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The Arbroath Thread


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Wouldn’t be looking to Do anything with the manager unless we were struggling in league 1. 
 

One poor quarter to a season does not merit a manager losing his job when the previous 5/6 seasons have been great. 
 

Would need to have a very good replacement in mind also. Only have to look at Forfar and Brechin to see what happens when you have a series of poor appointments. Dick not getting any younger so would be good to see him leave off his own back when the time is right. Stewart Petrie would be the man if and when that happens.

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Leigh Griffiths is currently training with Livi, but is without a club - he is a free agent and available with no transfer fee involved.

I think we should roll the dice, offer him a short contract until January and give him an opportunity to put himself in the shop window, while at the same time reviewing things if he is playing well.

His recent spells with Dundee and Falkirk never worked out, but he is only 32 years old and an ex Scottish internationalist with a proven record of hitting the net.

He has made mistakes off the park, but says he has learnt from these mistakes.

Lets roll the dice, get him involved and see if he has any of his old magic left - or we can continue to lose games with such fine margins due to not having a striker.

 

 

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Some of our fans have lost the plot. I can’t believe some seem prepared to accept the very real possibility of relegation just because it’s Dick.

What happens then if we go down and he decides to walk or retire? which I think would be a very strong possibility. He is approaching 70 after all. How much longer does he realistically have left in management? Shouldn’t we actively be looking at a replacement soon anyway?

As I’ve said before, my personal line in the sand for big improvement would be the Cove game but I would happily give him until half way so long as we pick up at least another 8-10 points by then.

I desperately want him to come good and turn this round but there’s not much sign of that happening. Say what you like about injuries suspensions, bad luck etc, none of that forces him to play no strikers… strikers that he brought to the club.

Said it already but yesterday was possibly his Craig Levein moment. To play no striker/s in a must win game (yet again) is inexcusable.

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Between Bert Henderson's last promotion-winnig team (1971-72) and Dave Baikie's promotion winning team in 1997-98, Arbroath were relegated twice & never promoted. We went through 12 managers between Henderson & Baikie, including 3 in a year in 1994.

Do we really want to get back on the managerial merry-go-round just because Dick has had a poor season so far?

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Dick is the manager and fully deserves the brunt of the blame for the problems this season, just like he deserved all the plaudits last season, he has been great for arbroath and he 100% deserves the chance to turn it around, 

He has made bad decisions in the transfer market and I'm sure he knows that, 

I think the frustration from fans is is warranted, seeing Fosu coming on for an injured defender when we have Hancock on the bench of so confusing, it shows he didn't trust Hancock In defence, but then he brings him on later in the game when we are pushing for a goal? Then bringing Corfe on over Hilson or Shanks is ridiculous, 

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11 minutes ago, lichtgilphead said:

Between Bert Henderson's last promotion-winnig team (1971-72) and Dave Baikie's promotion winning team in 1997-98, Arbroath were relegated twice & never promoted. We went through 12 managers between Henderson & Baikie, including 3 in a year in 1994.

Do we really want to get back on the managerial merry-go-round just because Dick has had a poor season so far?

Good points and no way do we want to go back to that. However in my time as a fan, I can think of two times when a manager was given a full season too many due to past success when it was obvious we were struggling - Sheerin and Bert Henderson himself.

Also Dick has been our longest serving manager since Henderson so you can hardly say him leaving would be a managerial merry go round. Everything has to end eventually and I fear (desperately hope I’m wrong) that his time is very nearly up.

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31 minutes ago, clashcityrocker said:

Leigh Griffiths is currently training with Livi, but is without a club - he is a free agent and available with no transfer fee involved.

I think we should roll the dice, offer him a short contract until January and give him an opportunity to put himself in the shop window, while at the same time reviewing things if he is playing well.

His recent spells with Dundee and Falkirk never worked out, but he is only 32 years old and an ex Scottish internationalist with a proven record of hitting the net.

He has made mistakes off the park, but says he has learnt from these mistakes.

Lets roll the dice, get him involved and see if he has any of his old magic left - or we can continue to lose games with such fine margins due to not having a striker.

 

 

So is Mark McNulty and Dylan McGeoch, also possibly time to see if we can make peace with Nicky Low, we are a far better side with him in it

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14 minutes ago, ecto said:

So is Mark McNulty and Dylan McGeoch, also possibly time to see if we can make peace with Nicky Low, we are a far better side with him in it

The Low relationship has been totally severed. And from what Iv heard the club were right to do it 

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12 minutes ago, ecto said:

So is Mark McNulty and Dylan McGeoch, also possibly time to see if we can make peace with Nicky Low, we are a far better side with him in it

Low won't be back. 

Also not too sure if the club can afford to be relegated this season. If we are still well within a relegation battle at the start of January I can see the board making moves.

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Well where do i start with yesterdays game?

First of all i thought we played well with some excellent displays from Oakley, Little and Hammy until his crazy tackle in the box.

BUT DC's subs were bizarre to say the least, when Bitsindou (who had a good game) got injured why not just do the sensible thing and put Hammy in the centre and bring on a proper left back in Hancock instead of moving numerous players out of position?

We are then chasing the game and NEED A GOAL and we have THREE FORWARDS on the bench (SHANKS/ISIAKA/HILSON if he was injured then he should not have been on the bench so i take it he was fit) YET UNBELIEVABLY he brings on Corfe lol who me and many others have stated is not good enough at this level and although he can maybe do fancy flicks he is a very poor signing but what really gets me and others HE GIVES NO EFFORT AND DOES NOT RUN OR CHASE FOR THE BALL FOR HIS TEAM MATES FFS!!

IMO DC does not deserve to be sacked after what he has done for the club and deserves a chance to get us out this mess but he is losing a lot of the AFC fans faith and his stubbornness of never accepting he has made mistakes (as he blames everyone else) is starting to pee a lot of the other AFC fans off.

I have said it before and i will say it again DC does not have a plan B, if he was after big singing strikers for this season he should have had a plan B in place if he was not going to get his first choice strikers so should have signed the likes of Sammon from Falkirk (experienced and knows the Scottish leagues and has scored 6 goals for Alloa this season) or dare i say it even Hester (although he does have a Court case looming) or at least somebody as the vast majority of his South of England signings are simply not good enough and his statement "I only sign players better than what i have got" is now laughable.

Where we have come as a club on and off the park in recent years is superb and we had another great crowd, our last 3 home games our attendances have been nearly 1,700, 1,600, 1,700 is superb but not winning games or scoring goals is going to lose a lot of new fans and the blame is 100% DC's fault and he should hold up his hands and admit this.

I will 100% support my club and the Manager but he needs to fix his mess and should have spent his big budget for the likes of Scott Allan on a player we really required i.e. a striker like Simon Murray/Anton Dowds/Jack Hamilton.

C'Mon the Red Lichties, 36-0.   

       

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Regarding the strikers on the bench not getting game time, with the exception of Hilson ( who I assume in carrying a knock) they have all failed to deliver when given an opportunity, so perhaps this is why they never got on the pitch - how many chances do you give them ? Also, Shanks was signed as a development player, he is not ready for playing in the Championship - if we secure 2 decent strikers, I am sure he would get put out on loan.

It's frustrating, a combination of injuries, suspensions, deals falling through, players leaving and a few signings not being suitable - along with wrong decisions has costs us points.

However, Dylan Tait, Oakley, Bitsindou and Scott Allan have all been good signings.

If Leigh Griffiths is willing to reduce his wages to get his career back on track we should go get him - time is not on our side to dilly dally around waiting for strikers in the January window.

Edited by clashcityrocker
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9 minutes ago, clashcityrocker said:

If Leigh Griffiths is willing to reduce his wages to get his career back on track we should go get him - time is not on our side to dilly dally around waiting for strikers in the January window.

I think his brief stint playing in Australia overlapped the end of the transfer window in Scotland, so he can't register for a club here until the next transfer window.

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Leigh Griffiths talk in here is concerning. He's not a good character at all, comes with huge amounts of baggage (if he would be interested, which I would seriously doubt) and hasn't scored consistently in about 6 seasons.

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He will be looking for about 2k a week

He will be looking for a full time club

He hasn't scored goals or done anything since about 2017

He couldn't run the length of himself at Falkirk in League 1

He was playing in front of two man and a dug in Australia and lasted a couple of months

Not the answer

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We are quite simply just not a football team

We play with no strikers  

4 defenders and 6 midfield players on the park, nobody out right at all, once again with Tam out we are tiny in midfield. 

A group of guys running about on top of each other in the middle of the park

Our only hope of scoring a goal is Bobby Linn. The only other player we have who tries to actually make things happen gets a hard time because he sometimes gives the ball away. 

We have zero identity at all or any style of playing. I have no idea what we are trying to actually achieve when we play 

Our two tactics seem to be to launch the ball to Mikey or pass the ball to Bobby and hope he can do it all himself 

The fact we are in this position after the place we were in before a ball is kicked is genuinely an absolute disgrace. Dick and Pink have made a monumental mess of this 

I think we have some very talented and good players, I also think we have 4/5 who are quite simply nowhere near good enough. However the good players we do have cannot form an effective team because we are massively lacking upfront and out wide. This makes everyone else look so much worse than they are

We will go down barring a massive turnaround in fortunes or Hamilton and Cove somehow being worse than we are (which is surprisingly very possible) 

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