Sweeper07

He was on our books when he was 5 - He was that good even back then

A friend of mine told me to look out for one Dylan Stevenson likely to be in the Morton squad this week. He is a 17 year old who was on our books for 7 years, then was snapped up by Aberdeen for 2 years, then Rangers, Celtic poached him as the **** were in all kinds of turmoil (where he scored 5 and laid on 2 in one game against Rangers and scored 39 that season), then he went to the soap dodgers. He has had some great write ups during pre-season and has been on each game for the last chunk 10 - 20, 30 minutes. Since we are aiming for the future with cheap deals and young players - maybe we will sign him back next year when his current contract is up?

Lennon never got better - despite having to offload his best paid players every year he managed the 1st major trophy in the best part of 3 decades for us. Admittedly we flirted with relegation every year, but in stead of being allowed to improve the team he had to cut the cloth of the St. Mirren budget which meant conjuring up a Goncalves, Newton type player or 2 or we would have been truly stuffed. If we are to compete with the big boys, or even the Dumbarton's we won't do that with far poorer budgets and a load of young hopefuls. Gilmour open the purse strings and Murray sign some decent footballers ASAP

Living up to my predictions - squad far too weak, still missing at least 5 guys who can play at, at least this standard. Great idea bringing on the boys, but not all in the same team. We still need guys who can score goals or we will only win if they score og.s. Defensively - 2 shots on target, 2 goals!!! We managed to create 2 chances against DUMBARTON. All the other squads that were decimated are looking better than us Saints TV producing horror shows - get some DECENT players in - we are already 6 points behind!!!

Where did you conjure up this £800,00 figure and what about the drop in wages? And what about the MacLean money? Should we have invested £800,00 and stayed up like Ross County did? Knowing Saint fans, we will pull in bigger home crowds if we are winning more often.

Seriously who is saying "let's sign anyone at all"? Can you not read? Maybe you should re-read my post or get a help to do so, and pay special interest in the word quality (twice)[i'm not suggesting Messi standard, but better than we have already is surely not too much of an ask - and certainly not that difficult either?]. No one is suggesting bursting the bank. Where has the Maclean/McGinn transfer money gone and the wages from 8 players we are short of from last year gone? (Tess, MacLean, McGinn, Kello, Cheesy, Wylde, were all on decent premier money). You can bet also Murray and his assistance are on Championship money too.(rightly so, but that is a further cut from last year) Time is not up yet, but it soon will be and by the end of the 1st quarter we will know if we have missed the opportunity to do what Hearts did or not. Worse still, if it is bad, the January transfer budget will be less and who thinks we will be well sorted for winning the league next season? (even the most optimistic will need some amount of faith for that as things are looking at the moment) "At the moment", is the issue here. Like all fans, we hope that the management will come up trumps with 3 or more really good additions to bring on the lads and at least have a stronger squad for competition of places - But please please, not those who are well by their best or still playing boys football because they are cheap and we cannot attract better players for the lack of a decent wage. Young lads with real potential are great if they reach their potential - a good help from much better pro's can make this far more likely. Maybe you are all much more confident than I am that the next 2 league matches will bring in 6 points - thing is we really should be confident of that, for neither of those opponents will be challenging for the league!

Trouble is we are a further 5 weeks down the line, the season has now started and all we have signed is boys since then! Saints are playing in a "man's league" and it is time to get the finger out! 2 and a bit weeks will soon vanish, then we will be stuck until the usual January transfer disappointments.

Hey ye loyal sainties, Surely it is too early to have a squad in place? 14 players out from last season, 6 in so far and out of 6 games to date we have lost 4. Admittedly only 1 of the defeats really mattered. The loss of 11 goals during that time is not great and apart from playing Berwick "amateurs", we have managed 2 goals in 5 games! Better quality Goalie (not an inferior or "past-it" back-up), left back (could be Kelly), centre back (2 if Kelly goes to LB, 1 as cover for Baird and "the quality new guy"), holding midfielder to offer some protection, goal scoring strikers (at least 2) are all urgently needed before the league runs away from us; cover for right back, and 2 better quality midfielders would be a real bonus. OK OK it is still early and the transfer window is open for just under 3 more weeks - but come on Murray and Gilmour and get decent players in soon to give us a fighting chance, with a less bare squad than the 17 players at the moment (with 1 of these not that likely to feature other than on the bench) Time to speculate to accumulate with the MacLean/McGinn money and attract some good players that we can sell on next year!! We PRAY that Dumbarton don't do to us what they did to the Hibies - being a saints fan makes us turn to God for help! I am not being disloyal - just venting off some frustration - can we really make the play-offs and beat a premier team? - certainly not as things stand at the moment and we are not good enough for a serious run in any of the 2 main cups. Personally I hope the club have bigger ambitions than aiming for an ok season this year so that we can acclimatise in the Championship before deciding what we plan for next season. Winning isn't everything BUT losing too often is nae fun either

"happy with a play off place". Really judging by last year when the play off winner - Gers got stuffed 6 v 1 by Motherwell. We need a much better squad to even compete in the Championship never mind compete with Premiership teams. We need to spend some of the £500,000 from McLean and McGinn on some good quality pro's. Defence is no where near good enough and how many goals are we likely to score? Sadly the Gers have done a far better job building their squad in recent months and they too had new manager, assistance and big squad changes. (They also have far bigger overheads/potential debt)

Yes Bradford did beat Chelsea in a cup tie - but Bradford went on to finish 11th in the English 3rd division behind MK dons. They conceded 54 goals in the league & despite them playing 6 trialists against us they still managed to win and we did not manage a goal. Oh and Chelsea went on to win the league and had a very successful season (in the cup anyone can have bad game, but the league is what the best teams win) with guys scoring 23 & 19 goals during their campaign. We managed a 7 and a 4 as our top 2 scorers and we sold the top one of them in January. We had a striker trialist playing against Bradford called Malachi in our line up who never managed a goal last season. Seriously - you think we are league contenders with this squad? I think we will get a shock with Hibs, Raith, Falkirk all having more settled teams who know the division, with a few additions to their squads & QOS and the **** buying and planning better. The talk was Murray was a serious contender back in January - if it was likely he was coming or even if he was staying at Dumbarton, who did he have lined up? I really want Murray to be a huge success, I want us to win the league and get back into Europe, win trophies etc. But the couple of young Burnley reserve rejects, and a couple of midfielders are not going to make us a serious league winning squad! We might even beat a Premier team in a cup - but finishing 5th or worse in the league is not what any Saint's fan wants! I dread Murray getting the sack in January or next Summer and Thompson or Goodwin being the interim manager in the merry go round that we continue to watch at our club. Even if we do not too badly - these 2 will be going as they are the biggest wage earners anyway - right? We will not win games if we cannot score goals - where are they going to come from!!!!!!!

It is a poor show that the best you can offer is that you played with the Cub scouts I got paid to play, and won real trophies in professional leagues, many times! And I have no doubt that I know far more about rocket science or Arithmetic than you do also. I never suggested that we blow the budget either. My perception is that Mr Gilmour cuts the budget each year, but that there must be a target and a stretched budget consideration. Does the target budget rule and we end up with guys not capable of beating Bradford and the like, or can we push the boat out just a wee bit and get a Webster OR ? We cannot know where we will finish - but we need some guys who can score goals really really badly

Other than those who think I have been on the forum before and the abusive comments about that, I am enjoying the sentiment from true fans of our beloved team. (I was born in Greenock Road in a house that overlooked the ground) I agree that so far Falkirk have not done great in the transfer window either. QOS have lost 7/11th of their team etc. But Hibs had a good team and have added better than we have. Rangers, the jury is out on, though they will happily pay better money for really good players like Danny Wilson - I just dread to see another set of dregs being signed at the last minute from who is left. (Need I mention Ball, Marwood etc.) 4 or 5 players needed - I think we need 8 or 9. Ross County were heading down before Christmas, but they speculated on a lot of players and from hardly winning, strung a run together with competition for places a real incentive. I played for a lot of teams that won leagues and trophies, and had the most clean sheets in a season in their league - it is not rocket science - Does anyone really believe we are likely to be the top scorers or the have the best defensive record in the new season? I am not judging Murray before he gets a chance - I just hope that his hands are not too constrained by the Gilmour budget system (I don't know if that is fair - but Teal wanted to sign guys who went to our competitors last time - and we all know the result of that).

Not sure what you mean about a new name - this is the 1st time I have been on the forum. We are notoriously bad starters... the obvious reason for that is that half the squad arrives late and are usually not an improvement on what we already have (having let our highest earners go)... and then we are on the back foot... sack the manager and begin the vicious circle all over again. The smart teams have their targets signed up before the end of the season. (I do appreciate that we did not know what league we would be in - but there was a point that it was clear we were going down and we never managed to line up anyone other than Agnew.

A Pessimist is what a Optimist calls a Realist What is the outlook like for the Saints this coming season? I like the fact that Mr Gilmour got rid of the debt and put us on a surer foundation, living within our means. But let’s be honest, we have been cutting our cloth so thin that we have been spiralling downwards on the field for several seasons. (The cup win was not too long ago) We have had 5 or more trialists training and playing over a week ago – but none have been signed. Are they not good enough or can we not convince them to sign? Either way, something is not right. So for the umpteenth season in a row, we are a couple of weeks away from the start of the season with just over ½ a squad. The trouble is the half we have were not good enough last term and even though we are now in a lower division, with this squad there is no way we will complete with Hibs or Rangers. Last year we never scored enough goals. If Thomo has another year like last we are relying on the regularly injured Gow, then we are in trouble. Even if both stay injury free, how many goals will they get? Having lost MacLean and McGinn, are the signings we have made in their league – clearly not? Every team that wins leagues have 3 or more players who score 15 or more goals in a season and usually 20 or more. Will we even have one? In defence we lost too many goals last year too – so that needs improving if we will be serious contenders. Let’s get a scorer or 2 like Zeefuik who hit 12 goals in 15 games for Hearts last season and a class sweeper urgently – and blow the budget just a little! Where is Goncalves or the next Doug Somner?