The St. Mirren FC 2023/24 thread

[Malky3]

I've got to admit I left the game tonight really frustrated with the whole squad. All that badge kissing and applauding the fans last season counts for nothing if they can't grasp the fact that people actually paid to watch that rubbish tonight.

Not one of them showed any urgency. There was zero creativity. Some of the touches and passes from St Mirren players were clumsy at best. In fact all of the players looked happy just to try and keep possession instead of going out there to entertain and to show the manager why they are irreplaceable. If we haven't got better than Cody Cooke and Danny Mullen in our youth set up I'd really have to question what is going on at Ralston too. Dreadful stuff. 

[aldo_j]

33 minutes ago, Demented Zebra said:

Well I know Santa Caus who told me St Mirren fans will go into melt down late November beginning of December.  Not because of our league position.  Feel free to book mark. On a positive note fantastic result tonight. P S Dont book mark that. 

Is that when the money runs out?

[Malky3]

10 minutes ago, aldo_j said:

Is that when the money runs out?

I'd imagine he's referring to the annual accounts and the AGM. 

[FTOF]

So not a Scottish premiership club then.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/48990731

As I stated earlier, if we're going for quality players, then, we'll have bigger and better competition for a player's signature.

Are we focussing on unrealistic signing targets?

Only time will tell. Unfortunately, time is in short supply, relative to the start of the season.

Six weeks of the transfer window still to go though.

Pampers at the ready everyone!

 

[Insaintee]

17 hours ago, Saint Shug said:

 

So what coffee should we smelling then? 

If he’s been asked to prove himself and he’s rejected it what is it the club have done wrong in your opinion?

 

[Demented Zebra]

11 hours ago, aldo_j said:

Is that when the money runs out?

Hope not but you dont have to be good at maths to work out the number of players we have went through in the last 12 months plus the THIRD manager in to work out money has been spunked  At the weekend Goodwin said 2 player would be in this week. We lost the Dutch boy. The lad training with St Johnstone was the other one. Latest interview with Goodwin saying it could be a couple of weeks before we get anyone in but hopefully sooner. My guess is at the tail end of the window when players on the market have summed up all offers. 

Edited July 18, 2019 by Demented Zebra

[Bobby_F]

8 minutes ago, Demented Zebra said:

Hope not but you dont have to be good at maths to work out the number of players we have went through in the last 12 months plus the THIRD manager in to work out money has been spunked  At the weekend Goodwin said 2 player would be in this week. We lost the Dutch boy. The lad training with St Johnstone was the other one. Latest interview with Goodwin saying it could be a couple of weeks before we get anyone in but hopefully sooner. My guess is at the tail end of the window when players on the market have summed up all offers. 

If we start the season with the squad we have we’re going to be playing serious catch up from day one.

[Coventry Saint]

Its a shite state of affairs. The game of brinkmanship that agents play - which leaves the likes of Simeon Jackson, Adam Hammill and Anton Ferdinand without clubs after the window ends - is an absolute joke. Perhaps the players are partly to blame as well, but I sense not. I reckon they are fed line after line by agents desperate to increase their own share.

We've 100% been played by Verheydt's agent - we should have guessed from the way the story came out via the Dutch press in the first instance. 

I'm still fairly confident we will still get a "bottom four competitive" squad together by the time the window shuts - perhaps a little bit afterwards - but no club should be going into competitive games with a part-finished squad.

[buddie06smfc]

Hope not but you dont have to be good at maths to work out the number of players we have went through in the last 12 months plus the THIRD manager in to work out money has been spunked  At the weekend Goodwin said 2 player would be in this week. We lost the Dutch boy. The lad training with St Johnstone was the other one. Latest interview with Goodwin saying it could be a couple of weeks before we get anyone in but hopefully sooner. My guess is at the tail end of the window when players on the market have summed up all offers. 

Will we make it to the end of the window?

[geo87]

Hope EK have a collection tin for us on Saturday

[Demented Zebra]

17 minutes ago, buddie06smfc said:

Will we make it to the end of the window?

I will cant answer for yourself. Coventry Saint has got it spot on. A squad that can compete in the bottom four that's all we can expect and hope for. 

[pozbaird]

44 minutes ago, Coventry Saint said:

Its a shite state of affairs. The game of brinkmanship that agents play - which leaves the likes of Simeon Jackson, Adam Hammill and Anton Ferdinand without clubs after the window ends - is an absolute joke. Perhaps the players are partly to blame as well, but I sense not. I reckon they are fed line after line by agents desperate to increase their own share.

We've 100% been played by Verheydt's agent - we should have guessed from the way the story came out via the Dutch press in the first instance. 

I'm still fairly confident we will still get a "bottom four competitive" squad together by the time the window shuts - perhaps a little bit afterwards - but no club should be going into competitive games with a part-finished squad.

The reason we keep going into competitive games with such a level of ‘part finished’ squads is our reliance on the loanee drug, and our propensity for bagging managers. Sure, the modern game with agents and all is a factor, but a bigger factor is the way our club runs itself, and the new ways we find to fcuk ourselves over before a ball is kicked.

Edited July 18, 2019 by pozbaird

[DutchBorderer]

I'll be fair; not sure if Verheydt would have strengthened your squad.

He is prolific in the Netherlands because of his physique making up for his general lack of finesse and technique in a league where play is anything but physical. He would have a much tougher time in Scotland because his physical style of play isn't an asset as much as it is expected, revealing his faults in other areas.

This is exactly why he got exposed at Crawley and why I imagine he'd fail to impress at St Mirren. And I haven't even gotten into the fact the team he plays in needs to play a possession-based game in order for him to excel.

So yeah, you might've been done dirty by the agent, but this is probably the best outcome for both St Mirren and Verheydt.

[elvis]

1 hour ago, Bobby_F said:

If we start the season with the squad we have we’re going to be playing serious catch up from day one.

I think if you look at the first three fixtures we are going to be playing serious catch up anyway even if we had a half decent Team which unsuprisingly we don't.

[christinanade]

The way things are now, unless the club are willing to offer inflated wages early in the transfer window, they are unlikely to attract the type of player who would clearly improve the squad. From a players and agents perspective, why would you sign a contract with a team who most likely will be fighting relegation again, when there is still six weeks of the transfer window to go with the prospect of a better offer at a better team. The agent is just doing his job, getting the best possible deal for his client.

The reality is we'll be left with a week to go picking through the players that other spl clubs decided against or journeymen that find themselves without a better offer. The only exception seems to be players with a dodgy injury record such as tansey that clubs are reluctant to take a risk with and we all know how that seems to go... I'm sure it will be a case of seeing who's available on loan again once clubs have concluded their transfer buisness. I wonder what's going on with the youth team, surely there should be a couple being promoted to the senior team every year.

[Coventry Saint]

I wonder if we'll ever really come to terms with the fact that we, as a club, got massively lucky that Thompson is a Saints fan. His arrival seemed to drag us right up; he was joined by other great (for us) players such as Gowser, Carey, Teale, Hasselbaink, Isma, the Newcastle loanees... While we had a strong youth department that was on the cusp of producing McLean, McGinn, et al.

The real crime was failing to build on that squad, and that cup win, in any meaningful way.

The demise that followed was pretty much us reverting to our natural position, namely competitive in the second tier, with an occasional promotion, but, when all's said and done, out of our depth and forced to scrabble around for scraps when in the top flight.

We simply can't compete with anyone higher than 9th and stay solvent; our travails are just us coming to terms with facts of the modern game and the way business is done.

Edited July 18, 2019 by Coventry Saint

[Billy Jean King]

6 minutes ago, Coventry Saint said:

I wonder if we'll ever really come to terms with the fact that we, as a club, got massively lucky that Thompson is a Saints fan. His arrival seemed to drag us right up; he was joined by other great (for us) players such as Gowser, Carey, Teale, Hasselbaink, Isma, the Newcastle loanees... While we had a strong youth department that was on the cusp of producing McLean, McGinn, et al.

The real crime was failing to build on that squad, and that cup win, in any meaningful way.

The demise that followed was pretty much us reverting to our natural position, namely competitive in the second tier, with an occasional promotion, but, when all's said and done, out of our depth and forced to scrabble around for scraps when in the top flight.

We simply can't compete with anyone higher than 9th and stay solvent; our travails are just us coming to terms with facts of the modern game and the way business is done.

Nonsense they are nearly all self inflicted !

[pozbaird]

7 minutes ago, Coventry Saint said:

I wonder if we'll ever really come to terms with the fact that we, as a club, got massively lucky that Thompson is a Saints fan. His arrival seemed to drag us right up; he was joined by other great (for us) players such as Gowser, Carey, Teale, Hasselbaink, Isma, the Newcastle loanees... While we had a strong youth department that was on the cusp of producing McLean, McGinn, et al.

The real crime was failing to build on that squad, and that cup win, in any meaningful way.

The demise that followed was pretty much us reverting to our natural position, namely competitive in the second tier, with an occasional promotion, but, when all's said and done, out of our depth and forced to scrabble around for scraps when in the top flight.

We simply can't compete with anyone higher than 9th and stay solvent; our travails are just us coming to terms with facts of the modern game and the way business is done.

Don’t see why our ‘natural position’ is as a competitive 2nd tier club with an occasional promotion when we were in the top flight for ten years which covered the period of our stadium move. I would argue our ‘natural position’ is one of being a top flight club who manage to keep their head above water most times, but from time to time, don’t manage to swim, but sink before bobbing back.

Unless we get ourselves sorted out ASAP for the season ahead, our position, natural or otherwise, will be one of trying not to be the next Falkirk.

[Coventry Saint]

6 minutes ago, pozbaird said:

Don’t see why our ‘natural position’ is as a competitive 2nd tier club with an occasional promotion when we were in the top flight for ten years which covered the period of our stadium move. I would argue our ‘natural position’ is one of being a top flight club who manage to keep their head above water most times, but from time to time, don’t manage to swim, but sink before bobbing back.

Unless we get ourselves sorted out ASAP for the season ahead, our position, natural or otherwise, will be one of trying not to be the next Falkirk.

Point taken, though how many of those ten years were comfortable? We were scrapping like crazy most years (aside from Gretna and the 8th place seasons, though the latter was slightly flattering IIRC).

We even stayed up by goal difference one season. I mean, they all count, but it's not necessarily an enjoyable existence.

We have just GOT to have some consistency at the top. We were unlucky Ross left,and I said on many occasions that I'd have been happy to have Oran still in charge no matter which league we were in this season. I hope Jim is here for at least the full three years. The longer the better.

[Demented Zebra]

6 minutes ago, Coventry Saint said:

Point taken, though how many of those ten years were comfortable? We were scrapping like crazy most years (aside from Gretna and the 8th place seasons, though the latter was slightly flattering IIRC).

We even stayed up by goal difference one season. I mean, they all count, but it's not necessarily an enjoyable existence.

We have just GOT to have some consistency at the top. We were unlucky Ross left,and I said on many occasions that I'd have been happy to have Oran still in charge no matter which league we were in this season. I hope Jim is here for at least the full three years. The longer the better.

The club is crying out for stability Goodwin needs to be here three years or more no matter what league we are in. We have been lucky getting Jim other potential managers looking into us would think what a basket case of a club with the constant managerial changes..