DantheDon

The club are going to have egg on their face if it’s back to the drawing board. They were speaking of an imminent appointment last week, maybe they should have been a bit more cautious if this is true. Obviously (if true) disappointing to miss out on the number one candidate aswell, I know there are mixed opinions on Horneland but if you trust the process that has been followed he has come out of that as the standout candidate.

I know you can only compare us to Motherwell in that respect, but that’s exactly my point. Based on that you could argue that no other team (out with old firm) has done better than us as they haven’t been able to maintain a place in the league, with Motherwell being an outlier. That could be used to make the point that in general the greater turnover has seen us outperform most of the teams in the league by not being relegated. If we just focus on the comparisons to Motherwell that is very narrow set of statistics ignoring performance relative to the other teams in the league.

It’s all very interesting but I would venture Motherwell are generally an outlier bucking the trend. As you pointed out only they and Celtic have been an ever present in the league alongside us in those past 15 seasons. They are obviously doing something correct as has been noted by the amount of poaching we have tried from them during this time. It’s not to dismiss what you’re saying but I would refer back to a famous quote about miniskirts when looking at statistics. Ultimately you can make them say whatever you want by looking at only the relevant ones. Aptly since we are in a thread about youth development I would think the best approach for AFC is one focussed on youth. As has been proven since Dave took charge recruitment is a hit or miss thing especially when competing with the limited resources we have. We should obviously look to recruit the odd player to supplement this but I think this approach would serve us better than what we are currently doing.

Fair enough, it’s strange that having been so good defensively over the last few games we revert to conceding three at least two of which we sound like we should have dealt with. Never sure if we are going backwards or forwards these days.

What happened to give 10 mins of stoppage time? I’m not able to watch but kept expecting to see full time.

Thelin may say that but it’s not from Cormack himself. I would be very surprised if Cormack isn’t considering things. It’s now been almost a year of relegation form, which is much more time than any previous manager has had. If it was mid table form with flashes of improvement then I could see the argument for a bit of patience but I’ve lost faith at this point. Thelin will get the midweek game against Killie, but lose that and I can see some real pressure for his dismissal starting to mount.

Just to put a little bit more perspective on the stats last 32 league games we have won 5, drawn 8 and lost 19. That’s 23 points accumulated which is most definitely relegation form. It’s not like we are getting lots of draws and just struggling to break teams down as we did under Stephen Glass, and during that time the performances have been pretty poor. I don’t want to just shout sack the manager, like a lot of you I’m really willing Thelin to succeed but I’m not sure this can go on for much longer. Lose or even fail to win one of Motherwell or Dundee prior to the international break and it might be time to make a change.

It’s starting to get a bit worrying now. Obviously confidence is low and if we had a little luck maybe that’s all we need to get back on track, but on the flip side maybe Jimmys system is just not destined to work in the SPFL and things might not get better at all. Three home games against Livingston, Falkirk and Motherwell and we haven’t managed to score a goal…

I agree a few wins are needed and I think (hope) they will come, but I do think we are going to struggle when it comes to challenging in the league while juggling European Football.

It’s a bit of a double edged sword. Nobody can argue that Thelin has not been backed as this is the most expensive squad we have ever assembled, but getting a team and culture established within a short time period is challenging in itself. Although Jimmy is definitely under a lot of scrutiny, I think as long as we are not threatening to get relegated by Xmas he will get the time. We have spent too much to just abandon this project and the players we have signed are to fit Thelins system. I also don’t think the fans expectations will be too high, realistically I think it’s going to be hard to compete with Hearts and Hibs this season while we have European football and they don’t (I think we could still pip Rangers though). So as long as we can achieve a top six finish and maybe sneak a euro qualifying place with progress on field that would do most.

I do think this is somewhat true, but is it not a bit of a catch 22 situation now.

Thing is having a youth setup costs us a good amount of money. Not sure the exact figures but I thought it was something like 2-3million a year. So the fact none of the players are breaking into the team and anyone half decent is leaving as soon as there is interest from down south is going to make our whole strategy of youth development untenable in the long term. I see it’s being reported Man City are looking at Cooper Masson one of our 16 year olds that I haven’t even heard of. If he goes it’s unlikely we will receive enough to cover the overall cost of the youth development for the year he comes through.

Club statement makes it clear that he was pushing for a move. Don’t know what he has been promised at Aston Villa but will be interesting to see if he ever gets a sniff of first team action there.

BBC reporting we have a potential interest in Lyndon Dykes.

Pape Gueye…