Official attendance was 19,190 so we could only have sold another 1,300 tickets. Having said that they count all season tickets whether people turn up or not. My guess is that maybe a couple of thousand gave it a miss so maybe only 17,000 in ground. Some of that is understandable e.g. Merkland particularly empty as families not going on a school night for a game against the scum that was on TV.
That all said I know what you are saying as there is a lethargy now in our fan base as gradually we are heading back to the bad old days of playing for third at best, when combined with negative tactics from the manager and lack of ambition from the Board. Not just us though as plenty of empty seats from the supposed better supported Edinburgh teams when they last played sevco as well, for much the same reasons I suspect.
The lack of ambition from the board is the main one.
The cheeks strengthened again last month and we are being told we should be pleased because we managed to keep our key players.
Obviously we can’t compete with their budgets but we aren’t even looking like we are making an effort.
We might manage to finish above the Huns again this season if we are lucky but it really is just putting off the inevitable.The cheeks will keep getting stronger and we will keep filling our squad with loan players.
At least the club will have an empty plastic stadium and couple of training pitches and wee Stewartie gets reimbursed handsomely with his Pittodrie flats while the fans get their wish with a substantially increased youth policy.
The number of loan players is not the reason we are behind them (all three teams have five players “borrowed”), but rather the quality of loan players. We get players from Brentford and Birmingham whilst they get from PSG, Dortmund and Liverpool. Anybody who says the budget doesn’t make a difference is kidding themselves.
Yes but they also strengthened their squads while our squad seems to have decreased again.
The Huns made 10 permanent signings on top of the 5 loans.
The Tims made 8 permanent signings on top of the 5 loans.
We made 4 permanent signings as well as 5 loans.
With Shinnie,GMS and McKenna likely away in the summer as well as the 5 loans we are going to have a lot of players to sign and I expect that there will be a lot more than 5 players on loan next season.
Wilson is no more MU calibre than you or me. It’s four years since he last played for them. He has spent the last four years either injured or bumming around the Championship. Look at what Kent did to us last night to see what spending money on a player that is a realistic top end of EPL player can do.
Both Stewart and Ball are out of contract in the Summer and I suspect we will try to sign both. We may or may not get Lowe again next season depending on what Derby do the rest of this season. Not sure what Hobans contract situation is but can’t see him getting anywhere near Watford’s team so he may be back if not Shaughnessy. I suspect we will end up with around 5 loans again.
Easier said than done but the only realistic way to compete with the cheeks going forward in the long term is to try to bring through 4-5 of our own younger players at the same time and create a conveyor belt of getting 3-4 years out of them before selling them for decent money that can be re-invested in the team. Easy to say, much harder to make happen of course.