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The Queen of the South thread


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2 hours ago, Frankie S said:

I’m in agreement with qos_75 (who seems to be from my neck of the woods) - last year’s squad was the worst I’ve seen representing Queens in recent seasons, and given some of the motley collections of journeymen, randoms from English non-league football that blew into Palmerston for a pre-season trial and ended up with a contract, callow youths, has-beens and never-will-bes that were haphazardly thrown together at the last minute for some of our recent campaigns, that’s an astonishing achievement. Having said that, the squad from the Covid-curtailed 2019-20 season was almost as bad. The likes of Dobbie, Brownlie, Holt, Bakhtaoui and McCrorie gives 2019-20 the edge in quality over last season’s team for me.

The strikers last term were a particularly dismal collection of imposters, but there were very few goals coming from anywhere in the team, with the midfield seemingly abdicating responsibility for getting on the scoresheet, or indeed for creating anything much at all.

The 2020-21 team had much more collective firepower, as 38 goals from 27 games attested (compared to a pathetic 36 from 36 in 2021-22) and with the pace of Isaiah Jones and Dapo Mebude, allied to the respectable goal tallies of Shields and Obileye, we often looked like we’d score a few (the 4-2 win at Arbroath in March 2021 springs to mind - we could have had half a dozen that day, as well as great 3-2 wins at Dundee and Hearts). Even James Maxwell chipped in with a few from left back that season. 

I’d contend that if Jones hadn’t got injured in that match at Arbroath, we would have been strong candidates for the promotion playoffs.

By contrast, I can barely think of a single exciting attacking performance in 2021-22 - we just didn’t have sufficient pace, skill, guile or goals in the team to threaten to blow anyone away. I streamed more or less every game last season, home and away, but towards the end of the season felt like it was a complete waste of time, as we carried absolutely no threat in attacking areas, and the deficiencies of our hapless strikers (Soares-Junior, Roy and Cameron really were useless, they made me pine for the likes of Derek Holmes) were never going to be compensated for by a shot-shy midfield, (with the notable exception of the excellent Lee Connelly). It’s not often that I can barely be bothered to watch Queens, but last season was a real chore at times, so lacking were we in creativity or cutting edge.

To be fair, the defence wasn’t quite as catastrophically bad as it has been in the past (and FWIW I quite liked the much-maligned Robert Nditi), but given we couldn’t score in the proverbial bordello, any mistakes at the back were likely to prove costlier than in a team with even a semblance of an attacking threat.

There are a few players that we’ve retained that I’m happy about (Connelly, Cochrane, McKay, Todd) but to be honest, I wouldn’t have shed a tear had we jettisoned almost the entire squad at the end of the last campaign. More or less starting again from scratch every season over the last few years has been one of the chief contributing factors to losing our Championship status, but if ever a clear out was deserved, then it was this summer.

I also don’t subscribe to the view that we were a team transformed after Gibson took over - there was a brief glimpse of the almost obligatory ‘new manger bounce’, but we then contrived to lose six in a row in March and early April, including meek surrenders to a poor Hamilton team (who had our number all last season) and the gutless 5-1 capitulation at Arbroath, and of course the failure to see off a poor Ayr United team at Palmerston in the penultimate match of the campaign. 

I genuinely think the first division last season was the poorest standard it’s been in the last decade at least, and Inverness getting blown away by a poor St Johnstone team in the play-offs, and the lofty finishing position of a well-coached but far from stellar Arbroath side, support that, not to mention the utterly shambolic campaigns mounted by Hamilton, Morton, Ayr United and Dunfermline, all of whom finished above us in the table.

Gibson’s approach to the transfer market this summer has been refreshing in the sense that he has made a lot of signings early on, so we won’t have to rely on scrambling around the bargain basement and the loan markets for whatever’s left as we struggle to fill the bench in the Premier Cup campaign, as has generally been the case in recent seasons. However, playing Devil’s advocate for a moment, it’s been a fairly conservative approach in that we have re-signed a lot of last season’s flops, and we’ve recruited a bunch of former players (Reilly, Murray, Wilson), which isn’t always a successful strategy. I’m hopeful that some players who looked a little out of their depth in the Championship (e.g. Paton) might prosper in League One, though that’s hope rather than expectation talking. I’m not sure Reilly has done an awful lot in recent seasons, and his scoring record since he left St Mirren in 2018 has hardly been prolific, wherever he’s been. He’s another one where hope trumps expectancy, but surely he’ll grab a few in League One. Murray I didn’t particularly rate last time round, so neither hope nor expectancy comes into play there, but I hope he’s improved since his last spell at the club. Wilson is a decent signing, and there are one or two others that look promising, albeit a couple seem to be downgrades on their direct equivalents from last season, which is concerning. Delighted that Lee Connelly has re-signed. I expect an outstanding season from him, and I think Harry Cochrane has the quality to stand out next term.

I hope Michael Ruth proves to be a good acquisition, because I still don’t see an awful lot of goals in that team, though presumably we’ll be more prolific than last season, playing at a level lower. I think it’s reasonable to predict that we’ll have enough to be in contention for the play off positions, and it wouldn’t surprise me if we finished third or fourth, but think we’re 2 or 3 key players away from a title challenge as it stands.

Really decent post that ... I'd struggle to argue with any of it. 👍

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2 hours ago, Frankie S said:

I’m in agreement with qos_75 (who seems to be from my neck of the woods) - last year’s squad was the worst I’ve seen representing Queens in recent seasons, and given some of the motley collections of journeymen, randoms from English non-league football that blew into Palmerston for a pre-season trial and ended up with a contract, callow youths, has-beens and never-will-bes that were haphazardly thrown together at the last minute for some of our recent campaigns, that’s an astonishing achievement. Having said that, the squad from the Covid-curtailed 2019-20 season was almost as bad. The likes of Dobbie, Brownlie, Holt, Bakhtaoui and McCrorie gives 2019-20 the edge in quality over last season’s team for me.

The strikers last term were a particularly dismal collection of imposters, but there were very few goals coming from anywhere in the team, with the midfield seemingly abdicating responsibility for getting on the scoresheet, or indeed for creating anything much at all.

The 2020-21 team had much more collective firepower, as 38 goals from 27 games attested (compared to a pathetic 36 from 36 in 2021-22) and with the pace of Isaiah Jones and Dapo Mebude, allied to the respectable goal tallies of Shields and Obileye, we often looked like we’d score a few (the 4-2 win at Arbroath in March 2021 springs to mind - we could have had half a dozen that day, as well as great 3-2 wins at Dundee and Hearts). Even James Maxwell chipped in with a few from left back that season. 

I’d contend that if Jones hadn’t got injured in that match at Arbroath, we would have been strong candidates for the promotion playoffs.

By contrast, I can barely think of a single exciting attacking performance in 2021-22 - we just didn’t have sufficient pace, skill, guile or goals in the team to threaten to blow anyone away. I streamed more or less every game last season, home and away, but towards the end of the season felt like it was a complete waste of time, as we carried absolutely no threat in attacking areas, and the deficiencies of our hapless strikers (Soares-Junior, Roy and Cameron really were useless, they made me pine for the likes of Derek Holmes) were never going to be compensated for by a shot-shy midfield, (with the notable exception of the excellent Lee Connelly). It’s not often that I can barely be bothered to watch Queens, but last season was a real chore at times, so lacking were we in creativity or cutting edge.

To be fair, the defence wasn’t quite as catastrophically bad as it has been in the past (and FWIW I quite liked the much-maligned Robert Nditi), but given we couldn’t score in the proverbial bordello, any mistakes at the back were likely to prove costlier than in a team with even a semblance of an attacking threat.

There are a few players that we’ve retained that I’m happy about (Connelly, Cochrane, McKay, Todd) but to be honest, I wouldn’t have shed a tear had we jettisoned almost the entire squad at the end of the last campaign. More or less starting again from scratch every season over the last few years has been one of the chief contributing factors to losing our Championship status, but if ever a clear out was deserved, then it was this summer.

I also don’t subscribe to the view that we were a team transformed after Gibson took over - there was a brief glimpse of the almost obligatory ‘new manger bounce’, but we then contrived to lose six in a row in March and early April, including meek surrenders to a poor Hamilton team (who had our number all last season) and the gutless 5-1 capitulation at Arbroath, and of course the failure to see off a poor Ayr United team at Palmerston in the penultimate match of the campaign. 

I genuinely think the first division last season was the poorest standard it’s been in the last decade at least, and Inverness getting blown away by a poor St Johnstone team in the play-offs, and the lofty finishing position of a well-coached but far from stellar Arbroath side, support that, not to mention the utterly shambolic campaigns mounted by Hamilton, Morton, Ayr United and Dunfermline, all of whom finished above us in the table.

Gibson’s approach to the transfer market this summer has been refreshing in the sense that he has made a lot of signings early on, so we won’t have to rely on scrambling around the bargain basement and the loan markets for whatever’s left as we struggle to fill the bench in the Premier Cup campaign, as has generally been the case in recent seasons. However, playing Devil’s advocate for a moment, it’s been a fairly conservative approach in that we have re-signed a lot of last season’s flops, and we’ve recruited a bunch of former players (Reilly, Murray, Wilson), which isn’t always a successful strategy. I’m hopeful that some players who looked a little out of their depth in the Championship (e.g. Paton) might prosper in League One, though that’s hope rather than expectation talking. I’m not sure Reilly has done an awful lot in recent seasons, and his scoring record since he left St Mirren in 2018 has hardly been prolific, wherever he’s been. He’s another one where hope trumps expectancy, but surely he’ll grab a few in League One. Murray I didn’t particularly rate last time round, so neither hope nor expectancy comes into play there, but I hope he’s improved since his last spell at the club. Wilson is a decent signing, and there are one or two others that look promising, albeit a couple seem to be downgrades on their direct equivalents from last season, which is concerning. Delighted that Lee Connelly has re-signed. I expect an outstanding season from him, and I think Harry Cochrane has the quality to stand out next term.

I hope Michael Ruth proves to be a good acquisition, because I still don’t see an awful lot of goals in that team, though presumably we’ll be more prolific than last season, playing at a level lower. I think it’s reasonable to predict that we’ll have enough to be in contention for the play off positions, and it wouldn’t surprise me if we finished third or fourth, but think we’re 2 or 3 key players away from a title challenge as it stands.

Really good post I agree with it all.

Wullie next 2 signing are crucial a wide player and a big forward they  could make all the difference somehow we need to get real quality in  

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42 minutes ago, Greenacres said:

Really good post I agree with it all.

Wullie next 2 signing are crucial a wide player and a big forward they  could make all the difference somehow we need to get real quality in  

I don't get your fixation with the striker we sign, needing to be "big". 

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Continuing the trend of long posts... 😆

In a strange way the re-signing of several of last seasons players has rekindled some of my enthusiasm toward the club.  The signs were good in the first couple of months of last season and we bore witness to a more watchable style of play than the previous season.  Then our then main goal threat at the time, Roy, got injured and from that moment on AJ began to move players from position to position and tinkered with formations and didn't stop doing so until he was punted.  Our forwards were basically extremely rank, but even they weren't helped when we set up with a 10 man defence in the Kilmarnock games for example.

As I say though, Wullie's re-signing of players and adding new faces early on are big positives, partly because AJ's approach seemed to be to hold off, hold off and then assemble a grab-bag's worth of whoever is available without actually identifying a system he wanted to play or who to target to fill certain roles meaning that he messed about for nearly half a season and still didn't have a clue what his best team was.

Keeping Cochrane and Connelly - two players who did manage to look like they have Championship quality - and adding Wilson are big positives for me, but several of the other retained players have shown in fits and starts that, if utilised correctly, they can perform.

However, I also feel upbeat purely because we haven't ditched the entire squad as it is a sign that the players who are still here have some commitment to the club.  The most infuriating thing about AJ's transfer policy was the revolving door here-for-a-season then fucking off / being told to f**k off aspect which gave little chance for fans to bond with players who I felt either saw Queens as nothing more than a stepping-stone to better things (Ayo / Shields) or were only here because no-one else would touch them (Buchanan / Ruben / Debayo / Joseph).

I guess what I'm meaning is that having players around the place long-term who look like they care and feel like part of the furniture, even if they aren't the greatest of talents (you know, the George Cloy / Derek Lyle* / Dobbs * / Paul Burns / Nobby Clark /JTs of this world) just makes me feel more enthusiastic about the club in general and keener to watch them play.

ETA - * clearly this pair were rather talented!

Edited by Slipmat
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1 hour ago, Greenacres said:

So we can mix it up top gives us another option.

The problem is if you play a big striker up top the natural tendency will be to lump balls up to him all game so attacks by passing on the deck through midfield to the strikers diminishes. It would be ok if your big striker was reasonably mobile and competent with the ball on the deck which would help give us a bit of variety to try different attacking styles if needed. I personally don't share the opinion that one of the strikers necessarily MUST be a big target man. 

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14 hours ago, Slipmat said:

Continuing the trend of long posts... 😆

In a strange way the re-signing of several of last seasons players has rekindled some of my enthusiasm toward the club.  The signs were good in the first couple of months of last season and we bore witness to a more watchable style of play than the previous season.  Then our then main goal threat at the time, Roy, got injured and from that moment on AJ began to move players from position to position and tinkered with formations and didn't stop doing so until he was punted.  Our forwards were basically extremely rank, but even they weren't helped when we set up with a 10 man defence in the Kilmarnock games for example.

As I say though, Wullie's re-signing of players and adding new faces early on are big positives, partly because AJ's approach seemed to be to hold off, hold off and then assemble a grab-bag's worth of whoever is available without actually identifying a system he wanted to play or who to target to fill certain roles meaning that he messed about for nearly half a season and still didn't have a clue what his best team was.

Keeping Cochrane and Connelly - two players who did manage to look like they have Championship quality - and adding Wilson are big positives for me, but several of the other retained players have shown in fits and starts that, if utilised correctly, they can perform.

However, I also feel upbeat purely because we haven't ditched the entire squad as it is a sign that the players who are still here have some commitment to the club.  The most infuriating thing about AJ's transfer policy was the revolving door here-for-a-season then fucking off / being told to f**k off aspect which gave little chance for fans to bond with players who I felt either saw Queens as nothing more than a stepping-stone to better things (Ayo / Shields) or were only here because no-one else would touch them (Buchanan / Ruben / Debayo / Joseph).

I guess what I'm meaning is that having players around the place long-term who look like they care and feel like part of the furniture, even if they aren't the greatest of talents (you know, the George Cloy / Derek Lyle* / Dobbs * / Paul Burns / Nobby Clark /JTs of this world) just makes me feel more enthusiastic about the club in general and keener to watch them play.

ETA - * clearly this pair were rather talented!

Generally agree with this post. 👍

Just one thought on the matter of ditching the full squad each end of season ... we're laying the blame for this strategy at AJ's door, but (to be fair to AJ) I do wonder if this possibly was a cash-saving constraint imposed on AJ by our BOD?  Could it just be possible that in taking on the job Gibson has told the BOD that he'd only take the role provided he gets to offer some longer term contracts for key signing targets to try to build in some increased commitment and continuity moving forwards?  Just a thought ...

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11 hours ago, Fae_the_'briggs said:

The problem is if you play a big striker up top the natural tendency will be to lump balls up to him all game so attacks by passing on the deck through midfield to the strikers diminishes. It would be ok if your big striker was reasonably mobile and competent with the ball on the deck which would help give us a bit of variety to try different attacking styles if needed. I personally don't share the opinion that one of the strikers necessarily MUST be a big target man. 

I get your point like last season we just fired high balls at Cameron missing out midfield  but as I said it is just another option to have someone good in the air up top as we don't have that just now. 

In the press now that Gordon Marshall is the new goalkeeper coach.

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11 hours ago, Fae_the_'briggs said:

The problem is if you play a big striker up top the natural tendency will be to lump balls up to him all game so attacks by passing on the deck through midfield to the strikers diminishes. It would be ok if your big striker was reasonably mobile and competent with the ball on the deck which would help give us a bit of variety to try different attacking styles if needed.

1 minute ago, Greenacres said:

I get your point like last season we just fired high balls at Cameron missing out midfield  but as I said it is just another option to have someone good in the air up top as we don't have that just now. 

I'm not a great fan of "big strikers" either (because of the lump it up the park game), but to be fair they're not necessarily a bad option; it depends on the actual player.  By nature, they do tend not to be the most mobile (with exceptions of course), but you want them to be able to put their physique to good effect - bully the central defenders and create havoc at corners, set pieces etc.  Ideally, you also want that sort of striker to have some skill with the ball at his feet for taking the ball in and retaining possession to get us up the park and/or playing a decent pass off to the midfielders following.  The ability to actually know where the net is goes without saying.

The problem is finding such a "big striker".  It's difficult at our level to find a big striker with all of the above attributes.  My memory thinks back to big Derek Holmes (as others have mentioned recently).  DH never seemed that mobile but he used his physique well, held possession and brought us up the park well.  More recently of course we had Lyndon Dykes, more mobile and more pacy than DH but very effective.

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15 minutes ago, QoS99 said:

He’ll still be out our price range 

That is a relief.

I would be surprised if anyone gambled on him again. He seems to have been completely disinterested in football for several years.

It would be madness if any team decided to blow a significant part of their budget on him. 

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The ones wanting a big tall striker are the same folk who grumbled in our last stint in League 1 when we were 3-0 up and holding the ball instead of launching it up the park, aren't they?

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3 hours ago, Otis Blue said:

Leigh Griffiths a free agent ... should we be worried?  Thoughts?

2 hours ago, QoS99 said:

He’ll still be out our price range 

2 hours ago, qos_75 said:

That is a relief.

I would be surprised if anyone gambled on him again. He seems to have been completely disinterested in football for several years.

It would be madness if any team decided to blow a significant part of their budget on him. 

For clarity, I'm not advocating that we make a move for LG.  He seems to be in the mould of Riordan and O'Connor of Hibs - talented but troubled with loads of baggage and overall the cons outweigh the pros.

Expensive option? - not sure; his profile is on the wane now - didn't exactly set the heather on fire in L1 at Falkirk last season.  Can't imagine there would be too many higher level suitors tripping each other up to sign him.

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4 hours ago, Otis Blue said:

Generally agree with this post. 👍

Just one thought on the matter of ditching the full squad each end of season ... we're laying the blame for this strategy at AJ's door, but (to be fair to AJ) I do wonder if this possibly was a cash-saving constraint imposed on AJ by our BOD?  Could it just be possible that in taking on the job Gibson has told the BOD that he'd only take the role provided he gets to offer some longer term contracts for key signing targets to try to build in some increased commitment and continuity moving forwards?  Just a thought ...

We've always signed the odd player on 2 year deals, Chima and Paton last year for example, if I remember rightly. 

Hard to see how it can have been a board strategy. If that was the case there would have been no 2 year deals at all. 

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Didn't Gibson allude to this in the article where he was critical of situation last summer where there were 40+ trialists at the club?

Generally agree with this post. [emoji106]
Just one thought on the matter of ditching the full squad each end of season ... we're laying the blame for this strategy at AJ's door, but (to be fair to AJ) I do wonder if this possibly was a cash-saving constraint imposed on AJ by our BOD?  Could it just be possible that in taking on the job Gibson has told the BOD that he'd only take the role provided he gets to offer some longer term contracts for key signing targets to try to build in some increased commitment and continuity moving forwards?  Just a thought ...
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5 hours ago, Homer Thompson said:

We've always signed the odd player on 2 year deals, Chima and Paton last year for example, if I remember rightly. 

Hard to see how it can have been a board strategy. If that was the case there would have been no 2 year deals at all. 

OK, fair point.  I think many of us have had the general impression though that its been very close to an entire squad change at the end of recent seasons.  As always, life isn't "black and white" its usually in shades of grey somewhere in between and it could have been the case that the preferred strategy passed down by the BOD to the manager was to minimise deals greater than 1 year whenever possible and anything else was by exception.  Was just trying to give AJ the benefit of the doubt here.  Good to see WGs present stance on this though.

3 hours ago, Alex Nesovic's Barmy Army said:

Didn't Gibson allude to this in the article where he was critical of situation last summer where there were 40+ trialists at the club?

Yes, I think he did mention that.

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Slightly surprised that there has been no announcement on season tickets yet.  Admittedly it is nearly 5 weeks until the first home league game, but in the (hopefully temporary) absence of our resident ITK poster does anyone have an inkling of when we will make an announcement and what the price might be? 

A tricky one for the Board.  Relegation and the cost of living crisis would suggest that there has to be a cut in prices from last year, but is there clear evidence that reducing prices leads to an increase in crowds?  The fans who drifted away are likely to return if we have a winning team, and it's debatable whether a £1/£2 will be a factor.

I can see the argument for holding the walk up price given we could have some decent away supports, but trimming the season ticket price to make it more enticing.  Last year the walk up price was £18 with a season ticket at £285, just under the price for 16 home games.   Personally I would go for holding the walk up price but reducing the season ticket price to £265/270.

Hopefully the delay means that the Club are planning to launch season tickets in combination with an exciting announcement in relation to a new signing!  Regardless it would surely make sense to have prices announced ahead of the end of the month when a lot of folk get paid.

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On 23/06/2022 at 21:12, Slipmat said:

As much as we Queens fans generally are in agreement Rae is a good keeper (and to be fair he will probably be the best in this division), I don't think any of us believe he is as good as Josh Rae himself thinks he is.

His farewell tweet said for him leaving was "a tough decision but one I had to make" which to me inferred that he saw his next move as an upward one, whether that may have been to a Championship side at worst or an English League side.  It looks to me like the flood of offers he had expected to receive from bigger clubs than either ourselves or Airdrie didn't arrive after all.   No disrespect to Airdrie, but moving down a division isn't really a career move that "has to be made".

Josh has moved to Airdrie to be closer to a family member who is really not well. A tough decision but one he had to make this year. 

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