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The Dundee United Thread 22/23


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18 minutes ago, FIFE ARABIAN said:

We never said we weren't going to sign any squad players.

I remember Sibbald being not too bad against us on a few occasions. 

There were boys playing for Alloa that looked great and played round us a couple of years back but doesn't mean we should sign them. He is mid/late 20's, so not young. released by Livi, has had health problems and was happy to play championship football. We have a whole host of young lads in midfield that would do well at that level and I feel we should be using/developing them instead of paying a (albeit a not large) wage to a boy that will be a squad filler. 

If he does sign will fully get behind the lad and I hope I'm wrong but don' t think hes an improvement on what we have. 

Edit .. beaten to it by seconds by ArabFC

Edited by low-life
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I don’t even know what a Craig Sibbald is, let alone what it does. 
 

Having Googled him, I’m not much the wiser. Transfermarkt has him down as a LW, he’s  certainly not a goal scoring midfielder, and he doesn’t rack up the assists either. However if we are planning on playing with wingers we will need more bodies on board. Given his record with wingers I think Jack could get a tune out of Niskanen. Hopefully the same will be true here. If we get a couple of years out of him as a low cost squad player it will have worked out fine for everyone. 
 

Although, if our well funded academy should be producing anything on a semi-regular basis, it should be precisely “low cost squad players”. 

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28 minutes ago, invergowrie arab said:

Off the top of my head we have Levitt, Harkes, Niskanen, Pawlett, Mochrie, Glass, Meekison, Cudjoe with Freeman and Smith capable of stepping in in an emergency.

Think that's plenty 

Can’t we get rid of Pawlett?

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Thinking of players United signed over the last couple of decades who left me a bit underwhelmed initially,  the likes of Jamie Dolan, Darren Dods, Jim Hamilton and Noel Hunt come to mind. Further back Stuart Beedie or Geordie Fleming.....

All great servants to the club, but I'll admit to being able to name more who struggled to impress.

So if Sibbald signs I hope to be pleasantly surprised. 

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1 hour ago, low-life said:

There were boys playing for Alloa that looked great and played round us a couple of years back but doesn't mean we should sign them. He is mid/late 20's, so not young. released by Livi, has had health problems and was happy to play championship football. We have a whole host of young lads in midfield that would do well at that level and I feel we should be using/developing them instead of paying a (albeit a not large) wage to a boy that will be a squad filler. 

If he does sign will fully get behind the lad and I hope I'm wrong but don' t think hes an improvement on what we have. 

Edit .. beaten to it by seconds by ArabFC

Reports elsewhere suggest he was offered a new deal by Livi and the opinion on their thread seems to have been that he was one of their best players when fit. Problem was he simply couldn't get himself fit again after getting covid. The link to Dunfermline also looks rather tenuous. United were apparently after him before he went to Livi and he was better than decent against United in the Championship (albeit against an utterly rancid United side).

If he's fit then it looks a decent signing to me, although I would worry a bit that it pushes Meekison down the pecking order.

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7 hours ago, ArabianKnight said:

Had a think on this. Absolutely against it. 

Just pushes promising youngsters from the academy down the pecking order. 

If he was a stand out then I'd be for it, but for me he isn't. He was a good young player, but as you say it blocks (potentially) a young player from the 1st team. We have young players who from what I've seen could be every bit as good as Sibbald if not better if given games.

Also willing to eat humble pie if it does go through, he is over his issues & won't tire like Erskine, and he works well in the team.

Edited by Tannadeechee
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4 hours ago, Pull My Strings said:

Reports elsewhere suggest he was offered a new deal by Livi and the opinion on their thread seems to have been that he was one of their best players when fit. Problem was he simply couldn't get himself fit again after getting covid. The link to Dunfermline also looks rather tenuous. United were apparently after him before he went to Livi and he was better than decent against United in the Championship (albeit against an utterly rancid United side).

If he's fit then it looks a decent signing to me, although I would worry a bit that it pushes Meekison down the pecking order.

That's wrong. We gave him a chance to earn a deal when he was back fit and in the end we didn't offer him a deal. He signed a precontract with Dunfermline and almost went there in January on loan, it fell through as Dunfermline wouldn't pay all his wages for the loan. The deal for him to go there though was 100% done and signed, if they had stayed up he'd be their player right now. 

The bit about not being able to get himself fit again post-COVID is true but misses out that other significant health problems played a factor in that too. For me though he was never one of our best players, he always went on runs where he looked like he could go on to be that but broke down due to injury every time

Edited by ATLIS
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What's the expectation for you lads this season?

Seem to have spent quite a bit on Levitt, Fletcher and of course, the new manager but having lost Siegrist, increase in amount of games due to Europe and 4th looking like it'd require a team to maybe be considerably better than last season, would you be content with bottom 6 or would that be grounds for the pitchfork treatment?

Genuinely curious, not a trolling attempt.

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1 hour ago, ATLIS said:

That's wrong. We gave him a chance to earn a deal when he was back fit and in the end we didn't offer him a deal. He signed a precontract with Dunfermline and almost went there in January on loan, it fell through as Dunfermline wouldn't pay all his wages for the loan. The deal for him to go there though was 100% done and signed, if they had stayed up he'd be their player right now. 

The bit about not being able to get himself fit again post-COVID is true but misses out that other significant health problems played a factor in that too. For me though he was never one of our best players, he always went on runs where he looked like he could go on to be that but broke down due to injury every time

Just going by the comments in the Livi thread. If it's a load of shite then it's shite from your fellow posters, and from you.

On 18/05/2022 at 13:16, Cptn Hooch said:
On 18/05/2022 at 13:14, third lanark said:
Has there been any rumours as to where McMillan and Sibbald are going? Would have been happy with both at Firhill 

Sibbald apparently has something in place with Dunfermline but not sure how concrete that is after their relegation. Both could easily sign for a premiership team but suspect they'll drop to championship. Thistle would be a decent shout for Jack after his previous success there

This appears to be the only reference to Sibbald going to Dunfermline. Looks pretty tenuous to me. No doubt you'll be able to provide an authoritative source for the deal being 100% done.

On 12/04/2022 at 21:58, ATLIS said:

The summer could be an interesting one for us

We could end up with cash for Fitzwater and Anderson and use it to clear the debt and maybe look at using some of it on the squad for once. I think there was also interest in Stryjek too possibly.

Out of contract we've got:

Forrest (been offered a deal, will likely leave), Hamilton (offered a deal, will likely stay), Jacobs (sadly will likely leave), Pignatiello (wouldn't surprise me to see him leave), Poplatnik (Will probably leave), Sibbald (been offered a deal), McMillan (will likely leave), Kelly (could leave but wouldn't be surprised if Martindale gives him another year), Parkes (will likely leave), Bartley (already non-playing), Maley (basically non-playing), Reilly (will likely leave)


 

Here's you reporting that Sibbald had been offered a deal.

On 19/10/2021 at 23:07, LIVIFOREVER said:

Wonder what our best XI would be this season, i'd def want Anderson up front, and Bailey in an attacking mid 3, here's where it gets tricky for me though, a fully fit Sibbald would be a must, imo he's our best player, but a fully fit Shinnie would be there too, and i like Forrest, and can't leave out Pittman, not when he's looking back to his old self, but they can't all play.

 

 

And one of your chums opining that he's your best player (I toned it down to 'one of' because these assessments are always subjective.

I've no personal knowledge of Sibbald's time at Livi so if the posts in your thread from fellow Livi fans are bollocks then fair enough. 

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Just now, Pull My Strings said:

Just going by the comments in the Livi thread. If it's a load of shite then it's shite from your fellow posters, and from you.

This appears to be the only reference to Sibbald going to Dunfermline. Looks pretty tenuous to me. No doubt you'll be able to provide an authoritative source for the deal being 100% done.

Here's you reporting that Sibbald had been offered a deal.

And one of your chums opining that he's your best player (I toned it down to 'one of' because these assessments are always subjective.

I've no personal knowledge of Sibbald's time at Livi so if the posts in your thread from fellow Livi fans are bollocks then fair enough. 

Sibbald to Dunfermline was confirmed by Callum Carson I'm pretty sure on our Facebook Livi group, he's the reporter from Livi and it's likely came from Martindale himself or Sibbald. He's always ahead on deals etc and seems to have an inside track at the ongoings with the club. The deal was 100% done I'm willing to say just based off of Carson's reputation for getting Livi things right. 

I think the one where I'd posted he'd been offered a deal was an article at the time saying he'd have a chance to earn a deal which looked all but certain at the time. I think that was before the specifics of his COVID ordeal came out though.

Sibbald is probably comfortably a squad player for us, but looking back at his time with us he was never someone that was our best player. He always had spells where it looked like he could go on to be our best player but either lost form or got injured. A lot of his good performances seemed to come when we were shite as well, and he stood out amongst players who weren't doing great. 

One of the main issues with him is that he was never fully fit for more than 2-3 weeks. He spent multiple 2+ month spells out injured with us in 3-4 years. 
 

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50 minutes ago, Ludo*1 said:

What's the expectation for you lads this season?

Seem to have spent quite a bit on Levitt, Fletcher and of course, the new manager but having lost Siegrist, increase in amount of games due to Europe and 4th looking like it'd require a team to maybe be considerably better than last season, would you be content with bottom 6 or would that be grounds for the pitchfork treatment?

Genuinely curious, not a trolling attempt.

For me top 6. Bottom 6 would be a failure. Eriksson's stats, all be it from the Swedish top league, were better than Siegrist's, better than Zander Clark's so I'm not seeing a big drop there. We've upgraded McNulty with Fletcher to allow us someone who can hold the ball up to bring Watt, Clark and the midfield into play amd has an aerial presence.

McGrath is still a target, no matter what happens with Sibbald and we still to bring in someone to compete with Eriksson. I think the basics of a decent team was there, just think if Ross allows them to play with more pace, stops the team trying to walk the ball into the net amd plays players in their proper position  ( Niskanen on wing not left back) it should bring some improvement. Will that be enough to stay 4th or compete for 3rd this year we'll have to wait and see.

My big concern is if a bid comes in for Edwards would we be able to bring in a comparable CH in time.

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1 hour ago, Ludo*1 said:

What's the expectation for you lads this season?

Seem to have spent quite a bit on Levitt, Fletcher and of course, the new manager but having lost Siegrist, increase in amount of games due to Europe and 4th looking like it'd require a team to maybe be considerably better than last season, would you be content with bottom 6 or would that be grounds for the pitchfork treatment?

Genuinely curious, not a trolling attempt.

For me its got to be top 6. Anything less would be seen as a backwards step imo. Hibs and Aberdeen will be better but with our squad and spending we should be looking at 6th at least.

Obviously if there are horrendous injuries and suspension etc etc then fair enough but I think we've now got a manager who will get enough out of the players at his disposal to get top 6.

If we perform like this past season and finish bottom 6 then it'll be the whole tool shed never mind a pitch fork.

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26 minutes ago, Tannadeechee said:

For me top 6. Bottom 6 would be a failure. Eriksson's stats, all be it from the Swedish top league, were better than Siegrist's, better than Zander Clark's so I'm not seeing a big drop there. We've upgraded McNulty with Fletcher to allow us someone who can hold the ball up to bring Watt, Clark and the midfield into play amd has an aerial presence.

McGrath is still a target, no matter what happens with Sibbald and we still to bring in someone to compete with Eriksson. I think the basics of a decent team was there, just think if Ross allows them to play with more pace, stops the team trying to walk the ball into the net amd plays players in their proper position  ( Niskanen on wing not left back) it should bring some improvement. Will that be enough to stay 4th or compete for 3rd this year we'll have to wait and see.

My big concern is if a bid comes in for Edwards would we be able to bring in a comparable CH in time.

Someone will have to pay big money to get Edwards imo. And with Mulgrew and Graham id think we'd be OK in the short term.

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