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The Queen of the South thread


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My thoughts exactly TG. The form of players can fluctuate depending on whether they are recovering from injury, playing in a posiiton that is not their best or under tactics or a manager that doesn't bring out the best in them.

You have to trust in the experience and judgement of McPherson and judge the players once they have been given a chance to show what they can do under his management.

Edited by MacWatt
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You also have to be somewhat realistic about the wages we can now afford to offer and the quality of player we are therefore in the market for. People are kidding themselves with some of the names that have been suggested.

100% correct SD we do have to be realistic regarding the players we can afford to bring in lets have a bit of faith in Gus and get behind him.I am sure he will use his experience and contacts to bring in some decent players.Lets also hope Gus and Andy can work with some of the half decent under 19's we have and get them prepared for 1st team football.

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Totally agree with the sentiment in the above posts.

I don't expect to be blown away by any of the signings we make this close season. But I will trust in Gus and I am pleasantly surprised by a couple of the names on the training list.

I suppose one way we could possibly sign some 'better' players is if Gus used the salary earmarked for two players on just one. Doesn't look like that is going to happen but you never know, I suppose it depends how many put pen to paper early.

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Mark Campbell would be a very good signing but is a non-negotiable part-time player. Would that be an issue for Queens?

Only MacPherson could answer that. I would presume he wouldn't be wasting his time having him at training (presuming that is true) if it was an issue though. What did Raith do for him? Did he just train separately and meet on match days or was he able to organise shifts to train with the first team a few times a week? The latter would obviously be more workable than the former. I presume if he was there yesterday morning then he must have either taken some time off work or arranged shifts?

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Only MacPherson could answer that. I would presume he wouldn't be wasting his time having him at training (presuming that is true) if it was an issue though. What did Raith do for him? Did he just train separately and meet on match days or was he able to organise shifts to train with the first team a few times a week? The latter would obviously be more workable than the former. I presume if he was there yesterday morning then he must have either taken some time off work or arranged shifts?

Because we had a few part-time players, or were fully part-time, throughout Campbell's time at the club the entire squad trained on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and the full-timers trained through the day the rest of the time.

Maybe he can re-arrange shifts, I've no idea, but certainly he's in a decent enough job and given his age I highly doubt he'd willing to turn full-time even without taking finances into account. But as you say, I doubt he'd have been there yesterday if he and MacPherson don't think they can make some kind of arrangement to play for Queens.

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I may be totally wrong but am I right in saying Queens are only in a position to offer salaries worth about £15,000? I'm sure I read that recently. If that is the case, Queens are going to struggle to attract proven players at this level.

That being said, I would hope they would have better options than that wee waster Strachan.

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I may be totally wrong but am I right in saying Queens are only in a position to offer salaries worth about £15,000? I'm sure I read that recently. If that is the case, Queens are going to struggle to attract proven players at this level.

That is what MacPherson said in the Sunday Mail last weekend, yes. And that was my point above in saying some people need to get some realism about the sort of player we are going to be able to attract. We have an excellent manager with a track record for working well on a budget and he's capable of assembling the sort of squad that might be able to compete ok at this level with a bit of luck, a few inexperienced diamonds and one or two quality experienced players in the right positions. We're pretty unlikely however to be in the market to attract the Collin Samuel's and Peter MacDonald's (and Bob Harris's) of the world and those who think we should be need to get a wee bit more real.

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Be careful before writing off players before youve seen them play, you have previous for this remember! lets be realistic here there arent going to be any star studded players out there for us to sign so we might as well get used to the idea that were going to be signing players who didnt flourish last season in their clubs. lets not forget our friends S. Dobbie and R. Harris who didnt exactly set the grass on fire and St johnstone and clyde. why dont we let gus do his job and stop expecting this massive name to walk through the door.

When? :unsure:

You make a good point though. Maybe I was to quick to dismiss the other players but have I seen most of them play before and they have looked poor. Obviously Gus knows more than me so I trust his judgement.

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That is what MacPherson said in the Sunday Mail last weekend, yes. And that was my point above in saying some people need to get some realism about the sort of player we are going to be able to attract. We have an excellent manager with a track record for working well on a budget and he's capable of assembling the sort of squad that might be able to compete ok at this level with a bit of luck, a few inexperienced diamonds and one or two quality experienced players in the right positions. We're pretty unlikely however to be in the market to attract the Collin Samuel's and Peter MacDonald's (and Bob Harris's) of the world and those who think we should be need to get a wee bit more real.

Did he actually say that? I cant be bothered finding the link again, but I thought when I read it that there was a quote from Gus and then the £15k was written as part of the article ie the journos words rather than a quote from Gus :unsure:

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Be careful before writing off players before youve seen them play, you have previous for this remember! lets be realistic here there arent going to be any star studded players out there for us to sign so we might as well get used to the idea that were going to be signing players who didnt flourish last season in their clubs. lets not forget our friends S. Dobbie and R. Harris who didnt exactly set the grass on fire and St johnstone and clyde. why dont we let gus do his job and stop expecting this massive name to walk through the door.

Agree with most of what you are saying but don't you think it would be better to look for unknown players who wouldn't command much in the way of wages rather than players who are known but known to be shite eg Tom Brighton. Lots of players released in the english lower leagues are there to be found and it would be nice if we as well as other teams looked at introducing new faces into this league instead of the constant merry-go-round of signing released players from other clubs in the same league. This is why imo the league is becoming so boring. Familiarity breeds contempt.

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Agree with most of what you are saying but don't you think it would be better to look for unknown players who wouldn't command much in the way of wages rather than players who are known but known to be shite eg Tom Brighton. Lots of players released in the english lower leagues are there to be found and it would be nice if we as well as other teams looked at introducing new faces into this league instead of the constant merry-go-round of signing released players from other clubs in the same league. This is why imo the league is becoming so boring. Familiarity breeds contempt.

Thing with that though is that, if you are going to be paying an annual salary of around £15k (about £300 a week or so) then not that many lower-league English players are going to relocate up to Scotland for that. They'll get more, or at least as much, playing in the Blue Sq Premier, or even the Conference North/South (or whatever they're called now).

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Did he actually say that? I cant be bothered finding the link again, but I thought when I read it that there was a quote from Gus and then the £15k was written as part of the article ie the journos words rather than a quote from Gus :unsure:

It's not a direct quote from Gus, no. But it was clearly a paraphrased question using information from the interview. It would be a very odd figure to pull out of thin air if Gus hadn't just given it to him.

MacPherson took St Mirren from the First Division into the SPL so knows exactly what's required. But is it realistic to think he can do it with Queens, considering they can only offer players around £14,000 per year to work full-time for him? Probably not.

But he said: "In the modern game, with the way football operates, seven years in management probably puts you down as experienced. "I'm a better manager now. My seven years at St Mirren will stand me in good stead. "We got St Mirren into the SPL. We set a standard at the club and we will do the same again here. "Budget wise, we will not be in the top half dozen, but when we won promotion at St Mirren three or four clubs had more money to spend on players than us. "Money isn't the be all and end all in football though.

Edited by Skyline Drifter
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It's not a direct quote from Gus, no. But it was clearly a paraphrased question using information from the interview. It would be a very odd figure to pull out of thin air if Gus hadn't just given it to him.

He then goes on to say that we wont be "in the top half dozen" in terms of budgets, so he clearly thinks our budget is as good as at least 3 other clubs.

Im not sure I would read too much into the £14k figure

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I would assume the £300 a week will be enhanced by bonuses. If it is indeed true. Drastic it may be but a wage in that bracket certainly offers the club better value for money than the stupidity of alleged wages in the £1000 a week bracket for the likes of Kean, Holmes and Lilley.

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I would assume the £300 a week will be enhanced by bonuses. If it is indeed true. Drastic it may be but a wage in that bracket certainly offers the club better value for money than the stupidity of alleged wages in the £1000 a week bracket for the likes of Kean, Holmes and Lilley.

Surely it only offers better value for money if we sign players who are as good? Otherwise, paying less money for worse players would be the same value for money ;)

To be honest, what we're actually paying is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is how that compares to the rest of the division

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Surely it only offers better value for money if we sign players who are as good? Otherwise, paying less money for worse players would be the same value for money ;)

To be honest, what we're actually paying is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is how that compares to the rest of the division

I see where you're coming from but paying wages that high at our level is scandalous regardless of how good the player is. Cutting the wage bill is the quickest way to reduce our outgoings. The level of our ambition appears to be maintaining first division status if this can be done cheaper then it's a no brainer.

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I see where you're coming from but paying wages that high at our level is scandalous regardless of how good the player is. Cutting the wage bill is the quickest way to reduce our outgoings. The level of our ambition appears to be maintaining first division status if this can be done cheaper then it's a no brainer.

Yes, you're right.

Despite the glory of the cup run, which just served to accelerate the overspending, we never, over the period, mounted any serious title challenge, even before we consider what any stadium implications would have been.

It was ridiculous that people good enough at football to attract barely a couple of thousand people, could walk away with wages like those suggested.

I know that none of us - SD apart - really know what individuals earned. Simple calculations based on our outgoings, which wages dominate, would however strongly suggest that our higher earners probably were indeed making £50-60,000 per year.

Crazy and unsustainable.

The defence that other teams were doing it too, is not a good one.

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