Other clubs get in loan players to enhance their first team and for their young players to learn from, we have brought in Tillson and Grieve who significantly weaken our 1st team and hold back the development of our own youngsters,then we have the lad from St Johnstone who hasn't played a single minute for us and who barring injuries won't play a single minute for us all season. Wotherspoon has been unlucky with injuries whether he will be an asset only time will tell. The first 3 mentioned are a complete waste of time and money, I'm not criticising McClelland because I haven't a clue whether he's any good or not but I'm certainly criticising the manager and board, we signed him when Gallagher was a week away from being fit and Graham had been playing well in his absence so unless St Johnstone are picking up a large part of his wages we are paying premier league wages for our 4th choice centre half.
Damn fine post that!
Only thing i have to say is about the "strongest squad". I tried to post something along these lines the other day but couldnt follow it through. While i expect we all have a best team on matchday that have demonstrated they are arguably the best in the league, once replacements start coming in, just now they dont seem good enough to win a league. Raith on the other hand seem to have a more balanced squad in the sense that replacements dont harm them as much.
I just think last night was about tactics not motivation, I agree about tilson and grieve, that's on the club as much as the manager though, there is no transfer strategy beyond leaving it to manager to source what is available local. I'd agree to an extent regards the youngsters, I thought last week, against Arbroath, worst team in the league, cruising it, he puts grieve and tilson on ahead of likes of cujoe and mochrie. That's the point when you should just pack your bags. Also has to be said for balance though, how often have we said the youngsters haven't stepped up when given the opportunity?
While i agree to an extent with this, it has cost us an absolute fortune to go through the number of managers we have done over the last wee while. The one thing that will stop us removing another one will be still paying for others who were ejected, and i might add a few other staff that followed them.
I can agree with you about the tactics being wrong but let's be honest we were 2nd best to every ball and lost every tackle and header and that is down to motivation,, even though the tactics aren't working there's no excuse for the individual performances put in last night. Again I can agree to some extent about the youngsters not stepping up but let's be honest they are held to a far higher standard than your Watts and Middleton's, watt and Middleton under perform week after week put are continually picked, the youngsters get 10 minutes here or there most weeks if they are lucky, then they get thrown in out of the blue to start a game, often in Mochrie and Meekison's case not in their best position then regardless of how anyone else around them is performing they get hauled off at HT or early 2nd half then dropped for the next run of games. How is any young players going to perform under these circumstances? They need to be given the same opportunities that others do. In the Patrick game last week Meekison came on for the last few minutes the ball got played to him in the number 10 position, in the commentators words he " took it on the half turn and looked to drive forward" when has Watt done that in that role he'd rather take the ball in to feet and pass it back, take a fancy flick and lose it or turn in to the defender and throw himself to the ground, this along with the hoof up the park to Moult to try and hold up or run after all makes our creative play far too slow or loses possession too easily. We need someone in there to take the ball on the half turn, draw a defender to slip it through to Moult or the wingers in space, Moult would thrive on that as would our wingers, the wingers very rarely beat their defender someone playing the way Meekison wants to means they don't have too, he can draw the fullback and slip it in behind.