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Ian Murray Will Come Good


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We're heading in the right direction and towards the ballpark I would expect us to be able to achieve. Hopefully a win in the cup, and another away win helps take some of the pressure off the team, breeds a bit of confidence and we start picking up more points and improving performances from here on in. Given a tough run of games, we'll do well to stay close to Queen of the South this month, but maybe raising our game against Rangers, Falkirk and Hibs will bring out the best in us.

Encouraging signs that Goodwin, Mallan, Webster, Gallagher, Langfield are all starting to play pretty well most weeks and McMullan is on his way back from injury and hopefully Shankland will be back soon as he has done well so far with poor service, and Howieson is beginning to look useful as well.

I don't want to get too carried away after beating the bottom of the league team, when they have lost 8 out of 10 league games so far, we got the 3 points, and a clean sheet without being at our best. Job done.

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We,ve played 14 competitive games this season. Our 4 best results, wins at QOS, Livingston, a draw at Hibs and a home thrashing of Dunfermline have all come in the last 7 games and 3 of these in the last 4. Dunfermline looked poor but they are the best team below the Championship. Perhaps we helped to make them look poor?

In 3 games against a Livvy team that seems to cause us particular problems, perhaps because of their physicality, we've gone: home loss, home draw, away win.

We're a young team, that's learning from experience and slowly improving. Isn't that what we all expected this season?

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We,ve played 14 competitive games this season. Our 4 best results, wins at QOS, Livingston, a draw at Hibs and a home thrashing of Dunfermline have all come in the last 7 games and 3 of these in the last 4. Dunfermline looked poor but they are the best team below the Championship. Perhaps we helped to make them look poor?

In 3 games against a Livvy team that seems to cause us particular problems, perhaps because of their physicality, we've gone: home loss, home draw, away win.

We're a young team, that's learning from experience and slowly improving. Isn't that what we all expected this season?

It's not what I expected. I expected us to have won a home league game, been within touching distance of the Sevco and Hibs at this stage of the season, and not to have a management team who shite themselves when we go 1-0 up and don't appear to be any fresher or have any more new ideas than Teale or Craig had. I predicted a fifth place finish at the season's end, but I thought we'd at least be enthused and enjoying what we were seeing at the DinkyDome after several grim seasons merely avoiding the drop.

This season hasn't been any more enjoyable. We're still stinking the place out and the cinema seems an increasingly better bet for entertainment after all.

Edited by pozbaird
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Also we'd be 2nd. If. You look at our bad luck

4 late goals at home have cost is 6 to 9 points. The away disallowed goal v Morton another 3

So if we hadn't such bad luck wed be much further up league

If Thommo hadn't landed his penalty at Sevco Park in the River Clyde.... If yer' Auntie had bawz...

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Also we'd be 2nd. If. You look at our bad luck

4 late goals at home have cost is 6 to 9 points. The away disallowed goal v Morton another 3

So if we hadn't such bad luck wed be much further up league

What a lot of nonsense....bad luck? Formation, Tactic, Personnel, positively... Some key ingredients in making your own luck

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I actually thought Murray (almost) had it right today.

Stopped Rangers playing out from the goalkeeper by having Thommo and Gal press their full backs at goal kicks.

Tried to test their keeper (who had a good game today in fairness) with crosses and long range efforts, he looked weak in the game at Ibrox so could see the thinking.

Showed a bit of passion and determination from the sidelines, was actually communicating. As was Andy Webster who seems to be talking the rest of the guys through games.

Much better.

Only negative was not being able to open them up for the equaliser. On another day we could've got a result.

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Aye, just read that.

I have respect for people who acknowledge their mistakes. Murray has gone up in my estimations on that basis. Danny did something similar after the Summer of Beath and his first season. Murray seems to be catching on to the need for some consistency in the personnel and formations he puts out, and also talks of the need to press more etc. That is encouraging to hear.

Like all of us in challenging jobs, the guy is learning, and the very fact that he openly concedes that he has made mistakes suggests to me that he is more likely to learn from them.

Its a good interview.

Edited by Drew
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Fabulous interview by our Manager.

A very honest and decent person.

I am confident he will improve our standing in Scottish Football.

Patience and support needed.

Edited by shull
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For those who can't read on the Herald...

The Graham Spiers interview: St Mirren manager Ian Murray

“Get f*****g Shankland on!” a St Mirren fan hollered angrily at Ian Murray on Sunday afternoon as his team fought desperately – and admirably – to get on level terms with Rangers. The sharp language must have been familiar to Murray, a man not short on incoming advice in recent months.

The 34 year old admits he is in at the deep end at St Mirren, a club with fans not missing an attitude or two, and nursing a residual grievance at its relegation from the old SPL last season. Currently seventh in the Ladbrokes Championship, it has been a slow start by Murray and his team, and he confesses to his early failings along the way.

“I’ve made mistakes, and there were maybe things that I underestimated at the start,” said Murray, reflecting on his opening, testy five months at the club. “The job is far bigger than is sometimes perceived. It is a fantastic club with a fantastic fan-base, but the job is a huge challenge.

“The club had been relegated. There had been a large turnover of players. There have been budget cuts. I’m not complaining, because it’s a great job, but it’s maybe only now that I’m getting to grips with it. At the start, maybe I had my eye off the ball on a number of things.”

Well, this is interesting – a football manager happily piping up on where he has gone wrong. You don’t hear this every day. But Murray is quite open about the fact that, in his opening weeks in his new job this summer, he didn’t quite appreciate the new environment he was in.

“It had been a bit of a culture-shock for me,” he says. “I went from being Dumbarton manager, where I saw my players two nights a week at Toryglen, to seeing my players every day here, and sometimes eight or nine days on the trot.

“It was a totally different environment to me. It’s not an excuse, but I think people maybe forget how big a change it represented for me. It’s maybe only now that I feel more in control. I think you’ve seen that in the last three or four weeks in our games.”

Pressed on this further, Murray admits that St Mirren’s sluggish start to this 2015-16 campaign was down to his own pre-conceived ideas which he foisted upon his new players. Were he to go back to August, he says, he might do things a little differently.

“At first maybe I tried too much in terms of formations and strategies. In this league sometimes it’s just about blood and guts, about doing the right things: in terms of tempo, in terms of pressing opponents, doing the right things in the right areas of the park. For instance, I’ve learned now to ask my full-backs, first and foremost, to be defenders. Never mind trying to get them to play like wingers, or whatever.

“All I’m saying is, maybe I was asking too much of my players. I changed things around a lot and it wasn’t working, it wasn’t good for us. At Dumbarton every point was a prisoner. When I first came to St Mirren maybe I chopped and changed things too much.

“If I’ve made mistakes, I’ve tried to recognise them and rectify them. We had a poor start to the season, which is why we are now trying to play catch-up. But I think in recent games, in terms of performance, there has been a resurgence. Mark Warburton made some complimentary comments about the way we tried to play against Rangers on Sunday.”

No-one could accuse Murray of not trying to prepare himself properly as a manager. Even back in 2010, when he was 29 and still a player with Hibs, he took a coaching on on the side with Coldstream of the East of Scotland league, in order to get a taste of a career he was planning ahead of him. When he then got his first job with Dumbarton, and made a success of that, he seemed a man capable of controlling his own destiny.

Alex Smith, a veteran of Scottish football managers, has long held the view that a young manager should start on a low rung, reasonably out of the spotlight, so that he can “make his mistakes and learn from them away from the media glare”.

“Coldstream was just a chance that came my way,” says Murray. “I wanted to get the experience, and it was a level that I felt comfortable with. It gave me a chance to look at things, cope with difficult situations, just really dip my toe in the water. I was still playing for Hibs.

“I know what Alex Smith means. When I was at Dumbarton there was no real great coverage of my work, beyond a very local level. If I made a mistake there, maybe some fans would pick up on it, but no-one else nationally. So you could make a mistake and be forgiven for it.

“Coming to St Mirren, as I say, is a different ball-game. Much bigger and tougher. But I do believe that now we are making progress.”

The pressure is on Murray. The St Mirren fans, quite rightly, expect to be in contention for promotion, which is not apparent in the Championship table at the moment. Murray is very clear about the onus on him, and the flak he has taken from sections of supporters this season.

“This is a tough league,” he says. “You’ve basically got eight full-time clubs gunning for four places at the end of the season. So four are going to miss out, plus you take it as a given that Rangers will probably win the league. So we’ve got to try to make sure we get into one of three remaining play-off positions.

“I don’t mind criticism. You expect that. You’re never going to have 4000 or 5000 happy faces all the time. The fans will always have sharp opinions.

“But if you are going to go with decisions, then make them your decisions. If you are to fall by the sword, then at least do it your way. Yes, there is pressure and expectation at St Mirren. You just handle that. You wouldn’t want it any other way.”

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The only paragraph available to read sees him admit the job is to big for him... Jeez it must lighten up before the end???

As anticipated, it didn't take long.

If you are going to attempt to dismantle the interview (or any part of it), at least try not to makes things up, as this renders your contribution even less credible that most of us would have anticipated it could have been.

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As anticipated, it didn't take long.

If you are going to attempt to dismantle the interview (or any part of it), at least try not to makes things up, as this renders your contribution even less credible that most of us would have anticipated it could have been.

Ah your at the old 'anticipating' others future posts game.. Eh?

Have to admit I never saw that coming!

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