The St. Mirren FC 2023/24 thread

[Sortmeout]

What’s the background to this? Was Dunne in the Aberdeen end on Sunday? 

[Div]

9 minutes ago, Sortmeout said:

What’s the background to this? Was Dunne in the Aberdeen end on Sunday? 

https://twitter.com/BBCSportScot/status/1614974025159041024?s=20&t=QxWYasooTRpthSWWHvlWKg

 

[Buttocks Brown]

3 hours ago, Div said:

You'd need to be a bit naive to think Stewart doesn't still get information from within the club having been there for the best part of 30 years.

He said the club had spent the full COVID loan in the last 12 months and he was absolutely correct.

And, in due course, we had full transparency from the club regarding the financial loss when the accounts were published.

Where it gets murky though is that individuals (whoever they may be) were anonymously leaking that financial and other inside information onto B&WArmy months ago. 

Why did they do that? A genuine belief that the club was in financial trouble and the fans needed to be alerted or to whip up a little hysteria for their own ends? Maybe a bit of both? It leaves a bad taste anyway.

Of course, there should be scrutiny from the SMISA board of the St Mirren board but where we are now goes beyond that I think. We're in the realms of egos and personal animosities with the good of the club floating about somewhere in the background. That's no good for SMISA or St Mirren. Fortunately, by the nature of the SMISA board it should only be temporary.

[Billy_Gunn]

12 hours ago, Div said:

Straight swap for Michael McArdle who is leaving to join the SFA.

Worth remembering that the only reason we have an academy in the first place and a dedicated training centre at Ralston is because the Gilmour board invested £1m into it when they brokered the deal to sell Love Street and move to Greenhill Road.

I get that some folk don’t like Stewart and they feel we have moved on, which is absolutely fine, but the constant sniping and bitching about him is really poor given all the things that board did to save and rebuild the club.

IMHO.

I don’t like Stewart. 50% of it is based on how he ran the club, particularly in his latter years at the helm and the other 50% is from meeting him personally more than enough times. He’s not a person I like or have any time for and I’m happy to have snide comments in his direction whenever I feel they’re needed.

and if he’s not down with that, I’ve got two words for him!!

 

 

[Div]

19 hours ago, Billy_Gunn said:

I don’t like Stewart. 50% of it is based on how he ran the club, particularly in his latter years at the helm and the other 50% is from meeting him personally more than enough times. He’s not a person I like or have any time for and I’m happy to have snide comments in his direction whenever I feel they’re needed.

and if he’s not down with that, I’ve got two words for him!!

 

 

Water off a ducks back to Stewart whether folk like him or not I would think.

Entirely fine for anyone to dislike an individual for any one of a number of reasons, I've zero problem with that.

I do find it strange that some folk can't bring themselves to admit that the Gilmour board did an unbelievable amount of good things during their time in control of the club though. It seems some fans just remember the last 2 years which is a bit sad given what happened in the 20 odd years before then.

Anyway, we'll just need to agree to disagree and that's also fine.

[Billy_Gunn]

47 minutes ago, Div said:

Water off a ducks back to Stewart whether folk like him or not I would think.

Entirely fine for anyone to dislike an individual for any one of a number of reasons, I've zero problem with that.

I do find it strange that some folk can't bring themselves to admit that the Gilmour board did an unbelievable amount of good things during their time in control of the club though. It seems some fans just remember the last 2 years which is a bit sad given what happened in the 20 odd years before then.

Anyway, we'll just need to agree to disagree and that's also fine.

I'm not so sure it will be to be honest. He's quite a thin skinned individual.

I agree with you; he and the other board members contributed massively to St.Mirren and we probably wouldn't have a team to watch without their hard work, but there was an array of god awful decisions and moments from his time at the club that sour his legacy. A good number of them set our club back decades and we're only just recovering as a result.

To know that he has his fingerprints all over the club again fills me with angst and I''m sure i'm not alone in that.

[FTOF]

Bad news that O'Hara is out for at least four weeks.

He landed really badly on his ankle and has damaged his ligaments.

[medals]

The Don's 4 nil down before 1/2 time... why would Dunne go there?

Damage limitation for us unless we get the next 3 goals.

[pozbaird]

Cup game this weekend, so Motherwell on Jan 28th is our next league game. The last time we scored a league goal from open play was Curtis Main at Ferrantibank Thistle on Dec 28th. An entire calendar month. That’s absolutely bloody dreadful. The fact we squeaked a few draws in this run has clearly taken a bit of the heat off our utterly abysmal inability to score some goals that aren’t free kicks or penalties. Go back before the Livvy game and the three against Aberdeen - two were the O’Hara penalties, the other was when ten man Aberdeen went full mad mental and their goalie was at the Buddie Good Food van buying a square sausage & tattie scone doubler, allowing us to ‘score from open play’ into an unguarded net.

Not nearly good enough, just saying that factually, not meant in a ‘not good enough, we deserve better, sack the board’ type of way.

Edited January 19, 2023 by pozbaird

[aldo_j]

55 minutes ago, pozbaird said:

Cup game this weekend, so Motherwell on Jan 28th is our next league game. The last time we scored a league goal from open play was Curtis Main at Ferrantibank Thistle on Dec 28th. An entire calendar month. That’s absolutely bloody dreadful. The fact we squeaked a few draws in this run has clearly taken a bit of the heat off our utterly abysmal inability to score some goals that aren’t free kicks or penalties. Go back before the Livvy game and the three against Aberdeen - two were the O’Hara penalties, the other was when ten man Aberdeen went full mad mental and their goalie was at the Buddie Good Food van buying a square sausage & tattie scone doubler, allowing us to ‘score from open play’ into an unguarded net.

Not nearly good enough, just saying that factually, not meant in a ‘not good enough, we deserve better, sack the board’ type of way.

Pretty standard for us - would be far more concerned if we weren’t creating chances.

Main and Ayunga bring a lot to the team but aren’t prolific (hence they play for us!). We probably don’t weigh in with enough goals from other areas of the park too.

[flyingscot]

Every team in Scotland is looking for the regular goal scorer. We've not finished enough chances recently, Greive v Killie at the end of that game and against Hearts, Flynn and Greive had some good chances. If those went in probably chance we win both games. 

At least we are creating chances and the away form hasn't been as bad as before the WC. 

 

[Lex]

2 minutes ago, aldo_j said:

Pretty standard for us - would be far more concerned if we weren’t creating chances.

Main and Ayunga bring a lot to the team but aren’t prolific (hence they play for us!). We probably don’t weigh in with enough goals from other areas of the park too.

Not prolific is certainly an understatement, they along with super sub Alex Grieve all have three league goals each this season. Our top league scorer is O'Hara, with four.  Pretty paltry goal returns all over the squad really and that's a big reason for our poor form at the moment. No wins in five and just one win in the last ten, we certainly won't make top six without improvement. 

[pozbaird]

I agree with the recent comments saying at least we are creating chances. I go to FeegieField every game and actually feel that we have a good team, and I’m not going to be watching a complete shitfest. The squad looks on a par, or better, than most rivals. We played well for long spells in the two games against Hearts, and I don’t fear Hibs or Aberdeen, Dundee United - anyone really…. Then the fact about our scoring record hits you in the chops. Just need to turn some of the draws into sneaky 1-0 or 2-1 wins and we’re cooking with gas. Don’t need us to be pumping teams by four or anything like it…. Gie’s a goal!

[Ric]

Tell you what, roll back a few years and we'd be calculating goal difference and whether a tanking, undeserved or not, would drop us into the relegation slot.

At present we are mid table, albeit not on a winning streak, but equally not necessarily on a losing one either, we have a game in hand to those around us, we are a decent gap from any trouble and this side looks like it can compete.

All in all, I feel a lot better regarding a couple of defeats on the trot, than I would previously.

[smellthepaw]

42 minutes ago, Ric said:

Tell you what, roll back a few years and we'd be calculating goal difference and whether a tanking, undeserved or not, would drop us into the relegation slot.

At present we are mid table, albeit not on a winning streak, but equally not necessarily on a losing one either, we have a game in hand to those around us, we are a decent gap from any trouble and this side looks like it can compete.

All in all, I feel a lot better regarding a couple of defeats on the trot, than I would previously.

It seems once again from looking at the fixtures, that February has become another big month in the calendar (plus the Motherwell game this month) for realistically looking to pick up a healthy amount of points.  Is 9-11 points from a possible 15 a realistic target?

Sat 28/01/2023	Motherwell	H		cinch Premiership
Wed 01/02/2023	Aberdeen	A		cinch Premiership	7:45pm kick-off
Sat 04/02/2023	Hibernian	H		cinch Premiership
Sat 18/02/2023	Ross County	H		cinch Premiership
Sat 25/02/2023	St Johnstone	A		cinch Premiership

Edit: And the possibility of the re-arranged Well away when announced thrown in there also,  sandwiched between Hibs & Ross County or RC & St J.

Edited January 19, 2023 by smellthepaw
Extra fixture added

[Arch Stanton]

36 minutes ago, smellthepaw said:

It seems once again from looking at the fixtures, that February has become another big month in the calendar (plus the Motherwell game this month) for realistically looking to pick up a healthy amount of points.  Is 9-11 points from a possible 15 a realistic target?

Sat 28/01/2023	Motherwell	H		cinch Premiership
Wed 01/02/2023	Aberdeen	A		cinch Premiership	7:45pm kick-off
Sat 04/02/2023	Hibernian	H		cinch Premiership
Sat 18/02/2023	Ross County	H		cinch Premiership
Sat 25/02/2023	St Johnstone	A		cinch Premiership

Edit: And the possibility of the re-arranged Well away when announced thrown in there also,  sandwiched between Hibs & Ross County or RC & St J.

Its been announced, Wed 15th February. 

[Div]

37 minutes ago, smellthepaw said:

It seems once again from looking at the fixtures, that February has become another big month in the calendar (plus the Motherwell game this month) for realistically looking to pick up a healthy amount of points.  Is 9-11 points from a possible 15 a realistic target?

Sat 28/01/2023	Motherwell	H		cinch Premiership
Wed 01/02/2023	Aberdeen	A		cinch Premiership	7:45pm kick-off
Sat 04/02/2023	Hibernian	H		cinch Premiership
Sat 18/02/2023	Ross County	H		cinch Premiership
Sat 25/02/2023	St Johnstone	A		cinch Premiership

Edit: And the possibility of the re-arranged Well away when announced thrown in there also,  sandwiched between Hibs & Ross County or RC & St J.

Motherwell Away already announced, it's on Weds 15th Feb.

[Div]

End of the day we've had a really rough run of fixtures after the break.

4 of the 5 games we've played have been away from home, our last three have been against sides in the top three.

This was always going to be the case as we played catch up on the away fixtures and when you throw in the suspensions to Dunne, O'Hara, Erhahon and Fraser (albeit accepting these were self inflicted) we've been pretty stretched.

I think we have a realistic chance of making the top six and going on a good cup run if we have a wee bit of luck with the draw.

Games from here to the end of Feb are going to define our season.

League games against Motherwell (x2), Aberdeen, Hibs,  Ross County and St.Johnstone offer us a realistic chance of climbing the table again and hopefully we will make it through what is a tricky cup tie on Saturday to face a last 16 tie on 11th Feb.

Big month but we also face a pretty big 12 days between now and the closing of the window - there are definitely going to be departure(s) and that's the big unknown at the moment!

[greenock saint]

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/in-your-area/renfrewshire/st-mirren-academy-star-dylan-28999940

[Div]

20 minutes ago, greenock saint said:

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/in-your-area/renfrewshire/st-mirren-academy-star-dylan-28999940

If selling Dylan now eases the cash flow issue that we have then it may well be worth cashing in now, particularly if we can negotiate some sort of sell on clause.

Hard to say if he's the real deal or not as we've seen so little of him, but selling him won't impact the usual matchday squad so it has to be seen as a good option!