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The Russell catch-all transfer thread
Topic Started: Apr 20 2013, 01:07 PM (22,038 Views)
Barca87
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Gordon Chisholm
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whatsthatonyourback
May 29 2013, 08:47 PM
Kinda
May 29 2013, 08:43 PM
Naebody
May 29 2013, 07:50 PM
Seen Gauld's picture on the website?

Posted Image

Midfield general and potential bed wetter, 2013-14.
cmon fellow arabs - chins up ..... it could be worse surely (think of Hearts and Rangers)? Selling JR is our only option as he has taken the decision not to sign a contract extension - hence a freeby next summer otherwise. Leaves the board with little choice in my view. Disappointed with his decision but that's life as a supporter of a small club of which United are. For me JR will be the first of many over the next few years so we should brace ourselves for this and invest in hungry players - of which Jackie appears to be doing.

Have renewed my season tickets already - for me, my 2 kids and my father - and am looking forward to next season already. Remember if DUFC are struggling financially, we are/will not be the only ones in the SPL - fact. CMON YE ARABS !!!!!

Man, I almost felt something stir there, Kinda.

All it would take is for ST to say Gauld & Souttar are the future of the club and there's no way they're going anywhere. It might be a lie, but I need to hear it.
Aye. Exactly. I can take Daly going, Basher? Fine, that boy can not defend in any way that I recognise. Flood would be a sickner, but if we're already saying that 16 year olds can go, lets give up. I think Thompson's running of the club is sound, and most things he has said I've agreed with or could see why he has had to say so, but selling the jerseys of young players who I guess we are expected to be ok with replacing older heads. No. What next. The ball boys can go because everyone has a price?
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findus
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Jerry Kerr
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Get the tealadies and barmen up on Craigslist. The naughty sections. For rent.
:rock:

I'm still waiting for the, "Chaps, we're in the shitter. Administration within days." press release from Thompson.

Anyway, stiff upper lips required all round I suppose... at least until we see where we are after the first quarter of the season.
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Naebody
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Twat
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The Courier wrote down Thompson's sales pitch yesterday, like a secretary taking a memo. Here's the (barely edited) upshot.

Quote:
 
Things have swung within football and I don’t think clubs will be throwing money about. We will run this club the way we believe is right.

Our aim is to be sustainable in the long term and I think we have come a long way in, say, the last four years financially.

This past year has not been the most successful on the park. We got to the Scottish Cup semi-final and finished sixth in the league.

So there will be a fairly small loss — up to £100,000 — for the year which is still a massive step forward when you consider where we were when the family came in.

Nevertheless, we have signed three players, which seems to have been forgotten about.

Two of them were hugely influential in Partick Thistle getting promotion and the other one scored 27 goals in the First Division. So we haven’t been sitting about doing nothing.

The fans do care about getting the finances right but they also want to see a successful team on the park. Our aim is to achieve both at the same time.

We need the fans to support their club. Jackie talks about players as assets. He wants a team of 11 assets and you need to be a good player to be an asset.

He is looking to bring in players who have hunger. It is the whole package for him.

He wants them to be mentally strong, wants them to think about what they eat and consider their whole lifestyle. He wants people with desire to do what he asks of them and you tend to get that with younger players.

Before he joined us, he realised we have a good crop of young players but he admits he has been surprised by how good they are. And we might well be picking up one or two younger ones from the lower leagues as well.

We have done well with lower league players and I don’t believe the gap is as much as some people think.

I recall when Morgaro came here from Cowdenbeath, (then manager) Craig Levein said it would be six months before he would make the side but he was in the first team regularly within three months.

So our policy is to have youth coming through the system while also picking up one or two from other clubs.


I take that to mean no signings from the an equal or higher level. I'd also guess that the financial year (ending June) has no transfer fee income, so cry me a fucking river about that £100k loss.

Personally, I'm fine with pinning hope on youngsters and lower-league potential rather than on journeymen and falling stars. I'm less fine with the idea that, by the start of next season, Dillon, Rankin, Gardyne and Millar may well be first picks in their positions.
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Hamish
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Ian McCall
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And, much more importantly, the manager has banned toast.

http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/sport/spl/4947532/We-wont-eat-toast-at-Tannadice.html

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Conan the Destroyer
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I prefer it when we're pish
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What's wrong with toast?
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whatsthatonyourback
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Waldo Jeffers
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I'm with him on the toast ban - so many of the bad things I eat are toast-related. Pate mostly. Unless you count the butter. Oh, OK, butter too. Nutella? Peanut butter? All on toast, hot buttery toast. Don;t get me start on the home-made jams.

F*ck toast.





I love you, toast.

F*ck you, toast.





So now that Jamanackie has turned the squad against him, my hopes are even lower than before.
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Naebody
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Twat
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Quote:
 
McNamara ... also plans to use science to drag his players into line with other sports.


Posted Image

(Also, the above sentence is nonsense. The direct object doesn't match the adjective modifier that's the determiner of the prepositional phrase. Clowns.)
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Morvant's Finest
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Tommy McLean
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It's been depressing stuff recently, but after reading Kinda and Tom_Boland's rallying cries, as well as the regeneration stuff about the diet and extra training I'm actually feeling slightly upbeat....

Reasons to be cheerful:

1) We've got 2 excellent young players in the Scotland squad. And both are on relatively long contracts (for young modern footballers).

2) We've reared two of the brightest young talents in the SPL, who are just breaking into the 1st team and both are on longish contracts. So, despite ST's attempts to smoke out any silly early bids for them (and I'd stick my neck out and say neither of them will be sold soon for anything less than £1M+), you've got to think there's a decent chance they'll be in the team for a few years yet.

3) We've signed 2 important players from the best team in Div 1, who the Manager know well, so they'll be fully motivated and onboard with his training/sports science/lifestyle methods.

4) The rest of the SPL are in the same boat, with reduced wage bills all round there's no reason to think we aren't going to have a chance of being the best of the rest in 2013/14?
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whatsthatonyourback
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Waldo Jeffers
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The point that everyone else is in the same boat is a good one, Morv.

Who do we expect to improve next season? Aberdeen? That might be about it, with the reasonable expectation that Motherwell sans McCall will be worse and Hibs losing Griffiths will weaken them, whilst the Highland clubs will find the usual problems following a season in which they overachieved. Hearts are a slo-mo disaster, anyone mentioning Killie after Boyd has a good pre-season under his belt should be laughed at. St Mirren are miles behind us, albeit a nicely run club for whom I have a fondness. Alan Archibald may find he is less tactically adept than he needs to be in the SPL.

Who does that leave? The St Johns?

I predict a fight for second between us, Aberdeen and the Johnnies.


Woo Hoo! Can't wait for the new season now! Or, I might change my mind in ten minutes when I think of a team of no strikers and no delivery now that Baws Dugs and Willo are away.
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Morvant's Finest
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Tommy McLean
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whatsthatonyourback
May 30 2013, 01:08 PM
Woo Hoo! Can't wait for the new season now! Or, I might change my mind in ten minutes when I think of a team of no strikers and no delivery now that Baws Dugs and Willo are away.
Agree with the analysis of the other clubs, but re the above, you forgot about Watson's practically un-defendable, high looping balls delivered from just in front of the half way line. :smack:
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Setenza
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Knitting with only one needle
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Naebody
May 30 2013, 09:26 AM


Quote:
 

So there will be a fairly small loss — up to £100,000 — for the year which is still a massive step forward when you consider where we were when the family came in.


Sounds like we've taken on board the mafia or something, which would be a lot more fun.
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Setenza
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whatsthatonyourback
May 30 2013, 01:08 PM
The point that everyone else is in the same boat is a good one, Morv.

Who do we expect to improve next season? Aberdeen? That might be about it, with the reasonable expectation that Motherwell sans McCall will be worse and Hibs losing Griffiths will weaken them, whilst the Highland clubs will find the usual problems following a season in which they overachieved. Hearts are a slo-mo disaster, anyone mentioning Killie after Boyd has a good pre-season under his belt should be laughed at. St Mirren are miles behind us, albeit a nicely run club for whom I have a fondness. Alan Archibald may find he is less tactically adept than he needs to be in the SPL.

Who does that leave? The St Johns?

I predict a fight for second between us, Aberdeen and the Johnnies.


Woo Hoo! Can't wait for the new season now! Or, I might change my mind in ten minutes when I think of a team of no strikers and no delivery now that Baws Dugs and Willo are away.
I think the problem is that a well organised team of SPL regulars will do well enough. That's what St Johnsone, Hibs have, and a few others.

The issue is we're not really going to have SPL regualrs, we've got potenially great young players who need time and players still trying to adapt. Add in a new manager, and it's either going to be a great success, or a real problem. I can't see us slogging it out with a consistently midtable performance.

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whatsthatonyourback
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Waldo Jeffers
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Setenza
May 30 2013, 06:27 PM
I think the problem is that a well organised team of SPL regulars will do well enough. That's what St Johnsone, Hibs have, and a few others.

The issue is we're not really going to have SPL regualrs, we've got potenially great young players who need time and players still trying to adapt. Add in a new manager, and it's either going to be a great success, or a real problem. I can't see us slogging it out with a consistently midtable performance.

Fair point. Makes the retention of Dillon, Rankin, Gunning, even Watson, seem all the more important for next season doesn't it?
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Setenza
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Knitting with only one needle
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whatsthatonyourback
May 31 2013, 08:38 AM
Setenza
May 30 2013, 06:27 PM
I think the problem is that a well organised team of SPL regulars will do well enough. That's what St Johnsone, Hibs have, and a few others.

The issue is we're not really going to have SPL regualrs, we've got potenially great young players who need time and players still trying to adapt. Add in a new manager, and it's either going to be a great success, or a real problem. I can't see us slogging it out with a consistently midtable performance.

Fair point. Makes the retention of Dillon, Rankin, Gunning, even Watson, seem all the more important for next season doesn't it?
Yeah, and that's why I'd rather Douglas stayed.

With our sparse squad, a flop is going to be an issue. If our new striker can't score, or our new left back (if we get one) flogs a goal a game, we're going to be in for a long season. Our youth squad might fill some gaps and offer alternative, but that's risky in itself.
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findus
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Jerry Kerr
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After having their Russell bid of 625k turned down earlier in the week, Derby's 2nd bid of, erm, less than 700k has just been rejected. ^o)
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