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The Official Airdrieonians Thread - 2019/20 and beyond


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Have to be honest, on paper these all look like desperation signings if we pick them up.

Maybe the Motherwell midfielder as there have been a few people with good words about his performances, but we've gone from trying to sign a former NI international for the holding midfield role to just trying to find someone who fits and hasn't made a first team start in their career?

Caveat: haven't watched them.

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28 minutes ago, airdrieman said:

You can’t read anything into friendlies at all. They’re pointless for gauging how you’re team is going to do in the season because they never have any bearing on or reflect how the season will go. I couldn’t tell you what the results of any of our friendlies last season were and I watched all of them. The only purpose of them is for the players to get a bit of match fitness, have  a look at some trialists and ideally have a bit of day out at a ground you don’t usually go to (which we haven’t done this season obviously). But the actual results and performance are largely irrelevant. 

We were playing for a cup, what did you think of the trialists  today, would you give any of them a deal, I am sorry if I offend anyone, but that was a pretty poor outing for most of our players, you would have thought they would have been right up for the game, yes it's early days but team is just not balanced any where  from back to front, 

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The trialist (15) that came on as a forward in the 2nd half was Gabby McGill - was with  Dunfermline and loaned out last season to Edinburgh City.  He looked way better than the other trialist striker that started Saturdays game and came on for the last 10 today - i.e he could hold up a ball, control it and pass it and get into reasonable positions  - but it was a low bar to jump.

Don't think any of the trialists stood out at all.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Jack Reed said:

We were playing for a cup, what did you think of the trialists  today, would you give any of them a deal, I am sorry if I offend anyone, but that was a pretty poor outing for most of our players, you would have thought they would have been right up for the game, yes it's early days but team is just not balanced any where  from back to front, 

I actually missed today’s game as I was travelling and TBH a friendly against Clyde doesn’t appeal to me at all anyway! And while I do think the performance and result in friendlies largely doesn’t matter I do take your point that today’s result wasn’t necessarily a great reflection of the players who were trialling for a contract. From what I’ve heard McDonald sounds like he’ll be a decent acquisition. 

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1 hour ago, Ayr Diamond said:

I think McGill is worth a punt he played well when he came on, Lacy and McDonald have areed to sign, as for O'Connor he done ok he would need to up his game to get a deal as for the rest i dont think they'll be asked back .

Which trialist was Lacy,  the striker or centre half..

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17 hours ago, NorthernDiamond said:

Considering this is a team that is half made up of trialists or players who aren't in the starting 11 I'm not gonna be panicking sorry.
We actually played decent football yesterday when we played with our first team players so I'm not worried about the b team and some trialists being poor against a Clyde first 11 in a friendly no.

Re: playing well on Saturday, that was against a team who finished 14th in the Lowland league. I'd expect nothing less. Yesterday may have had several trialists but the overall performance was very poor, even from signed players. 

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Two abysmal performances over the two days. 

The side he put out yesterday was doomed to fail.  Very difficult for the two trialist defenders to play in that system with no protection whatsoever from a midfield that was completely  overrun for most of the game.

Cannot see what Ritchie brings.

Very little up front but were feeding on absolute scraps.

17 yesterday was Ally Taylor (ex Killie) I believe.

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26 minutes ago, COYR's said:

Two abysmal performances over the two days. 

The side he put out yesterday was doomed to fail.  Very difficult for the two trialist defenders to play in that system with no protection whatsoever from a midfield that was completely  overrun for most of the game.

Cannot see what Ritchie brings.

Very little up front but were feeding on absolute scraps.

17 yesterday was Ally Taylor (ex Killie) I believe.

That makes sense, I did think he looked a bit like Greg Taylor :lol:

I thought we played ok on Saturday. Kerr was quite rash defensively but Watson and Fordyce strolled it. Wardrop and Quitongo did well defensively and got up and down the park but their final ball was lacking. Agnew and McCabe were pretty composed in midfield, McCabe had a few dodgy moments but was mostly fine. Easton had some good moments too but the strikers never really got going until Allan came on. We seemed to be making an effort to build from the back, certainly much more than last season, and while we lacked any cutting edge I felt we generally controlled the game. 

Yesterday was pretty different though. McDonald struggled to get into the game and Ritchie was just all over the place, never seemed to know where he should be playing. That led to Currie and the defence resorting to long punts up the park to two small forwards who were never going to win a header. As I said yesterday, it’s good to get these issues out the way before competitive games start, as it’s now clear that a midfield with Ritchie and McDonald as the two attacking midfielders just won’t work. 

Ritchie is a strange one, as from what I could make out last season he seemed to be a very budget version of Kieran Millar, an energetic midfielder who will run about and win tackles but not really offer much in the opposition half. I don’t know where he fits into the current system really, as he’s not good enough to be the holding player and doesn’t offer enough going forward to play as one of the attacking midfielders.

Overall I’m not too concerned, barring an injury crisis we won’t be playing a team like yesterday’s again anytime soon. We’ll see where we are after the cup games as that’s probably a better test of how the team will do this season.

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2 hours ago, Stevo1968 said:

Such a flat performance all over yesterday, thought Allan looked lovely though.

Kerr injured? Hopefully ones that played the 2 games have came out injury free

My best guess would be Murray not wanting to risk playing him twice in two days after his recent injury/ surgery.

 

Bear in mind the real stuff starts on Saturday!

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5 hours ago, NorthernDiamond said:
5 hours ago, Ayr Diamond said:
My mistake, his name is Lyons.

Was this the number 4 at fault for the first goal?

I thought Fordyce was at fault for the goal he hesitated when he thought the ref was going to give a foul.

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Didn’t think any of the trialists that started yesterday are likely to add much to our squad. Both centre halfs (no 2 & 4) looked really shaky - no composure defensively or on the ball. The forward (no 7) looked far too lightweight.

The striker that came on at half time at least put himself about and ran the channels well.  

I think our starting 11 for the upcoming season is pretty solid and will no doubt be competing at the right end of the table, however I’m a little concerned with the bench/ squad. We are severely lacking in any sort of depth. Hopefully we’re able to get in another few players before the start of the league season.

 

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Was good to be at games on Saturday and Sunday, can honestly say I never realised how much I missed it. In both games I thought we were shocking, especially Saturday. We won the game but if we lost I would have had no complaints. Sunday we were shocking defensively and lost poor goals.

 

The biggest surprise for me was how bad Agnew looked, I expected much more from him. On Saturday looked miles of the pace and on Sunday he basically stood in front of the defence and never moved, meaning the youngsters McDonald and Ritchie were chasing shadows as at times was 4 against those 2. I noticed he was helping Murray in the dugout when subbed, he might end up their permanently if those performances is what we can expect.

 

From the trialists the left centre back and striker who played second half from Sunday looked the best, I am sure we will sign them.

 

Going into the season I am happy with the squad except for Agnew and we need a striker since Allan is not upto it at this level.

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2 hours ago, DiamondsForever1970 said:

Was good to be at games on Saturday and Sunday, can honestly say I never realised how much I missed it. In both games I thought we were shocking, especially Saturday. We won the game but if we lost I would have had no complaints. Sunday we were shocking defensively and lost poor goals.

 

The biggest surprise for me was how bad Agnew looked, I expected much more from him. On Saturday looked miles of the pace and on Sunday he basically stood in front of the defence and never moved, meaning the youngsters McDonald and Ritchie were chasing shadows as at times was 4 against those 2. I noticed he was helping Murray in the dugout when subbed, he might end up their permanently if those performances is what we can expect.

 

From the trialists the left centre back and striker who played second half from Sunday looked the best, I am sure we will sign them.

 

Going into the season I am happy with the squad except for Agnew and we need a striker since Allan is not upto it at this level.

There's was always the concern that Agnew's legs have gone and a lot of EF fans seemed to think that but too early to be writing anyone off yet.

I'm been totally unimpressed with Quitongo but we'll see when the real action starts.

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