives us so much more flexibility depending on the situation/ circumstances in terms of McKenna pushing up or dropping back depending, and the wide players tucking in or choosing more attacking/ defensive minded options out there. July is for working things out and seeing what works and doesn't work - tonight a few things that don't work were certainly rammed home, and individually I thought there were quite a few positives to take. I'm fine with trying things out and learning from games at this time of the year - as long as the learning part happens.... the proof on that front will be come September/ October.

I never fully understood why anyone thought Dylan Paterson would make it at Championship level; he didn't have a standout attribute that was better than most at this level (pace, acceleration, finishing, passing etc) and his weaknesses were obvious. It'll be interesting to see how he goes at Linlithgow this year moving up a couple of levels.... he could develop into a good lower end SPFL player. In terms of formation/ team this evening, I'm not overly fussed really. If we weren't going to be experimental then I'd expect us to play a 4-4-1-1 at home to Cowdenbeath, which would no doubt see everyone moaning about only playing 1 up top at home to a Lowland League side. We could of course play a 4-4-2 with Scott Allan in the middle of the park, more attacking and should obviously still have enough to win the game, but going with that into the league season would see us taking a battering quite often. In my opinion we've got some quite difficult choices to make for the league campaign - but choices that're great to have. To get our best players on the pitch, I'd argue we'd want to be playing two up front and Scott Allan in central midfield as things stand.... however if we play two up top and Allan in a midfield two we'll get overrun, especially if Stowe was also starting. A 3-5-2 is the only formation currently that gets our best players on the park in a formation that is workable..... not that I'm advocating playing it. It would allow us to get our best individual players on the pitch, but would it get the best out of the team as a whole? If we go with a 4-4-2 into the league season, I don't think Stowe would be starting and I'd suspect it to be a much more compact midfield. A 4-4-2 also means Mikey McKenna would be much less effective and his weaknesses would be shown up much more in a rigid formation if he started..... his best position by a mile is as a number 10/ attacking midfielder. It's going to be a very difficult balancing act to get our best players on the pitch in a formation that allows them to play to the best of their ability. Whatever formation we pick we'll have options on the bench that can come on and change the way we're playing that're as good as what they replace, where as last year all we could do was play a 4-5-1 and make like for like changes which weakened the team.

I was hoping this wouldn't come up - we've got several strikers on the verge of signing currently, the problem is I'm holding the club to ransom and they're undecided if they should give in to my wage demands or sign the striker everyone wants.

Much appreciated - I'll be in touch once everythings up and running

One and the same

There is something in the pipeline for all of this Hopefully more to come on that front in the coming weeks.....

Kieran Shanks scored 3 goals in 18 games for us - that's exactly the sort of record people have been slating when it comes to players we've signed this summer/ have been linked with.

My thoughts on today.... Both trialists looked good and in full agreement on signing them - the guy in the middle of the park was also very good against Brechin and Jay Bird looked excellent in the second half. Quite clearly both have impressed as it seems everyone is in agreement that signing either/ both would be a positive. I also think Kenan looks like he will be a much better bet than the majority of strikers we had last season - he looks like he understands the game positionally and there was plenty of positives in how he was looking to link up with the rest of the team. I really don't understand why Scott Allan gets so much grief. Pre season games in early July are for fitness, trying things out and getting your touch back after a month or so break. One of the only things I take real interest in from these games is the communication between the players and how things are developing in that regard. Quite clearly we're trying to get Scott Allan working in his creative role in the middle of the park with a fresh slate this season, with Allan himself having done a lot of work over the last few months, which was absolutely required. In these games especially there is going to be pretty much constant discussion about what runs are being made and working out how each other play..... I've no idea why someone felt the need to shout abuse at Allan for 'moaning'; it makes no sense to me on any level. Keaghan Jacobs is quite clearly struggling with the pace of the game, the same as he did throughout last season. He can't help but charge out too people 20/ 30 yards out of the small zone of the park he should constantly be covering and leaving a huge hole in defensive midfield and when he is playing in the zone he simply has to dominate he's losing the ball on the turn and thinking he has more time than he does, ending up with our defensive midfielder putting the defence under more pressure rather than taking pressure off them. I think a move down a level may be best for both the player and the club.... I would take about as much out of today as the Brechin & Montrose games - very little...... who knew the closer we got/ get to playing our starting 11 the better thinks would look?

Fucking hell - get with it man, that was this morning...... now signing up the trialists is a must, and by the middle of next week if they're not signed/ sign for other clubs this thread will have gone from 'f**k sake Dick, get the trialists to f**k' too 'f**k sake Dick, why the f**k didn't get you the trialists signed?'

This thread has been absolutely full of assumptions and annoyance at things that are presumed to be true because football clubs can't update fans on every single little thing they did and every player a manager speaks too or looks at. There's already been a player this pre season who has trained and played with both ourselves and Livingston. We have looked at and made many, many more enquiries for players within Scotland than the 7 we've signed this calendar year. Every club has a wage budget/ structure in place for multiple reasons, and pissing potential six figure amounts of money on a fee/ wages of a player who hasn't ever proved themself at this level would in my opinion be silly business. The club going full time would be an absolute disaster, with us losing basically all of our players, all the stability we've built our success on in some sort of wild hope that we could attract players ahead of central belt based full time teams paying similar or better wages. Not just a few of them..... an entire squad of them would be needed. The least attractive full time teams have consistently performed at a level below the best part time team in the country over the past 30 years. That's without even touching on the business case against making such a move... At present, players signing for Arbroath from outwith the country see the club as a stepping stone, which is completely fine and expected. The hybrid setup people talk of with us having full time Scottish players is not going to happen - players within the country who are good enough to play full time in the Championship will do so at a proper full time club, closer to their home, over ourselves. Hence why we have gone down the route we have. In terms of how much things 'cost'. We don't know the wage costs..... we don't know the accomodation costs.... we don't know how the wage costs are split. Accomodation may not cost the club anything, or they may get the accomodation at a very good rate. The wages may be split between the football club and the community trust, meaning the wage cost to AFC is actually lower than the majority of our part time players. This could be nonsense and it's costing the club a stack of cash and is really not worthwhile at all. I don't know - almost everyone reading this doesn't know - but there's a lot of assumptions being made based on very few facts currently. There's plenty to worry about for the season ahead, worries about if the players we have are all good enough, worries about the players we need, worries about where we will sign them from etc. Plenty to worry about without assumping the worst in areas we don't really know much about. Finally - Kenan Dünnwald-Turan played 25 minutes for Stockport County nearly two years ago.... they basically saw nothing of him so I wouldn't be paying any attention to them