Kendo Posted May 2, 2016 Report Share Posted May 2, 2016 Mallan was our best player before Quinn came too... For someone of his experience I was expecting him to offer far more. Ditto with Clarkson and Irvine. All of the players you mention are part of the reason we moved steadily up the league and improved dramatically. As for Mallan, he struggled in a lightweight midfield prior to Rae coming in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DLBud Posted May 2, 2016 Report Share Posted May 2, 2016 Mallan was our best player before Quinn came too... For someone of his experience I was expecting him to offer far more. Ditto with Clarkson and Irvine. I think Irvine has been solid on either side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billyg Posted May 2, 2016 Report Share Posted May 2, 2016 This is the thing that annoys me most when wee clubs like us don't take the fabled "next step" after putting together a run of 5 games to win a cup. Launch pad to what exactly? Mid-table consistency would have been nice , at least to begin with ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TopCat Posted May 2, 2016 Report Share Posted May 2, 2016 There has been improvement, but improvement from a very low level.We had an outside chance to finish 4th when Rae was appointed, Gilmour himself said it. The key games were against the sides who ended up in the playoffs. Falkirk, Raith, Hibs, we played them all twice since January. Those were the games where we needed the experienced players to deliver. None of them did, six games, two draws, four defeats. I'm not saying they're bad players, I simply expected them to be better. We never won a single game against any of the top four this season, sixteen games without a win. That obviously needs to change if we are going to get anywhere next year. The experienced players will need to step up in the games against the better teams, something they didn't do this season. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kendo Posted May 3, 2016 Report Share Posted May 3, 2016 There has been improvement, but improvement from a very low level.We had an outside chance to finish 4th when Rae was appointed, Gilmour himself said it. The key games were against the sides who ended up in the playoffs. Falkirk, Raith, Hibs, we played them all twice since January. Those were the games where we needed the experienced players to deliver. None of them did, six games, two draws, four defeats. I'm not saying they're bad players, I simply expected them to be better. We never won a single game against any of the top four this season, sixteen games without a win. That obviously needs to change if we are going to get anywhere next year. The experienced players will need to step up in the games against the better teams, something they didn't do this season. The improvement in the likes of Webster, Shankland, Watson and Mallan has been remarkable since Rae came in. We still had the likes of Gow, Agnew, Howieson, McMullen, Carswell and Kelly. They have been found out and binned. We didn't have the depth to deal with injuries to Quinn and Clarkson. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
norman Posted May 4, 2016 Report Share Posted May 4, 2016 All of the players you mention are part of the reason we moved steadily up the league and improved dramatically. As for Mallan, he struggled in a lightweight midfield prior to Rae coming in. It's amazing that people don't seem to be able to see the correlation between Quinn, Irvine and Clarkston coming into the team and the team starting to win games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DLBud Posted May 4, 2016 Report Share Posted May 4, 2016 Mid-table consistency would have been nice , at least to begin with ! Aye, very good Billy. Was this the "further success" you were alluding to in your initial post then? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint Garf Posted May 4, 2016 Report Share Posted May 4, 2016 Quinn falls into the same category as guys like Gary Mason and Mark Reilly for me. Works away steadily in the back ground, does much of his work off the ball and is much easier to notice when he's not there, rather than when he is. Most good sides have one of those players and their usually underrated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linwood buddie Posted May 4, 2016 Report Share Posted May 4, 2016 I think Alex is a lot shrewder than we are giving him credit for he has experience up here and in England and don't think he is going to waste the budget. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drew Posted May 4, 2016 Report Share Posted May 4, 2016 Quinn falls into the same category as guys like Gary Mason and Mark Reilly for me. Works away steadily in the back ground, does much of his work off the ball and is much easier to notice when he's not there, rather than when he is. Most good sides have one of those players and their usually underrated. Agreed. No bells and whistles, but largely effective in doing what he is on the pitch to do. I think this is a solid enough signing/extension. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buddie Marvelous Posted May 12, 2016 Report Share Posted May 12, 2016 Yip good news Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pod Posted May 12, 2016 Report Share Posted May 12, 2016 Yip good news Nice holiday Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billyg Posted May 12, 2016 Report Share Posted May 12, 2016 Aye, very good Billy. Was this the "further success" you were alluding to in your initial post then? Mid-table consistency would have been deemed a success, no ? At least in the division we were in then , not the one we're in now ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nosferatu Posted May 13, 2016 Report Share Posted May 13, 2016 The improvement in the likes of Webster, Shankland, Watson and Mallan has been remarkable since Rae came in. "Remarkable" is taking this a bit too far. As TC points out, we failed to win a single game out of 6 against the top 4 after Rae arrived, including 4 defeats. All we did was finished above the likes of Queen of the South, Dumbarton & Livingston! We still failed to finish above Morton and still finished in the bottom half of the Championship! All Rae did was make us slightly less worse than we were under Murray! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drew Posted May 13, 2016 Report Share Posted May 13, 2016 "Remarkable" is taking this a bit too far. As TC points out, we failed to win a single game out of 6 against the top 4 after Rae arrived, including 4 defeats. All we did was finished above the likes of Queen of the South, Dumbarton & Livingston! We still failed to finish above Morton and still finished in the bottom half of the Championship! All Rae did was make us slightly less worse than we were under Murray! True enough. I think he did achieve what most of us realistically hoped and expected of him, though. We stayed up, with some breathing space to spare. Hardly something to celebrate, but critically important, nonetheless. In fairness, I do think a number of players seemed to improve quite markedly after Murray departed. Shankland, most notably. Organisation was the key. Murray seemed to be devoid of any clear and consistent plan as to how to set a team out. Rae has proved to be a bit more astute in that respect. The real test will obviously be this coming season. I am (reasonably) optimistic that we will witness the best season in four. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kevo_smfc Posted May 13, 2016 Report Share Posted May 13, 2016 True enough. I think he did achieve what most of us realistically hoped and expected of him, though. We stayed up, with some breathing space to spare. Hardly something to celebrate, but critically important, nonetheless. In fairness, I do think a number of players seemed to improve quite markedly after Murray departed. Shankland, most notably. Organisation was the key. Murray seemed to be devoid of any clear and consistent plan as to how to set a team out. Rae has proved to be a bit more astute in that respect. The real test will obviously be this coming season. I am (reasonably) optimistic that we will witness the best season in four. I think there were mass improvements in areas. We looked pretty much like a sunken ship without a recovery in sight and Rae took a team which looked completely beat, to a team with probably one of the best home records at the turn of the year and a self belief in defeated players. As you said, he got the job done that we expected of him. I'm not too disheartened about our finish (apart from the soapdodgers finishing above us) as we were never making the playoffs after the mess Murray left us in. I'm very happy with the clearout of players apart from Goodwin, though the writing has been on the wall for over a year now with Jim. The signings of Irvine and Quinn have been very good along with Hutton, so I am optimistic with a good pre-season and a squad assembled quickly, we will have a better start to the season. I think aiming primarily for top 4 is realistic considering the opposition next season, though there is a possibility that Dundee Utd and Killie(if they go down) have just as bad a start to their campaign as we did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.