Jump to content

The St Mirren 2014/2015 Season Thread


Recommended Posts

Next season is the season we make Europe. No debt. Excellent training facilities. In-door pitch. Extra income coming into the club. Fantastic young players now with a year's experience behind them and more in the pipeline. A manager that has been through fire and come out the other side gaining substatially in experience. Other clubs in decline due to being in a financial mess from years of cheating. The future is bright. The future is black & white :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 3.6k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

This is probably a bit harsh, but does anyone else feel that Lennon gets a bit of an easy time with regards to 'bringing' through young players. His hand was definitely forced with Naismith and Kelly. Who only got their chance because DVZ has been injured and Grainger wasn't very good. I doubt Lennon had them in mind as first team players at the start of the season, fortunately they both have performed to a decent level.

McLean and McGinn are just brilliant young players that any manager would play given our team.

He has done well in spells, but I think it's now time to part ways.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is probably a bit harsh, but does anyone else feel that Lennon gets a bit of an easy time with regards to 'bringing' through young players. His hand was definitely forced with Naismith and Kelly. Who only got their chance because DVZ has been injured and Grainger wasn't very good. I doubt Lennon had them in mind as first team players at the start of the season, fortunately they both have performed to a decent level.

I think that seems a bit harsh :) - the fact is, he's played the younger players, and they've come on well under his management. We've screamed at managers in the recent past for not giving the kids a chance so we can't refuse credit when it does happen. :rolleyes:

You also have to bear in mind that, for better or worse, the style of football we play does make our players, especially our midfielders, look good. We play the ball through McLean, McGinn and McGowan, not over them. We make the full backs get forward because we lack natural width in midfield. We encourage our midfielders to get forward and support the striker. It isn't always effective, and maybe we lack a plan B sometimes, but you have to say, it is conducive to developing young talent that could potentially then be sold for lots of cash. The game we play develops the skills that bigger, better clubs would find desirable.

It's a shame McLean is out of contract as we will only get, at best, a development fee for him, and, being brutal, I think we should cash in on McGinn this summer so we don't find ourselves in the same situation with him next summer, as we currently are with KM.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that seems a bit harsh :) - the fact is, he's played the younger players, and they've come on well under his management. We've screamed at managers in the recent past for not giving the kids a chance so we can't refuse credit when it does happen. :rolleyes:

You also have to bear in mind that, for better or worse, the style of football we play does make our players, especially our midfielders, look good. We play the ball through McLean, McGinn and McGowan, not over them. We make the full backs get forward because we lack natural width in midfield. We encourage our midfielders to get forward and support the striker. It isn't always effective, and maybe we lack a plan B sometimes, but you have to say, it is conducive to developing young talent that could potentially then be sold for lots of cash. The game we play develops the skills that bigger, better clubs would find desirable.

It's a shame McLean is out of contract as we will only get, at best, a development fee for him, and, being brutal, I think we should cash in on McGinn this summer so we don't find ourselves in the same situation with him next summer, as we currently are with KM.

Yet nearly all of them have been proven to be correct, as very few of our youth development players have actually went on to achieve anything better than our standard, or made us any significant profit.

May main point, is Lennons transfer dealings forced his hand with Naismith and Kelly, he didn't start the season with them as first choice. If he didn't play them, we wouldn't have had any full backs for the rest of the season. McGinn and McLean should be first team starters for us anyway, yet he's played at least one out of position for the majority of the season.

For every player he's 'developed', which there's plenty of others like Reilly and Brady, that haven't progressed under him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yet nearly all of them have been proven to be correct, as very few of our youth development players have actually went on to achieve anything better than our standard, or made us any significant profit.

May main point, is Lennons transfer dealings forced his hand with Naismith and Kelly, he didn't start the season with them as first choice. If he didn't play them, we wouldn't have had any full backs for the rest of the season. McGinn and McLean should be first team starters for us anyway, yet he's played at least one out of position for the majority of the season.

For every player he's 'developed', which there's plenty of others like Reilly and Brady, that haven't progressed under him.

So Reilly not progressing is Lennon's fault, but the 'previous' youth players that haven't amounted to much was down to those players not being good enough? :unsure:

DL had to sign an experienced LB. We were all baying for it. And we were largely delighted with the signing of Grainger. (Check the pre-season friendly threads). Had he failed to bring in a left back in the summer and said 'it's ok, I'm going to rely on Kelly', we'd have been gunning for him.

We will never know if DL had confidence in Kelly and Naismith to start with, but the fact is, he picked them because Grainger turned out to be a bit shit and DVZ is knacked. Call that luck if you must, but what isn't luck is the way they've been integrated, encouraged to play their game, and not totally destroyed by the fact that we've had long streaks where we've not picked up many points. Young players emerging from a relegation battle with their heads and reputations high? DL has to get some credit for that.

My broad point is that we are now, as a club, in a far better position to bring on and nurture young talent than we have been for a while, and it's bearing fruit. This isn't entirely down to DL, but you can't deny he's done a good job with a few of our young players.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For me he easily deserves another year, probably needs to do better with some signings/loans but he's done well in the past there, for every Harkins disaster there has also been an Isma Goncalves

if some of the players don't like him well that is their problem, sort it out

cannot abide these fans who want manager sacked because you can't make the top 6, if that is the remit we'll be sacking 20 managers in the next 20 years and top6 is way overrated anyway, if we ever made the top 6 - we would FINISH 6th and who gives a shit, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th ..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

DL had to sign an experienced LB. We were all baying for it. And we were largely delighted with the signing of Grainger. (Check the pre-season friendly threads). Had he failed to bring in a left back in the summer and said 'it's ok, I'm going to rely on Kelly', we'd have been gunning for him.

I wanted us to sign Grainger on a pre-contract but it was abundantly clear from his trial period in pre-season that he wasn't fit and wouldn't be a good addition to the squad. Danny should never have signed him. What was the point of taking him on trial when he was going to be signed regardless of how badly he played in the friendlies?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I see Andy Little has been released by Sevco. Would like to see us having a look at him, he's scored a few goals at this level and would be decent back up for Thommo.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Keep: Dilo, McGregor, Goodwin, McLean, Thompson

Punt: Kello, DvZ, Harkins & loan players

Would be willing to let go of Teale and McGowan if we can get decent replacements in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kenny McLean will be an Ipswich player next season.

I stuck him in my 'keep' section out of sheer hope, nothing else. Fantastic player.

Ipswich would be a decent move for him if he is going to get first team football. At 22, he can't afford to go and sit on the bench somewhere.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Kenny McLean will be an Ipswich player next season.

Good move for him. I'm sure he will do very well down there, excellent player. I just hope the idiots amongst our support don't bombard him with abuse and bullshit like "should've stayed another x amount of years", "you owe us" etc. He has gone just about as far as he can with us and this season he has been excellent, doesn't get as much recognition as John McGinn.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...