Well, figure it’s close enough to start the thread and may get some more enthusiasm than the current season. So what do we need?

manager - Alex Neill

formation - 4-2-3-1/4-3-3

I’m going with the belief that we currently have 7 starters - Devlin, ruby (or gartenmann), Jensen, Mackenzie, shinnie, clarkson or McGrath, and sokler. 4 legit starter signings needed, plus more. I’d argue McGrath has been better than clarkson this year, but I dont think both together are our midfield solution.

goalkeeper - NEEDED to replace Roos, doohan is back up

right back - devlin, Richardson, SiGN gartenmann

left back - think Mackenzie deserves to be our left back, one of our few successes this year, mcgarry as back up, jenson cover too as gartenmann does right back.

central defense - ruby, gartenmann, Jensen, Macdonald - think that’s good enough, just need a legit and consistent keeper and midfield to protect and support them

Right mid - TWO needed, starter and back up, vinnie as back up? sell morris

left mid - ONE needed, possibly hoilett and mcgarry as back up, vinnie?? Don’t think Duncan is good enough, squad filler.

center mid - sign TWO. ONE starter needed, plus assuming Barron leaves. Free agent Baccus? Shinnie clarkson or McGrath,  and one other, mcgrath/clarkson and polvara as back up, sign another ONE physical/athletic worker so that shinnie and new signing aren’t run into the ground.

Forward - assuming Miovski and duk are sold, I want sokler given a chance. SIGN one to compete with him to start, bavidge the third option and given minutes. Sell GUEYE.

I’m assuming miovski, duk, morris, gueye, and Barron are gone, and we sign gartenmann and hoilett. Hayes retires. Mcgarry gets a summer to get fit and prove what he can do next year, been unfortunate to date. A bench from Richardson, mcgarry, Duncan, clarkson/mcgrath, hoilett, bavidge, doohan, Milne, polvara, vinnie, plus a new back up right mid and an enforcing center mid.

Obviously Mikey Johnson is one of our new signings.

Edited February 18, 20242 yr by OrlandoDon

If true,thats getting near the figure I would have in mind for Miovski.Think £10m plus is over optimistic.Hopefully DC could negotiate us to over £7m though,or start a bidding war...

Edited July 18, 20242 yr by Elgindon

Think we all know there are going to be bids for Miovski so would rather the bidding war started now so we can maximise the fee. 
 

Also if we can this settled now we have enough time to get in a replacement (if not going with Sokler) or spend the money elsewhere in the squad. 

Is it possible for a player to wear bubble wrap whilst training?

It's a good offer, and hopefully we don't drag things out for too long. I had thought we might get £8M max, so £7M would be good. Obviously, it'd be better for Scottish football if we accepted a £2.5 offer from the Tims, but I think we should be selfish and look out for ourselves on this occasion.

5 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

Obviously, it'd be better for Scottish football if we accepted a £2.5 offer from the Tims, but I think we should be selfish and look out for ourselves on this occasion.

1 hour ago, RicoS321 said:

Is it possible for a player to wear bubble wrap whilst training?

It's a good offer, and hopefully we don't drag things out for too long. I had thought we might get £8M max, so £7M would be good. Obviously, it'd be better for Scottish football if we accepted a £2.5 offer from the Tims, but I think we should be selfish and look out for ourselves on this occasion.

To be honest Rico, I think it is speculative, rather than a definite offer of close to £7m.

Since Morelos was worth 20m I don’t think 25m for bojan is unreasonable.

Kello Roos signed for Italian 3rd division team. Probably his level. 

https://www.triestina1918.it/it/maschile-news/182/kelle-roos-firma-con-la-triestina

 

1 hour ago, Jute said:

Kello Roos signed for Italian 3rd division team. Probably his level. 

https://www.triestina1918.it/it/maschile-news/182/kelle-roos-firma-con-la-triestina

 

Nae loss 

We have an upgrade on board.

Devlin joins Ayr Utd 😉

Any rumours of any signings.  

6 hours ago, buddiedog said:

Any rumours of any signings.  

No, but can I give you a "like a new signing?"

 

44 minutes ago, Panda said:

No, but can I give you a "like a new signing?"

 

Worth a look??

Aye,a new look via new hairdresser....

4 goals in 12 for Kristiansund  🤔 

3 hours ago, Elgindon said:

Aye,a new look via new hairdresser....

4 goals in 12 for Kristiansund  🤔 

Think it’s 4 in 15 in the league and 2 in 3 in the Norwegian Cup. Cup goals came against 3rd and 4th division sides. 

57 minutes ago, Jute said:

Think it’s 4 in 15 in the league and 2 in 3 in the Norwegian Cup. Cup goals came against 3rd and 4th division sides. 

To quote an old saying

"You can only pish wie the cock you're given" 😉

On 19/07/2024 at 06:12, OrlandoDon said:

Since Morelos was worth 20m I don’t think 25m for bojan is unreasonable.

This is it. If he played exactly the same way for either of the ugly sisters, they'd command (and get) £15M for him. Despite not having very much quality in the team around him, he still scored 26 times last season. We bought him to allow him to showcase his abilities so that he could move on a few years later. That time is now, and he has proven that he is indeed the real deal both in the Premier League and in Europe. I would hold out for a minimum £8M, but let Bologna and Genoa get into a bidding war for him 

48 minutes ago, Reekie_Red said:

This is it. If he played exactly the same way for either of the ugly sisters, they'd command (and get) £15M for him. Despite not having very much quality in the team around him, he still scored 26 times last season. We bought him to allow him to showcase his abilities so that he could move on a few years later. That time is now, and he has proven that he is indeed the real deal both in the Premier League and in Europe. I would hold out for a minimum £8M, but let Bologna and Genoa get into a bidding war for him 

While I agree with you it’s also in our best interest to sell him asap. Who do we start tomorrow? I’d assume sokler, does bojan even play? It almost becomes a distraction. Or do you play bojan and show case him? Then sokler is benched which doesn’t benefit us, both regarding form and attitude, and what if miovski gets injured? It’s a tightrope spud.

Play both in a 2 man strike team. Get Bojan some more time in the shop window, but give Sokler the confidence of being our new first choice 9

Pape to be used as a winger according to the P&J.

That's sorted then, they should be our transfer business concluded for this window. Can use the extra AberDNA cash to reduce the price of hospitality.

13 hours ago, Panda said:

Can use the extra AberDNA cash to reduce the price of hospitality.

Yer determined to get yer old man into the Legends Lounge for a tenner 🤣

19 hours ago, Panda said:

Pape to be used as a winger according to the P&J.

I'm one of those traditionalists who prefers their wingers to be able to control and pass a ball, but what do I know.

I missed yesterday's game, but it does seem like we're missing a spark for somewhere, so hopefully we're working on wingers in the window. Hopefully, also, McGrath as a sitting midfielder alongside Shinnie is not going to be a regular occurrence (save for injuries etc) this season too. The worst thing about Warnock coming in with zero knowledge of our squad was that we had to sit through the same mistakes and experiments that we'd previously watched with Robson. Another manager coming in with the "everyone deserves another chance" message is going to make for a fairly tedious season. There are a core of not very good players in our squad. We can afford one or two of them, but there needs to be a serious cull before the start of the season, lest we're left with a batch of pish again. I'd like to see us ship several players before I'm going to grudgingly accept a guy like Morris in and around the team every week. 

4 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

I'm one of those traditionalists who prefers their wingers to be able to control and pass a ball, but what do I know.

I missed yesterday's game, but it does seem like we're missing a spark for somewhere, so hopefully we're working on wingers in the window. Hopefully, also, McGrath as a sitting midfielder alongside Shinnie is not going to be a regular occurrence (save for injuries etc) this season too. The worst thing about Warnock coming in with zero knowledge of our squad was that we had to sit through the same mistakes and experiments that we'd previously watched with Robson. Another manager coming in with the "everyone deserves another chance" message is going to make for a fairly tedious season. There are a core of not very good players in our squad. We can afford one or two of them, but there needs to be a serious cull before the start of the season, lest we're left with a batch of pish again. I'd like to see us ship several players before I'm going to grudgingly accept a guy like Morris in and around the team every week. 

Yes and no. I’d like to see gueye Richardson Morris mcgarry Vinny and duk all punted asap. Add Duncan to that list. JT asked for time, a squad revamp takes time, especially when we paid over a million for this group, we need to recoup most/all of that. We have a bloated squad and have to sell before we can buy, that’s the responsible/ business approach to take as you know.

i don’t think it’s unfair to expect another right mid and center mid, but we have depth in all other areas and while that depth isn’t strong, we need to move guys on first.

1 hour ago, OrlandoDon said:

Yes and no. I’d like to see gueye Richardson Morris mcgarry Vinny and duk all punted asap. Add Duncan to that list. JT asked for time, a squad revamp takes time, especially when we paid over a million for this group, we need to recoup most/all of that. We have a bloated squad and have to sell before we can buy, that’s the responsible/ business approach to take as you know.

i don’t think it’s unfair to expect another right mid and center mid, but we have depth in all other areas and while that depth isn’t strong, we need to move guys on first.

Yep, I'd agree on that list. I'd maybe keep Duncan because he came through the youth and he's a top Don, but that would just be sentimentality. I'd probably add Gueye too. I agree that we should be giving him time to build a squad, but there also needs to be a bit of trust in the guys that are there already (Leven, specifically). Leven has seen enough of all of the guys that you mention to know that no manager is going to be turning all of them into world beaters overnight. I think Leven especially deserves a bit of trust and we should be speeding up the process to offload them. For me, that part is more important than the new signings. The longer it goes on without any of those guys shifted, the more it makes it seem that Thelin believes he can get something out of them, which is a little naive. We'll also have to add on top of that list, the 50% of duds that we pick up in this window. If we assume that Ambrose (just using him as an example) is pish then that's another guy we've got to waste time and minutes on to maintain some level of squad harmony. 

I would give mcgarry the season. Guy moved across the world and will have taken time to adjust. He has a bit of something and a big bit of naivity. A solid game plan should improve that.

I said it in the other thread, I don't think shinnie should be an automatic fixture in the team. People keep saying he's a winner but he was over run at East Kilbride and was involved in some big failures last year as our leader.  I can confess that he also had some great games but he should always set the tempo and too often it's found lacking. Jimmy needs to bring in some winners to give the squad a bit of a kick up the ass this year.

29 minutes ago, redordead said:

I would give mcgarry the season. Guy moved across the world and will have taken time to adjust. He has a bit of something and a big bit of naivity. A solid game plan should improve that.

I said it in the other thread, I don't think shinnie should be an automatic fixture in the team. People keep saying he's a winner but he was over run at East Kilbride and was involved in some big failures last year as our leader.  I can confess that he also had some great games but he should always set the tempo and too often it's found lacking. Jimmy needs to bring in some winners to give the squad a bit of a kick up the ass this year.

As I’ve said already, I think adding allan Campbell would give a good competitive edge to our center mid. Sivert and shinnie will both be 33 soon, injuries, suspensions, volume of games, and form all a factor. We cannot rely I those two for every game. Agree with the McGrath comment, he’s no holding mid and no a solution there.

giving JT time is not just to assess, you can’t simply punt 6 players immediately, takes time. Although, we saw Morris play left mid for the first time and lovely touch and goal. He’s still poor though.

i don’t think mcgarry has been given a good run but Mackenzie has kicked on and he’s our left back. Jensen can play multiple positions including left back and offers more flexibility than mcgarry. It’s a numbers game and mcgarry becomes expendable.