The St. Mirren FC 2023/24 thread

[Arch Stanton]

8 minutes ago, capt_oats said:

Because they're two completely different jobs?

Surely Chief Operations Officer's remit would include recruitment?

[AW saint]

36 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

Why does the club need a Chief Operations Officer AND a "Head of Recruitment"?

Rangers are advertising for a head of recruitment. I think in modern day football this will be a specialised position

[Torfason]

31 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

Surely Chief Operations Officer's remit would include recruitment?

Head of recruitment will ulmately report to a COO but the recruitment of football players is not something you would expect a COO to do. In some cases, head of recruitment might even report to the team manager.

[capt_oats]

55 minutes ago, Torfason said:

Head of recruitment will ultimately report to a COO but the recruitment of football players is not something you would expect a COO to do. In some cases, head of recruitment might even report to the team manager.

Aye, that's broadly how I imagine it's set up with us (and I guess, pertinently how it was structured while Robinson was here).

The club put up a bit of #content last summer with our new HoR (who replaced Foyle) it gives a fairly good overview of the role.

Edited April 21, 2022 by capt_oats

[YassinMoutaouakil]

1 hour ago, codfish said:

It’s when the club announce the building of a ridiculously out-of-proportion away stand that I’ll start worrying…

I think Captain Sensible designed it 

[Torfason]

2 hours ago, capt_oats said:

Aye, that's broadly how I imagine it's set up with us (and I guess, pertinently how it was structured while Robinson was here).

The club put up a bit of #content last summer with our new HoR (who replaced Foyle) it gives a fairly good overview of the role.

Cheers, as an aside, my second team growing up was Port Vale, Martin Foyle was brilliant. It will be weird to see him at Saints. 

[Billy Jean King]

Wasn't there a lot of lower league English players signed during Robinsons time at Motherwell ? I assume if it is Foyle that will be his area of knowledge.

[Mainstand Sweary Mob]

[emoji38] - I wonder who it could be...
https://www.lancasterguardian.co.uk/sport/football/morecambe-announce-martin-foyles-exit-as-head-of-recruitment-3661609
Robinson's fair doubling down on turning St Mirren into Motherwell circa 19/20.
Fully expecting Liam Grimshaw to be announced as one of the PCAs next.

Players I think for Motherwell that are out of contract this summer that Robo could have potentially signed are:
Ricki Lamie
Liam Grimshaw
Liam Donnelly
Nathan McGinley
Mark O'Hara
Think we will be in for them especially if Lamie has said he can get out of his PCA with Dundee?

I'm looking forward to seeing how we shoehorn a claret and amber away strip into proceedings...

[emoji1787][emoji1787][emoji1787]

Wasn't there a lot of lower league English players signed during Robinsons time at Motherwell ? I assume if it is Foyle that will be his area of knowledge.

Sometimes this works. Other times not so much.

[Arch Stanton]

6 minutes ago, Mainstand Sweary Mob said:

Players I think for Motherwell that are out of contract this summer that Robo could have potentially signed are:
Ricki Lamie
Liam Grimshaw
Liam Donnelly
Nathan McGinley
Mark O'Hara
Think we will be in for them especially if Lamie has said he can get out of his PCA with Dundee?
Sometimes this works. Other times not so much.

Apparently O'Hara has already signed on a PCA.

[capt_oats]

10 hours ago, Torfason said:

Cheers, as an aside, my second team growing up was Port Vale, Martin Foyle was brilliant. It will be weird to see him at Saints. 

In fairness, Foyle had quite a good reputation as a result of his time at Motherwell.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/motherwell-talent-spotter-hailed-fir-20077539

There's another article about him you can find if you Google "Martin Foyle Motherwell" but it's from November 2017 in The Sun and fucked if I'm linking to that.

It'll be interesting as an outsider looking in to see if the "strategy" is just a case of rinse and repeat at Saints.

1 hour ago, Billy Jean King said:

Wasn't there a lot of lower league English players signed during Robinsons time at Motherwell ? I assume if it is Foyle that will be his area of knowledge.

Aye, it's Foyle who specialises in that market (see the link I posted above) although in fairness Robinson signed plenty of players from Scotland in his time (Alex Fisher, Nadir Ciftci, Conor Sammon, Declan Gallagher, Liam Polworth, Jordan White etc).

Tbh, one of the main issues with Robinson was that we just signed *a lot* of players. It wasn't about where they were signed from.

His strategy was along the lines of "you can coach someone to be a better player but you can't make them faster". So he'd target players he felt he could "improve" but who had good physical attributes...which is how we ended up with a bunch of players in the mould of Sherwin Seedorf, Jermaine Hylton, Deimantas Petravičius.

Actually, Charlie Dunne is probably the archetype of that particular approach.

Sometimes it worked eg: Cedric Kipré, but most of the time it didn't so you just ended up with a lot of wastage with us signing 3 or 4 players hoping one of them came good. It just ended up being an unsustainable approach for us and it was interesting that the club made a clear decision to pivot away from it after Robinson (and Foyle) left.

Posted in this thread a while back but Robinson signed something like 55 different players for Motherwell in the 3.5 years he was with us...so 4 summer windows (there's a list of all of them in the spoiler).

Spoiler

17/18
Alex Fisher, Gael Bigirimana, Craig Tanner, Trevor Carson, Andy Rose, Russell Griffiths, Charles Dunne, Cedric Kipre, George Newell, Ellis Plummer, Rohan Ferguson, Deimantas Petravičius, Liam Grimshaw, Gennadios Xenodochof, Curtis Main, Peter Hartley (loan)/(permanent), Nadir Ciftci (loan), Tom Aldred (loan) x 2, Stephen Hendrie (loan)

Total = 19

18/19
Mark Gillespie, Liam Donnelly, Danny Johnson, Aaron Taylor-Sinclair, Alex Rodriguez-Gorrin, Christian Mbulu, Conor Sammon (loan), Ross McCormack (loan), Gboly Ariyibi (loan)

Total = 9

19/20
Declan Gallagher, Liam Polworth, Jake Carroll, Casper Sloth, Jermaine Hylton, Christopher Long, Sherwin Seedorf, Christian Ilic, Christy Manzinga, Ross MacIver, Bevis Mugabi, Tony Watt, Harry Robinson, Devante Cole (loan)/permanent, Mark O'Hara (loan/permanent), Mikael Ndjoli (loan), Rolando Aarons (loan) 

Total = 17

20/21
Ricki Lamie, Jordan White, Nathan McGinley, Scott Fox, Stephen O'Donnell, Aaron Chapman, Jordan Archer, Jake Hastie (loan), Callum Lang (loan), Robbie Crawford (loan)

Total = 10

1 hour ago, Mainstand Sweary Mob said:

Players I think for Motherwell that are out of contract this summer that Robo could have potentially signed are:
Ricki Lamie
Liam Grimshaw
Liam Donnelly
Nathan McGinley
Mark O'Hara
Think we will be in for them especially if Lamie has said he can get out of his PCA with Dundee?

McGinley signed a new 2 year deal in February.

I'd be surprised if Robinson was interested in Lamie given he was one of the signings he couldn't get a tune out of before he resigned.

As has been mentioned the story is that O'Hara's already signed a PCA.

Edited April 22, 2022 by capt_oats

[Sauzee04]

Any pubs near stadium that allow away fans with kids by any chance? 

[Arch Stanton]

The nearest pubs to the stadium are half a mile away and none are particularly child friendly.

Better to go to the Wetherspoons outside Gilmour St Station, from there you're a 15 minute walk or 2 minute train ride from the stadium.

Edited April 22, 2022 by Arch Stanton

[Sauzee04]

5 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

The nearest pubs to the stadium are half a mile away and none are particularly child friendly.

Better to go to the Wetherspoons outside Gilmour St Station, from there you're a 15 minute walk or 2 minute train ride from the stadium.

Cheers! Will give it a miss then was looking for somewhere to show football too but Wetherspoons won’t. 

[Arch Stanton]

1 minute ago, Sauzee04 said:

Cheers! Will give it a miss then was looking for somewhere to show football too but Wetherspoons won’t. 

Well my local is Gabriel's which is a 6-7 minute walk from PGS. It's definitely child friendly and has a restaurant, there's big screen in the restaurant and some of the tables have small screens. It's a good 20 odd minute walk from the stadium although the 64 bus stops right outside and passes the stadium.

I'd recommend booking a table through the Greene King app or phoning them.

[Sauzee04]

19 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

Well my local is Gabriel's which is a 6-7 minute walk from PGS. It's definitely child friendly and has a restaurant, there's big screen in the restaurant and some of the tables have small screens. It's a good 20 odd minute walk from the stadium although the 64 bus stops right outside and passes the stadium.

I'd recommend booking a table through the Greene King app or phoning them.

Cheers! Will book there

[Insaintee]

58 minutes ago, Arch Stanton said:

The nearest pubs to the stadium are half a mile away and none are particularly child friendly.

Better to go to the Wetherspoons outside Gilmour St Station, from there you're a 15 minute walk or 2 minute train ride from the stadium.

Never drink in Spoons. If you have kids go to either the Bank or Burger and keg

[IrishBhoy]

19 hours ago, Sauzee04 said:

Cheers! Will book there

Gabriel’s is a good shout and only 5 or so minutes from the station. The lack of pubs around the stadium is pretty poor for away fans, Gabriel’s is probably the pick of the bunch from the pubs around the town centre. The Bull Inn is a good pre match pub that’s only 5 minutes from Gilmour Street as well, but will probably be rammed with Saints fans as it’s not the biggest.   It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been in Gabriel’s and didn’t know they had TV screens in the booths but there’s plenty of TVs about anyway and won’t be any hassle with kids. 
 

If you get back round to Paisley Gilmour Street for 2.52 and take the train to Gourock, get off at Paisley St James and you will be dropped off at the corner of the away end at 2.54 and in your seat for 2.56. 

Edited April 23, 2022 by IrishBhoy

[Spam_Valley]

1 hour ago, IrishBhoy said:

Gabriel’s is a good shout and only 5 or so minutes from the station. The lack of pubs around the stadium is pretty poor for away fans, Gabriel’s is probably the pick of the bunch from the pubs around the town centre. The Bull Inn is a good pre match pub that’s only 5 minutes from Gilmour Street as well, but will probably be rammed with Saints fans as it’s not the biggest.   It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been in Gabriel’s and didn’t know they had TV screens in the booths but there’s plenty of TVs about anyway and won’t be any hassle with kids. 
 

If you get back round to Paisley Gilmour Street for 2.52 and take the train to Gourock, get off at Paisley St James and you will be dropped off at the corner of the away end at 2.54 and in your seat for 2.56. 

Probably the furthest away town centre boozer you could’ve picked. Good pub but not exactly ideal locale for away support is it?

[IrishBhoy]

16 minutes ago, Spam_Valley said:

Probably the furthest away town centre boozer you could’ve picked. Good pub but not exactly ideal locale for away support is it?

Is there any better closer to the station though? You could hardly swing a mouse in The Swan or The Tile, The Anchor is a pub I like but mainly because everyone in it is steamboats and the guy said he had kids with him. 
 

The Bankhouse will be full of St Mirren fans, although it does have plenty of TVs, but it’s not a pub I enjoy. Never been in Burger and Keg so can’t comment, and I wouldn’t send a rabid dog in to the Club Bar. If you don’t mind a 5-10 minute walk from Gilmour Street, Gabriel’s is perfect. 

Edited April 23, 2022 by IrishBhoy

[Spam_Valley]

3 minutes ago, IrishBhoy said:

Is there any better closer to the station though? You could hardly swing a mouse in The Swan or The Tile, The Anchor is a pub I like but mainly because everyone in it is steamboats and the guy said he had kids with him. 
 

The Bankhouse will be full of St Mirren fans, although it does have plenty of TVs, but it’s not a pub I enjoy. Never been in Burger and Keg so can’t comment, and I wouldn’t send a rabid dog in to the Club Bar. If you don’t mind a 5-10 minute walk from Gilmour Street, Gabriel’s is perfect. 

Bankhouse, Keg, Ugly Duck, The Lane, Barga. 
 

All cater for kids and closer to the station and the ground.

Gabriels is an old man’s drinking shop akin to Swan and Tile IMO. Gets a strangely good reputation for being an out of the way shitehole. unless you’re Seedhill based then it’s just a shitehole.