Lex

The Premiership team has a similar break. The first leg of the play off final is on the 21st of May, a week and a half after our season ends. I've said all season that I think the team who finishes 11th will be relegated. Whoever it is will be on a massive downer, whereas the Championship team will be going the other way and on a huge high. I hope it's QOTS too, a decent away day and I think they will pose little threat next season.

I absolutely agree and said so earlier in the thread. Danny should go after the Hearts game, but he deserves a fond farewell and a standing ovation after the final whistle, and I'll be one of the people applauding.

Not really following your point here. Is it that some managerial changes work and some don't? If it is that, fair enough. Why then, do you only cite changes that haven't worked, whilst ignoring the changes that have worked? AJ's appointment by Killie from the lower leagues hasn't worked, McNamara's appointment by Dundee United from the lower league has worked. Morton's change of manager during the season hasn't worked, Dundee's change of manager during the season has worked. Cardiff's change of manager hasn't worked, meanwhile Palace and Sunderland's change of management have been huge successes. Your point of some appointments working and some isn't is valid, your examples need to be more balanced though. I think this list is more pertinent to this thread, it's a list of Danny's signings this season. Summer - December Cornell - Fail Harkins - Fail Bahoken - Fail Kello - Success Caprice - Fail Grainger - Fail Dilo -Success Dillon - Fail January till now Djemba-Djemba - Huge fanfare, huge - Fail. Campbell - Danny chased him for about a year, now he's got him he doesn't even use him from the bench anymore. A couple of flashes but nothing consistent - Fail. Magennis - Josh is a good impact sub, but whenever he's started he's been hopeless. The home game against St Johnstone and the game at Tannadice being the examples that spring to mind. Definitely not a success, would say fail is a bit harsh though - Don't know. Wylde - Haven't seen enough from Gregg to convince me he has what it takes to be a regular first team player. Again, he has looked best coming off the bench and playing against tiring defences, but has struggled when starting. He's here next season though, so will be judged then - Juries still out. There you go. I make that 2 successes and 8 failures from 12 signings, and both of the successes were goalkeepers! These aren't the teething mistakes of a new manager, Danny is one of the most experienced bosses in the league. His summer of Beath debacle was excused with the lack of experience card, he can't play that same card 3 years later, it's clear he hasn't learned. Can any Saints fan look at that and genuinely believe Danny is the right man to lead us into another vital summer window? Look at the amount of the clubs money he's wasted on duds there. It should not and cannot be allowed to happen again. It's too big a gamble to trust him with the clubs money for yet another season, he's thrown away enough of it.

Renewing tomorrow when I go get my Kille ticket

Hahaha... It's all a bit of a shame down there. Can't really laugh at them anymore. We need a ' Poor Morton, all threads merged ' thread!

Really? They've spent plenty of time in the bottom half of the league and even been relegated in their recent history. They've only won 2 titles in the last 30 years, and Houston won 1 of them. He also made massive money developing and selling young talent like Goodwillie and Conway. Looking at it from the outside in, I can't see what he's done wrong.

Consecutive top 6 finishes and a Scottish Cup title, all whilst developing and selling on some cracking young talent. What don't they like about him?

Perhaps. Worth asking though. Prince Bauben and Lee Millar released by Carlisle. Two more I'd like to see us enquiring about.

Why you think Levein is cloud cuckoo? Where's he going to get a job if not us? He's not going to get a gig in England, that's obvious. Aberdeen, Hibs, Hearts and Dundee Utd have all been looking for a manager since he's been out of work, not one of them have them have offered him the job. So, where's he going to go? As we've seen, the bigger Scottish clubs aren't interested in him. If he's going to get back in the game he'll need to take a job like ours. You could say the same about McLeish and Coyle. Yes appointing a new manager is a gamble, but keeping Danny is a bigger gamble IMO. We underachieved across the board this term, we underachieved in the league last term. How many more seasons of underachievement do you think we should allow him?

Well, he's scored goals in the top flight before, including a goal in an Old Firm game. He's settled in the area and we could and have done a lot worse (Bahoken).

I see Andy Little has been released by the new club. I think he'd definitely be worth a look. 24 years old and has scored goals at this level. Would be good back up/foil for Thommo.

Why can't we get a manager who's the perfect match?

We will have numerous applicants. If we want to go down the lower league route again (Danny, Tom Hendrie, Alex Ferguson) Ian Murray has worked wonders with part time Dumbarton. He's took them from rock bottom of the Championship 18 months ago, to 5th place this season and on the edge of the playoff and the quarter final of the Scottish Cup. A far more impressive managerial CV than Danny had when he was appointed. If we want to go down the internal promotion route again (Coughlin, McPherson), guys like Thommo, Teale and even Longwell have sufficient credentials and know the club inside out. My preferred route would be the experienced proven route. I'm sure Levein and Houston would be interested. Both have managed teams successfully at this level, Houston has a major honour to his name, Levein has experience at international level. A more outside the box line of thought would encompass guys like Alex McLeish, Owen Coyle and Billy Davies. I think they'd all struggle to get a job back in England after their recent sackings, McLeish and Coyle in particular have been overlooked by several clubs down there since being out of work. I think they'd all welcome the chance of a couple of years with us to try rebuild their reputation with a view to another crack in England. It would certainly be worth asking them and sounding out their demands. We are a debt free club with state of the training facilities and modern stadium, along with a youth system that is proven in developing fantastic talent and we are established in the top flight of Scottish football. Potential managers would be queuing up around the block if we had a vacancy, we are a very attractive proposition.

He's an alias, surely? I never dignified his bizarre rant with a response as i thought it was someone trying (badly) to be funny. He wasn't being serious.... was he?

Similar playing budgets like i said then? Thanks for confirming that for me. Why are they performing much better than we are? What are they doing that we're not? I've not seen one person mention either of them as replacements. Lest we forget, less than 6 weeks ago this sites twitter handle ran a poll amongst fans on whether Danny Lennon should be sacked immediately, or not. Over 80% of those who responded wanted him sacked that night, IIRC the webmaster of this site was on national media asking for him to go. For a bit of context, i was one of the 20% who voted for him to stay in that poll. Since the end of January i've been fully behind Danny, as i do not believe post January sackings work, and my posts on here reflect that. However, it does not detract from the fact that this is Danny's 4th season in charge, and our own captain is admitting we are underachieving. We should not be (again, i'll use our captains term) 'underachieving' when a manager is in his 4th season in charge. He's had enough time, underachievement isn't acceptable anymore, and we are self-confessed underachievers this term. How many more seasons of underachievement are we willing to give him? Another 4? Time's up. Danny should leave with a healthy CV and he will get a job elsewhere. It's time for us to look to kick on and actually challenge for the top 6. Danny's had 4 seasons, and in that time not only has he failed to get us in the top half once, we haven't even been in contention for it once. He's proven he is incapable of managing us so we perform at a consistent level for a whole season. We have some good spells ( we're in one at the moment ), but we have long barren spells, and goodness me, there's been plenty of them.

Yeah, Nigel wanted more than what we were willing to offer him. Not more than what we could afford to offer him. He wanted to be on the same wage as guys like Thommo, and he was ( rightly ) laughed out of court.

Look at St Johnstone's squad. Who are their top earners? Guys like Mackay, Wright, May, Davidson, McLean... Hasselbaink? They're hardly big names are they? There's no way their playing budget is significantly bigger than ours.

They have a lot bigger hospitality operation than we do, so I imagine that figure counts the non playing staff. I don't think I'm being facetious when I say teams like ICT and St Johnstone have similar playing budgets to us. Both of them have finished top 6, both of them have made a major final. We have not made the top 6 and we have not even made a quarter final. Lennon must go.

Have they? Source? If it is bigger, it's certainly not much bigger, and I did say 'similar'. Personally I feel we have a better squad than they do, and as our captain Jim Goodwin admitted midweek, we have underachieved this season. I believe the primary reasons for the self confessed underachievement has been poor squad management and poor game management from the manager. As such, he should not get a new deal.

I appreciate people saying that appointing a new manager a risk. However, keeping Danny is a risk too. Who's to say he won't make a similar mess in the transfer market this summer as he did last summer? If we have no wins in our opening six games and Danny's summer signings are failing by the end of August again, we're going to regret giving him a 2 year deal pretty quickly. People also say ' we could finish 7th '. Well yeah, but we could finish 10th too. For me progress this season was either making a concerted challenge for the top 6, which we failed in. Or more cup success, which we failed in. Granted we have survived, but survival alone wasn't enough this year. Look at St Johnstone, their manager is in his first ever season and they lost key players in the summer. We have a similar budget. They've finished top 6, reached one semi final and one final. There's absolutely no reason why we couldn't have had a similar season, I don't think their squad is any stronger than ours.

It is my opinion that his contract shouldn't be renewed, and I've said that all season. He got too much too badly wrong in the summer, and I don't want us being in that situation again. However I do appreciate the opinion of those who think he should stay, and I do appreciate the fact that he is a club legend.

The decision must be made this week. If his contract isn't being renewed he deserves a standing ovation and lap of honour after our game with Hearts.

I'm sure John enjoyed that today, he had the best seat in the house. For him, top Buddie.

Now our top flight status is secure yet again, it's time to start renewing contracts now, will update OP later tonight. Who'd you keep? I'd get Goody, Dilo and Thommo signed up ASAP, and try with McLean and Kello. Gowser, about Gowser? Borderline for me, maybe one more year.

If Killie lose tomorrow we are 100% safe. If they don't we are all but safe, would take some really freaky results for us to finish 11th now. We only could by Goal Difference. Won't happen though, we are safe, promise ;)