The Official Airdrieonians Thread - 2019/20 and beyond

[Mr November]

1 minute ago, Rossm25 said:

Aye its totally a risk. But look at our bench the first half of the season. Name one person who could turn a game coming off the bench? If we can get Telfer over the line,  bring in Moffat and whatever other loan signings,  then we can panic re-sign Dean ritchie 

I agree with you. It's hard to build a full squad of first team players on our budget but looking at last season, we probably had 14 or 15 first team players, guys like Allan who were bench options and then Caves, Pyott etc who were never going to start regularly. If we can bring in 3 or 4 quality players over the next couple of weeks to add to what we have then brilliant, we should be in a good place for the season and we can probably use the academy boys rather than sign another Dean Ritchie to sit in the stand or make up the numbers on the bench. I'm sure McCabe is working very hard to recruit his targets, taking the job so early on is a big gamble for him too and he'll know he needs to get it right, so fingers crossed everything goes well.

[Diamonds_Are_Forever]

2 hours ago, CHEMOMAN said:

A wee birdie told me last Saturday that if Thistle got Cole McKinnon on loan from the Rangers, we'd be in for the return of Kyle Turner!

Heard that rumour aswell spoke to someone at the club and he says that's unfortunately nonsense,  we have other realistic targets 
 

[Rossm25]

2 minutes ago, Mr November said:

I agree with you. It's hard to build a full squad of first team players on our budget but looking at last season, we probably had 14 or 15 first team players, guys like Allan who were bench options and then Caves, Pyott etc who were never going to start regularly. If we can bring in 3 or 4 quality players over the next couple of weeks to add to what we have then brilliant, we should be in a good place for the season and we can probably use the academy boys rather than sign another Dean Ritchie to sit in the stand or make up the numbers on the bench. I'm sure McCabe is working very hard to recruit his targets, taking the job so early on is a big gamble for him too and he'll know he needs to get it right, so fingers crossed everything goes well.

Agreed,  hoping for some pens before the st mirren game , quietly optimistic 

[ShineOnYouCrazyDiamonds]

Agreed,  hoping for some pens before the st mirren game , quietly optimistic 

No pens please. We’re shite at them.

[Tory Boy]

11 hours ago, CHEMOMAN said:

A wee birdie told me last Saturday that if Thistle got Cole McKinnon on loan from the Rangers, we'd be in for the return of Kyle Turner!

I was told similar a couple of weeks ago but it was 2 players on loan from Rangers. Unfortunately for us though, Turner has had an excellent pre-season and League Cup ties so I think any hope of that deal are dead in the water. 

[Chapelhall chap]

12 hours ago, Diamond8 said:

Nah, when I was going into car park the card machine was getting waved about. Wish I'd just paid cash shortly after

I was in Petersburn Rd one and paid cash to the young guy( they're all younger than me!) and maybe Raymond was hiding the machine. Still a peculiar idea for such small transactions. 

[Glenmavis Diamond]

The frustration building is clear. And nobody can tell people not to be concerned. However, it's also fair to say that McCabe will be trying his best to get players in and will have targets, be having conversations etc. To try and make this happen. He wants to be a success as much as we want him to be one. Would I rather we were sitting here now with 20 players signed up? Of course. Am I particularly worried that it's not happened like that yet? Nope. 

If we haven't done some decent business by the Peterhead game then yeah, I'll start to worry, but until then I'm happy to keep the faith that things are going on in the background to give us an even better squad this season than that of last season. The core of an excellent squad is already there. A few decent additions will hugely change the mood amongst fans. 

Here's hoping we see the magic pen soon enough.

[She who dares gins]

The frustration building is clear. And nobody can tell people not to be concerned. However, it's also fair to say that McCabe will be trying his best to get players in and will have targets, be having conversations etc. To try and make this happen. He wants to be a success as much as we want him to be one. Would I rather we were sitting here now with 20 players signed up? Of course. Am I particularly worried that it's not happened like that yet? Nope. 
If we haven't done some decent business by the Peterhead game then yeah, I'll start to worry, but until then I'm happy to keep the faith that things are going on in the background to give us an even better squad this season than that of last season. The core of an excellent squad is already there. A few decent additions will hugely change the mood amongst fans. 
Here's hoping we see the magic pen soon enough. [emoji1696]

Bit more fan engagement might help with things sometimes. Dunfermline and Falkirk have done a fair bit ahead of season starting. We’re treated like mushrooms until it’s time to get the bank accounts out.

[Diamond1924]

5 minutes ago, She who dares gins said:

Bit more fan engagement might help with things sometimes. Dunfermline and Falkirk have done a fair bit ahead of season starting. We’re treated like mushrooms until it’s time to get the bank accounts out.

I agree. It’s something that the club have really struggled with over the last few years and it’s only highlighted even more when you look at the likes of Falkirk etc. 

I’m not too sure where the disconnect comes from or what motivates it in all honestly. 

[She who dares gins]

I agree. It’s something that the club have really struggled with over the last few years and it’s only highlighted even more when you look at the likes of Falkirk etc. 
I’m not too sure where the disconnect comes from or what motivates it in all honestly. 

Nope, I’m at a loss too. You can get away with it to extent when things are going well. It’s easy when you’re winning games. Less so when you’re not and, as someone said, frustrations start to build.

[Jack Reed]

10 minutes ago, She who dares gins said:

Nope, I’m at a loss too. You can get away with it to extent when things are going well. It’s easy when you’re winning games. Less so when you’re not and, as someone said, frustrations start to build.

Certainly keep us well updated on sponsors for the players jerseys, 

[el Gringo]

12 minutes ago, She who dares gins said:

Nope, I’m at a loss too. You can get away with it to extent when things are going well. It’s easy when you’re winning games. Less so when you’re not and, as someone said, frustrations start to build.

What sort of thing do you want to see? Always open to suggestions.

[ShineOnYouCrazyDiamonds]

Obviously the club can’t talk about ongoing contract discussions and even though rumours are exciting for us there really shouldn’t be leaks that result in those rumours. I generally find the lack of news frustrating although I am fairly confident we’ll have a decent squad this year based on what we have already and the obvious careful consideration that’s going into signings. We know there’s been plenty trialists so the lack of signings must mean the club are being very careful to ensure the signings are the right ones, you would think.

I do think the club has been needlessly secretive over certain things. I never really understood why Craig Watson’s contract extension was announced in June when he himself said it had been “sorted months ago”. Likewise the academy. We heard rumours about Gow’s academy ages ago and while I agree the club should only announce things when they’re official, we know that Cole Gibson signed a contract a few weeks ago so clearly he and the academy were there and operating for a while before it was announced just the other day. Another is the physio that left Albion Rovers. The Rovers said in their statement that he was leaving for Airdrie and we’ve still not had any kind announcement about that.

There’s also the paragraph from McCabe’s announcement as manager: “We will ensure that a fully comprehensive support structure is put in place to support Rhys and Callum in their managerial journey at Airdrieonians.”

It’s so vague. A lot of fans took it to mean there would be an experienced coach coming in to assist them but it doesn’t necessarily mean that and we’ve also not heard anything about coaches or a support structure since so we don’t really know what’s happening there.

[Tory Boy]

1 hour ago, ShineOnYouCrazyDiamonds said:

Obviously the club can’t talk about ongoing contract discussions and even though rumours are exciting for us there really shouldn’t be leaks that result in those rumours. I generally find the lack of news frustrating although I am fairly confident we’ll have a decent squad this year based on what we have already and the obvious careful consideration that’s going into signings. We know there’s been plenty trialists so the lack of signings must mean the club are being very careful to ensure the signings are the right ones, you would think.

I do think the club has been needlessly secretive over certain things. I never really understood why Craig Watson’s contract extension was announced in June when he himself said it had been “sorted months ago”. Likewise the academy. We heard rumours about Gow’s academy ages ago and while I agree the club should only announce things when they’re official, we know that Cole Gibson signed a contract a few weeks ago so clearly he and the academy were there and operating for a while before it was announced just the other day. Another is the physio that left Albion Rovers. The Rovers said in their statement that he was leaving for Airdrie and we’ve still not had any kind announcement about that.

There’s also the paragraph from McCabe’s announcement as manager: “We will ensure that a fully comprehensive support structure is put in place to support Rhys and Callum in their managerial journey at Airdrieonians.”

It’s so vague. A lot of fans took it to mean there would be an experienced coach coming in to assist them but it doesn’t necessarily mean that and we’ve also not heard anything about coaches or a support structure since so we don’t really know what’s happening there.

The one thing I'd add to that is, injuries.

Compared with other Clubs we get so little info. What type of injury, timescales for return....etc. The best chance of finding out what's happening with an injured player is someone bumping into them on match day.

[ShineOnYouCrazyDiamonds]

The one thing I'd add to that is, injuries.
Compared with other Clubs we get so little info. What type of injury, timescales for return....etc. The best chance of finding out what's happening with an injured player is someone bumping into them on match day.

Cammy Ballantyne told the Daily Record he had a two year deal but the club never announced that, just that he signed.

[Mr November]

2 hours ago, ShineOnYouCrazyDiamonds said:

Cammy Ballantyne told the Daily Record he had a two year deal but the club never announced that, just that he signed.

We had a similar thing last summer when nothing was ever announced about Dean Ritchie and we didn’t know if he was staying or not, only for him to appear back in the pre-season training pictures. I assumed he either signed a two year deal at the time (which would be bizarre) or had a clause that extended his contract after a certain number of games. I remember Kyle MacDonald had the latter when he first signed and the club announced it. Whatever it was, it’s surely an easy thing to add in a sentence about alongside the end of year squad movements. 

I think your post above is spot on. In general I’m happy enough with the club’s social media and announcements. It does lack information at times but on the whole it’s pretty professional and I prefer that to some other clubs who try far too hard to be funny on social media. It’s easy to forget that we rely on volunteers for a lot of this stuff and while that’s probably the case for most clubs at our level, I think they do a good job considering that. Things like holding back Cole Gibson signing until a bigger academy announcement was made was sensible, it wouldn’t be fair on him to have people moaning that the pen came out for him rather than an established player. However, not announcing the physio when he’s put it on social media and Albion Rovers is an odd one. Ultimately, it doesn’t really matter but it seems like an easy win to announce something when some fans feel the club are being too quiet?

[cb_diamond]

Most of the pertinent points have been raised, contracts not announced length wise or at the time, never injury updates (Salim now verging on waste of a wage territory - which is harsh I know). I would also add zero communication from PH. Like none. We don't want weekly Q and As but something, anything, would be nice.

[Tory Boy]

 

Is that the 3 Northern Irish lads at the left hand side?

Edited July 15, 2022 by Tory Boy

[David Fernández]

 
Is that the 3 Northern Irish lads at the left hand side?

The real question is, what the hell is Euan Deveney wearing?

[Kenny_m]

1 hour ago, cb_diamond said:

Most of the pertinent points have been raised, contracts not announced length wise or at the time, never injury updates (Salim now verging on waste of a wage territory - which is harsh I know). I would also add zero communication from PH. Like none. We don't want weekly Q and As but something, anything, would be nice.

Agree, i'm not asking PH to come to the pub and get rat arsed like Jim Ballantyne did in the early days but yes the occasional general update on the club would be great.

Just to add that no complaints on the media side from Stuart Mathie who does an outstanding job.