The Falkirk FC Thread

[Proudtobeabairn]

1.  The NB £550k has been done to death, give it a rest

2.  We have absolutely no idea why Reilly went to Morton.  A chance to score goals in the championship perhaps/old connections/closer to home?  Us not affording the wages is pure speculation.  Another case of everyone working themselves up about something that probably isn't even true (like the Arbroath debacle)

3. We were never (to my knowledge) in for Simon Murray, Billy McKay or McManus and in any case and why would the latter 2 drop to League 1 with the offers they had.  Murray under contract at Queens

4.  Gullan will head back to Raith surely now that Vaughan is injured.

5.  Morrison has 5 goals already this season

Edited September 2, 2021 by Proudtobeabairn

[Newbornbairn]

18 minutes ago, Caractacus Potts said:

Not to go over old ground too much but we received £150k no strings attached and top of that had an offer of £550k
 

 

[Bairn in Exile]

14 minutes ago, Marshmallo said:

Depends how much that would be surely? If it's 600 or 700 quid a week and we think it's the difference between winning the league and finishing in a playoff spot then I would say it's worth it. If he's on 2 grand a week then not so much.

I didn't want Reilly anyway but if somebody else decent becomes available and he is on 2 grand a week and we have to pay his full wages I would say go for it. 70k to get us out of this hellhole of a league as champions as against probably getting beat in the play-offs is a no brainer as far as I'm concerned. We're splashing the cash behind the scenes and penny-pinching with the squad, the wrong way around.

[Guest Caractacus Potts]

16 minutes ago, Proudtobeabairn said:

1.  The NB £550k has been done to death, give it a rest

2.  We have absolutely no idea why Reilly went to Morton.  A chance to score goals in the championship perhaps/old connections/closer to home?  Us not affording the wages is pure speculation.  Another case of everyone working themselves up about something that probably isn't even true (like the Arbroath debacle)

3. We were never (to my knowledge) in for Simon Murray, Billy McKay or McManus and in any case and why would the latter 2 drop to League 1 with the offers they had.  Murray under contract at Queens

4.  Gullan will head back to Raith surely now that Vaughan is injured.

5.  Morrison has 5 goals already this season

1. I know but when a seeming lack of finance is brought up then so must the decision to knock back the NB offer.

2. True. Just disappointed as I thought he would have been a decent signing.

3. Why not though? Forgot Murray was there last season so fair enough with that one.

4. Most likely

5. Morrison is vital for us. Worried that we will become over reliant on him too as we did last season. Nesbitt will take the pressure off but he’s not much of a goal scorer. Williamson coming back might  help as well though.

[MrDust]

12 hours ago, Rocco said:

As I’ve said, it ended up looking like a 451 because how shit we were. Everyone knows Holt loves a 4231 formation

No chance in hell it was 4-2-3-1, the Levein 4-6-0 had less rigid pulling ranks into position, it was a complete embarrassment and that was with winning.

As for everyone knows Holt loves a 4-2-3-1, I can't recall him using it here when he actually was the manager, very debatable what his role was at livi , by all accounts he didnt sign players so I'd question if he picked the team also.

[AGPar]

1 hour ago, Caractacus Potts said:

It’s not good news if true about us not stumping enough cash(none at all) for Reilly to come to us. I know he wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea but I thought he would have been a good signing. 

Again it goes back to questioning why they turned down good money from the NB? That has to be landed at Gary Deans door. We desperately need to get out of this league yet we’ve stuck by Keena as our main striker and failed to try capture Simon Murray, Billy McKay, Gavin Reilly, McManus and many other players who were more certain to do a job scoring than those we brought in. 

There appears to be more and more evidence that we are absolutely strapped for cash and deciding to prioritise what we have on ventures off the field instead of on it. There has been no cash injection from the Rawlins either as expected, so we’re once again seeming to trust in good faith that everything will be rosy. 

Is it knicker wetting? Possibly so but it’s for good reason as we yet again seem to be choosing to ignore the weaknesses that have been very obvious to most people. It’s a gamble and if we don’t get up this year then we’re in a lot of trouble. 

Of the four strikers mentioned, Murray was under contract at QP, a transfer fee would have been required, they are under no financial pressure to sell, and certainly wouldn't to what they presumably consider a direct promotion rival. McKay appears to be one of that cabal of players who, due to being pretty settled in the Highlands, is quite content to float intermittently between RC and ICT. He's at a club who I think stand a decent chance of promotion to the Premier League this season. Never happening. McManus, again a transfer fee would have been required, and I doubt we'd have got anywhere close to what he's earning at that Welsh outfit. Reilly was the only realistic one of the four, but it appears Livingston wanted a high proportion of, if not full, wages covered for the duration of the loan and Morton have presumably been the ones to agree to it. McPherson also knows him from his time at St Mirren.

I agree to the wider point about us now being top-heavy off the pitch and paper-thin on it. I suspect we haven't got a pot to piss in. If you look at the transfer activity this summer, there was the initial batch of signings that Holt had tied down before a head coach had even been appointed: Nesbitt, Hetherington, Williamson etc. McCann was announced a bit later, on 13th June. Since then, it's difficult to identify much of anything that significantly strengthens the first team, and consequently our chances of promotion. Krasniqi looks promising, albeit on limited viewing, and you'd like to see him getting more game time, starting from Saturday. Brown had good reviews from his time at Stenhousemuir and I wouldn't mind him being given a run of games to show what he can do, but I imagine he'll continue as a back-up. The permanent signings have been Ompreon, Wilson, Ross. No more needs to be said about the two strikers - term used in the loosest possible sense. Ross was  struggling to get a look-in at Cove and has done precious little here, yet on Saturday, in our biggest game of the season, he's playing centrally in the three behind Keena whilst Telfer, who has proven he can get a goal or two at this level, is stuck on the halfway line. Unfortunately Sheerin has had an influence on all three of these - Ross from Aberdeen, whilst the other two were on trial, Wilson for weeks, so he's not blameless in us being saddled with them. Anyone we do pick up from here needs to be someone good enough to play and contribute regularly, not just another body to pad out the squad, we've got too many of them already, but it's a very small market we're looking in now and any decent loans that are kicking around will probably have plenty of interest from Championship clubs. The squad as it stands won't be enough.

 

[Guest Caractacus Potts]

10 minutes ago, AGPar said:

Of the four strikers mentioned, Murray was under contract at QP, a transfer fee would have been required, they are under no financial pressure to sell, and certainly wouldn't to what they presumably consider a direct promotion rival. McKay appears to be one of that cabal of players who, due to being pretty settled in the Highlands, is quite content to float intermittently between RC and ICT. He's at a club who I think stand a decent chance of promotion to the Premier League this season. Never happening. McManus, again a transfer fee would have been required, and I doubt we'd have got anywhere close to what he's earning at that Welsh outfit. Reilly was the only realistic one of the four, but it appears Livingston wanted a high proportion of, if not full, wages covered for the duration of the loan and Morton have presumably been the ones to agree to it. McPherson also knows him from his time at St Mirren.

I agree to the wider point about us now being top-heavy off the pitch and paper-thin on it. I suspect we haven't got a pot to piss in. If you look at the transfer activity this summer, there was the initial batch of signings that Holt had tied down before a head coach had even been appointed: Nesbitt, Hetherington, Williamson etc. McCann was announced a bit later, on 13th June. Since then, it's difficult to identify much of anything that significantly strengthens the first team, and consequently our chances of promotion. Krasniqi looks promising, albeit on limited viewing, and you'd like to see him getting more game time, starting from Saturday. Brown had good reviews from his time at Stenhousemuir and I wouldn't mind him being given a run of games to show what he can do, but I imagine he'll continue as a back-up. The permanent signings have been Ompreon, Wilson, Ross. No more needs to be said about the two strikers - term used in the loosest possible sense. Ross was  struggling to get a look-in at Cove and has done precious little here, yet on Saturday, in our biggest game of the season, he's playing centrally in the three behind Keena whilst Telfer, who has proven he can get a goal or two at this level, is stuck on the halfway line. Unfortunately Sheerin has had an influence on all three of these - Ross from Aberdeen, whilst the other two were on trial, Wilson for weeks, so he's not blameless in us being saddled with them. Anyone we do pick up from here needs to be someone good enough to play and contribute regularly, not just another body to pad out the squad, we've got too many of them already, but it's a very small market we're looking in now and any decent loans that are kicking around will probably have plenty of interest from Championship clubs. The squad as it stands won't be enough.

 

Well surmised. Can’t disagree with that. 

[Russ]

2 hours ago, Senor Bairn said:

Just having a quick look at the Premiership squads, I'd say on loan we should be trying our luck with

Gullan at Hibs 

Ruth at Aberdeen

Hamilton at Livingston 

Henderson at Hearts 

 

With Killie bringing in some reinforcements up front Innes Cameron would be a good shout. 
 

Had a look at the free agents and there's nobody I could see that looks good (I'm not a football scout though). 
 

Wee fat Ross McCormack and Nile rangers are free lol

Aye that’s pretty much the names I was looking at, I’m sure Neilson has talked about sending Euan Henderson out on loan so could be the best bet out of them.

Another couple that are less likely are Jakubiak, who I knew was mentioned a few pages ago but he’s well down the pecking order at Dundee now and Matty Kennedy at Aberdeen. Very, very  slim chance that he would drop as far down as us but he’s another that’s well out of the picture failing to even make squads this season and Aberdeen would probably be happy to ship him out. Aye he’s a winger but he’s someone who would get/create goals at this level. Not that it will happen though.

[Shadwell Dog]

We don't seem to ever learn from our previous cockups.  We need to stop signing players that are utter horse shit especially when our budget is as tight as it is. There is absolutely no excuse for having players on trial for weeks and then signing them when they are that pish.  Every season its the same and now we've even brought in a dof costing us a sizeable wage and we are still signing complete donkeys. We simply aren't in a position where we can sign two strikers and have both of them turning out to be completely hopeless. Every AGM I've been at we talk about recruitment and how this or that will make it different next season and then here we are a season on still signing duds.

[gav-ffc]

Quote

We’ve spoke to certain clubs about certain players but we’ve lost out on them to other clubs that have been Championship as opposed to League 1.

Cold hard fact of being in league 1.

[bridge of allan bairn]

41 minutes ago, Shadwell Dog said:

We don't seem to ever learn from our previous cockups.  We need to stop signing players that are utter horse shit especially when our budget is as tight as it is. There is absolutely no excuse for having players on trial for weeks and then signing them when they are that pish.  Every season its the same and now we've even brought in a dof costing us a sizeable wage and we are still signing complete donkeys. We simply aren't in a position where we can sign two strikers and have both of them turning out to be completely hopeless. Every AGM I've been at we talk about recruitment and how this or that will make it different next season and then here we are a season on still signing duds.

Absolutely this.

Watched Wilson as a trialist pre season, had never heard of him and said to my pal he doesn't even play like a footballer, surely we won't sign him. Of course we did, and he's done nothing since ti change anyones mind. You'd rather get one better guy than 2 really poor players surely? didn't sheerin say wilson wasn't great in the trials, so why did we still sign him? The money could have gone against increasing the money for a better loan player.

[Reggie Perrin]

I know it’s a dream job for any young football fan to be a professional player but surely the lad Wilson has enough self awareness to realise that he needs to find another career.

He can get his football fix by trying his luck in the Juniors.

[Believe The Hype]

Wilson must clearly have been a panic buy. I have watched every competitive game including the league Cup games this season, and can safely say I havent seen him do a single thing, like, anything at all, of note to suggest he is a professional striker during any time at all that he has been on the park. Utterly bizzare signing. Not a single glimpse of anything. It's not even as if he is that utterly shite he gets the ball then gives it away or misses chances, he just does absolutely nothing at all but run around. 

[bridge of allan bairn]

25 minutes ago, Believe The Hype said:

Wilson must clearly have been a panic buy. I have watched every competitive game including the league Cup games this season, and can safely say I havent seen him do a single thing, like, anything at all, of note to suggest he is a professional striker during any time at all that he has been on the park. Utterly bizzare signing. Not a single glimpse of anything. It's not even as if he is that utterly shite he gets the ball then gives it away or misses chances, he just does absolutely nothing at all but run around. 

Agreed. A few folks mentioned playing Krasniqi up front in one game instead of Wilson and actually its not a bad shout (as a short term solution till we get another decent striker). He's tall, has skill and presence.  Wilson has none of these and adds nothing.  

The problem Sheerin is going to have is that he agreed to sign him after poor trials, continues to play him,  and he continues to do nothing while we are not top of the league, he'll start to come in for stick. when does the Wilson experiment come to an end? Sheerin seems to be a clever coach, so hopefully he realises and calls it a day on him sooner rather than later.

Edited September 2, 2021 by bridge of allan bairn
clarification

[falkirkbairn23]

Wilson is awful agreed but the shouts for Krasniqi to be up top because he is "tall" is absolutely laughable

[Bigbrbairn]

Mark Beck was taller. Did not do much for us but has done okay since

[ebobsboy]

32 minutes ago, bridge of allan bairn said:

The problem Sheerin is going to have is that he agreed to sign him after poor trials, continues to play him,  and he continues to do nothing while we are not top of the league, he'll start to come in for stick.

Especially if we start to drop more points, I like Sheerin he seems like a decent enough guy but I also think he may have a stubborn streak about him in that he won't deviate from his philosophy. Bringing on dross like Wilson when things aren't working only heaps pressure on himself. 

[bridge of allan bairn]

29 minutes ago, falkirkbairn23 said:

Wilson is awful agreed but the shouts for Krasniqi to be up top because he is "tall" is absolutely laughable

the fact he is a far superior footballer is the key. the fact he is tall and as such has a better physical presence at corners, free kicks etc is just a bonus

[Guest Caractacus Potts]

16 minutes ago, Bigbrbairn said:

Mark Beck was taller. Did not do much for us but has done okay since

I thought Mark Beck was decent for us. Mind him scoring the winner at Dens. Would’ve been happy to have kept a hold of him. 

[Russ]

The c***s wanting us to play him up front would be the first in line to shell abuse at him and call him shite if he tried him there and he was terrible as he’s potentially never played there before. 
 

The solution is to bring another body in not to play someone wildly out of position, especially when he’s not our player and all we’d do is piss off his parent club.