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Walking Down The Halbeath Road


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10 minutes ago, badgerthewitness said:

willothewisp.jpg

Player of the season. Deserves the opportunity IMO. Plus it would only take him 25 minutes to get to training IIRC from his signing press conference. Willo never got the “I’m delighted to sign for such a massive club” memo that all our new boys trot out.

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AJ never fully won over the Pars support. Even when we were swatting aside part-time sides in League One, it would be rare to hear chants for AJ or asking him for a wave. Daft stuff like that doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things but it's something that's fairly common with almost every Pars boss in the past, at least at the start and definitely when the team is winning.

He took over after we'd finished 7th in League One, at our lowest ebb in decades. It wouldn't be tricky to improve things from those depths but we had as good a season as could be expected, wrapping up the title before the end of March. Faiss, Moff, Cardle and Paton ripped the division up for arse paper and we performed well against Ross County in the Scottish Cup. He'd only met his minimum target but it was a positive season by anyone's definition.

First season in the Champ was a real struggle. We were floating around the bottom for a long time before winning a few important games at the turn of the year saw us build a gap. We still weren't officially safe for a while but we were saved from that last day shootout with St Mirren, Dumbarton and the wee team. 5th wasn't terrible but it didn't inspire much confidence.

Last year started superbly and it looked like we'd be involved in the title race. Then we tailed off badly and it looked like AJ would be punted after a lame defeat in Paisley. He hung on though and turned the season around, eventually pipping Inverness to the final play-off spot. The quarter-final with United should have seen us go through but we fell apart, despite cruising the first half at Tannadice. Hugely disappointing but most fans felt it would be a good starting point for a title push this season. 

Obviously, that didn't work out. Invigorating opening day win at Tannadice aside, it's been a grim slog of a campaign with a truly dreadful home record. We've won  2 out of 10 at EEP and managed to score a remarkably low seven goals in the process. We're still looking over our shoulder, despite calamity campaigns from Falkirk and Partick Thistle. The fans officially gave up on AJ following a pathetic home loss to Falkirk but he was allowed to stagger onwards, which could prove a massive mistake in the long run.

I don't think AJ is a bad guy and he did a lot of good things for the club. He got us promoted, the sports science department improved dramatically and he was seemingly very good at preventing any issues with players from getting into the press. He certainly didn't get the heart racing though and there are so few memorable moments from his reign. We've had plenty managers who did a worse job but he's absolutely taken us as far as he could.

I'm glad the Board have made this important decision but they have another important one to come. There's no point in punting AJ and replacing him with a John Hughes or Alan Archibald. We need a manager that will get the fans united and will have that core support from Day 1. As I've said, I think Stewart Petrie would be a popular pick but most fans would be pretty happy with Jim Goodwin as well. Both those guys are at clubs just now though, so it's uncertain if they're realistic options at this stage. We've reached a point where a change was essential and can inject some much-needed positivity around EEP.

It's also important for the players to get their finger out. They've escaped most of the criticism so far but there's no hiding place when the new guy takes over. A lot of them need to show they want and deserve to play for the club. It's not really a tough support to win over but several of the first team have looked like they've been going through the motions. 

Edited by Poet of the Macabre
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Great comments but don't be surprised if Crawford gets it after all it was a Board appointment 8 weeks ago to bring him in 
Smell the coffee wake up 


Was it not you who stated at the weekend the board at Dunfermline could not afford to get rid of AJ.
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