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18 minutes ago, cilitbang said:

Is it just me that is quite concerned about the squad? Obviously there are additions inbound, however...

Outside of the goalkeepers, I think we are crap to bang average across the board.

Was saying the same yesterday. We’re fine for keepers and CMs but either short or weak everywhere else.

Our CBs are ok but lacking depth - I’m happy with O’Ware and Saunders, but while there’s no doubt McGinty improved playing next to Anderson at the end of last season, watching him lose a header to Aidan Connolly in that friendly v Falkirk brought all the bad memories flooding back. Even if McGinty was more assured, we’d still be short because Caldwell seems to favour playing 3 CBs, and we only have 3 of them.

FB/WB is a bit of an unknown quantity with Williamson and Robson new to the club. Penrice is alright but we could do with backup on the right side.

It’s in an attacking sense where we’re at our weakest. At attacking midfield and on the wing we have Cardle, and that’s it, while at striker we have a 39yo Miller and an unproven Mansell. Depth is shocking, although surely we’ll be addressing that, especially after losing Fitzpatrick. I’d say at least 4 attacking bodies needed.

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Or the fact that the potential increase in budget from the Lindsay and Fitzy transfers has meant that he has amended some of his targets to better (more costly) as a result of this additional cash and therefore taking a bit longer to get them in !
Hopefully [emoji1]
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19 minutes ago, cilitbang said:

Is it just me that is quite concerned about the squad? Obviously there are additions inbound, however...

Outside of the goalkeepers, I think we are crap to bang average across the board.

Leaving aside the keepers this is how I see it:

O'Ware - Based on performances at Morton and pre-injury for us a very good player, able to chip in with a few goals

McGinty - Hopefully plays like he did in the majority of games at the end of last season when he got back in the team. Can get caught out, brings the ball forward well from the back. Still think he can improve to being better than bang average.

Saunders - Mainly solid if unspectacular. Currently seems an average player, good squad player

Penrice - Played every minute last season I think? Not tearing the place up, but still young and probably not playing in a position he is best suited to.

Williamson - No idea yet.

Robson - By most accounts an enthusiastic squad player. Cover for Penrice. Likely pretty average at best. 

Gordon - Had a good impact on the results when he was in the team, scores goals. Better than average in my opinion.

Bannigan - Not back to his pre-injury heights, but much better than bang average. Could play for any team in this division and a fair few in the premier.

Cardle - If he can stay fit he looks like a class act, poses problems for defenders and scores goals. What's not to like?

Harkins - Has some nice touches, maybe a 45 mins at most player. Still has some skills, nae pace. Overall, slightly under bang average based on last season.

Slater - A bit Sean Welsh-y. Sees a lot of the ball, gets caught on the ball a fair bit. Some games pretty good, some games pretty rotten/anonymous. Bang average or slightly better.

Miller - Who knows what he will do at this age, but he has a decent footballing brain and is a former international. Will argue with the ref. 

Mansell - I think he is still a punt, but has the raw attributes to score a few goals in this division and give a few defences a hard time.

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If a takeover which hasn't actually happened yet (and may not) is putting Caldwell or the board off on the basis they might lose their jobs then that would be gross negligence, so I hope that's not the case. Think players would be equally daft to not sign based on that, without wanting to open up a WAT 653 page going round in circles discussion on this, the rumoured investors don't seem the type to throw money about so we're not going to sign someone and replace him with Antoine Griezmann 3 weeks later.

As for the squad itself, I have us about 4th at the moment, from last season I have us ahead of Ayr who have lost 4 of their best/better players from last year in Shankland, Rose, Smith, and Crawford (don't @ me, Ayr fans) and Morton (who currently have 3 defenders signed and had to dig up John Sutton, though he'll undoubtedly score against us) but behind the 2 Dundee teams and ICT. This is based on us bringing in decent players and not Mutombo/Jeffries/Scobbie types between now and the window closing. Would guess we'd have the biggest budget outside the city of Dundee so I'd be looking for the remaining players to make me think we're a better bet than Inverness who were a decent team for this level last year. They have lost Polworth and Chalmers but replaced them (roughly) like for like with Keatings and Vincent who are proven Championship players. 

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26 minutes ago, Fuctifano said:

If a takeover which hasn't actually happened yet (and may not) is putting Caldwell or the board off on the basis they might lose their jobs then that would be gross negligence,

was more thinking players might not be keen on signing if they thought there might be changes to management happening

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50 minutes ago, jaggymct said:

was more thinking players might not be keen on signing if they thought there might be changes to management happening

that would be a little silly as well as probably half the managers in any given league won't see out the season due to being binned or poached.

FWIW, as per the pinned thread on here (for everyone except ICT and Alloa in which case I've referred to their club websites), here are the amount of signed first team players for every club as of now.

Dundee Utd- 25
Dunfermline -20
Ayr, ICT- 18
Arbroath, Morton- 17
Thistle, QoS- 16
Dundee, Alloa- 15
 

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IIRC County had pretty much a full squad prior to the start of the League Cup campaign last year, and ended up strolling the league. Obviously signing 30 players early on doesn’t guarantee success, but more time for your squad to gel and more depth to use surely helps.

Looks like United are following that model this time around. I get that they will have a larger budget than everyone else and there is more scope for them to load up with players early on, but the fact that we’re 9 players short of them at this stage (with basically zero depth in certain positions) isn’t a great place to be in.

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3 minutes ago, Nightmare said:

IIRC County had pretty much a full squad prior to the start of the League Cup campaign last year, and ended up strolling the league. Obviously signing 30 players early on doesn’t guarantee success, but more time for your squad to gel and more depth to use surely helps.

Looks like United are following that model this time around. I get that they will have a larger budget than everyone else and there is more scope for them to load up with players early on, but the fact that we’re 9 players short of them at this stage (with basically zero depth in certain positions) isn’t a great place to be in.

Think it's more that they had about forty players by the end of last season, courtesy of Narey's toepoker their ins and outs are in the spoiler below, I make that 5 in and 17 (seventeen) out albeit 3 or 4 of the outs are youth players. Agree it's certainly not rocket science that getting a settled squad in place early is likely to do more good than bad.

Spoiler

image.thumb.png.3efb8dcec34003cc32bab31ad7833bb5.png

 

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4 minutes ago, Reid said:

Hopefully he’s better than the rest of the shite (apart from Santala obviously) the Rangers have lent us over the past 15 years or so.

He looked a very good player when I saw him at Murray Park last season.

Plays like he's an awful lot older than he is, if that makes sense?

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Quote

The Toronto-born youngster has represented Scotland at under-17s level before going on to play with the Northern Ireland under-19s, playing four times and scoring once at that level.

 

*Malcolm Tucker Fucking f**k Me Gif*

 

 

Edited by Pie Of The Month
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Still time to go and while I think Caldwell has recruited pretty well there has been a distinct lack of “wow, that is a terrific signing, cant wait to see him in action” type. In saying that, Coulibaly was that type last year and that was a disaster!!

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