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.....and that’s purely down to everyone’s interpretation of what “turning it around” actually means.For some, that could mean 2nd, 3rd or 4th. For others of a less demanding nature, 6th or 7th might be seen as a significant rescue act given what we have witnessed so far.

Also depends at when he turns it around

 

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7 minutes ago, Duncan Freemason said:

I don’t think so, but there’s a bit of incredulity over how a man who pulled us away from disaster last season with some clever mid season loan players has, when given pretty much carte blanche to rebuild the playing side completely, ended up with a bit of a misfit, misfunctioning group of players with as many doubts over their quality as there is over Hartley’s baffling tactics and team selections.

Given the time to scout, assess, and sign up replacements (since November last year apparently), then it’s no surprise that people are a good way down the path of having doubts about the whole exercise. I don’t think the majority have given up on him, but the majority are all starting to ask the same uncomfortable questions.

Rumours that he has signed a significant number of these players without ever seeing them are starting to ring true looking at them and comparing them to his other signings from January. If that is the case the scout is obviously fucking blind and he has really let hartley down with some of the signings but to put that much faith in someone else's opinions of players is mental.

He will be feeling the pressure now as he still has a fairly good reputation in the game but that will take a hit if he builds a team here that fails spectacularly. Hopefully we can get organised and the players can start to show the quality and potential that led to them being signed in the first place.

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I honestly don't know what to think right now. If someone told me he was gone I would be happy but the reality is we have played 2 league games with a whole new squad so it might just take a wee while to get things going although my gut feeling is he will be away soon.

If we don't get a result against Queens the crowd will turn in a big way.

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I had about 5 meltdowns in the first half against Thistle so I'm a massive hypocrite, but I can't help feeling there is a bit of an overreaction here if we look at the reality of where we are.

League Cup - Won 2 Lost 2 - the only game we got a worse result than we'd have expected was the opening game defeat to Montrose, if we'd won that we'd have gone through. The other defeat was a 1 goal away defeat to a top flight side.

Challenge Cup - Through narrowly, in a game we were expected to win

League - Two defeats by 1 goal

The start has been poor, and I appreciate that the 'eye test' has been worse than the results on paper, but it's hardly a crisis at this stage. I thought we played OK against Inverness over the piece (4/10 if I had to score it). Partick Thistle was a disgrace.

The team selections have been bizarre and some of the players look lost and/or abysmal (Petravicius, Mackin, Dallison to name the worst offenders), but even the better players will take a little while to bed in. My biggest fear is that the strength in depth of the league this year means it's going to be unforgiving every single week.

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6 minutes ago, Falkirk_Bairn_1983 said:

I honestly don't know what to think right now. If someone told me he was gone I would be happy but the reality is we have played 2 league games with a whole new squad so it might just take a wee while to get things going although my gut feeling is he will be away soon.

If we don't get a result against Queens the crowd will turn in a big way.

Have we ever regularly beaten Queens? 

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Sounds like the majority on here have already gave up on Hartley.

I haven’t given up on him either but I do think his arrogance means that he’s making a lot of mistakes...and big ones too.
Examples such as telling the players in November last year who’s staying and going meaning that some players downed tools, so we did not recover as quickly as we could have.
Or somehow believing you can put an entire team together from scratch and get them not only to gel immediately, but that we could somehow win the league.
I personally think that his success from January onwards went to his head a little and he thought he could now shunt virtually everyone at the club prior to his arrival, and build a totally new team without recognising that you should build gradually around a spine of players already there.
These are all points that I made on here months ago and I see nothing to change my mind so far.
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I don't think we are at crisis point yet. We were a disallowed goal away from getting at least a point against ICT. Didn't see the Thistle game so can't comment. Last night we started okay but the injuries seemed to throw us a bit.

The biggest thing for me is that he needs to pick the right team from the start and not wait till half time to change things round. At home especially two up front has to be a given and he needs to stop fucking with the formations. We won't gel or become a team if its changed week in, week out.

I still think he can turn things round but he needs to learn from his mistakes.

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23 minutes ago, roman_bairn said:

Examples such as telling the players in November last year who’s staying and going meaning that some players downed tools

At the end of the season the players were told on the Thursday before the final league game if they were being released. I know because I was in the club that day, and was in the following day and shook hands with some of them as they said their goodbyes to the staff. None of them knew beforehand that they were going. Not unless they, and various staff members I spoke to in the preceding days, were lying to me.

I'm not quite so sure about the departures in the January window. However, I had a long conversation with Fash two days after Christmas at the Junior Bairns Day and he didn't seem to have any idea that he was going to be released within the week. There was a also a conversation reported by fans on social media in which Balatoni was heard bemoaning in Reception that his contract was up tomorrow and he had no idea what was happening. And the reported conversations with Miller & Kerr on Christmas Eve in which they were told their time was up.

For those reasons I find it very, very unlikely that players were told in November.

Can I ask what your basis is for making such a claim?

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Bainsfordbairn said:

At the end of the season the players were told on the Thursday before the final league game if they were being released. I know because I was in the club that day, and was in the following day and shook hands with some of them as they said their goodbyes to the staff. None of them knew beforehand that they were going. Not unless they, and various staff members I spoke to in the preceding days, were lying to me.

I'm not quite so sure about the departures in the January window. However, I had a long conversation with Fash two days after Christmas at the Junior Bairns Day and he didn't seem to have any idea that he was going to be released within the week. There was a also a conversation reported by fans on social media in which Balatoni was heard bemoaning in Reception that his contract was up tomorrow and he had no idea what was happening. And the reported conversations with Miller & Kerr on Christmas Eve in which they were told their time was up.

For those reasons I find it very, very unlikely that players were told in November.

Can I ask what your basis is for making such a claim?

 

 

Thank you...

 

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1 hour ago, GMBairn said:

Rumours that he has signed a significant number of these players without ever seeing them are starting to ring true looking at them and comparing them to his other signings from January. If that is the case the scout is obviously fucking blind and he has really let hartley down with some of the signings but to put that much faith in someone else's opinions of players is mental.

That question was asked at a Bairns Business Club meeting with the manager in the last couple of months. The managers response was that there had to be an element of trust in the Head Of Recruitment, after which he went into detail about the guy's background. The questioner didn't push it so there was no further detail as to whether the manager had made a final check by watching the players in the flesh, reviewed videos, taken them on trial, sought opinions from other trusted sources etc. He could have done all or none of those.

I imagine someone will raise it again at whatever the next open forum is. 

 

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At the end of the season the players were told on the Thursday before the final league game if they were being released. I know because I was in the club that day, and was in the following day and shook hands with some of them as they said their goodbyes to the staff. None of them knew beforehand that they were going. Not unless they, and various staff members I spoke to in the preceding days, were lying to me.
I'm not quite so sure about the departures in the January window. However, I had a long conversation with Fash two days after Christmas at the Junior Bairns Day and he didn't seem to have any idea that he was going to be released within the week. There was a also a conversation reported by fans on social media in which Balatoni was heard bemoaning in Reception that his contract was up tomorrow and he had no idea what was happening. And the reported conversations with Miller & Kerr on Christmas Eve in which they were told their time was up.
For those reasons I find it very, very unlikely that players were told in November.
Can I ask what your basis is for making such a claim?
 

Thanks for this. I probably should have used the word ‘alleged’ as I normally do.
I take your points as I am sure you are much closer behind the scenes than I am, but I do think it’s fair to say that comments were being made that big changes were afoot in the New Year, and the suggestion that players were not being told pretty much meant that many of them could draw early conclusions. Indeed I think the majority of us on here were able to easily predict the majority of those who were leaving and it does appear from your comments that little was being done to discourage those concerns or encourage improved displays.
Why do you think there was no lift in performance when Hartley first came into the club?
Remember Alex Smith had two games in charge and managed to get enough out of a failing side to muster two wins at that time.
As I said I do want Hartley to succeed but I remain concerned re some of the actions that he appears to be taking. It’s not in the best interests of the club to making anymore rash decisions (e.g. managerial change), imo.
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3 minutes ago, roman_bairn said:

Why do you think there was no lift in performance when Hartley first came into the club?
Remember Alex Smith had two games in charge and managed to get enough out of a failing side to muster two wins at that time.

I honestly have no idea. I heard from one player that the Morton victory was largely down to the combined efforts of Mick McArdle and a senior player rather than Alex Smith, and I heard an entirely different story from Alex on the team bus during the journey to an away U20 game some months later.

The truth is that unless you're inside the dressing room after the door gets locked it's impossible to know. If you're friends with a specific player you might get one side of the story but there may be dozen different viewpoints and us ordinary fans have no way of knowing which is the most accurate.

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I had about 5 meltdowns in the first half against Thistle so I'm a massive hypocrite, but I can't help feeling there is a bit of an overreaction here if we look at the reality of where we are.
League Cup - Won 2 Lost 2 - the only game we got a worse result than we'd have expected was the opening game defeat to Montrose, if we'd won that we'd have gone through. The other defeat was a 1 goal away defeat to a top flight side.
Challenge Cup - Through narrowly, in a game we were expected to win
League - Two defeats by 1 goal
The start has been poor, and I appreciate that the 'eye test' has been worse than the results on paper, but it's hardly a crisis at this stage. I thought we played OK against Inverness over the piece (4/10 if I had to score it). Partick Thistle was a disgrace.
The team selections have been bizarre and some of the players look lost and/or abysmal (Petravicius, Mackin, Dallison to name the worst offenders), but even the better players will take a little while to bed in. My biggest fear is that the strength in depth of the league this year means it's going to be unforgiving every single week.
Very refreshing view. I would be a lot more worried if we had been thumped in both league games
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Guest Back Post Misses
At the end of the season the players were told on the Thursday before the final league game if they were being released. I know because I was in the club that day, and was in the following day and shook hands with some of them as they said their goodbyes to the staff. None of them knew beforehand that they were going. Not unless they, and various staff members I spoke to in the preceding days, were lying to me.
I'm not quite so sure about the departures in the January window. However, I had a long conversation with Fash two days after Christmas at the Junior Bairns Day and he didn't seem to have any idea that he was going to be released within the week. There was a also a conversation reported by fans on social media in which Balatoni was heard bemoaning in Reception that his contract was up tomorrow and he had no idea what was happening. And the reported conversations with Miller & Kerr on Christmas Eve in which they were told their time was up.
For those reasons I find it very, very unlikely that players were told in November.
Can I ask what your basis is for making such a claim?
 
 


I am sure this is all accurate and the players were not told officially till the point they were about to go.

However a blind man could see who was going as Hartley just stopped playing most who he didn't want or played them then dropped them after a couple of games.

It is all in the past anyway and not relevant to the shambles we are in now.

From your report from the business club meeting it is now clear some of those players Hartley hadn't seen. If it all goes wrong and he can't turn it around he only has himself to blame. I have zero sympathy with him now as a result.

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I had about 5 meltdowns in the first half against Thistle so I'm a massive hypocrite, but I can't help feeling there is a bit of an overreaction here if we look at the reality of where we are.
League Cup - Won 2 Lost 2 - the only game we got a worse result than we'd have expected was the opening game defeat to Montrose, if we'd won that we'd have gone through. The other defeat was a 1 goal away defeat to a top flight side.
Challenge Cup - Through narrowly, in a game we were expected to win
League - Two defeats by 1 goal
The start has been poor, and I appreciate that the 'eye test' has been worse than the results on paper, but it's hardly a crisis at this stage. I thought we played OK against Inverness over the piece (4/10 if I had to score it). Partick Thistle was a disgrace.
The team selections have been bizarre and some of the players look lost and/or abysmal (Petravicius, Mackin, Dallison to name the worst offenders), but even the better players will take a little while to bed in. My biggest fear is that the strength in depth of the league this year means it's going to be unforgiving every single week.


I love your optimism (or at least your sense of let's not jump up and down too quickly).

However I do not see where it is going to come from looking at the quality of player. Hartley can put any formation out he wants IMO it won't make Paton, TOE, Sammutt, Petraviciuos, Dallison, Harrison, Brough, Turner or Mackin good enough to achieve what the club told us was the objective this season.

If these players were up to scratch we would have seen them stand out against Montrose, East Fife and Forfar. The reality is we lost to one, should have lost another and scraped past the other. very few looked much better than the part time players they were playing against.

Without more money being chucked at this we are battling relegation IMO.
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10 hours ago, Bairnardo said:
10 hours ago, Bairn Necessities said:
Its an extremely winnable league this season too. 

Ross County have started ominously true to the odds, including going away to one of the dark horse teams and beating them. Im not sure it really is that winnable. Playoffs on the other hand, are anyones.

We'll Ross County also huffed and puffed against Alloa at home and only won with a very late goal. 

I think we'll find that no one in this league is very good.

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