Clyde FC; Season 2022-23

[Clydeside]

 

[Jack Burton]

Got a question for our fans. Genuine curiosities.
Have we been regressing as a club both on and off the park since the promotion season? 
 
If the answer is yes, why do we think that is? Is it recruitment? Reaching a ceiling in terms of how far we can go in the modern era? 
 
Personally I feel our promotion winning team would cuff our current squad. 
 
Genuinely curious to see how fans feel on this. 
 
 

Be surprised if anyone doesn't answer yes to that.

The promotion squad would wipe the floor with the current team. We've been getting worse each season since promotion.

Our playing budget has been slashed since promotion and Lennon's signings have been poorer each season. Undoubtedly a lower budget is part of that reason but a worrying number of his signings are miles below what is required at this level.

There is so many clubs with money at our level or below which makes player recruitment even more difficult. There is a fair number of the better part time players playing at league 2 or below.

Off field anyone with any drive or vision doesn't last long at the club and we are stagnating. I don't know if that is because the current situation is so bleak that is difficult to make any meaningful change or there is some other reason. The majority of the board has been made up of the same members for at least the last 15 years.

[the_bully_wee]

15 minutes ago, Ocelot1877 said:

Got a question for our fans. Genuine curiosities.

Have we been regressing as a club both on and off the park since the promotion season? 
 

If the answer is yes, why do we think that is? Is it recruitment? Reaching a ceiling in terms of how far we can go in the modern era? 
 

Personally I feel our promotion winning team would cuff our current squad. 
 

Genuinely curious to see how fans feel on this. 
 

 

Absolutely, yes. The promotion season and DL's first half a season before it were fantastic but came at the cost of incurring £170k of debt, something I don't think any of us knew the extent of at the time and which clearly wasn't sustainable. When we achieved promotion there was a sense of real forward momentum, but recruitment in particular has been poor since and that's the only area where we can be completely objective about club performance. Geography obviously isn't quite on our side in the same way as it is for Montrose, but we should've been looking to do exactly what they've done and maintained an extremely settled core of players with a clear and defined playing identity and minimal squad turnover. To have only retained one of Cuddihy, Grant, Howie and McStay from recent seasons is extremely disappointing.

[Bully Wee Clyde FC]

I've always felt that Danny is maybe not as wise as he and others believe him to be.   Some of his post match comments sound muddled and I wonder if this is indicative of his thinking style.

DGW wide or in MF is illogical. Rumsby and Balatoni as a pairing looks vulnerable but Lennon is in denial. LB is shambolic choosing Doc over Livvy looks headstrong.  Were we 3 5 2 or 4 3 3 today?  Swapping a CF for RB at 2 0 said DL got the selection wrong in defence MF and up front.

Our basic gameplan is shoddy.  We looks pretty dumb with the long high balls against giants.  We can never take throw ins.  Some of Mitch's distribution is shit.  When was the last time we scored from a corner?  I've been watching Rumsby for 4 years and can't work out if he right or left footed. 

 

[Bullyweeno1]

1 hour ago, Ocelot1877 said:

Got a question for our fans. Genuine curiosities.

Have we been regressing as a club both on and off the park since the promotion season? 
 

If the answer is yes, why do we think that is? Is it recruitment? Reaching a ceiling in terms of how far we can go in the modern era? 
 

Personally I feel our promotion winning team would cuff our current squad. 
 

Genuinely curious to see how fans feel on this. 
 

 

We have definitely regressed since promotion season.  

2 years ago was worse than promotion season, last year was worse than year before and we only avoided playoff in last 10 minutes of final game of season and so far from what I have seen this year looks like it will be worse than last year which will only result in one outcome - relegation direct

Promotion season we had midfield of Grant, McStay, Rankin who were infinitely better than what we have the now plus although DGW is still a good player he is 2 years older that he was then and unfortunately likely to lose a yard or so in the next year

Off the field the board have a thankless task however they are administrators/accountants and don’t have what we need which is marketing/sales/business contacts to generate funds for the club and attract investment and engage with the local community

Whether there are others out there who have these skills I don’t know but if they do they should come forward and take over things

Football is competing against many other things nowadays and obviously in Cumbernauld we will be completing with the OF but surely more can be done to engage the local community however maybe that ship has long since sailed

Football nowadays is all about money and as we don’t own the ground our opportunity for revenue generating activities is restricted which has the knock on effect of a lower squad budget which means a poorer squad

Personally if I was DL I would have used all the budget to sign 12-14 players of the necessary standard and then bulked out the rest of the squad with loanees.  

It appears we have spread the budget too thin over a squad of 20 or so which has left us with barely a competitive first 11 with collection of absolute dross on the bench that can’t come on and make any impact

Other concerns are

1.  DL signing track record - it is abysmal

2. Playing players out of position to horseshoe others in.  Livingstone should start at LB.   We need 3 in midfield as two get overrun.   DGW must start up front rather than out wide to accommodate Jones who should only be seen as someone to come off the bench to change things

3. DL seems totally disinterested in things.  Got that feeling last year and has continued this year

4. The fact that me and others as a simple fans can see the problems and the management team can’t is most worrying.  Or maybe they can see but don’t have the tools at their disposal to sort

Overall a very poor start to season and only think DL has about 5-6 games to turn things around before the fans turn on him

 

 

 

[salute]

Time for Lennon to go.

[Bullyweeno1]

12 minutes ago, salute said:

Time for Lennon to go.

I think the time for Danny to move on was the end of last year as the past few seasons have been getting worse and worse season upon season

I get the feeling that Danny feels he is bulletproof and that he will never get sacked unless he goes on a Stuart Miller run of 10+ loses in a row but even then I think he feels he could still ride it out

It is important that every manager should have a fear about losing their job should they go on a poor run or are regressing year on year

[squeezeboxson]

14 minutes ago, Bullyweeno1 said:

Other concerns are

1.  DL signing track record - it is abysmal

2. Playing players out of position to horseshoe others in.  Livingstone should start at LB.   We need 3 in midfield as two get overrun.   DGW must start up front rather than out wide to accommodate Jones who should only be seen as someone to come off the bench to change things

3. DL seems totally disinterested in things.  Got that feeling last year and has continued this year

4. The fact that me and others as a simple fans can see the problems and the management team can’t is most worrying.  Or maybe they can see but don’t have the tools at their disposal to sort

Overall a very poor start to season and only think DL has about 5-6 games to turn things around before the fans turn on him

If we had kept JD on then you could have almost quoted this word for word about him, even some of the specifics (I.e. Jones) were exact same with us. You guys should've rid yourselves if DL and I feel it could cost you dearly that he has been allowed to assemble another squad for this season.

I appreciate budgets and difficulties but surely he could have signed better than Jones and Docherty (who FWIW was great in his time with us but that was 5/6 years ago and he has only gone downhill since he left us).

[clyde_darren]

Time for Lennon to go.

Surely not this starting already, I understand we’ve been woeful to this point but we’re only 1 game into the season. Some of his decisions are definitely questionable but the man got us playing some of the best football we’ve seen in the past 10 years as well as getting us promoted. Last season COVID didn’t help us at all with the fixture build up and we still managed to pull it out the bag. Have a bit of faith and get behind the team. If we can source a few loans from higher up particularly for right back and centre back then the team isn’t actually looking that bad. A forward 3 of Love, Cunningham and Goodwillie will get us goals, a midfield 3 of Gomis, Splaine, Cuddihy and Kennedy as back up is an upgrade on what we had last year. 2/3 players in on loan and we can kick on. Can’t start the abuse and shouts for Lennon out after 1 league game.

[Bullyweeno1]

12 minutes ago, clyde_darren said:

Surely not this starting already, I understand we’ve been woeful to this point but we’re only 1 game into the season. Some of his decisions are definitely questionable but the man got us playing some of the best football we’ve seen in the past 10 years as well as getting us promoted. Last season COVID didn’t help us at all with the fixture build up and we still managed to pull it out the bag. Have a bit of faith and get behind the team. If we can source a few loans from higher up particularly for right back and centre back then the team isn’t actually looking that bad. A forward 3 of Love, Cunningham and Goodwillie will get us goals, a midfield 3 of Gomis, Splaine, Cuddihy and Kennedy as back up is an upgrade on what we had last year. 2/3 players in on loan and we can kick on. Can’t start the abuse and shouts for Lennon out after 1 league game.

The last decent football played was 2 years ago in the 2nd division with an infinitely better squad of players 
 

 We have went backwards the last 2 years

We are 5 games into the new season as count the league cup.  Only won 1 out of 5 and that win against Stranraer should have lost by 2 or 3.  5 games played 5 goals scored 9 against, 1 win, 1 draw, 3 loses

My main criticism is the signing policy and the inability to play players in their correct position

Docherty, Mortimer, Jones, McGraith, Andrew all hopeless and would happily show them all the door the now

Livingstone must be played at LB, Need to play 3 in narrow midfield and the best forward outside the prem league needs to be played to his strength not out wide or in a deeper role to accommodate Jones who is hopeless and won’t score double figures this year.  Be surprised if scores more than 5 in league

It is these decisions that are worrying and questions Danny’s ability to sort it out

Happy to give him the first quarter of season and see where we are but think things could turn in the next 5 games which are hard games 

 

[Clyde soccer trendy]

That was woeful and the buck stops with Danny Lennon. Putting out a team to accommodate Jones whilst playing Goodwillie out on the wing was criminal.
Some of the signings have been incredibly bad and it’s going to be a long long season.
First time I’ve seen the fans turn on Lennon and think it was totally justified.
The board haven’t got a clue and the way that they run our “wonderful “
club is nothing short of shambolic.

[ScottR96]

15 hours ago, Bullyweeno1 said:

The buck stops with Danny

His aftermatch comments he apologised to the fans to say was unacceptable  - so what next. 

 

 

 

Probably just more sound bites about how much he loves the club and how we’ve got to stick together. Actually watched a video recently of his post match interview from when he won the LC with St Mirren and his comments are scarily familiar. “I’ve fallen in love with this club and it’s the privilege of my life to manage here”. Birthday card pish. 
 

We can moan about the budget all we want but whatever budget he has had, he’s pissed up the wall. I think he has enough credit in the bank to be given a chance, of course, but it’s running out quickly. That said, given our off field activity, particularly the two clowns co opted onto the board recently, I’m not hopeful of this ending well. 

[Bully Wee Clyde FC]

1 hour ago, ScottR96 said:

Probably just more ...
 

We can moan about the budget all we want but whatever budget he has had, he’s pissed up the wall. I think he has enough credit in the bank to be given a chance, of course, but it’s running out quickly. That said, given our off field activity, particularly the two clowns co opted onto the board recently, I’m not hopeful of this ending well. 

Who are the 2 clowns? There are only the 5 fairly long-standing directors according to your highly accurate website.

[FREDDYFRY]

So that’s almost 24 since I watched that utter dross yesterday, I have witnessed most of the Clyde teams now for the last 50 odd seasons ranging from  good, poor and abysmal.. yesterday was bordering on the abysmal, up there with anything Chapman put on offer.

As I’ve said before I cannot believe Danny Lennon  and Allan Moore given their experience in the game have signed the players they have done. ( where was Moore yesterday btw? On holiday?).  It was staggering to watch and no point in going over it all again.

Way forward? Well I honestly can’t see a way forward. Yes playing Goodie up front will help, not playing Jones and Docherty ever again would help, but I am afraid we are still miles off. Only Mitchell (who was poor also yesterday) Gomis if used correctly, Cuddihy and Goodwillie are anywhere close to being of L1 standard. No one else in that team is and I include Ally Love in that assessment, perhaps as a sub as maybe as maybe Splain also. 

Issue of course is that all the players are under contract so they can’t be shown the door, as has been suggested. Unless a panic influx and a massive slice of luck that they are actually any good then we are fecked this year, simple as that. Yes it’s one game but I’ve seen far to many relegation teams and I’m afraid that that lot yesterday are exactly that!
Dumbarton were not great yesterday, far from it but we’re still player for player better than us, how can that be? Certainly not budget

So Danny, action and answers please and now!

[Jan Vojáček]

1 minute ago, FREDDYFRY said:

Dumbarton were not great yesterday, far from it but we’re still player for player better than us, how can that be? Certainly not budget

I think that's a bit harsh.

As bad as Clyde were, Sons played them off the park and if we had left with a 4/5-0 victory I don't think anyone could've had any complaints.  Three goals and a clean sheet away from home is a decent achievement for any team in this league. 

[FREDDYFRY]

Didn’t mean to upset any Dumbarton fans, your team were well worth it no argument, however we were as bad as any of our previous rotten sides and Dumbarton were not tested at all. 

[Guest]

I try to never criticise the team. They are mostly young guys doing a part time job for our entertainment, fair play to them. However, that yesterday was one of the worst Clyde performances I have ever seen. That reminded me of a Stuart Millar team never mind Jim Chapman. 

Danny's recruitment has been woeful, it's probably a combination of depleted budget and really poor judgement of a player.  Is Docherty better than McNiff? Is Jones better than Norway? Tactics also, playing long balls against Dumbarton is always going to end in disaster. Playing Goodwillie anywhere but number 9 is scandalous. If you must play Jones play two upfront. 

It's obvious to me that the standard of club at the bottom of League Two will be better in ten years than it is now, clubs know this too and some have panicked to avoid relegation, Queen's Park have gone full Gretna to avoid it after all. We have the safety net of being in League one of course but what happens if this season is as disastrous as it looks like it might be? We'll be back in League Two needing to take on debt to get back out again. 

To me, the board are incapable, or unwilling, or build a proper structure and always use Broadwood as an excuse, we have had plenty opportunity to leave. I see this as a steady slide into the Lowland League being replaced by several clubs with ambition. Club is rotten and have pissed away all the benefits of getting promoted. Covid has affected everyone it's no excuse.

 

Edited August 1, 2021 by RosspCfc

[Harry Haddock]

Very quiet on the Club’s site today.Not even the usual DL gibberish after a defeat.

Itis a pity the Owner’s Q&A has been taken down.I cannot be alone in wondering if DL really does have the final say on signings.The money spent on 5 of these duds could have attracted 2 players with the Cali record required in this league.

Something pending perhaps?

[Bullyweeno1]

23 minutes ago, Harry Haddock said:

Very quiet on the Club’s site today.Not even the usual DL gibberish after a defeat.

 

DL gibberish was on the website after the game

[Adolfo Rios]

Our budget is bigger this year going by what was presented by the FD not too long ago(20% up). Problem is, it's likely so too is every other team's.

We clearly need reinforcements and early signs aren't good and Danny playing about with positions we have to hope is trying to see what works and what won't. But writing off guys like McGrath is unfair just now. Let these guys have more than 20 minutes before condemning them to the scrap heap IMO.

Yesterday was shambolic, there is no disguising or getting away from it. Was it up there with Stuart Millar days etc? Not for me. We had a game were every single player, whether you class them as good to not up to standard, was off it(to say the least) and Dumbarton were on it. That can happen in football but work has to be done to stop it before it becomes habit.

Loan markets have been ok for us (Lang, Otoo, Jamieson) and it's that now that I expect we will go down. We need about 4 I would say of that calibre and success to help this team that already look shot of any confidence they had.

It's never easy eh?
 

Edited August 9, 2021 by Adolfo Rios