7 Eleven

You didn't need hindsight: McDonald had not worked at this level since 2016. East Fife were probably the only club at this level who would give him this kind of opportunity. Even Albion Rovers weren't prepared to give him a shot. Naysmith has worked continuously over the same period of time, with a relative degree of success. Agnew has no managerial experience so would have been a high risk appointment. I keep hearing that we should be putting respect on McDonald's name, but respect needs to be earned in my opinion. What he did as a player is irrelevant for me. Putting your faith on manager(s) to fix the club very rarely works if there is no strategical plan for the club, which should be driven by the board. Combine that with making illogical decisions over and over again will eventually catch up with you. That's where the club are now. Manager retention/recruitment, player retention/recruitment, squad structure, use of the loan system in & out have all been questionable for a good few years now. Since the SPFL shutdown 1 is where I think it all started to go wrong. The old quote "do what you've always done and get what you've always got" springs to mind. Anyway, what's the odds of Agnew being manager with Tony McMinn as Assistant by the end of the season?

Quality players don’t want to sign for East Fife. Whether that is down to finances offered, attractiveness of the club or a combination of both I don’t know.

There are three certainties in life: brith, death and Scott Mercer's inability to defend the back post. I suppose it is only fair Darren Young benefitted from this at some point in his career.

So with all of that experience you should know it is not always down to the coach. Players need to take responsibility for their own development too. The coaching might be more than adequate, however the player(s) ability to absorb and implement that information might not. Hence, asking how many sessions you have seen. I'm assuming none by your response. As for my experience, I'm not going to play a game of Top Trumps with you on a public forum, but I'm more than happy at my knowledge of how the game works.

For the purpose of clarity, how many coaching sessions have you observed?

Why?

Assistant manager to Liam Fox if he gets the Dundee United job.

Surely this is a sign of the times rather than an intentional recruitment policy? I’m not sure why a club would want to limit their potential talent pool.

100% agree with you. Loose lips sink ships and all that.

I’m not talking on behalf of the club, I’m giving a potential alternative reason as to why club cannot attract players financially. Charging £18 to watch SPFL2 football is ridiculous and it will come back and bite the club on the arse, especially if the team on it is not doing well.

I’m really not sure in what way you think that the club pushed the boat out when DY was the manager. What is this based on? COVID happened (objective) while overspending/pushing the boat out or whatever other term you may wish to use seems pretty subjective. COVID isn’t a scapegoat. If the club did top up furlough money while there was no money coming into the club and other clubs didn’t do this gives you a valid reason why there maybe issues competing financially. Three out of the four clubs you have listed have also been relegated in resent seasons. All are now SPFL2 clubs. In Stenny case they had a spell of signing lower league players. As for Montrose, I believe they are an extremely well run club. They have the best part-time manager out with Dick Campbell in my opinion. Their recruitment, including identifying quality loan signings has been consistently excellent for as long as Stewart Petrie has been there. I am not sure you have provided the best comparative examples there.

I’m not sure what clubs would be classified as traditional rivals so I can’t answer that one. However, I believe that EF topped up wage of those put on furlough. I don’t believe that all other clubs did this. So, if EF have done this while others haven’t then there’s your difference right there. You are right that clubs like Cove & Kelty have over inflated wages for part-time players. That has been funded by benefactors and there is nothing a club like EF can do about it. I believe that Cove have a £350k loan/debt on their books, which is fine if it’s never called in, but it’s basically money the club wouldn’t have otherwise. The inflation in wages is more likely coming from teams at a lower level being able to match or better the money teams are offering at this level. That’s why we are seeing a transition of established teams from the SPFL being replaced by teams willing to invest, which is fair enough and will continue for the next few years. Your original comment was that there was an overspend during the DY era. My point was that I don’t believe that to be true. But if there was then the people who signed off that overspend are still at the club.

Or maybe there has been some other sort of Worldwide event that has impacted the clubs finances? As for your point, a manager can only spend the money that he is given so if there was some sort of overspend then you need to question the person or people who signed it off rather than the guy still getting the blame for the current mess. Also, if you think individual players were being over-paid then you probably haven’t been paying enough attention. The figure for the highest paid player has already been discussed in public, albeit only his weekly wage and not appearance fees and signing on fees (which never seem to be taken into account when fans discuss recruitment budgets). That player was out on his own in terms of weekly wage unless the club folded to Ryan Wallace’s alleged demands last season. Lastly, you need to remember that DY had exactly the same problems trying to recruit players last season as SC is having this season. People can blame slow transfer markets all they want or they can start focusing on why players would rather play elsewhere or lower level football than come to East Fife. It’s very easy to identify better players than you’ve currently got, but very difficult to actually recruit them.

He was born in Aberdeen, but I’m not sure if he still lives in Aberdeen. However, he has never played for a club further south than Brechin and has never entertained an offer from a club in the central belt before. There is absolutely nothing wrong with suggesting transfer targets or even asking if he’d be interested, but there is a little bit more to it than a player becoming available let’s make an offer.

When you look at it logically plenty of people seen this demise coming as early as the start of last season, if not the end of the previous season. Some have jumped ship, some have moved sideways and others have stayed hidden in the shadows. This team is an injury crisis away from being in real serious trouble. Unfortunately these young players don’t have the luxury of time to gain valuable playing experience. If they don’t hit the ground running straight away in the league then any confidence will quickly evaporate and people will feel the pressure. Clubs should always have ‘if’ ‘then’ plans in place, so hopefully obvious lessons will have been learned from last season by all involved.

How was the out of possession phase today?

It suggests that they have spent all pre-season working on defensive shape when the opposition has got the ball (deep and compact probably) and that they will look to counter attack when they win it back.

Not for the money I’ve heard is on offer

I can’t help but feel some people are going to be in for a real shock next season.

No one mentioned a massive fall out at all.

This speaks volumes for me. Whether you wanted any of these players to stay or not is irrelevant. They have decided to follow the fall guy for last season. Two of whom I wouldn’t consider regular starters for Young if he had a full squad to choose from.

EF have still to play one of them, so let’s see if you can work it like out for yourself. Might help keep your interest up in those final games.

A long-throw is literally a skill and as such they can be trained and developed. A counter question would be how many players have been coached to throw the ball optimally and/or players coached to move to receive effectively? There are a couple of teams in this league who obviously do practice this aspect. East Fife are not one of them.

Swanson has played 24% of the available league minutes so far over the last two seasons. 0 goals and 0 assists during that time. I'd imagine he is the highest paid player by some way within the current squad. He hasn't been value for money so far, so if money is going to be tight then this would be a high risk re-signing in my opinion, especially after his knee injury this season, which I am assuming was an ACL. Murdoch is already signed for next season, but has only played 30% of available minutes this season. I make it that he has had 4 left hamstring injury/re-injuries this season. Most football clubs nowadays know that age and previous injury are two key predictors of future injury, so I wouldn't be building a squad around him either. I think East Fife fans need to understand that for whatever reason, money or otherwise, they are not an attractive proposition for players. DY recruitment was hammered this season, but seems like (from what I have heard) it wasn't for the lack of trying. He should have emptied the majority of the squad from last season, but obviously knew he needed players who wanted to play for the club. The bigger mistake was giving these players two year contracts. I think Crawford will struggle to create his own squad for next season, but he should have known this when he walked through the door. Statistically there has been little difference between Crawford and Young in terms of performance indicators once again highlighting that success is more about the quality of the squad than the ability of the manager. Lastly, I hope that both Airdrie and Cove go up out of this league this season. Both have helped increase the quality and standards of this league and should be rewarded for doing so.

Do you know what season the original run was? Also, I wonder if any East Fife manager has had a worse start to their tenure.