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Tell your brain to tell your mouth to tell georgieboy to tell Paul Hartley to leave him alone please.

In all seriousness, yes he is. The left back position for Alloa has been our Achilles heel for about 10 of the last 15 seasons. Meggatt is comfortable on the ball and quite tricky too. How his dragback flick constantly works against players he's competed against on numerous occasions is baffling but he's quick, got good positioning, can link well with the midfielders in tight situations and can put in a decent cross too. I rated him as not only our best player last season, but the one with the most potential to take his career higher, especially considering his age, physicality, fitness and not forgetting his general footballing ability. He's had a couple of average games for us recently but overall I reckon he'd make the step up to Dundee in his stride.

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We are apparently after Meggatt, Alloa's left back! Is he any good?

From the Queen's Park left back production line. Very solid defender indeed and capable enough with the ball at his feet. Also very good as a left sided centre half and I think that might be the position he ends up playing later in his career. Still fairly young and a player who with a bit of work is well capable of stepping up IMO.

I don't see how we could get a decent replacement in at this stage of the season and it doesn't make sense to weaken our squad for the run in when there is a great financial incentive in staying up. As such if Dundee want him now rather than the end of the season then we should be looking for a decent fee. Otherwise hold onto Daryll until the summer.

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Darryl is very solid, but a better centre back than he is a left back where he isn't effective enough going forwards for me.

His versatility may be what is making him attractive to PH. I'd be (pleasantly surprised) if he establishes himself in Dundee's first team. If PH thinks he can do a job though, I expect he can. Money and a couple of good attacking loans and I think we could do business.

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Is this with intentions of signing this window or in the summer?

Really optimistic of smith to be looking at summer targets tbh. Surely these will be targets for this window.

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Surprised Smith hasn't come under more pressure. Got lucky with Queens late goal last season and is below a dismal Cowdenbeath side. Perhaps (definitely) the high profile results against Rangers has masked how poor a job he is doing and has, unfairly, gained him more time than his results merit.

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Smith hasn't come under any real pressure because the performances have been acceptable, however the results haven't been. He was even quoted after the Falkirk game recently that we need to start 'winning ugly' soon to try and get some points on the board and pull away from the relegation places.

Falkirk, and probably more so Raith, have been doing that recently and I'd now say Raith are probably only one win away from having enough points to stay up already. They won 1-0 at Falkirk, 1-0 at Cowdenbeath and 2-1 at home to Dumbarton in games where they could quite easily have been left with 0 or 1 point from in total. Fair play to them and I only wish we'd start doing the same.

The results (and performances) in the 4 Rangers games, the 2-1 win over Hibs and the 0-1 with Hearts (still highly annoying that one!) have more than likely given fans the general opinion that we're running along quite smoothly this season but it's results we now need and with Raith at the Recs this weekend we really must be looking for all 3 points at all costs, especially with Hearts the following Saturday. Although it would be fairly typical of us this season if we lose at home to Raith then sneak a 1-0 win over Hearts.

The two other part-timers in the league have made sure of taking points against teams outside the 'big 3' whereas we've competed well against every team and small margins have left us with one point instead of three or zero instead of one. As much as I like Big Ben, I'm getting sick of the sight of him as a striker for the last few minutes of games these days. Perhaps if we'd concentrated on winning/drawing 'survival games' and write off the big 3 we'd be in a much healthier league position but we then wouldn't have the days like the games above where us as supporters will cherish for years to come. There's still a big possibility we can have those, and survive also.

Against the big 3 so far it's Cowdenbeath (0/21) , Dumbarton (2/24) , Alloa (5/24). On top of that we have our win against Rangers in the cup which was perhaps our biggest achievement and what fans (of all clubs) will remember but that's no use in terms of survival, it may simply have masked our poor league results and bought Smith some time regarding coming under pressure from supporters.

The other issue could simply be that whilst both Alloa and Cowdenbeath have rich (personally) chairmen at their helm, both are trying their hardest to make their clubs self-sustainable and removing a manager mid-season is simply an expense both could do without, especially in a league with so many quality full-time teams and where a low points total may well still keep them up.

I'm happy enough with Smith as our manager and I can see us picking up results soon and getting away from danger.

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http://www.alloaadvertiser.com/app/sport/alloaathletic/articles/2015/01/21/521988-exclusive-alloa-athletic-appoint-new-head-scout-tasked-with-bringing-top-english-talent-to-clackmannanshire/

Former lower league player and non league manager Lee Ebden appointed head scout. It's a bit hard to find information about him online. He was Market Drayton manager and worked as a football consultant(?) for clubs across Europe.

http://www.evostikleague.co.uk/ebden-unveiled-at-drayton-15168/

Hopefully he can unearth a few gems for us.

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Smith hasn't come under any real pressure because the performances have been acceptable, however the results haven't been. He was even quoted after the Falkirk game recently that we need to start 'winning ugly' soon to try and get some points on the board and pull away from the relegation places.

Falkirk, and probably more so Raith, have been doing that recently and I'd now say Raith are probably only one win away from having enough points to stay up already. They won 1-0 at Falkirk, 1-0 at Cowdenbeath and 2-1 at home to Dumbarton in games where they could quite easily have been left with 0 or 1 point from in total. Fair play to them and I only wish we'd start doing the same.

The results (and performances) in the 4 Rangers games, the 2-1 win over Hibs and the 0-1 with Hearts (still highly annoying that one!) have more than likely given fans the general opinion that we're running along quite smoothly this season but it's results we now need and with Raith at the Recs this weekend we really must be looking for all 3 points at all costs, especially with Hearts the following Saturday. Although it would be fairly typical of us this season if we lose at home to Raith then sneak a 1-0 win over Hearts.

The two other part-timers in the league have made sure of taking points against teams outside the 'big 3' whereas we've competed well against every team and small margins have left us with one point instead of three or zero instead of one. As much as I like Big Ben, I'm getting sick of the sight of him as a striker for the last few minutes of games these days. Perhaps if we'd concentrated on winning/drawing 'survival games' and write off the big 3 we'd be in a much healthier league position but we then wouldn't have the days like the games above where us as supporters will cherish for years to come. There's still a big possibility we can have those, and survive also.

Against the big 3 so far it's Cowdenbeath (0/21) , Dumbarton (2/24) , Alloa (5/24). On top of that we have our win against Rangers in the cup which was perhaps our biggest achievement and what fans (of all clubs) will remember but that's no use in terms of survival, it may simply have masked our poor league results and bought Smith some time regarding coming under pressure from supporters.

The other issue could simply be that whilst both Alloa and Cowdenbeath have rich (personally) chairmen at their helm, both are trying their hardest to make their clubs self-sustainable and removing a manager mid-season is simply an expense both could do without, especially in a league with so many quality full-time teams and where a low points total may well still keep them up.

I'm happy enough with Smith as our manager and I can see us picking up results soon and getting away from danger.

Agree with all of this and would add that he has also got us to the final of the Challenge Cup. I think that if we were to avoid relegation this year, even if we don`t win the cup, he will be safe in his job for at least another season - and would deserve it too!

I think Muzza81 will be dissapointed that he won`t get the negative reaction from Alloa fan`s he was clearly looking for. I`ve not spoken to any supporters that have a desire for Smith to go.

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