The Queen of the South thread

[19QOS19]

Mercer is a better RB than Doyle. Doyle was easily best for us at CB.

[palmy_cammy]

Deary me this fetish for signing former players has reached a ridiculous new depth.  35 year old Wullie Gibson, the retired winger, who hasn't played at this level since 2012, would be a good signing for central midfield?

I mean he would be an upgrade on Kidd...

[RandomGuy.]

22 hours ago, 19QOS19 said:

Though if Shaun Rooney has managed to get himself a move to St Johnstone anything's possible.

Worth mentioning it looks like he might just be back up for us now.

He was signed at a time when we had no right backs signed for this season, and had just had an awful 6 months defensively after we'd unexpectedly lost our only RB (Foster) and had nobody else there. In retrospect it looks like the plan was likely always for Rooney to be one of two RB signings this Summer.

We've also loaned Danny McNamara, a Ireland U21 cap who is on the verge of breaking into Millwalls side (according to their fans), for the upcoming season.

[Skyline Drifter]

19 minutes ago, palmy_cammy said:

Deary me this fetish for signing former players has reached a ridiculous new depth.  35 year old Wullie Gibson, the retired winger, who hasn't played at this level since 2012, would be a good signing for central midfield?

I mean he would be an upgrade on Kidd...

He isnt retired, he just wasnt allowed to play for a 3rd club last season at 1st team level. He signed for and played for our reserves.

[palmy_cammy]

14 minutes ago, Skyline Drifter said:

He isnt retired, he just wasnt allowed to play for a 3rd club last season at 1st team level. He signed for and played for our reserves.

Fair enough, I think the general tone of my post still stands though and whatever the reasons it doesn't change the fact he hasn't kicked a ball for a while.

FWIW I hope we can find a role for him as he seemed to turn the fortunes of the reserves around in his short time in charge and as one of the few Queens players to forge a successful career in the game he should be an inspiration to our budding stars.

I always found Rooney and Mercer to be an interesting pair.  If you could merge the two together you'd have a tremendous player on your hands.  Rooney is a real athlete and has all the physical attributes required to be a professional footballer.  However I've seen dogs running onto public parks and show more positional awareness chasing the ball than Rooney.  John Robertson is a highly experienced and respected coach, so it isn't a huge surprise that he's managed to improve Rooney's game.  He was very young and raw when he was with us.

Mercer on the other hand seems like your typical limited player who has got where he has through hard work and perseverance.  There's a lot to be said for that, and if we'd had a squad of Scott Mercers last season we'd have been in a better state than we were.

[JTulip]

It’s a hat trick! Great to have 3 former Queens players join up as members of the Queens Trust. They are Jim Thomson, Jim Mcguire and Wullie Gibson (who is currently the clubs reserve team manager). Thank you very much to you all. It is really great to have your support.

Don’t delay please join the Trust today and be in with a chance of winning a season ticket.

[queenslad]

If AJ is furloughed as I am sure he is, could he not say to our chairman I quite fancy keeping/signing x and let the chairman do the deal

[Fae_the_'briggs]

8 hours ago, queenslad said:

If AJ is furloughed as I am sure he is, could he not say to our chairman I quite fancy keeping/signing x and let the chairman do the deal

I don't know if the rules if furlough actually prohibit a Chairman and his Manager from talking to each other, and if the general  conversation should somehow turn to discussing players it would be impossible for the authorities to check up on,  and probably not worth the hassle. Considering we were being linked with Michael Doyle,  as were Morton,  someone must have initiated contact to express our interest with the player or his agent.  Anyway,  I'm sure the Chairman/BoD are involved in all player signings as they will have to rubber stamp the conditions. 

[Alex Nesovic's Barmy Army]

If AJ is furloughed as I am sure he is, could he not say to our chairman I quite fancy keeping/signing x and let the chairman do the deal

I believe with furlough an audit could take place of work emails to ensure that work wasn't taking place. But am sure they have each others personal numbers etc. So yeah am sure they could.

[ayrunitedfw]

I’m not sure if it’s common knowledge amongst you guys but it’s in the Sun that Allan Johnston will come off furlough middle of August. 

[Northfield 53]

13 minutes ago, ayrunitedfw said:

I’m not sure if it’s common knowledge amongst you guys but it’s in the Sun that Allan Johnston will come off furlough middle of August. 

Was in our local paper reporter getting the story from there .

We are miles behind Ayr and everyone else all seem to have a core of a squad signed.

 

Edited July 26, 2020 by Northfield 53

[Fae_the_'briggs]

10 minutes ago, Northfield 53 said:

Was in our local paper reporter getting the story from there .

I take it Mark Kerr has been off furlough for a while.

We are miles behind you and everyone else only have 3 players signed .

We are not miles behind "everyone else"  as I'm sure SD pointed out either earlier in this thread or another thread.  Without actually checking I would say that only about 50% of Championship clubs have made signings and even if it is a higher percentage it is not everyone else apart from us. 

[lowland star]

I actually think there is one man who will make the difference between queens struggling this year or actually challenging at the top and is the biggest reason why we have not done anything about signing any players . There will be hundreds of players available and rushing to sign them are foolish as we know our budget will be one of lowest in league. So as I said one man will make the difference.
That man is LYNDON DYKES if he is sold it will be worth anywhere £150-350k to queens and that would allowed us to bring 4-6 decent players

[Guest Flash]

1 hour ago, Fae_the_'briggs said:

We are not miles behind "everyone else"  as I'm sure SD pointed out either earlier in this thread or another thread.  Without actually checking I would say that only about 50% of Championship clubs have made signings and even if it is a higher percentage it is not everyone else apart from us. 

Looking at the squads thread, the number of players currently signed are:

1. Dunfermline 23
2. Ayr 20
3. Raith 18
4. ICT 16
5. Dundee 15
6. Arbroath 14
7. Alloa 13
8. Morton 8
9. Queens 3

So, we are miles behind everyone else in terms of squad numbers (unless Hearts also have only 3 players). The only team we are relatively close to is Morton, but even they have more than double our number. Whether you think it is better to wait and see who is available or there is no point in signing players just now anyway, there is no denying we are currently miles behind everyone else.

[FrankReynolds]

23 minutes ago, lowland star said:

I actually think there is one man who will make the difference between queens struggling this year or actually challenging at the top and is the biggest reason why we have not done anything about signing any players . There will be hundreds of players available and rushing to sign them are foolish as we know our budget will be one of lowest in league. So as I said one man will make the difference.
That man is LYNDON DYKES if he is sold it will be worth anywhere £150-350k to queens and that would allowed us to bring 4-6 decent players

Why do you think we could get anywhere near £350k? 

[Fae_the_'briggs]

4 minutes ago, Flash said:

Looking at the squads thread, the number of players currently signed are:

1. Dunfermline 23
2. Ayr 20
3. Raith 18
4. ICT 16
5. Dundee 15
6. Arbroath 14
7. Alloa 13
8. Morton 8
9. Queens 3

So, we are miles behind everyone else in terms of squad numbers (unless Hearts also have only 3 players). The only team we are relatively close to is Morton, but even they have more than double our number. Whether you think it is better to wait and see who is available or there is no point in signing players just now anyway, there is no denying we are currently miles behind everyone else.

The point being answered was regarding the lack of signing of new players,  not including those still under contract from last season.  How many of those numbers you quote were already under contract when the season was stopped and how many are new signings? 

[lowland star]

Why do you think we could get anywhere near £350k? 

Sell on 15-20% and was told Livingston want 1.5-2 million for him . They turned down 1.1 million from Barnsley

[Guest Flash]

1 hour ago, Fae_the_'briggs said:

The point being answered was regarding the lack of signing of new players,  not including those still under contract from last season.  How many of those numbers you quote were already under contract when the season was stopped and how many are new signings? 

The point Northfield made was in terms of the number of players signed for next season, not the number of new players signed. In the post you quoted he said “we only have three players signed”. The three players were under contract from last season. If he had been talking about new signings, he would have said we hadn’t signed anybody. 

[Scottydog]

31 minutes ago, Fae_the_'briggs said:

The point being answered was regarding the lack of signing of new players,  not including those still under contract from last season.  How many of those numbers you quote were already under contract when the season was stopped and how many are new signings? 

Depends how you look at things, I'm guessing Queens had around 20 registered players in March but now have only 3, also as far as I understand it no players were furloughed?  I'd say players under contract last season but since expired are of virtually no relevance to this scenario.  Of course some may hang around for a new contract but that's all a bit like counting your chickens, just ask Scott Mercer.

As contracts expired in June (out with furlough agreements) Raith only had 9 registered players before another 8 signed back on last week. Mind you 2 of that original 9 were 16 yr old apprentices and another was the 39 yr old GK coach so technically from a 1st team point of view we pretty much only had 6.

I think Rovers would have already made some more new signings but for the Arbitration case and I'm sure they aren't alone in that, I think a few clubs are waiting to see how the cards fall before they firm up budgets and commit to deals.

By getting their business done early the Pars are well placed being miles ahead of just about all of the rest of us, but then again they have a bigger budget than half the teams in the league. With the exception of Dundee  it's those teams with the lesser budgets that are making the fewest signings and re-signings.

[sidofthesouth]

The point being answered was regarding the lack of signing of new players,  not including those still under contract from last season.  How many of those numbers you quote were already under contract when the season was stopped and how many are new signings? 

Does this matter? It still means we are well behind most of our division in terms of building a squad. Probably more worrying is the amount of new championship-standard players that we have to try & find and persuade to sign on our small budget. Also, the more new faces we bring in, the bigger the challenge it is to gel them into any sort of team for the start of the season.
The 3 teams we are realistically hopeful of finishing above (Alloa/Arbroath/Raith) all seem to have much more settled squads compared to us.
A huge task lying ahead for AJ to keep us in the division this year I would say.