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Walking Down The Halbeath Road


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I'm sure it won't happen but Crawford should be head if player recruitment, if such a role ever was created. Not for a club like us though until we're in the CL.

It’s a shame Crawford had simply burnt out rather than just wanting to pass it on to someone else and no more. Would have been good to keep him on in the manner you’ve described.
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I do think it’s Peter Grant’s management that lets him down most. I know that seems obvious, but let me explain what I mean…

It looks like he is determined to find a system/tactic that will work every week, rather than assessing each opponent’s system/weaknesses and trying to exploit them. Last 2 games in particular, he has changed the wrong thing, as if he just hasn’t looked at the opponents at all. In 2021, there’s no excuse for not knowing what areas/aspect of the opponents you want to expose and what threats they have that you want to nullify.

Early in the season, everyone exploited our defensive weaknesses. Crosses/corners were aimed to go over the Mehmet’s head after he got caught well underneath one against Partick. Ross Graham was targeted by opposition attackers if they had the ball at their feet and they knew to put pressure on him/close him down if they wanted to make him panic. When he was on the right of the back 3, any 6ft+ striker made sure Comrie was marking them for any high balls forward and, most commonly, once opponents won the ball, they played it out wide, behind the wing backs to pull one of the back 3 out of position and send our whole team into panic mode.

Against Raith, using the pace/mobility of Wighton and O’Hara up against Berra and Benedictus should have been obvious. He watched them days before this game and decided to ditch the 4-4-2 and played Todorov as a lone striker, playing to Raith’s strengths. Second half, he went back to the front 2 and took Todorov off and we were much more dangerous/competitive in the game.

Against QoS, if he had done his research he would have expected their 3-4-3/3-5-2 system. Early in the season, when we tried that system, teams regularly exploited the space out wide behind the wing backs. But for this game, Grant decided to bring the wingers into the middle of the park, since they hadn’t been effective out wide against different opponents/systems. Even as the game went on, there was so much space down the wings when we had the ball, but nobody seemed to want to go out there.

He gave us the speech earlier about how tactics/formations don’t win games. I think he just doesn’t understand them. It’s clear that our opponents do their research and target weak spots. Inverness struggled, due to the fact they expected our 3-5-2 and planned to use the wide areas, where they were met by Comrie and Edwards, who had moved to their natural full back roles in a 4-4-2. If he is to be a successful manager in modern football, Grant needs to learn to adapt the game plan based on who we’re playing. It’s 2021, everyone else has been doing that for years. Grant’s some sort of dinosaur trying to play modern football, without understanding modern football.

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13 hours ago, parsforlife said:

Why are are board delaying this?

it’s clearly the only option, the quicker they implement it the better.

What benefits to the club to we gain from letting him take more training sessions? he’s only going to make things worse.

Maybe there will be a double announcement : goodbye Peter Grant , lets welcome XXX as the new DAFC manager. Just a thought.

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Yeah, I mean if he did have the full backing of the board I don't think it would take them this long to come out with a statement saying that? Surely that's just a virtual meeting to confirm that is the case and McArthur makes a formal statement? Going by Alan Temple on Twitter, who has sources, it seems like the Germans are getting involved one way or another today so it might be the case they are coming to a financial arrangement. I am still worried, however, that this is a hill McArthur and co are willing to die on. They should just hold their hands up, admit their mistakes so we can move on and try and set it straight. They're only making it worse delaying the inevitable. There is no way this man has the players onside let alone has a clue how to utilise them properly. He is a total disaster. The players are just going through the motions now and will also feel a sense of inevitability about Grant's position. There is literally no other way out from this. If the board don't do the right thing, they will have made yet another massive mistake, but this time it really will hit the attendances and incur proper toxicity at EEP, whether that's inside the stadium or outside. 

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37 minutes ago, Stellaboz said:

I'm sure it won't happen but Crawford should be head if player recruitment, if such a role ever was created. Not for a club like us though until we're in the CL.

Totally agree. I didn't like Stevie as a manager but his eye for a player and recruitment was decent.

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3 hours ago, Have some faith in Magic said:

Ross McCarthur aside who is left on the board of directors that isn't part of the new ownership group? 

Billy Braisby, Jim Leishman, Ian Hunters, Kip McBay, Bob Garmory, Drew Main.

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4 minutes ago, Grant228 said:

Starting to worry a tad, thought he'd be away by now. 

I’ve had the Twitter notifications on since Saturday and fully expected an announcement yesterday.

If we get to the weekend with Grant still in place then I’ll be properly panicking.

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If nothing has been announced by Thursday, it'll be time to worry. Something will need to be done though. They can't leave us in the dark because the vast, vast majority of Pars fans are furious and want answers as to why he is still manager. If they aren't going to sack him, they need to give a statement as to why not, which will obviously be rubbished. The whole of Scottish football could see what a disaster this would turn out to be and continues to be. It's madness this is still even up for discussion.

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I don't understand why we should wait so far into this week, it should have been first thing Monday morning. His post match comments tell that he knows he could be sacked, the fans know it yet here we are approaching 2pm on the Tuesday afternoon and there's been nothing. If he isn't away by COB this evening then it's safe to say he'll be in charge for the Kilmarnock game. We have 2 weeks between games to sack, advertise, interview and hire.

It would be the most Dunfermline Athletic thing if we were to sack him the Thursday before the Killie game and have Shields in charge for another 2 weeks before making an appointment.

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