Anthony Fitzgerald Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Can't believe the amount of grief Duffy is getting on here. He won you lot your first trophy in however long and deserves at least a season back in the big leagues. We almost couldn't have had a trickier opening game. -2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Sportello Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Can't believe the amount of grief Duffy is getting on here. He won you lot your first trophy in however long and deserves at least a season back in the big leagues. We almost couldn't have had a trickier opening game. If he'd won it by 15 points, pumping everyone along the way you'd have a point, but he didn't. He stumbled over the line thanks mainly to the Stranraer/Forfar bottle crash and McManus being the only player of quality in the league. Including cup games I think we lost 13 or 14 games to part-time teams over the course of the season, which is simply not good enough for a professional team with much greater resources than all of the opposing teams. He has a lot to do to prove he's capable of managing at this level. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony Fitzgerald Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 If he'd won it by 15 points, pumping everyone along the way you'd have a point, but he didn't. He stumbled over the line thanks mainly to the Stranraer/Forfar bottle crash and McManus being the only player of quality in the league. Including cup games I think we lost 13 or 14 games to part-time teams over the course of the season, which is simply not good enough for a professional team with much greater resources than all of the opposing teams. He has a lot to do to prove he's capable of managing at this level. Yeah let's blame the manager who brought in the best player in the league to help you. What was your objective at the start of the season? To get promoted? To win the league? He's surely matched expectations, unless you thought you'd win the league by 15 points after your last horrendous campaign in this division. -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doc Sportello Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Yeah let's blame the manager who brought in the best player in the league to help you. What was your objective at the start of the season? To get promoted? To win the league? He's surely matched expectations, unless you thought you'd win the league by 15 points after your last horrendous campaign in this division. He got the majority of his signings wrong actually, which led to an overload of centre-backs being played at left-back, right-back, right-midfield, up-front and continually throughout the season at centre-mid. He deserves credit for signing McManus and getting rid of Barrowman for Forbes in January, but his record in the transfer market is sketchy at best. It wasn't unreasonable to think we'd be challenging with Dunfermline for the league, and being well clear of the rest of the pack. Dunfermline then turned out to be absolute horse, and we still couldn't keep up with diddy teams with 300 fans for most of the season, until we finally took them over on the last day of the season after they both shat it big style. We were terrible for large parts of the season, awful in the cup competitions, our defence was a shambles throughout the entire season and we conceded the first goal in an unacceptable number of games. There's nothing to suggest from last season, or from his past record at other clubs that he's equipped to be a successful manager at Championship level. -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vikingTON Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Can't believe the amount of grief Duffy is getting on here. He won you lot your first trophy in however long and deserves at least a season back in the big leagues. A non-achievement that places with Jim McInally on the list of dud managers to have won a seaside league. Must try harder. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony Fitzgerald Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 (edited) A non-achievement that places with Jim McInally on the list of dud managers to have won a seaside league. Must try harder.So winning a league title isn't an achievement anymore? Edited June 24, 2015 by Trump 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vikingTON Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Not a seaside league, no. -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudolph Hucker Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 (edited) So winning a league title isn't an achievement anymore?Aye, that's vt for you. He devoted an entire thread on the League One forum to last season's Title-winning campaign, and though it was great to have all the video highlights gathered together in one place (and well done to him for that) he gave a cringeworthy game by game account that was so jingoistic and triumphalist that you'd think we'd somehow managed to win the World Cup. Now, because it's in the context of Duffy, the same guy refers to it as a complete non-achievement. Go figure....... And that's the thing about on here, for so many posters opinions are either black or white and there's no room for anything in between. And reasoned argument only invites ridicule. Though I must admit it's unusual to see someone argue BOTH black and white cases on different threads....... Edited June 24, 2015 by Rudolph Hucker -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ira Gaines Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 I'm not a fan of Duffy. I'm gonna give him a chance though. I really hope he proves me wrong. He did what was asked of him last season. I just hope he can do it again. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scosha Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 The only thing I liked about Duffy last season was him being able to make the players believe in themselves if we went behind. Sure we lost a few games, but it was ridiculous the amount of times we went on to win after being a goal down. I think we scored near enough 45% of our goals in the last 15 minutes. He also pulled off a great transfer by swapping that useless Andy Barrowman for Ross Forbes who finally brought a bit of creativity into the midfield. But apart from that we were dreadful for a lot of the season, all down to his tactics and substitutions. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperTon Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 The only thing I liked about Duffy last season was him being able to make the players believe in themselves if we went behind. Sure we lost a few games, but it was ridiculous the amount of times we went on to win after being a goal down. I think we scored near enough 45% of our goals in the last 15 minutes. He also pulled off a great transfer by swapping that useless Andy Barrowman for Ross Forbes who finally brought a bit of creativity into the midfield. But apart from that we were dreadful for a lot of the season, all down to his tactics and substitutions. That is true but you could also argue that we shouldn't have gone behind that many times to part-time dross in the first place. Most of that season (Mostly the first half) we were absolutely dreadful and I think we were sitting 4th at one point which was just unacceptable. I'm not a fan of Duffy at all and I don't think he's the right man to take us forward in the Championship when he just, on the last two games got us out of League 1 losing 12 games in the process. Keeping players like Kilday, Miller & McKee and dumping players like Caldwell who done more than those 3 in half a season just about confirms his judgement of players really isn't very good. I will admit that swap was a masterclass, Forbes done more in his first game for us than Barrowman done the whole time he was here. He was pivotal to us eventually winning the league. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morti Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Thanks guys for some positivity at last. I don't deny there are better managers around than Jim Duffy, but there are also much better teams around for them to manage. When a team is in freefall as we were for the bulk of last season it can be extremely tricky to buck that trend. Duffy achieved the objective, won the league and in my opinion has built the decent nucleus of a team to work with this season. We are basically in a league of 2 parts this season. I reckon any of the teams in "our" league - Dumbarton, Alloa, Livingston and Raith - would gladly accept the likes of Gaston, McDonald, Tidser, Barr, Forbes, (and Russell if we're lucky), so we have the makings of a competent squad. I also feel many others in the squad such as Connor, McKee, McCluskey, O'Ware, Lamie etc could flourish this season, having had a full season together. The squad will also be further bolstered and I have every confidence that Duffy will choose well. We'll lose many games this coming season but as long as we end up near the top of our "league of 5" we should be content for this season. Anything more will be a bonus and let's hope! I am pretty excited about our prospects for the year ahead and am delighted that others share my optimism but equally as important, there is finally support for a manager who so far has been a success. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Waverley Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 It's a bit rich asking someone to construct an argument to rebut an assertion that any team managed by Duffy is massively hindered by his presence. He is clearly not the best manager in the world but taking into account the good and bad points I can see nothing to suggest that he is markedly worse than the other managers in this league. He did better than all of the managers in the first division last year. It's absurd also to pretend that Duffy is doing everything on his own. He has MacPherson and is reliant on Millen/Hopkin for emerging talent. Given his background one would expect that he is better at networking in the agent/player /.club environment than most. For me now is the crunch time, he needs to find a quality goal scorer, an experienced holding midfielder and a right sided wing back. No idea where he is looking or who has been approached but it would be plain daft for the club to conduct its business in public. At the end of the day it will probably all come down to whether we can get the better of Alloa and Dumbarton in our 8 games and also Livi and Raith. On that basis the new striker is key. As he let Caldwell go would like to think that has someone pacey to play off Peaso in mind, but who knows. Hopkin is no longer at Cappielow. He's at Livingstone, has been for months. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Invert the Pyramid Posted June 24, 2015 Share Posted June 24, 2015 Finishing 2 points ahead of Stranraer and 3 ahead of Forfar over the course of a 36-game season is closer to an embarrasment than it is an achievement, and we needed a ridiculous amount of luck to do so. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anthony Fitzgerald Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Finishing 2 points ahead of Stranraer and 3 ahead of Forfar over the course of a 36-game season is closer to an embarrasment than it is an achievement, and we needed a ridiculous amount of luck to do so.Again, what was the objectives at the start of the season? -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McG Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Another fan of a team now playing out of a glorified bus shelter, trying to criticise the Theatre of Dreams. Bless. Lolz. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Branch Ton Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Finishing 2 points ahead of Stranraer and 3 ahead of Forfar over the course of a 36-game season is closer to an embarrasment than it is an achievement, and we needed a ridiculous amount of luck to do so. Given our starting position with 4 signed players six weeks out I am comfortable with the margin . I agree though that all too often we allowed the opposition far too many one one one opportunities with Gaston. Even when we had by far the bulk of possession the opposition were allowed to have far too many goal attempts for their time with the ball. A fair part of the reason for that is the fact that we had a young inexperienced defence, and one bombscare, but it was still evident that the team was in transition and moving in the right direction with JD in control. -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Invert the Pyramid Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Again, what was the objectives at the start of the season? To convincingly beat a bunch of seaside dross without having to rely on hilarious bottle-crashing from said seaside dross. Given our starting position with 4 signed players six weeks out I am comfortable with the margin . I agree though that all too often we allowed the opposition far too many one one one opportunities with Gaston. Even when we had by far the bulk of possession the opposition were allowed to have far too many goal attempts for their time with the ball. A fair part of the reason for that is the fact that we had a young inexperienced defence, and one bombscare, but it was still evident that the team was in transition and moving in the right direction with JD in control. ...most of which Duffy signed, and then continued to put in the "Starting XI" hat even when glaringly obvious that they should be nowhere near the team. Since I also seem to recall that you went to a grand total of zero games last season, I'm curious as to how you can comment so assuredly on our general play, especially as you seem to think we were in "transition" for the entire season, despite there being absolutely no signs of improvement. -1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpoonTon Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 Given our starting position with 4 signed players six weeks out I am comfortable with the margin . I agree though that all too often we allowed the opposition far too many one one one opportunities with Gaston. Even when we had by far the bulk of possession the opposition were allowed to have far too many goal attempts for their time with the ball. A fair part of the reason for that is the fact that we had a young inexperienced defence, and one bombscare, but it was still evident that the team was in transition and moving in the right direction with JD in control. Not true. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Branch Ton Posted June 25, 2015 Share Posted June 25, 2015 To convincingly beat a bunch of seaside dross without having to rely on hilarious bottle-crashing from said seaside dross. ...most of which Duffy signed, and then continued to put in the "Starting XI" hat even when glaringly obvious that they should be nowhere near the team. Since I also seem to recall that you went to a grand total of zero games last season, I'm curious as to how you can comment so assuredly on our general play, especially as you seem to think we were in "transition" for the entire season, despite there being absolutely no signs of improvement. So what were the signings of Peaso, Tidser, Forbes, the punting of Barrowman and SC and the switching of Lamie to centre back all about then? So mistakes were made,, it happens just like your memory about my supposed non attendance 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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