capt_oats

Just having a browse through the players whose contracts are up at the end of the season and I see O'Donnell is out of contract with Luton as well. Different position obviously but given we're currently having to play one of our best midfielders at right back it'd suggest there's not the depth there we might have thought.

Ferguson's a centre half.

Not a chance anyone's offering us £500k or more for a centre half who's only got a year left on his deal and has been part of a defence that's conceded an average of 1.85 goals per game. We'd do well to get £150k or thereabouts IMO.

I think that pretty much nails it. I'd add that for someone of his size he seems to get bullied if he's up against a target man while he often get caught out with runs off his shoulder if he's playing against someone with a bit of pace (or Kenny Miller). Even his positive attributes where he's throwing himself into tackles and making blocks he's having to do a lot of that because he's getting caught out of position. He doesn't seem a particularly adaptable or intelligent footballer IMO and I'd say it'd be up for debate how much room there is to develop him further. He's almost certainly not going to turn into a £1m+ centre half while he's at Fir Park. When it comes down to it if a club who had maybe scouted him before and wanted to take a punt on him and give us some cash then it'd be a definite result for us.

Isn't Heneghan's deal up at the end of next season anyway? If there's any sort of offer for him we should be packing his bags for him tbh. Sky are running the story as well: http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11796/10871675/ben-heneghan-wanted-by-rangers-reading-and-cardiff-sky-sources

Agree on both those points, them getting Cerny back in goals rather than Scully and Stuckmann played a decent part in things as well.

I'm not sure that's actually the case. Jules had never played a first team game at professional level before he pitched up at Fir Park yet had represented Scotland at u17, u19 and u21 level while Liam Lindsay has 69 appearances for Thistle (93 first team games in total) but has never been called up at any age group. It probably says a lot more about who's been in charge of the sides and what they've been prioritising than anything. If nothing else Jules pretty disastrous loan and also the fact that Kennedy largely struggled at this level before his hips fell to bits should make it clear (if it wasn't before) that there's a huge difference between u23s football in England and playing in the top league up here.

He was out for absolutely ages after his knee fell apart IIRC http://www.doncasterfreepress.co.uk/sport/football/doncaster-rovers/doncaster-rovers-injured-taylor-sinclair-facing-nine-months-out-1-7926738 Doncaster fans weren't exactly enamoured with him prior to his injury either tbf. "An absolute travesty of a player" http://www.drfc-vsc.co.uk/index.php?PHPSESSID=60a02d6ee8ed0a086dde901674ef6162&topic=262315.0 "Is he actually a footballer?" http://www.drfc-vsc.co.uk/index.php?topic=254083.msg570512#msg570512 Quite surprised by that tbh, I always seem to remember him as having been alright at Thistle. I mean, by no means as bad as all that.

The former Arsenal and German international goalkeeper or possibly his fellow countryman Dirk?

Ta, I'd been trying to remember who it was that had the chips since I read that post yesterday. +1 on the rest of the post as well btw.

Quite. Someone who's more informed than me on here might be able to clarify but was Moult not another one who was identified by Gary Owers who was the previous (short-lived) head of recruitment? (I may even have read that in Baraclough's interview in the Podcast 2 book). I'm pretty sure I recall Robinson mentioning in a post-match interview that he (Robinson) recommended McHugh to the club. Which does beg the question; who's been responsible for identifying the players we've recruited who have been "successes"? (Johnson, Moult, Ripley, McHugh, Tait IMO)

This is absolutely spot on IMO. FWIW: Bowman was top scorer at Hereford who were managed at the time by Martin Foyle who's the guy that's been in charge of recruitment recently. I'd hazard a guess that could go some way to explaining his signing. He also had a fairly reasonable scoring record 23 in 54 at Gateshead, 18 in 44 at Torquay, 19 in 43 at Hereford the only poor return was 8 in 43 at York in League 2. In a way that feeds in quite well with your interpretation that we're only looking at numbers. I'm onto plums explaining Fletcher and Blyth though as neither of them were even remotely prolific or come across as rounded players.

Genuine question, which Scottish players in the lower leagues are the equivalent or Moult, Johnson, Bowman & Frear and how much would they cost to bring in? You look at El Bahktaoui (not Scottish I know), he tore up League One with Dunfermline but has struggled to make any sort of impact on an underperforming Dundee side. That's only one example I know, the flip of that would be Bain, Hemmings and Stewart or Robertson and Mackay-Steven but it's surely as much a gamble recruiting from the seaside leagues up here as it is from non-league in England. I think our recruitment in certain areas has been poor, you only need to look at the performances & league position to confirm that, there's little about Blyth's signing that I understand, his agent couldn't even find 90 seconds worth of highlights for a YouTube package and Bowman, despite looking a decent signing on paper hasn't really worked out for whatever reason. Looking around the Scottish cast-offs in the English leagues I don't think it's fair to say that English clubs aren't interested in Scottish players, there are plenty move down there though I suppose not necessarily for fees. Pawlett's signed a pre-contract with MK Dons IIRC, Robbie Muirhead's down there. Chris Maguire's at Oxford. Scougall and McNulty have just been released by Sheffield Utd.

It's really, really not. I'm sure that would have been the club's preferred option but as has been mentioned he wasn't the first choice, the club needed to appoint someone having been kb'd by their 1st choice and presumably were nervous about the idea of appointing Valakari (for obvious reasons) so it meant that Robinson had a bit of leverage. So I'd imagine that he's used that small amount of sway and the fact the club needed someone in place as the process has unexpectedly dragged out to get an extra 12 months on his deal. It may be many things but mind-boggling isn't one of them.

^^^^ This. There's a huge difference between not feeling they're worth the money they want and not being able to afford them. In the case of El Bahktaoui, IIRC McGhee indicated that based on the terms he was after it was an either/or between him and McDonald we couldn't afford both. El Bahktaoui has scored 3 goals for Dundee and has struggled to get in their team. McDonald is our 2nd top scorer with 11. I know which I'd rather have spent the money on. Austin had a good game for East Fife against us granted. He's scored 7 goals for Falkirk this season. To put that into a bit of context John Sutton and Ross Forbes have scored more than him.

Watt wouldn't be eligible to play.

Shea Gordon's a midfielder at that. Blyth's injured, Mackin's out on loan, Moore's out on loan. In terms of at strikers we've got Moult, McDonald and a mis-firing Bowman. We didn't have a striker on the bench last week. As far as I can see the forward options you're left with in the squad are McFadden and Hastie. Also, for what it's worth being named in the squad doesn't necessarily mean they're in the match day squad. David Turnbull was "in the squad" for the ICT game but wasn't involved on matchday.

^^^^ 100% this. White shorts with a C&A home shirt look terrible. Genuinely can't understand how folk can think it's a good look in any way, shape or form.

There's absolutely nothing about Samson being here that I understand tbh. When Baraclough signed him we had 2 goalkeepers in Ripley & Twardzik, OK it was clear he didn't rate Twardzik (with good reason) but it meant Samson negotiated his release from Killie, unhappy that he'd been relegated to sitting on the bench behind MacDonald, to come and sit on the bench at Fir Park. Ripley's loan was up in January last year but rather than install Samson as #1 (given he was unhappy at not getting 1st team football at Rugby Park) we instead released Twardzik (again, fair enough) and actively sought to extend Ripley's loan. Thus meaning Samson had been at the club since 15th September 2015 yet didn't actually play a single minute of 1st team football until 23rd April 2016. That surely cements the notion that we didn't think he was a good enough goalkeeper to be our #1. Given all of the above, for some inexplicable reason, we then offered him a new deal (on reduced terms) that he accepted to our misfortune. With hindsight, Ripley went back to Boro after his loan, we released Brett Long last summer as well so had Samson moved on we'd have gone into the pre-season with no goalkeepers. I'm obviously speculating here but it looks like we've offered Samson a deal because he was at the club already, had shown a bit of patience last season and was an "experienced" goalkeeper (though not actually a good one). There really seems to have been an attitude of "how bad can he be?" and with him taking up the reduced terms on offer we've actually thought we were getting a reasonable deal out of it. If you do enough digging on here I think you'll find more than a few mentions of him being "a solid pro", "an experienced goalkeeper" etc etc. I think it was Onthefringes who absolutely called it in terms of how Samson signing would pan out though. I don't often criticise the club but the decision to retain Samson as #1, with him already having been at the club and not having been viewed a viable option as 1st choice going into the 2nd half of the season in place of Ripley, has been proven to have been disastrous. To me it smacked of laziness and us simply shrugging our shoulders and deciding "he'll do" as it meant we didn't have to think about the GK position as we'd filled the jersey with a body. You could maybe argue that the hope would have been that Brill would have offered genuine competition but again, he was a player who had played 20 mins of football in about 18 months and was coming back from serious injury. It speaks volumes that Brill hasn't even managed a game for Colchester since his release in January, fair enough we took a punt on him but he's absolutely shot. You can point to the fact that we were sitting Top 6 at the end of the January window as a mitigating factor and yes he's not the sole factor with regards our awful defensive record but given the goals we've shipped that have been a result of Samson then for us not to have acknowledged and addressed that in January is absolutely remarkable. That a manager watched his goalkeeper literally drop the ball in front of forwards and consistently palm the ball to the feet of opposition players and thought "this is fine" beggars belief.

Having read the associated blurb that ran in the news story about the NB thing it looked pretty much a blag for the the players if they wanted to pick up product and a bit of PR for NB. McDonald's the only player that I've noticed wearing NB boots since. vs Dundee: Samson: Nike Heneghan: Nike McHugh: Nike Hammell: Adidas Cadden: Nike Campbell: Adidas Lasley: Adidas Frear: Adidas Bowman: Nike Moult: Adidas McDonald: New Balance

I'd suggest that us not actually appealing McHugh's would be a pretty key factor in that.

I hadn't watched Craigan's interview. I was only going by what I saw from him on the touchline in the first half of the game (I had to bolt for the 2nd half). I'm not surprised he went through them though. Blyth literally passing the ball to the Thistle forward for the 3rd and 2 Motherwell centre backs just standing watching the smallest guy on the park nod the ball in from 14 yards out with a free header for the 4th beggared belief. It's worth mentioning that Blyth was up against a back 3 aged 16, 17 and 16 yet barring his fluke opener made next to no impact against teenagers who he had a considerable height and size advantage against.

That's putting it mildly. I'd be surprised if anyone involved in that back 3 the other night are anywhere near the team. Craigan was (rightly) tearing strips off Chalmers.

Craigan's used Campbell as a right back for the 20s a few times but I'd have said Cadden would be the likelier option. I know the focus has been on Robinson being the new manager but I thought his comments about his view of the side were quite interesting. Specifically about how he felt we lack pace in the team.