capt_oats

For me, as much as I was willing to give him a chance he just seemed like a guy who was perpetually going to have to prove himself and it was a matter of when not if he left. He could have picked up points in the next 3 or 4 games but as soon as we dropped points questions would be asked again. Unfortunately regardless of his record and whether it was better, worse or equal to his peers, that's just not sustainable. If you're almost 10 months into the job and there's still doubts about whether you're the right man for the job then it's only going to go one way, even more so if you have no credit in the bank with the support. I mentioned last night that he was pretty much undermined from the start with his 'win the league' comment and the subsequent kicking he took in the media, as obvious as it was what he meant; Aberdeen sitting clear at the top of the league at the moment and our hammering of Rangers in the play off is testament to that attitude and thinking as much as it irks the media up here, it's still not a great start if your credibility is totally shot from Day 1. That said for me what nailed it was when someone posted up our record without Pearson, allied with the fact that 10 months into the job he's still putting a team out that looks like conceding at least one cheap goal per game. If you're that far into the role and still haven't addressed these issues (over reliance on one player, basic defending) then it, correctly, calls into question your suitability for the role.

Can't disagree with this. Listening back to Les' Sportsound interview last night I picked up on two things, one obviously was his mention that their strategy remains the same and the other was his observation about man management. I think that rather than looking for a manager with 'contacts' etc the first thing we should be asking is whether the candidate can actually set up and coach a team. In hindsight with Baraclough's appointment it seems that we've tried to put the cart before the horse and tried to bring in someone based on a broader scope rather than making sure we addressed the primary and core function. Indeed I think Willie Miller maybe alluded to that as much when he said we had possibly been a bit naive in Baraclough's appointment. Assuming by 'the strategy' Les means being more effective in the transfer market then when it comes down to it it's easier for players to look good and be sellable assets if they're playing well in an organised, well drilled team. In order to do that first and foremost we need someone in charge who can set up a team and is tactically adept. The rest should, hopefully, follow. Miller's point that it takes 10 years to develop a player from youth is similarly something that I think Mr Hutchison should almost certainly be taking on board.

Souness once pointed out that he was getting paid more as a pundit at Sky than Scotland were offering for the international manager's job so given the money that BT are chucking about these days I think it's fair to say Sally will be on a reasonable amount.

Your Hughes, McCall and their type, any manager who's just going to fawn over Sevco and Celtic can GTF as far as I'm concerned. As much as Baraclough didn't work out I'm pretty much certain that had we been going into the play-off vs them with McCall in charge then we'd be playing Championship football this season.

Just listened to the full interview on Sportsound: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p033b584 As much as Les sounds pretty gutted that the guy he's backed hasn't worked out the bit that reports have picked up on, the 'hang their heads in shame' comment, is really just something that for some reason he's chucked in at the end of the interview. The way it's been reported I was half expecting some sort of uber-rage. For the most part it's a fairly straightforward interview until he drops in that line that gives all the news stories their headline.

With the timing of the sacking it means we've got a couple of games then an international break so I'd say that Craigan's got until at least mid-October. As far as the alleged altercation with Robinson goes I don't see that there would be much of an issue. Much worse has happened in dressing rooms after games I'm sure and I get the impression that Craigan is pretty on board with him anyway. Absolutely no need for further disruption.

I know they're only examples but Coyle's at Houston and Lambert is nowhere near fallen enough to drop down from an EPL job to Scottish Premiership. I saw a few mentions linking him with clubs like Fulham and I'd imagine he'd get a Championship gig no problem after the job he did at Norwich. Mackay? That's a different story after Cardiff then being binned by Wigan.

That's a good point. I think it's notable that the one period of form we found under Baraclough (whether it was vs poor sides or not) coincided with us going 442 with Pearson in that CM box to box role. The 4231 has really just been co-opted by most teams as a default system and arguably few teams in the league actually play it well. In the case of Ross County they've gone with a system that suits them and is straightforward to play. Either way, short term getting some sort of cohesive team is paramount. It can be tinkered with once we've got some form and points on the board.

Agreed. As misguided as the 'win the league' comment was I knew what he meant and in truth I was encouraged at the thought of there being someone at the club who was aspirational rather than running with the punching above our weight type pish. Nevertheless the kicking he got in the media off the back of that almost certainly undermined him from day 1.

Was the whole thing with the u20s not that their shape was being dictated by the 1st team, which I'd assume would be based on what the former manager wanted to play. By all accounts from what little I've seen of the u20s they seemed to play it better than the senior team. I like 433 and think we have the players to play it but right now I think we just need to get back to basics and as you say go with 2 up top which most obviously would be 442.

Agreed. I saw him being linked with Fulham the other day.

Wiki has it as 35.29% not sure if that includes last night though. P W D L 34 12 5 17 Same number of games as he managed at Scunthorpe co-incidentally.

Funny you say that as I was just thinking that parting company now is probably in his best interests, Morton game aside he's in the position where he's still got a not bad win % (35%-ish I think), he can go to whichever club he approaches next say he kept us up and point to The Battering of The Rangers as his career highlight which was broadcast nationally. If he was to have dragged it out and kept losing things would obviously have looked worse.

Ha! I realise that was probably leaving me with a bit of a limited pool of candidates. As much as his time with Scotland damaged his reputation I wouldn't be against someone like Burley if he was an option at least until the end of the season. I think it has to be someone with a decent amount of experience but I'd prefer to avoid the usual suspects, if that makes sense. As I say though, I guess it all depends on budget that's available, so I'm just speculating. Nigel Clough's out a job and has a decent enough record but would imagine he's outwith what we could afford.

Depends what sort of budget we've got. In honesty I wasn't particularly taken with any of the shortlisted names last time round. I had kind of put that down the fact the club seemed caught out with our slide and McCall walking last season. I wonder if this time round they've had a few names in contingency in case it didn't work out with Bara. Would be pleased if we could avoid the likes of Calderwood, Houston, Shiels and that sort. Similarly though I think we need to knock the more left field appointments (Gannon, Baraclough) on the head for the time being.

Given the way last season went and the way this one has been shaping up it was fairly inevitable. It clearly wasn't working. The fact that we've got a couple of potentially winnable games coming up and an international break means that it's an ideal time to make a change. I genuinely think there's a decent enough team in the squad he's put together but it needs to be someone who actually knows how to set up a team. All the best Bara, cheers for the 6-1 chief.

To be honest, I wouldn't really have expected him to say anything different to the press. If it were me I certainly wouldn't be coming out saying I had doubts about my position or my ability to turn things around. Certainly not if I had any intention of continuing my career in my current line of work. His comment about players being on their last chance, unfortunately for football managers it's never the players who are on their last chance. The only outcome from that position is that the manager leaves his position. If not now, it'll be in a month or two. Ultimately it's up to the club to advance this, I mentioned in another post that it's pretty weak if they're waiting on the manager to do their job for them and it is. They employed him, it's their responsibility.

Possibly reading too much into it but it does sort of imply that it's perhaps not the "long term" appointment that possibly most would have assumed though. No? More a case of "we'll see how it goes?".

This. On the face of it our entire system and set up has fallen apart because one player has been removed from the team. Whatever you think about the effort of the players etc, this is a fundamental issue in terms of team management. I'd say that a fit Stephen Pearson would get a game for pretty much any team in this league excluding Celtic (I could definitely see him getting minutes for Aberdeen). In that respect it's unlikely that we're going to have a direct replacement for him at that level just sitting as a back up. What's concerned me is that none of the alternative options have worked; - we tried McDonald deeper to compensate and go with the system from the play-offs - we brought in Taylor, going 442/4411 with Taylor and Lasley which hasn't worked - we've brought in Grimshaw and tried to go 433 and we're still not any better On a very basic level this suggests to me that the issue lies somewhere deeper than just what XI players we're putting out on the park. It's more that it's an issue with coaching, organisation and instruction. Effectively we don't know how to get the best out of the players we have available. I've found it interesting that Craigan has been really pushing for Cadden in any interviews I've seen/heard from him. Indeed he's gone as far as to say he's the closest player we have to Pearson. I'm possibly reading too much into it but to me it seemed as overt a statement on our failings in midfield as I've heard.

Nah, I genuinely disliked McCall as a manager (regardless of his league finishes) but even I could see that him walking was to the club's benefit. He may have had an eye on the Sevco job and didn't want to risk further damage to his CV but whatever the reason him electing to walk was a favourable turn for us. I can understand why the club tried to get him to stay based on his previous record unfortunately Baraclough doesn't have that to fall back on. There's nothing to suggest this is getting turned round and it's naive in the extreme for the club to sit about waiting on him to walk. I'd also suggest that it's quite weak if they're expecting the manager to make their decision for them. They appointed him and in fairness have backed him, it hasn't worked out. It's not the first time it's happened at a football club and won't be the last. Ultimately they need to take control of the situation though. It's their responsibility, simply sitting around hoping it gets better just delays a decision that at the moment looks completely inevitable and doesn't help anyone involved. Anyway, I think we'll scrape by on Saturday and lose to Dundee the week after

We've got games coming up against Thistle and a Dundee side who are on a bit of a slide then an international break. If we're going to make a change then now's a decent time to do it. It seems fairly clear that Baraclough's not going to turn this round so there's really no point in postponing things. He's given it a shot, the club has backed him. It's not worked out. Dragging it out isn't going to improve the situation any so in that respect the club really just need to take it out of his hands.

Take yer pick lads: http://www.transfermarkt.com/trainer/verfuegbaretrainer/statistik

Apropos of nothing but I'd say most of his permanent signings have been decent enough (Clarkson aside). It's more the loans (Straker, Taylor) and weird short term signings (Nathan Thomas played 2 games for example) that have been poor. I'm not sure what, if anything, that says. As I've said anyone who expects a manager to have 100% rate of top quality signings is mental. So far I'm perfectly happy with the ratio of decent players we've brought in especially the league we play in. I get that it's subjective and that there's arguments to be had about form but for me Johnson, Laing, Pearson, McDonald, Moult, Fletcher, Chalmers, Kennedy are all very solid signings while Theo Robinson looks like he has something to offer. Looking at the business we've done while he's been here I'd say 3 signings have been genuinely poor (Thomas, Straker, Taylor in case you're wondering) the rest vary, for me, from decent with potential to very good with a couple of pointless signings on the side (Clarkson, Samson). Under Baraclough here's who we've brought in; 2014/15 Pearson (permanent) Johnson (permanent) Thomas (permanent - end of season) McDonald (permanent - end of season) Straker (loan) Laing (loan) Grant (loan) Long (loan) 2015/16 Chalmers (permanent) Clarkson (permanent) Fletcher (permanent) Laing (permanent) Moult (permanent) Kennedy (permanent) McDonald (re-signed) Robinson (permanent) Samson (permanent) Ripley (loan) Taylor (loan) Grimshaw (loan)

Others have said it, in modern football people just stop going. It's not a protest, it's not motivated by any notion of "Baraclough Out" it's simply the realisation that no one is forcing them to go to Fir Park. The era of people pitching up out of blind loyalty is long gone.

Personally I'm at the stage where I think it's fairly inevitable that he'll leave at some point this season. The best that he can hope for is that he sees things out until the end of the season and is replaced then. Circumstances are such that I just don't see that he has support within the fan base and in truth that only really ends up with one outcome. I'd argue that he's never really had the support there and he's not shown anywhere near enough to convince people otherwise. By no means am I comparing the size of clubs but in terms of the dynamic I see echoes of Moyes at Man U, Benitez at Chelsea, Allardyce at Newcastle and West Ham. Basically Baraclough could go on and get some results in the next few games but I don't think that's enough to change opinion and that's not really a healthy culture to have around the club. Even more so if you're trying to push fan engagement. For what it's worth I don't think we're likely to go down, I don't think we'll be comfortable in the league though. I think there are equally poor teams in the league with equally poor managers so you'll see teams win a few games then go on a run of losing (Killie's last couple of wins for example). Locke's not suddenly turned into a *better* manager overnight. When it comes down to it though I get the feeling that Baraclough's unlikely to be able to do what the club wants him to do. As I said the other day in the current climate in modern football there are very few managers turn things around markedly after this length of time at a club. He's been here almost 10 months and we're still porous at the back, still can't defend cross balls etc. Granted these faults pre-date his time at the club but the point is these are things that should be able to be coached. It doesn't rely on natural talent. To me we look like a team unsure of what we're doing, rather than just a flat out bad team. Someone posted yesterday about how we pressed against ICT and to me that's a really good point. For whatever reason (Pearson's injury?) we seem to have abandoned the system we started the season with and are moving to a 3 man midfield, in fact I'd say this change explains the recruitment of both Grimshaw and Robinson perfectly. In that respect it seems to me that we've spent all pre-season working on specific shapes but have abandoned that very quickly. At the moment the hesitation and uncertainty you're seeing when we're on the ball are the hallmarks of a team that aren't familiar with how they're set up. Instead of movement being natural they're having to take a second or two to work out what to do with the ball. In that respect I see echoes of Kampman's time here and that didn't pan out particularly well. What I would say is that I think we're probably in better shape now to replace the manager now than we were last season. I think we've got a good group of players and there's potential there for a new guy to get the basis of a team. I don't think that was the case with the players we had last season and equally I don't think the club expected the wheels to fall off as badly as they did last year so when they did and McCall walked I think they were caught out. I'd like to think that they may have at least considered that Baraclough may not work out this season and have some sort of contingency in place.