weeyin

Aye, that too. I was just hoping it was a public relations spiel while he changes things behind the scenes. Unlikely, I know.

The bit where he didn't think much needed tweaked as far as systems were concerned? Or the bit where he said we didn't have the players to change it anyway? Not very inspiring.

He couldn't be worse than Main is right now. Plus he has a track record of scoring goals in teams that are playing like they are about to be relegated.

That's right. I think, at least part of the development fee, is still formula driven - depending on things like the level the signing team plays at. So as long as we don't do anything that prevents it being applied we should still get a few quid.

I would say that makes it even more impressive given their relative success from vastly reduced pool of players.

Not every move out the club will generate us a wadge of cash. We have taken advantge of the transfer rules many times (like getting Chris Porter on a free) and done some great deals (Ojamaa and Anier for example). We even managed to get money for Moult from PNE when he could have signed a pre-contract and gone for free. Not to mention the deals we got for guys like Henighan and Hall. So if, once in a while it doesn't work out to our full advantage, we can't complain too much.

Looks like St Mirren usually have a live stream (run by students from the University of the West of Scotland), so that suggests it will be available. Nothing confirmed on their (or our) official channels though.

To answer my own question, I came across this article today. Apparently Athletic Bilbao's Academy has produced 85% of their team. For the past 5 years, at least 2 academy players have graduated to the first team (and they have never been relegated). That's pretty impressive.

You must be reading different posts from me because the ones I have seen have blamed Robinson for everything from our league position to the post-Brexit Irish Border problem

Might just be we have a couple of injury doubts so we wanted to make sure we had cover if required.

The question is which leagues do better than this? (I don't know, but if any do, we need to follow). The biggest issue I can see is the increasing impatience of fans. You need look no further than than here to see to people complaining about lack of youngsters in one post and slagging off young players in the next post on a different thread. Fans say they are willing to accept the massive swings in form from youngsters and the stupid mistakes they make while they are developing, but when they do happen, most of the same people are up in arms. It's not an easy problem to solve at either end of the table. The only team that has had some success with it in recent times was Hearts - and that was because they had a massive points deduction and no money at the time, and were already doomed to relegation. As soon as they overcame that, they went back to throwing money at their problems. Let's face it - if teams could achieve the same level of success with less money spent on players, they'd be all over it. As I've said before, I agree our game needs a complete overhaul, but I doubt those at the top have any real interest in addressing the problems.

Looks nothing like John Reilly.

I'd be there in a heartbeat if I had the chance. I've seen plenty of terrible 'Well teams and plenty of terrible games, but it was always a case of "never again" until about 2 days before the next one - then off we'd go again.

"Can we not play more youngsters?" "Great to see Cadden establish himself as a first team regular" "He's wasted at wing back" "He has limited skill" "No ability" "Good riddence" "Can we not play more youngsters?"

You would.

If Hearts is the level of his ambition, we wouldn't have been getting 1 million for him from any teams down south. We managed to get a few quid from Preston for Moult when he could have gone for free, so sometimes the system works for us and sometimes it works against us. If he does go to Hearts the development fee should at least mean he'll cost them more than they offered us last season.

We'll give them a good pumpkin, 3 ghouls to 1. Elliot Fear, Ryan Bogieman and Liam Grimoire to score for us.

It's an interesting argument. There is a school of thought that says kids shouldn't be anywhere near organised football at the age of 5 and, in fact, should be playing (with the emphasis on "play') as many different sports and games as they can - as long as they enjoy them. I think it was the Dutch clubs that used to avoid competitive football matches for their kids until they were about 12 or 13, although I have no idea if that's still the case. There are so many variables, it must be difficult to quantify the most successful approach. Not just from the luck talent and mental strength you mention but also just the rate of development. Some kids that look world beaters at 14 that fade away and others that don't flourish until years later. I'll be honest and say that the young players I have seen at Fir Park that have come through the English system haven't looked any better than our home grown talent (guys like Zane Francis-Angol, Zac Jules spring to mind), but of course that is a pretty small sample to judge. Even now we have the Man U Academy Captain being kept out of our team by players like Cadden and Campbell. Having said all that, there is no doubt our system needs an overhaul from top to bottom. I just don't know if the English model is the one we should follow when the French and, more recently, the Belgians have shown the way forward.

If we lose, I'll also be blaming the players. Like most poorly performing teams, it's about more than just the manager.

The question is, do the English teams have a higher percentage of players coming through the youth ranks into the first team? From what I have seen across the leagues, the answer to that is no.

Main has been terrible for a while and looks like he'd benefit from a rest (or a few games on the bench). If our recruitment was to bring in backups, time to give Johnson a couple of starts. Same with Cadden, who looks like he needs a break. If both of those guys can get some form back, we'd be a lot healthier, If it's crosses we are lacking, then let Frear play as a winger instead of a wingback. With Dunne back in the team, he has the pace to help cover any defensive lapses.

That's reasonable. The next 2 games are definitely going to shape our season.

To be fair - in his first summer Robinson had to rebuild a team from scratch, find a way to ditch some of the older player while shoring up a leaky defence and avoid relegation. We finished 7th and got to 2 cup finals with that completely rebuilt team. So he deserves huge credit for that as it's a rarity at any level of the game. And I say that as someone who was quick to critcize the lack of entertainment of offer some weeks. It's difficult to tell how effective some of the new signings have been as the manager is wedded to his "have to earn the right to play football" approach and seems reluctant to change things too much. I understand a number of the new guys were intended to be backups, but if we ever needed to change things up and bring in backups, it's now. It's a little ironic that someone who is quite happy to change a formation 25 minutes into game when things aren't working still persists week to week with a general tactics that aren't working.

Exactly. It's just standard media management these days. The journos ask the predictable questions and the players trot out the well rehearsed answer. Thanks to the outrage levels in the Scottish media - and even moreso in social media these days - few are allowed to say what they actually think. That's why I used to enjoy McGhee (and Big Mick's) press conferences. They were used to dealing with the Glasgow journalists and quite adept at keeping them in their place while saying something worth listening to. Not always sensible in McGhee's case, but a change from the usual presser.