Christ, I must be slipping up now that I've commenced my seventh decade as I started last summer's one back in mid March 2022 much to Rico's annoyance.

Anyway, here goes, the exact date the window will open has yet to be announced but will be at some point in early June meaning we are potentially only just over six weeks away.

If we thought last year's one was busy, then I think its fair to say there is going to be a fair old churn this summer as well.

Difficult to forecast too much at this point given amongst other minor things we don't actually know who'll be in charge next season, but lets not let that stop us speculating too much.

Rumours in the papers suggesting we're still after the lad from Go Ahead Eagles that we came close to signing in January.

There will be all the usual chat about who's leaving and how much we'll rake in in fees, so knock yourselves out and get them fired in here lads. 

Disgusting. I'll get back to you in May when this thread should be started.

The big question for the window will be whether we can keep Lopes out not. I've been of the opinion for a while we will do well to keep him 2 seasons so I would personally like to see us offer him a 1 year extension so we can still get a good price for him next summer.  

 

I'd like to see Mcdonald offered a deal and some of the glut of unused wingers moved on which must be costing us a fucking fortune. 

2 hours ago, RicoS321 said:

Disgusting. I'll get back to you in May when this thread should be started.

Speak to you in a fortnight then 😉

Duk - I think if we get guaranteed European football until Christmas then he'll he advised to hang around until January, as it's a very good shop window to be in, especially if we land someone from Serie A or something.

 

Get Miovski offski 😉 and try to bring in the boy Van Veen from Motherwell. I'd also love us to make an approach for Dylan Smith at County.

Doesn’t van veen just score against us and generally pretty pish otherwise? 

1 hour ago, manc_don said:

Doesn’t van veen just score against us and generally pretty pish otherwise? 

Perfect. Will fill that massive 'Curtis Main' shaped hole in the current squad

1 hour ago, manc_don said:

Doesn’t van veen just score against us and generally pretty pish otherwise? 

34 in 77 games for Motherwell

 

2 hours ago, tom_widdows said:

Perfect. Will fill that massive 'Curtis Main' shaped hole in the current squad

Harsh. Van Veen has a great touch and is fairly skilful. He's just very slow. He's having a purple patch this season, which I'd doubt whether he'd replicate again. His movement seems to have improved this season, which is weird for a guy in his thirties, but it suggests that it could be a one off (think Doidge had similar for Hibs one year as an example). He's one of those guys that we'll consistently tell ourselves that we could do better than but we end up signing jet equivalents that don't do better. But we should at least try to sign better rather than settling for a guy who probably won't repeat a season where he's maybe had a fitness spurt or just everything going right.

Hayes signs a one year extension. No brainer really.

 

Good to see Hayes staying on another year. Van Veen doesn't excite me and doesn't really fit with our strategy. Miovski although off the boil at the moment with regards to goalscoring has a lot more potential. One of the best finishers I've seen at the club for a while. Hopefully he bags a few more goals soon and gets his confidence up again. 

At least Miovski is still involved in play though. Confident it'll come back for him.

Pleased with Hayes, hes involved with the youth set up too is he not? Regardless a good experienced head in that team is no bad thing.

18 hours ago, Jute said:

 

Any truth in the rumour that he was quoted as saying afterwards "the deal was agreed a while ago, but I felt it necessary to wait until BigAl started the summer 2023 transfer thread on DonsTalk before announcing the signing of it" ?

12 hours ago, manc_don said:

At least Miovski is still involved in play though. Confident it'll come back for him.

Pleased with Hayes, hes involved with the youth set up too is he not? Regardless a good experienced head in that team is no bad thing.

Yes he is Manc, recently gained his UEFA licence and is assistant coach to the U16's 

Huge window, obviously having to replace an entire defense. Think Macdonald will stay, would certainly like to keep pollock and scales too as that back 3 has been solid. Scales has had an up and down season which might benefit us in trying to sign him permanently? Pollock is young and has done very well here, but unlike clarkson with Liverpool, watford aren’t getting promoted so they may see him as one for next season.
clarkson needs replaced, don’t think we can afford to sign a permanent player of that level. I also think, while others disagree, another year for him up here isn’t a bad thing. Liverpool will spend money this summer given their season, don’t see clarkson as a priority to them. 
Up top it all depends on whether duk and miovski stay. Tough position and we have to be scouting for players to replace them since if good money is offered we will accept.

signing shinnie permanently is certainly desirable. If we can’t keep him we certainly need a shinnie type player in there as it’s not Connor Barron. Barron needs to get fit and be part of the rotation again.  would love us to add two legit wingers with Duncan as the third player to rotate wide although Ryan has played in other positions of late too so not sure of his natural position. Morris vinnie kennedy and mclennan need to get punted but I’d keep Roberts to see if he’s capable.

Mccrorie to Bristol City for £2million according to bbc

We'd be daft not to go for it tbh. He's probably peaked in terms of performance for us.

16 minutes ago, manc_don said:

We'd be daft not to go for it tbh. He's probably peaked in terms of performance for us.

Maybe, but I think our issue is that we don’t know his best position. Does he even have a best position? He’s a solid worker and someone I like, but where does he play? I think he fills the shinnie role in center mid but if we can keep shinnie I think rama and shinnie are our guys there. He’s not a central defender but back up there and he’s only right back because Richardson is shit. If we get 2M that’s good money and surely we can find someone as good for less than that.

11 hours ago, OrlandoDon said:

Maybe, but I think our issue is that we don’t know his best position. Does he even have a best position? He’s a solid worker and someone I like, but where does he play? I think he fills the shinnie role in center mid but if we can keep shinnie I think rama and shinnie are our guys there. He’s not a central defender but back up there and he’s only right back because Richardson is shit. If we get 2M that’s good money and surely we can find someone as good for less than that.

His best position is the one he's currently playing in, wing back as part of a 3/5, he can also play right back too. At best, he's a stop gap for centre mid and centre back, you definitely wouldn't want him playing either for long spells. £2M would be an absolutely fantastic bit of business. We will very much miss his athleticism and ability to run with the ball to get us up the park, but his decision making is poor (he was very lucky to get a free kick at one point yesterday when he turned into trouble instead of just keeping going, and that sort of thing happens quite regularly) and is passing is week. I think he's maybe had a couple of assists all season, and it's rare for his final ball to cause difficulties for the opposition. That said, it's a terrible time to be losing him. We've got such a huge turnover of staff this summer, we're already on a hiding to nothing in terms of recruitment, so a known SPFL quantity is of massive benefit.

Barron is an interesting one too, it looks like offers are beginning to come in for him. I think he's a great player, who'll go on to have a good career, but I also think he could massively benefit from another year here, especially with Clarkson moving on and leaving that number 6 role as Barron's to lose. Ryan Duncan barely featured prior to signing his new contract, and has featured heavily since, and Barron has hardly kicked a ball since not agreeing a new deal. I wonder if this is a new hard line that the club is taking with young players? I'm not sure I agree with it, and I'd love to see Barron spend his final year here and kick on as I think that would be hugely beneficial for the team.

 

We all know that this thread shouldn't have been started until May, but seeing as it has, is it worth including a review of this season's signings to give an idea of what to expect this summer, and also a break down of the squad for next season so far? That was a rhetorical question, of course it is.

Signings

Roos - success

Miovski - success

Duk - success

Ramadani - success

Stewart - failure

Morris - failure

Richardson - failure

Roberts - failure

MacDonald - success

Myslovic - failure (borderline, perhaps, potential to turn it round)

Loanees

Clarkson - success

Coulson - failure (borderline, but he hasn't held down a place and has performed worse than Hayes)

Shinnie - success

Pollock - success

Markanday - failure

Gorter - success (not going to be here next season, and not going to get minutes this one, but clearly a good goalkeeper)

Apologies if I've missed anyone. That's a 50% success rate in terms of signings and a 66% success rate in terms of loanees (Coulson and Gorter both debatable either way). I'd say that's fairly decent, and probably quite indicative of what we can expect in any given season (two windows). Had we not had the exceptional January window of 66% success rate, we'd have been struggling for top 6 in my opinion, but given the tremendous turnover in personnel last summer, that's exactly what we should have expected and also indicative of what will likely happen next season.

 

 

 

Surely our searching will yield even better results next window, now that we know to filter out all the *aydens first.

Continuing on, the squad for next season so far (and apologies again to those missed), and a view on whether we should keep or not (or will be outwith our hands):

Roos - keep

McRorie - leave (outwith our hands probably)

Hayes - keep

MacKenzie - keep

Stewart - leave (fire into the sea)

Richardson - leave (cut our losses)

Ramadani - keep

Barron - leave (outwith our hands probably)

Duncan - keep

Morris - leave (cut our losses)

Roberts - leave (cut our losses)

Besuijen - keep (borderline, would be interesting to see if Robson can get anything out of him)

Duk - keep (outwith our hands perhaps, although the game yesterday will have shown many teams that he's far from the finished article and might not be worth the investment if not playing every week)

Miovski - keep (outwith our hands possibly, but I think we'll get another year, or six months at least, from him despite that header)

That leaves a maximum of 14 signed players for next season, with 4 of those definitely not good enough, another 2 likely to leave, with a further 2 possibly leaving, which gives us a minimum of 6 signed players for next season (two of those being McKenzie and Besuijen who probably aren't quite good enough). Of course, we should have a great chance of signing Shinnie, and hopefully MacDonald can be persuaded too. If we take the middle figure of 10 signed players, of which two are squad players (I think we can rely on Hayes to play a good chunk of games for another season), then we'll need at least another 5 players. At last season's rates then we'd need to sign 10 players at least to replace those guys. That's a mammoth task, and a lot of first teamers.

 

10 minutes ago, OxfordDon said:

Surely our searching will yield even better results next window, now that we know to filter out all the *aydens first.

Alternatively, we double down on the strategy, in the hope that the law of averages will return one good *ayden.

On 18/04/2023 at 16:47, RicoS321 said:

Disgusting. I'll get back to you in May when this thread should be started.

 

On 20/04/2023 at 15:45, RicoS321 said:

Harsh. Van Veen has a great touch and is fairly skilful. He's just very slow. He's having a purple patch this season, which I'd doubt whether he'd replicate again. His movement seems to have improved this season, which is weird for a guy in his thirties, but it suggests that it could be a one off (think Doidge had similar for Hibs one year as an example). He's one of those guys that we'll consistently tell ourselves that we could do better than but we end up signing jet equivalents that don't do better. But we should at least try to sign better rather than settling for a guy who probably won't repeat a season where he's maybe had a fitness spurt or just everything going right.

 

On 20/04/2023 at 16:26, RicoS321 said:

Hayes signs a one year extension. No brainer really.

 

1 hour ago, RicoS321 said:

His best position is the one he's currently playing in, wing back as part of a 3/5, he can also play right back too. At best, he's a stop gap for centre mid and centre back, you definitely wouldn't want him playing either for long spells. £2M would be an absolutely fantastic bit of business. We will very much miss his athleticism and ability to run with the ball to get us up the park, but his decision making is poor (he was very lucky to get a free kick at one point yesterday when he turned into trouble instead of just keeping going, and that sort of thing happens quite regularly) and is passing is week. I think he's maybe had a couple of assists all season, and it's rare for his final ball to cause difficulties for the opposition. That said, it's a terrible time to be losing him. We've got such a huge turnover of staff this summer, we're already on a hiding to nothing in terms of recruitment, so a known SPFL quantity is of massive benefit.

Barron is an interesting one too, it looks like offers are beginning to come in for him. I think he's a great player, who'll go on to have a good career, but I also think he could massively benefit from another year here, especially with Clarkson moving on and leaving that number 6 role as Barron's to lose. Ryan Duncan barely featured prior to signing his new contract, and has featured heavily since, and Barron has hardly kicked a ball since not agreeing a new deal. I wonder if this is a new hard line that the club is taking with young players? I'm not sure I agree with it, and I'd love to see Barron spend his final year here and kick on as I think that would be hugely beneficial for the team.

 

 

56 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

We all know that this thread shouldn't have been started until May, but seeing as it has, is it worth including a review of this season's signings to give an idea of what to expect this summer, and also a break down of the squad for next season so far? That was a rhetorical question, of course it is.

Signings

Roos - success

Miovski - success

Duk - success

Ramadani - success

Stewart - failure

Morris - failure

Richardson - failure

Roberts - failure

MacDonald - success

Myslovic - failure (borderline, perhaps, potential to turn it round)

Loanees

Clarkson - success

Coulson - failure (borderline, but he hasn't held down a place and has performed worse than Hayes)

Shinnie - success

Pollock - success

Markanday - failure

Gorter - success (not going to be here next season, and not going to get minutes this one, but clearly a good goalkeeper)

Apologies if I've missed anyone. That's a 50% success rate in terms of signings and a 66% success rate in terms of loanees (Coulson and Gorter both debatable either way). I'd say that's fairly decent, and probably quite indicative of what we can expect in any given season (two windows). Had we not had the exceptional January window of 66% success rate, we'd have been struggling for top 6 in my opinion, but given the tremendous turnover in personnel last summer, that's exactly what we should have expected and also indicative of what will likely happen next season.

 

 

 

 

36 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

Continuing on, the squad for next season so far (and apologies again to those missed), and a view on whether we should keep or not (or will be outwith our hands):

Roos - keep

McRorie - leave (outwith our hands probably)

Hayes - keep

MacKenzie - keep

Stewart - leave (fire into the sea)

Richardson - leave (cut our losses)

Ramadani - keep

Barron - leave (outwith our hands probably)

Duncan - keep

Morris - leave (cut our losses)

Roberts - leave (cut our losses)

Besuijen - keep (borderline, would be interesting to see if Robson can get anything out of him)

Duk - keep (outwith our hands perhaps, although the game yesterday will have shown many teams that he's far from the finished article and might not be worth the investment if not playing every week)

Miovski - keep (outwith our hands possibly, but I think we'll get another year, or six months at least, from him despite that header)

That leaves a maximum of 14 signed players for next season, with 4 of those definitely not good enough, another 2 likely to leave, with a further 2 possibly leaving, which gives us a minimum of 6 signed players for next season (two of those being McKenzie and Besuijen who probably aren't quite good enough). Of course, we should have a great chance of signing Shinnie, and hopefully MacDonald can be persuaded too. If we take the middle figure of 10 signed players, of which two are squad players (I think we can rely on Hayes to play a good chunk of games for another season), then we'll need at least another 5 players. At last season's rates then we'd need to sign 10 players at least to replace those guys. That's a mammoth task, and a lot of first teamers.

 

 

31 minutes ago, RicoS321 said:

Alternatively, we double down on the strategy, in the hope that the law of averages will return one good *ayden.

Jesus Rico, for someone that doesn't want to discuss transfer windows until May, you've got a hell of a lot to say on the subject 😂