Ross County's Next Permanent Manager

[Merkincher Clach & County]

1 hour ago, TheScarf said:

What's your definition of ambition? Relying on soft loans from an Oil and Gas business owner?

I was referring to the negative ambition of a supporter  in the championship, nothing to do with Caley.

At least as a club they have ambition.

 

 

[Merkincher Clach & County]

2 hours ago, Szamo's_Ammo said:

Sign anyone who has ever played for ICT and now appointing their ex-managers as well.

Would Ross County not be as well moving The Caledonian Stadium over the bridge?

Oh! Caley have never signed ex Ross County players?

Oh! Yes they have.

Oh! I’m not going to answer the second part of your ridiculous statement.

 

[YassinMoutaouakil]

This is going to be smashing either way. We're either going to see raging John Hughes get relegated again -which is always hilarious- or we're going to see someone else get relegated by finishing below John Hughes, which might be even funnier.

[staggy1929]

44 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

How do you know that none of the names you've mentioned weren't approached? Maybe they all were and they all passed?

Even worse if that's the case

[Loki]

14 minutes ago, Merkincher Clach & County said:

Oh! Caley have never signed ex Ross County players?

Oh! Yes they have.

Oh! I’m not going to answer the second part of your ridiculous statement.

 

To be fair to Caley the ones they took from us enhanced their team or they improved.  The ones we sign come here for banter signings and the LOL we signed a Caley player nonsense.

We even paid fees for some of that dross.

[Dunning1874]

41 minutes ago, Broken Algorithms said:

It genuinely wouldn't surprise me if things work out for him at County. He'll get the backing of the chairman in a financial sense in a way we could never have dreamed of offering. Hughes tried to implement playing out the back from us - the main problem with that was it was reliant on having the likes of Jean Yves M'Voto - a lumbering centre back who was infamously bad on the ball - looking for passes forward to a midfield filled with utter pea-hearted shitebag loanees like Jordan Thomson (who is now an established internationalist somehow) or mediocre diminutive wide men like Chris Johnstone. 

It became absolutely clear after our game away to Hibs that Hughes had become aware that his reputation was going to take a bruising: St Mirren were in tremendous form and the players we had on the pitch (barring a few) were either low on confidence or eyeing up moves in the summer. Obviously, people will look at the St Mirren away post-match interview where he threw the players on the bus. There's the pre-match interview with Ayr where he claimed the kit-man (Simon Pollock) would give the team talk as he'd lose his job and have to go back to work on the railways if we were relegated (he never gave the team talk and is still working for the club despite relegation). Ryan Stevenson said on the Open Goal podcast that before one game, he drew a giant cock on a flipchart and unveiled it when he was going through his tactics.  It's clear that he thrives off bravado and the fact he's been out of a job for three years shows it was quite clear that chairmen have seen him as someone who threw a team under the bus. 

Some of our players (Craig Barr and Ryan Stevenson) said they enjoyed his training and coaching. Others utterly despise Hughes (Bobby Barr). It speaks volumes that someone like Kevin Cuthbert (who comes across as quite relaxed and mild mannered) seemingly ended up coming to blows with Hughes after the Brechin game. When we signed Hughes it was universally praised. I don't think I've ever seen as big a let-down in football as watching his tenure unfold. 

Thinking about Raith and St Mirren that season, talk about sliding doors moments in Scottish football.

That pre-season Jack Ross applied for the Raith job but for some reason they appointed Gary Locke. St Mirren start the season with  Alex Rae but sack him after 6 games with 3 points and offer the job to John Hughes. He turns it down and they go for Ross instead.

Fast forward to February, Locke is sacked after a run of 14 games without a win, at which time Raith are 4 points clear of Ayr and 11 clear of St Mirren. They appoint Hughes.

Having won 2 of their 23 games all season up to that point, Ross then turned St Mirren around, winning 7 and losing only 2 of their remaining 13 games. Meanwhile Raith won 4 and lost 7 of those 13 under Hughes, including 4-0 to Dumbarton and 5-0 to St Mirren. Dumbarton and St Mirren finished above them on goal difference, putting Raith into the playoffs where they lost on penalties to a Brechin team who would take four points from 36 games the next season.

St Mirren would go on to win the league the following season under Ross, while Raith spent three seasons in the seaside league after Hughes blamed everyone else and fucked off.

There is a parallel universe where Jack Ross got the Raith job that summer and they're now a Premiership club, while Hughes took the St Mirren job and turned them into Falkirk.

[19QOS19]

For those who are suggesting this isn't such a bad appointment, would you take Hughes at your club? I doubt it.

At this stage, absolutely.

[TheScarf]

14 minutes ago, Loki said:

To be fair to Caley the ones they took from us enhanced their team or they improved.  The ones we sign come here for banter signings and the LOL we signed a Caley player nonsense.

We even paid fees for some of that dross.

The one that stands out for me is Donaldson instead of McCart.  Donaldson was the one getting all the plaudits but any due diligence would've confirmed that McCart miles better.  Which you can probably see now.

Draper also you could say, he's barely off the treatment table.  Barely missed a game in 5 years for us.

[Loki]

I'm probably forgetting someone but the only ones I can recall that genuinely improved us were Vigurs and Munro.  Both released by Butcher, and both came here and were immense.

Ross Draper has done well for us when he has played.  But there is a long line of utter shite such as Tokely, Duncan, Tremarco, Donaldson, Chalmers etc that were just horrible signings.

Edited December 21, 2020 by Loki

[TheScarf]

Totally forgot you signed Joe Chalmers.  The epitome of Championship jobber.  That was a banter signing if ever I saw one.

[The Ghost of B A R P]

Wtf... A guy who would be fortunate to find a way back in at QoS or Arbroath gets a gig in the league above?

Dancing on the streets of Livingston, Hamilton, and Mirren...

[Comrie]

13 minutes ago, TheScarf said:

Totally forgot you signed Joe Chalmers.  The epitome of Championship jobber.  That was a banter signing if ever I saw one.

He did score a banger against Hibs away to rescue a point. Other than that he was totally unremarkable. Did little good or bad. We didn't try him at left back, at least.

[Sherrif John Bunnell]

I'm probably forgetting someone but the only ones I can recall that genuinely improved us were Vigurs and Munro.  Both released by Butcher, and both came here and were immense.
Ross Draper has done well for us when he has played.  But there is a long line of utter shite such as Tokely, Duncan, Tremarco, Donaldson, Chalmers etc that were just horrible signings.

Barrowman 2.0 was pretty good as well, despite being a loss less prolific than his first spell. Garry Wood also did us a good turn.

At least we have stopped signing their clownshoes goalkeepers.

[Sortmeout]

On 20/12/2020 at 12:04, Ric said:

The fans would be absolutely delighted for Adams to be appointed. Those fans are, of course, the ones that support Hamilton, St Johnstone, Livi, Kilmarnock, St Mirren, etc.

We will all look forward to the couple of seasons he'll be there; Winter and Spring.

I would take Derek Adams for Kilmarnock to be honest.

Although I was also feeling quite positive about Mark McGhee as an option before Steve Clarke came in so that shows what I know about football.

[CALDERON]

Interesting appointment to hire someone to firefight, who fought his last fire by pouring 30 gallons of petrol on it. 

 

[LiviLion]

2 hours ago, Merkincher Clach & County said:

Nobody forced you to read it once.

So why did you bother reading it shree times.

FTFY.

[Mr Positive, sometimes.]

5 hours ago, Nadroj said:

Have you ever watched an Alex Dyer interview? It’s the most soul destroying thing ever. 

At least Yogi would provide some comic relief at times

Is that worse than constantly blaming the board and lack of budget after a poor result?

Admittedly it's not like I watched loads of his Caley interviews but everytime I seemed to see him that's all he was going on about. 

[renton]

3 hours ago, Broken Algorithms said:

It genuinely wouldn't surprise me if things work out for him at County. He'll get the backing of the chairman in a financial sense in a way we could never have dreamed of offering. Hughes tried to implement playing out the back from us - the main problem with that was it was reliant on having the likes of Jean Yves M'Voto - a lumbering centre back who was infamously bad on the ball - looking for passes forward to a midfield filled with utter pea-hearted shitebag loanees like Jordan Thomson (who is now an established internationalist somehow) or mediocre diminutive wide men like Chris Johnstone. 

It became absolutely clear after our game away to Hibs that Hughes had become aware that his reputation was going to take a bruising: St Mirren were in tremendous form and the players we had on the pitch (barring a few) were either low on confidence or eyeing up moves in the summer. Obviously, people will look at the St Mirren away post-match interview where he threw the players on the bus. There's the pre-match interview with Ayr where he claimed the kit-man (Simon Pollock) would give the team talk as he'd lose his job and have to go back to work on the railways if we were relegated (he never gave the team talk and is still working for the club despite relegation). Ryan Stevenson said on the Open Goal podcast that before one game, he drew a giant cock on a flipchart and unveiled it when he was going through his tactics.  It's clear that he thrives off bravado and the fact he's been out of a job for three years shows it was quite clear that chairmen have seen him as someone who threw a team under the bus. 

Some of our players (Craig Barr and Ryan Stevenson) said they enjoyed his training and coaching. Others utterly despise Hughes (Bobby Barr, Joel Coustrain). It speaks volumes that someone like Kevin Cuthbert (who comes across as quite relaxed and mild mannered) seemingly ended up coming to blows with Hughes after the Brechin game. When we signed Hughes it was universally praised. I don't think I've ever seen as big a let-down in football as watching his tenure unfold. 

In some respects the damage was already done before Hughes arrived. Firstly letting our best player f**k off on loan. Second, not sacking Locke before the window opened, but most of all, giving the job to fucking Gary Locke to start with.

Having said that, while some may have appreciated his coaching, he didn't make us better, or even harder to beat. Iain Davidson would remark that whatever togetherness and confidence the side still had after January evaporated under Hughes. Kevin Cuthbert, largely sidelined by injury that season would make a late run at PotY by trying to throttle Hughes in the aftermath of the play off debacle.

While his post St Mirren interview is now the stuff of car crash legend, his team tactics and selection for that game particularly were way more bizarre. He remarked something about making sure everyone was a few yards from each other... Bobby Barr was up front? Fucking madness.

While we were an undoubted mess that season, I think another coach with less ego might have kept us up (given the slim 1 point margin that did for us in the end) simply by going very, very basic. Make us hard to beat and long ball the f**k into channels for Declan McManus to chase and feed into Ryan Hardie, an outstanding forward at that level.

As it was, he wanted to bring in his patented means of playing, and refused to try and keep it simple and in the end, despite the horrendous mess Gary Locke left for him, his utter failure to even start to make inroads into it makes him pretty evenly culpable for that disaster of a season.

Edited December 21, 2020 by renton

[staggy1929]

'Siege mentality' and 'prove the doubters wrong' both mentioned, We're finished.

Edited December 21, 2020 by staggy1929

[parsforlife]

5 hours ago, LIVIFOREVER said:

. Our 4-0 humping off Dunfermline was a real low, with him refusing to give up on his predictable playing it out from the back style of footie, Pars players just stayed in our half waiting to mug our CB's when the keeper rolled the ball out to them.

 

After conceding a few from this goalkeeper got fed up and played it long once.   Hughes went ballistic at him.