CallumPar

They’ll be lower, but I don’t think that will be astronomical, or anywhere near the biggest financial concern. As I say, Falkirk will bring larger support than anyone did this season, twice. The rest will obviously be lower, but QP’s support of a couple of hundred at the weekend was probably in the top 5/6 away supports that we’ve seen at EEP this season. The drop in home crowd will be the bigger concern, along with the prize money you mention. Our new CEO will be taking a salary, which increases costs as well. However, I’d be really concerned if we end up with such a large squad of players who (you’d assume) are well paid. We have a first team squad of 27 players just now and had 33 (I think?) different players play for us this season. Regardless of the division we ended up in, we should have been already planning to cut the first team expenditure and trim these numbers down. If we stick with Hughes, I fear we’ll end up doing the same again though. Ambrose, Polworth, Donaldson, Stolarczyk, Thomas and Lawless will be on decent money and will all be leaving. If we also manage to offload 2 high earning strikers and Chalmers, our costs would be cut by a massive amount. Yes, we need to recruit new players. But we won’t be signing players on the kind of money these guys are currently on. If we haven’t put a relegation clause in Yogi’s contract though, we will be struggling financially for the next 12 months, through our board’s stupidity. Not sure that would be a surprise to many of us though.

To be fair, I think it’s different if the incoming manager particularly wants to work with one (or more) of our existing coaches. I’d be fine with that. The issue myself and, I assume, others(?) have with the coaches staying on is that we seem to be forcing our existing coaches on every new manager. AJ had to work with Potter (who he replaced as manager). Crawford came in as coach, then got made manager, so got to bring in his own team. Grant had to work with Shields and Whittaker. Hughes had to work with Shields and Whittaker. I think Dorrans is getting into his coaching badges - sure that was mentioned at one point. So it wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up being forced on any incoming manager as a player/coach and/or is lined up to become manager once the next man (or even Hughes?) leaves.

Not convinced away crowds will be much lower on average. We had, at most, 2 away supports over 1,000 this season in our 18 home games. Falkirk will bring more than 1,000 twice next season. Signed up for next year we have: Mehmet Comrie MacDonald Todd Breen Edwards Fenton Chalmers [emoji2961] Dorrans Allan McCann O’Hara Todorov Wighton Would expect 2 of those strikers to leave. If Hughes is in charge, it’ll definitely be Todorov and Wighton. Hopefully Chalmers has a relegation release clause. We need a full rebuild in the boardroom, management team and playing staff and I’m actually of the opinion that the more people who leave, the better. Of those out of contract, I’d offer something to Pybus and Martin, that’s about it. Thomas, Donaldson and Stolarczyk won’t play for us in league 1. It’s not worth wasting anyone’s time trying to keep them.

When Grant/Yogi we’re appointed, I’d have said ‘hell no’ to Scott Brown, or anyone like that. However, I’d be open to it now. Anybody that isn’t called Peter Grant would fill me with more hope than Hughes does. But I’m at the stage of thinking someone has to take a punt on a recently retired player at some point. If he interviews well and seems to have good a good vision for the future and displays an understanding of the club and the job, I’d say someone like Brown is definitely worth a shot. He’s seen these shitebags in training and will be keen to offload the deadwood right away. Get him in and come up with a longer term plan for the club. I’d be more willing to give time to someone like Brown, if we can see what he’s trying to do and see year on year progress under him. If we brought in someone more ‘proven’ I think we’d be expecting instant success. I also think at least one of our coaches has to go, or we reshuffle things to make Shields head of academy or something - wasn’t he brought here, due to his success with an academy in the US? If our first choice for new manager doesn’t want to work with any of the existing coaches, those coaches have to go. It’s as simple as that. I’m fed up of seeing coaches hang on under multiple managers, until their given a shot to be manager themselves. Even then, we told AJ he had to work with Potter, the manager he replaced. Mental stuff.

This better not be a wind up.

Be something cringey like ‘Time to get back on Par’ - then, following poor early bird sales, they’ll release a statement criticising fans for not buying tickets when we still have Hughes, Shields and Whittaker in charge and are charging the same price as we did for championship season tickets. On a lighter note, after a summer of Yogi’s recruitment, we could be spoiled for choice in terms of what jobber the P&B Pars sponsor next year @101

It really is incredible that they managed to attract around 2.5k fewer home fans than they had at the QoS game. It must be around a 45% drop in home attendance from one week to the next, despite it being a crucial game. If the board can’t see that and realise that the management team have to go, I really worry about where they’re going to take us. 45% fewer home fans at a playoff game, than turned up on a Friday night the week before. Let that sink in. The club are having a nightmare just now and it’s clearly not just the performances on the park that are the issue.

Would agree with that, to be fair. My main issue with Dorrans yesterday is that he spent so much time alongside the CBs, but it seemed like he was supposed to be playing in that 10 role. In fairness, the other 2 midfielders clearly deserve more criticism for that, as they are the ones that should have been helping out the defenders, rather than just watching the game. But Dorrans is the captain and showed no leadership yesterday. Then again, neither did the manager. I think a lot of my criticism of Dorrans is based on holding him to a higher standard and expecting him to be a leader. Not because he’s been as bad as the rest. I think I kept expecting Dorrans to drive us forward and try and force something, but he just didn’t. Then he took forever to come off - not his fault the manager decided to sub both players who were standing over a free kick at the edge of the D, but Dorrans shouldn’t have been so concerned about giving the armband to someone else when things were so desperate and should have just run off. I don’t think Dorrans has been that bad for us since that Ayr incident. I just don’t think he’s what we need. I’d like to have seen him beside Pybus, as I think they could have balanced each other out quite well. But I’d probably rather keep Pybus than Dorrans - something I never thought I’d be saying!

How about a swap deal - Hughes, Shields and Whittaker for Goodwillie? Both teams seem to love showing us how out of touch with fans they are, this would be the icing on the cake.

I can see why the red was given. Think it was harsh, given that Murray knocked the ball so far away, with the sole intention of buying a free kick, it was never a ‘clear goal scoring opportunity’, but an experienced defender shouldn’t be diving in like that, in that position. Regardless, that’s not the reason we’ve been relegated. QP had already started making changes to try and win the game, while we were doing nothing. That’s a very common theme under Hughes. That midfield play leading to the red card, Polworth’s shite pass, Chalmers ball watching, then not even trying to make it hard for the opponent to get past him… that’s largely why we haven’t got to safety under Hughes. We were better with Todd, Allan and Pybus in midfield, but he signed wasters and decided they had to play every week, regardless of how they performed. Can add Lawless and Ambrose to the list of players that applies to. Hughes is very much at fault here. He talked about Dorrans being really good in that number 10 role, so ended up moving Polworth into Pybus’ role, rather than deservedly dropping him, to allow Dorrans to play there. Even then, Dorrans spent much of the game in line with the CBs, leaving O’Hara isolated as we lumped long balls at him. After the red, we moved Lawless up top to partner O’Hara and lumped high balls up to them all game. This tactic just handed QP the ball and they were back running at us every single time. But Yogi still wouldn’t bring on one of the 6’3(?) strikers we had on the bench until it was too late. All the best to Coll Donaldson wherever he ends up and I hope Stolarczyk has a decent career. Lawless, Polworth, Ambrose, Chalmers* and Dorrans* - I’d be delighted if I never had to see them play for us. They’re only slightly less culpable than the management team. *hopefully we find a way to punt these two. But who on earth would take them?

Nah, I reckon Joe Chalmers would do this. He seems like your old school ‘hard as nails’ midfielder that wouldn’t stand for Hughes’ nonsense. In all seriousness, Donaldson’s probably the only player likely to stand up to anyone/show any leadership, but Hughes brought him here on loan and Donaldson will most likely just be glad he doesn’t have to play for him again. The rest 100% fit your description. Guys like Lawless, Polworth, Chalmers, Dorrans and Ambrose would have been straight on their phones to try and get last minute holidays, buzzing that they get an extra week off. The majority of players we have signed up for next year were probably straight on to their agents to try and engineer a move away, particularly if Yogi keeps his job.

No idea what a Kevin Cuthbert is(?), but if it involves chasing him out the door/making it clear nobody wants him here, that would be great. He signed a lot of these wasters though, so I doubt it. Fairly clear he fell out with Thomas. You don’t leave someone of his quality on the bench for crucial games otherwise. The one player at the club who could have won the game for us, despite the manager. Can’t imagine Hughes is remotely popular with a lot of the players he didn’t sign. He’s alienated most of them at some point during his tenure.

Seriously, what’s the obsession with Raith fans talking about warning our fans? It’s not like the fans were responsible for the appointment ffs. Really bizarre behaviour. Was he a poor appointment? 100%. Is he largely to blame for this mess? 100%. Would Raith fans warning our fans that he was poor make any difference? 100% not.

First of all, well done Queens Park. Throughly deserved that. You wanted it more and made changes to win the game. If Yogi’s here next year, I’m really doubting I’ll buy a season ticket. That being said, it’s hard to blame him. It’s not like he waited until the 90th minute (or was it stoppage time already?), when we had gone 1-0 down, to bring on a striker. Also not like he had someone of Dom Thomas’ quality as an unused sub. At no point in that game did we look like we’d set up to try and win it. Queens Park’s subs were made in an attempt to win the game/turn things in their favour and they got the rewards they deserved for that.

I get it for games v Rangers, Celtic, Hearts, Hibs, Falkirk, Raith and possibly Airdrie. Can’t see the need to ban away fans for other games though.

So we’ve never won the first leg of a playoff tie and anytime we’ve drawn the first leg, we’ve lost the second leg? This is really promising…

Just looked at the ticketing site and sales must be the lowest they’ve been in a long time. Bit of a shame, but not a surprise. Would imagine there’ll be a decent number of sales in the next 26 hours, but given how busy it was last Friday, it’s a shame we’re unlikely to get even half of that number of fans there for this one. I do genuinely believe that if the team hadn’t put in such an inept performance vs QoS, more people would have been keen to go tomorrow. However, many of them will no doubt only go to the final (if we make it), rather than waste their money on this game.

We’ve put teams out in extra time the last 2 times we’ve been in these playoffs (obviously not when we were in premiership playoffs 4 years ago though). Forfar in 2013 and Stranraer in 2014 we’re both settled in extra time and killed our chances in the final. Other than that I agree with the majority of your post.

You’re actually downplaying it. Agree with your post completely. Hughes is not the right man at all. We’ve failed to score in 9 of his 13 away games now, that’s just not good enough. He doesn’t set the team up to win away games at all. Even at home, I’m not convinced he sets the team up to win. He likes garbage possession in defence/midfield and doesn’t seem to come up with any plan to score goals. Goals win games and get fans to turn up, it’s as simple as that. Playing for 0-0/1-0 every week isn’t entertaining at all.

Dorrans played behind the striker, where Polworth usually plays. So it’s not really a fair comparison. Polworth dropped into that Pybus shaped hole and I think Pybus is more effective there. But all 3 are a better option than Chalmers. If Pybus is fit for Saturday, I’d drop Chalmers and play Polworth, Pybus and Dorrans - that’s assuming he goes with the same system. I’d prefer to see Dorrans and Pybus in a 2, if they’re both fit and McCann and O’Hara up top together. Yogi loves Chalmers though, for some unknown reason, and this won’t happen. Dom’s also much better than any other wide player we have and has to start.

Nah, his interview will involve him talking about how well we played and how we deserved to win. Failed to score in 9/13 away games under Hughes and he seems to blame it all on luck and repeatedly refuses to go out and try to win an away game.

It’s more why we’re playing a midfield 3 of Polworth, Dorrans and Chalmers. Who are all ridiculously soft and haven’t shown any fight all season. If Pybus is injured, the manager should be using that as an excuse to go 2 up front, rather than adding another passenger in midfield.

Dropped Thomas, our player with most quality on the ball. Dropped Pybus, the only midfielder with legs/fight for Dorrans. Get this fraud to f*ck.

Gulf in class? What gulf in class?

Honestly, I’d be surprised if we were offering contracts with relegation contracts last year. I would say that you don’t say you’re going for the title, then offer contracts with relegation clauses. But then you also really shouldn’t say you’re going for the title, when you appoint Peter Grant as manager. I’ll be disappointed if Yogi/any of his signings (Chalmers) didn’t have relegation clauses. Would show a real lack of foresight from the board. We were only 3 points from 6th when he was appointed, it’s not like he had an impossible task. Regarding Comrie, if Hughes is still here you (or someone else) might get him fairly cheap. He’s moved Todd to RB. Also got MacDonald signed up for next season. I’d imagine we might want to cash in on/offload one of the RBs. MacDonald would be my preference, but Yogi doesn’t seem to rate Comrie. A decent manager in at the club would keep him, no questions asked.