Maboza
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Posts posted by Maboza
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14 minutes ago, billyg said:
I take it this has fallen through too ?
Seems not.
https://www.stmirren.com/news/club/all-news/2033-willock-joins-saints-on-loan
You can move on to the next thing to moan about now.
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I see a few folk on twitter ready for a meltdown because his wiki said he’s 5ft 8 and Stubbs has said he’s 6ft 1 or so.
Turns out Stubbs is right.
Folk really need to get a grip and take a look at themselves.
It’s turning into a tidal wave of unnecessary negativity - waiting to pounce at any and every opp to have a go at Stubbs. Sad days.
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10 minutes ago, Dave The Buddie said:
We need a striker or is it just me that feels we don’t need another midfielder
We definitely need a striker, possibly two, but I don't think that means that our midfield is the finished article.
Would be happy to get more attacking width in midfield, a stronger/experienced centre half and cover at LB/RB.
Even if we sign Willock today, I'd think we still want at least another 5 after that.
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1 hour ago, santaponsasaint said:
Was down getting my ticket for tomorrow and there's a lot of press for just his Friday press conference. Is there an announcement??????
Sounds like Willock is almost over the line.
Hopefully there's more than that if there's a big press contingent!
Announce a quadruple signing Saints!!
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14 hours ago, Dibbles old paperboy said:
Stubbs can be applauded for the side he put together, the style of football at Hibs, winning the Scottish Cup in his second season and having a few other cup runs as well. Can you imagine the kind of budget he had with Mark Oxley in goals, the following defenders to choose from David Gray, Paul Hanlon, Liam Fontaine, Keith Watson, Lewis Stevenson, Darren McGregor, Callum Booth and Marvin Bartley. Midfield options included Scott Robertson, Liam Craig, Frazer Fyvie, Scott Allan, Dylan McGeoch, Sam Stanton, Liam Henderson, John McGinn and Kevin Thomson. Upfront a selection from Jason Cummings, Dominique Malonga, Martin Boyle, Farid El Alagui, Islam Feruz, Anthony Stokes and James Keatings. Two seasons in a row, with that type of squad he failed to make the promotion play off final. But hey, he won more games than he lost.
I see this mentioned time and again but it's a bit lazy to be honest as it completely misses the context of the other side of the story - that being the competition he was up against.
Season 1 - they were up against a Hearts team that had an equally impressive squad, presumably budget, and really got their house in order after relegation. Also a Rangers team who had a far bigger budget - albeit they were in a mess.
Season 2 - Rangers starting to get their house in order and still a much bigger budget than Hibs.
We can look enviously at the squad he assembled and think of it as an embarrassment of riches but truth is, they were never favourites for the title. I'd accept that they should have got to the play-off final in Season 2 but I can imagine they took their eye off the ball with the prospect of the Cup Final. We only have to look at our own club for how performances skewed due to the build-up/hangover of a Cup Final.
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Today's the day!
C'mon Stubbsy!!
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6 minutes ago, Dibbles old paperboy said:
If Tony Fitzpatrick wants to claim our problem at the minute is that we are 1 year ahead of schedule perhaps he should reflect on why that is the case. Jack Ross & James Fowler did a great job and got their reward and went on to a new job with a salary 5x what we were paying them. The players also deserve huge credit for over-achieving last season. It's not Eckersley's fault if the club expected to be in the championship for 2 more seasons when he signed a 2 year contract extension last summer or Jack Baird's fault that he did the same and it's not Gary MacKenzie's fault that he signed a 1 year contract extension a few weeks before Jack Ross was sending his CV to any English club with a vacancy.
If there is any truth in the rumour that the club have offered to mutually consent players from last year, who overachieved and got the club promoted 1 year too early, by offering to rip up their contracts and give them less than 25% of what they are due, Tony Fitzpatrick and Gordon Scott and CEO and chairman should be ashamed of themselves. I'm sure REA posted previously that when players or staff left by mutual consent the club paid up the remainder of their contracts but saved on paying the national insurance / income tax.
Why should they be ashamed?
It's standard practice and a matter of negotiation.
The players have the choice. They don't need to go anywhere but they're given the choice that would get 25% of their contract and have the ability to sign a new deal. That means if we were paying a reasonably fair value then they should secure a same deal elsewhere meaning they get 125% + potentially a signing on fee.
I think some on here are getting a bit overdramatic!
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Time to take a deep breath or 2 and give the gaffer a bit of time to put this right.
I was more wound up after the Spartans game than I was after the game last night. His interview acknowledges the shortcomings and work to be done. He's ripped up the squad so the onus is on him to put it right. We're all a bit panicked at the early signs but let's give him a chance.
We've still got a good number of players to be signed. A quantity of players that should transform the team if he gets this next batch of recruitment right. The pressure is on him to do that but he's known that all along.
He didn't come here to fail and it's not going to do us any good turning on him at this stage.
C'mon Stubbsy - let's get on with it!
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24 minutes ago, Isle Of Bute Saint said:
Would say Mallan is the replacement?
Pretty sure that Mallan was seen as the replacement for McGeouch.
Worth remembering that they've also lost Scott Allan's services - for now at least anyway - so they'd definitely want midfielders in if they were to punt McGinn.
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1 minute ago, Drew said:
I still reckon Hibs would accept £2.5M, and can see Celtic offering this plus Allan and/or Christie.
For all we've been talking about how we would benefit from a deal going through, hasn't the Chairman already said that the money we receive would be used for club capital infrastructure as opposed to given to the manager for squad investment?
Yep, seems a bit strange.
We shouldn't be in a position of needing transfer money to bolster our squad. That's not the way that St.Mirren operate.
We've been waiting a long time for a windfall like this so I would hope that the noises made about it being used for capital infrastructure is more likely to be the case rather than the other talk of Stubbs getting a kitty.
Allan Stubbs will obviously plead his case for some of that cash for transfer fees or wages - that's his job I guess to ask for as much resources as possible to build the best squad possible using his expertise.
I'd reckon, however, that viewing of the £75k defender and other signings should raise a big enough question mark to stop GLS from releasing any additional funds above and beyond our planned budget. I guess it comes down to what expectations have been set between Chairman and Manager.
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10 hours ago, Buddie Marvelous said:
Wish some English team would come in under the radar and buy him for 4 million! That would be our best result of the season!
COYS
I don't imagine that John McGinn wants to go anywhere other than Celtic.
It would be the only reason that I can see no English Championship clubs bidding.
Unfortunately this probably means that unless Hibs strike a deal then we'll be getting sweet FA when he moves on a PCA.
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2 minutes ago, Magic Monkey said:
I know everyone rips the piss out of England, but they went for a back three in the summer because it suits what they had at their disposal.
I wonder if we could do the same.
------------------------Samson----------------------
--------------Heaton - Kpekawa - Baird----------
McGinn-------Flynn-----McGinn--------Coulson
-------------------Magennis--------------------
--------------Smith-------------------------------
--------------------------Mark Kee----------------
Problem with that is you get pinned back by better teams (such as Croatia) but it lets us play Flynn, Magennis and Smith in the preferred positions. Coulson will be given licence to bomb on. We would just need a striker worthy of the name and a better RWB.
I reckon that could be making the best of our middle-to-front players - it's certainly a better option than sticking Cammy Smith out wide!
I'd still be concerned about those particular 3 CB's. I've not seen Kpekawa yet but hear mixed reviews. From what I saw of Heaton in the Spartans game he is miles off and will be a work in progress for him to realise the potential that Stubbs believes him to have - unless of course he was just extremely nervous in that 1st game.
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3 hours ago, Transfer news said:
7 days ago pre killie stubbs said we could possibly see 3 or 4 coming in within the next 4/5 days. It's 7 days later and no signings
It seems that Mr Stubbs isn't quite as measured and savvy in his media dealings as the now departed Mr Ross was previously.
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I would have said that Craig Dargo, Steven Thompson and Gary Teale were marquee signings.
Dargo possibly more so than the others as we kind of felt that we were getting someone at their peak as opposed to guys who were now taking a step down for the latter parts of their career.
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5 minutes ago, DougJamie said:
You mean the competition we won 5 years ago, under the old format
Again this is a ridiculous thread. Its mid July FFS...................
What do you expect. Accies lost to Annan, Utd , , Falkirk all losing to lower league................... this is no a guide and all teams are rusty or gelling......
Yes we should be beating Spartans- But hey Germany should be beating South Korea!!!
Oh and Killie should be beating us!!
Thrown away nothing.....................
What do I expect?
I expect that our team.... that we assembled and put through a rigorous pre-season at excellent, expensive facilities in Spain, whilst being guided by our top-level coaches ... I expect that team to be able to go out and beat Spartans as we should be so clearly ahead of them - rusty/gelling shouldn't come in to it. Same goes to all those other teams you mention. I guess that's football but doesn't mean that we shouldn't be doing better.
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Even if we still qualify 1st or 2nd, we may have now thrown away the chance to be seeded in the next round (last 16) as the seedings go to the top 4 group winners. That would put any team in with a good shout of suddenly being in a national cup QF.
Pretty shambolic. We manage to balls up this competition every summer.
Doesn't matter if it's early in the season or whether you believe that the competition has been devalued by the SFL - plain and simple, we should be beating Spartans. We've fecked it up like in previous seasons where we should have taken enough goals off of lower league teams (Edinburgh City?) to see us through.
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duplicate post.
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Did Doolan not struggle to get in to a failing Partick team last season as well as having diminishing game time over the last couple of seasons?
I'd be surprised if we were interested.
Maybe some would fancy him as a decent standard squad player.
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Did we not have a sell-on for Mallan?
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One thing is for sure - Stubbs will have a decent budget to work with given all the players that have moved on and there's more still to go if he can get rid of McShane, McKenzie, Eck and presumably Kirkpatrick & Stewart.
A lot of work to do.
Could really do with some re-assuring signings now.
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I thought Hippolyte would have been a good signing but you could quickly see that he doesn't have the desire to make it as a top footballer. His workrate, decision-making and attitude all looked like they fell short of what is required. It didn't fit in with the team last year so is no surprise that we're getting rid of him.
Good decision in my opinion.
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1 minute ago, nedflanders123 said:
If Celtic have offered £2m then it would be utter folly for Hibs to turn it down knowing they will lose him for nothing at the end of his contract. He maybe worth more but he is only worth what clubs are willing to bid. Perhaps the reason there appears to be no other buds is simply because a top club will get him on a pre contract and use transfer money to boost his contract (wages etc)?
Entering an interesting phase now...
For all the talk of West Ham, Leeds, etc. there doesn't seem to be any English clubs at the table - at least yet!
Lennon & Hibs have been talking to build up McGinn's value for well over a year now.
If Celtic is the only genuine interest - or the only club he's interested in going to - then that's a very bad position for Hibs and for us. Celtic can get through this season without McGinn so can happily await a PCA. It will come down to how much Hibs place value on having McGinn for the season and losing him for nothing. I think when you look at it like that then Celtic's £2m is probably getting pretty close to the mark.
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23 minutes ago, MenstrieSaint said:
What I can't understand is why English teams a quite happy to pay Celtic over the odds for a player , but won't compete with Celtic to sign a player for a fraction of the price .
I just don't agree with this view at all.
I think it's pretty straightforward why there's such a vast difference in the prices of Armstrong and McGinn - and it's merited.
Celtic took Armstrong and improved him to a different level. He experienced better coaching, better training facilities, improved personal fitness and played at a higher standard winning trophies and playing in the Champions League. I also think that Brendan Rodgers being Celtic manager gains them a lot more credibility. They now effectively have the management, facilities and structure of a EPL club and English clubs are assured by that. That pushes up the value of a player like Armstrong going from Celtic, compared to a player like McGinn going from Hibs. More expensive and Less risk , is the way the English clubs see it.
It's the exact same reason why a player like van Dijk ends up at Southampton as a stepping stone to Liverpool. Similar with Andy Robertson via Hull to Liverpool.
The bigger the club, the more they want to see that a target player can cut it at what they deem to be an appropriate level. It doesn't matter if Liverpool paid £75m for van Dijk when they could have had him for £12m. They're quite happy to do that and get the finished article.
All the clubs are stepping stones in this system.
St.Mirren -> Hibs -> Celtic -> Southampton -> Liverpool -> Barcelona... it just goes on that way.
No matter what people may think of McGinn's ability, it's ridiculous to say that he's close to the level of Armstrong at this moment in his career or should be anywhere close in value. The value of McGinn at the end of the day will simply be whatever someone is willing to pay. It doesn't come down to Celtic being tight. I think they're an exceptionally well run club at the moment and are dealing very shrewdly in the transfer market.
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4 minutes ago, Isle Of Bute Saint said:
When Scott talks about filling in ( a corner) it's about the stadium generating money for the club for me that's the right way to go.
Only if the money it will generate is likely to outweigh the expenditure. Something that many people are rightly sceptical about.
St. Mirren v Dumbarton Betfred Cup 28/7/18
in Matchday & Travel Club
Posted
Delighted with that result and to see us through to the next round after failing to do so in previous seasons. Would ideally have won the group as 1 of the top 4 teams after the position we were in after the Killie game - but an encouraging step in the right direction nevertheless.
Couldn’t make the game today but sounds like it all came together well against a pretty poor Dumbarton. Delighted to see Ross Stewart get a goal and 2 for Cammy who has had a frustrating few games.
Hopefully everyone can take a chill pill now, look forward to our flag day next week and give Stubbs a break as he works on a few more signings.
Glad to see Div step down from his unhelpful #TeamEck nonsense on Twitter last night. That wouldn’t help anything. We need to unite behind the gaffer and players on the park.
Onwards we go!
Come on ye Saints!