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Agree with all that been said. The fact that Vale Watt and Casey are quoted shows it's 1 year old guesswork.

I'm not sure we are waiting on the Miller money. We released/punted plenty of players whose wages should be available now. Mair, Balcombe, Seddon, Casey, Blaney, Kaleta, Thompson, Davor, Paton, Callachan, Andrews, Ebiye, Watt, Plange, Dickson, Armstrong, Vale and Tavares have all gone (and maybe some I have missed). So by my calculation we have punted 18 and brought in 6 (plus Sule on loan). That should leave us a few pennies for new players.

I watched it on sky sports there, awful game. Whoever tells you the game down there has better quality need a reality check. Turnbull came on for 30mins and looked the best player on the park. Also Ben Heneghan playing with port vale. …. Looked like he was dragging a cart behind him all game.

We certainly seem to suffer an inordinate amount of serious injuries to loan players: Biereth, Eseosa, Mair, Montgomery, Kaletea, and Vale in the past couple of years. That does seem very unusual. Some or all of these absences will be genuine but I just wonder if some of them are due to other reasons, which the clubs and player won't want publicised eg. homesickness, behaviour, failure to settle?

Can definitely see a number going out. As per my post at the start of the week, we generally make signings on a one in one out basis, with most of this year's outs being injuries, of which we have 9, and 10 if the Vale rumor is true (and add the likes of Slattery and Nicholson on limited minutes due to injuries). Callachan, Watt, Tavares, Vale, Moses seem like candidates to go. Miller potentially for other reasons. Can't see mair hanging around with his broken hand either. Can definitely see a number going out. As per my post at the start of the week, we generally make signings on a one in one out basis, with most of this year's outs being injuries, of which we have 9 (10 if the Vale rumor is true), and add the likes of Slattery, Paton and Nicholson on limited minutes due to injuries. Callachan, Watt, Tavares, Vale, Moses seem like candidates to go. Miller potentially for other reasons. So, out of the 33 we have, 10 aren't available, some for a considerable time. With 9 on the bench you need 20 for a matchday squad, so we're sitting at a surplus of 3 available players. Two of whom are Moses and Koutroumbis. If we want the much mooted squad of 23, then tomorrow we'd have 2 subs and making the rest up with kids. On the strikers, we signed Stuparevic, Robinson and Stama. Two of those are injured and one isn't up to scratch and was sent out on loan (whether that changes next season, who knows). Watt is clearly done, and Moses is a chaos sub at best. Tavares is injured and Vale is suspended and maybe injured too. Before we signed armstrong we had Watt, Moses and JT available. Not giving us any options on the bench. Of the three that have come in, 2 have replaced Stama and Robinson. The third suggests someone is off. Signing Stuparevic, Koutroumbis, Callachan and Tavares all seem like legit mistakes, the first two are just how it goes, the other two are plain dumb. Also, I doubt we're keeping mair with his broken hand. So, out of the 33 we have, 10 aren't available, some for a considerable time. With 9 on the bench you need 20 for a matchday squad, so we're sitting at a surplus of 3. Two of the squad are on limited minutes, and two are Moses and Koutroumbis. If we want the much mooted squad of 23, then tomorrow we'd have 2 first team subs and making the rest up with kids. On the strikers, we signed Stuparevic, Robinson and Stama. Two of those are injured and one isn't up to scratch and was sent out on loan (whether that changes next season, who knows). Watt is clearly done, and Moses is a chaos sub at best. Tavares is injured and Vale is suspended and maybe injured too. Before we signed armstrong we had Watt, Moses and JT available. Not giving us any options on the bench. Of the three that have come in, 2 have replaced Stama and Robinson. The third suggests someone is off. Signing Stuparevic, Koutroumbis, Callachan and Tavares all seem like legit mistakes, the first two are just how it goes, the other two are plain dumb. Balcombe also doesn't look great. If we sign any more forwards by Monday (unless 2 go out), I'd say logic is out of the window, but you can't always sign the players you need in the perfect order. Hopefully a midfielder that isn't a child is one of the remaining signings. Why we don't have any young players that can step up, or why we aren't using them, is it's own discussion.

Ok, here goes. As far as who we've signed, that's up for debate as to who is good and who isn't. As far as filling areas of need, it has been pretty organized and methodical, outside of signing Vale and Tavares when we needed 2 midfielders. All rough working based on the website, but coming into this season we had: GK - Ox (re-signed), Connelly WB - Wilson (kind of), SoD CB - Blaney, McGinn, Casey Mid - Slattery (re-signed, injured), Miller, Nicholson (re-signed), Davor, Halliday, Paton FW - Moses, Bair Youth (that looked like they might get games at the time)- Ferrie, Ross, Wells. None look to be worth worrying about, which is a shame, I'd prefer to have 3 of our own youth products on the bench. So we needed: - a goalie, - 2 WBs, - at least one CB. - at least one midfielder - at least 2 forwards I might be off in the order here, but pre season we signed GK - Hegyi WB - Seddon, Johnny K CB - Balmer, gordon Mid - Callachan, Sparrow FW - Stuparevic, Robinson At the time, we thought maybe one defender too many, but that balmer and Gordon were good gers, then..... Mcginn injured pre-season So logically, as expected. We filled holes in the required positions, and left with a squad of 23 outside of the younger players, so room to add 1 or 2, with bair expected to go, and mcginn injured. Consensus at the time was that callachan was a bad signing, Sparrow was bench fodder, and Robinson was a good call. July 11th - koutroumbis out for months - Down a RWB July 15th - Kaleta joins - Back even on RWB July 16th - Theo Bair sold for actual money - Down a striker July 26th - Harry paton injury (and should have been a pen) - Down a midfielder July 30th - AP signed - back even on strikers Nicholson injury mentioned on August 5th - Down 2 midfielders Callachan injury (big fucking surprise) reported on August 8th - Down 3 midfielders Blaney out 6 weeks on August 8th - Down 2 defenders, but we signed two, so covered. August 13th - Watt came in - ok 5 strikers, maybe that's enough Aug 14th - AP injured for 6 weeks - Down to 4 strikers, uh oh Aug 19th - Maswanhise joined - back to 5 forwards, yay August 29th ish - Tavares and vale joined at the end of the summer window - 7 forwards now, wtf? Aug 20th - Stuparevic sent out on loan - Just the 6 forwards now - still down 3 midfielders 3rd Dec - Robinson out for season - only 5 strikers left 20th Dec-ish - Nicholson back - Down 2 midfielders 30th Dec - mcginn back, yay 31st Dec - Miller injured for months, well baws. - Down 3 midfielders 1st Jan ish - AP out for some time, double baws. - 4 forwards, bare bones 1st Jan ish - where's Jair? - 3 forwards 6th Jan - Slattery back, wooo. - Down 2 midfielders 7th Jan - Kai andrews signed - Down 1 midfielder 11th Jan - Ox injured -Down one keeper 11th Jan - Hegyi recalled by west ham - Down 2 keepers, oh no 11th Jan - Mair signs, Connelly recalled - back to two keepers, for now phew. - 13th Jan - Mcginn injured for months again, fuck - Down a cb Jan sometime - seddon injured for months, again fuck - Down a wb 24th Jan - signed armstrong - 5 forwards, but vale suspended, Moses ill 23rd Jan signed balcombe 23rd Jan - Connelly sent back on loan - back to 2 keepers 23rd Jan - Mair injured - one keeper again 23rd Jan - Connelly temp recalled - 2 keepers again 24th Jan - signed Dom Thompson - back even on WBs So numbers wise, outside of the vale and Tavares signings, we've tended to replace what we've lost, other than midfielders. Stuparevic and Johnny K not being up to scratch hasn't helped. I'd say that if it wasn't for injuries we wouldn't have signed Mair, Balcombe, Kaleta, one of Gordon or Balmer, Andrews, Armstrong, Thompwe'reat least one of Watt/Tavares/JT/vale. If we sign Mcghee then I'd say we're covered numbers-wise. He probably covers CB too. As such, I don't think the signing policy has been chaotic or scatter gun in itself, the fact that we have needed to sign replacements for replacements has meant we really are scraping the bottom of the barrel for incomings. With AP due back, and just signing Armstrong, I wouldn't expect another striker unless someone goes. Saying that, we did have 7 at one point. Moses and Slattery were Ill at the weekend, but could see Moses moving on. Looks like Tavares and Watt will stay unless their parent clubs want to play them. They don't. So the scope for outgoings are Miller and any of those up in the summer on pcas, ie Casey. The only incoming loans we can make have to be u21 due to rules. In conclusion, outside of selling someone, I don't think we need to be online on deadline day. Unless someone else gets injured.

Agreed. You need a good mix of strikers. From the little I've seen Stuparevic seems quite nippy but not particularly physical or tricky. A poor man's Jack Vale?? That said we haven't seen much of him to really assess his style.

The votes have been tallied and the 2024-25 MOTM Player of the season is... Lennon Miller Very much a season of two halves for the runners up: Callum Slattery was second, thanks to his strong showing after his return from injury. Aston Oxborough and Ewan Wilson one point behind in joint third thanks to their form in the first half of the season. Tom Sparrow in 4th, closely followed in 5th place by Dan Casey. Complete results as follows: Lennon Miller 47 Callum Slattery 28 Aston Oxborough 27 Ewan Wilson 27 Tom Sparrow 24 Dan Casey 23 Stephen O'Donnell 21 Tawanda Maswanhise 19 Tony Watt 15 Andy Halliday 12 Marvin Kaleta 12 Liam Gordon 10 Apostolos Stamatelopoulos 9 Steve Seddon 9 Harry Paton 8 Kofi Balmer 6 Luke Armstrong 5 Davor Zdravkovski 4 Jack Vale 4 Kai Andrews 4 Sam Nicholson 4 Dominic Thompson 3 Moses Ebiye 3 Archie Mair 2 Dylan Wells 2 John Koutroumbis 2 Zach Robinson 2 Ellery Balcombe 1 Luke Plange 1 Paul McGinn 1 Shane Blaney 1

Jack Vale has been released by Blackburn.

I suspect Seddon, Paton and Casey have been offered deals of the ones OOC. My issue is if those 3 sign on that's 21 under contract if you include Mcghee. Currently leaving Andrews, Kaleta, Armstrong , Balcombe, Taveres, Watt, Plange, Dickson, Mair, Vale - Returning to parent clubs. Only 1 I'd want back is Andrews. Callahan, Seddon, Casey, Davor, Ebieye, Thompson, Paton, Blaney Of OOC I'd only keep Seddon.

Of our 10 loanees only maybe 5 have been in any way useful. Taveres, Dickson, Plange - been completely pointless signings Vale - Was good last season but been injured majority of the season Mair and Balcombe - served a purpose as Ox and then Mair got injured. Watt, Armstrong, Andrews, Kaleta - all had a couple of decent performances but not been consistent.

In general, I agree with you. However would insurance not cover at least some of the wage costs of injured players? As for loan players, who pays their wages if they return to their parent club eg Vale & now Kaleta.

I still think we probably still need another 4 Another Cm, Cb, Bu Gk, and a winger are needed if we want to stake a claim for top 6. Callahan, Koutrombis, Ebiye, Davor all need sold/loaned out. Taveres needs sent back to his parent club as does Mair who's broke his finger and out for 6/8 weeks. We have Robinson and Mcginn out for the season so that's us down to 31 that can be available for selection anyway. Seddon, Miller, Stam all out for at least another 1-2 months Ox out for 3 months. Current crop available for selection Gk- Balcombe, Connoly Cb- Balmer, Gordon, Casey, Blaney, SOD Rwb- Kaleta, SOD, Koutrombis Lwb- Wilson. Thompson Cm- Halliday, Andrews, Paton, Sparrow, Slattery, Nicholson, Davor Fwds- Dickson, Plange, TJ, Watt, Ebiye, Armstrong, Vale (Once suspension finishes) Those 24 to pick from currently w Vale to add back in. That to me looks weak and forward heavy. Top 6 would be huge for cost off-setting as would getting into Europe. Majority being loans is also ideal as it means we can actually squad build from scratch next season and aren't stuck with players the new manager doesn't want long-term.

I don't know about that. Certainly we do miss Bair - no argument about that though. Stama has the makings of an excellent striker as does Vale. However they're not being used correctly. Neither is a big physical target man although that's how they're being asked to play. I felt very sorry for Vale today having to compete in the air with 2 6-4 centre backs. Hung out to dry. They both need to play off a big target man but that's not how we set up. Given SK's preferred style of play with one striker I just can't understand why he didn't sign a big target man in the summer. A mega mistake on his part.

On 4/2/2025 at 5:37 PM, thewelllfan said: Players Leaving at end of Current season/Loan expiring Balcombe - Returning to Brentford Ward - Contract Expiring Mair - Returning to Norwich Kaleta- Returning to Wolves Casey - Contract Expiring Blaney - Contract Expiring Thompson - Contract Expiring Seddon - (Club option of further year) Mcginn - (Club option of further year) Davor - Contract Expiring Halliday - Contract Expiring Paton - Contract Expiring Andrews - Returning to Coventry Callahan - Contract Expiring Taveres- Returning to Hibs Ebiye- Contract Expiring Plange - Returning to Palace Dickson - Returning to Man City Vale - Returning to Blackburn Luke Armstrong - Returning to Carlisle We are relying on a squad of players who have no investment in the club. To go into a relegation battle with a whole load of players who will all be off as soon as the season finishes and will not suffer the consequences of relegation really gives me the fear.

This is true however I don’t think it’s the whole problem. According to the club website we have a first team squad of 34 players. Thats enough to make 3 teams and with our limited resources it is farcical. We have 10 players on loan: Mair Balcombe Kaleta Andrews Watt Plange Dickson Armstrong Tavares Vale All of them should be out of FP at the end of the season. Now I know opinions will differ on the next bit (hard hat on) but I think we’ve got at least 13 players who are deadwood: O’Donnell Thompson Balmer Blaney Seddon Casey Zadrakovski Halliday Paton Callachan Robinson Nicholson Ebiye I’d be looking to get rid of most of these and if at all possible, all of them. This is a situation that was created by the previous manager. A squad built on quantity, with the majority of the players mediocre at best, instead of quality. Hopefully, we’ll manage to avoid the drop and the new manager will get a chance to rebuild a smaller squad with a bit more quality in it.

Players Leaving at end of Current season/Loan expiring Balcombe - Returning to Brentford Mair - Returning to Norwich Ward - Contract Expiring Kaleta- Returning to Wolves Casey - Contract Expiring Blaney - Contract Expiring Thompson - Contract Expiring Mcginn - (Club option of further year) Seddon - (Club option of further year) Davor - Contract Expiring Paton - Contract Expiring Halliday- Contract Expiring Andrews - Returning to Coventry Callahan - Contract Expiring Taveres- Returning to Hibs Ebiye- Contract Expiring Plange - Returning to Palace Dickson - Returning to Man City Vale - Returning to Blackburn Luke Armstrong - Returning to Carlisle

Thomson is on a 6 month deal. Sparrow's deal is up but Vale's loan will also come to an end.

We lost 3-0 there last December, in an appalling game. Fine lines as you say though, and we've won quite a few games narrowly. I think whats upsetting many folk is SK's overly cautious tactics and seeming inability to learn from his mistakes. Its not the most exciting football to watch but in fairness has been reasonably successful so far this season. Recurring weaknesses include defending too deeply; failing to achieve clean sheets; weak midfield; isolated strikers; and over reliance on set pieces to score. We're reading these comments week after week. Now I get that some of these weaknesses are down to a horrendous injury list, but some are down to recruitment failures, especially up front. Usually a manager will try to source a wide variety of different types of a striker to give him various options. That doesn't seem to be the case with SK. We'll look at Vale, Stama, Ebiye, Robinson, Maswanhise, Tavares and Watt. Vale, Tavares and Maswhanise are all fast, can play outside the box but are lightweight. Stama and Ebiye are penalty box strikers but lightweight. Watt is more physical, bit is not a prolific scorer. Robinson is quite talented but very lightweight and not a scorer, despite yesterday's goal. In my opinion only, Robinson, Tavares and Watt have disappointed. SK loves a 3-5-1-1 formation and thats not a recent thing; so why have we not recruited a big target man? Like it or not defenders are becoming bigger and bigger. We had a fortnight to prepare for yesterday's game and SK should know Ross County inside out. So why did he get it so wrong? I get the players too had an off day.

No sign of Blaney, NIcholson or Will Dickson in yesterday's squad, wonder if they're carrying knocks or just left out. Still a pretty lengthy injury list as well - Oxborough, Mair, McGinn, Seddon, Callaghan (never been available I suppose...), Vale, Robinson and Stamatelopoulos 😖

Mcginn is confirmed out for the season by the club. Seddon due back March/April time. Callachan nobody knows but been a really pointless signing. Side note suspect we won't be seeing Jack Vale back if it's an achilies injury he's got.

I was reasonably pleased with the result, if not the performance and would have happily taken a draw at 3pm. My expectations were modest and the script for the game could have been written 2 weeks ago. Results elsewhere made it a pretty satisfying afternoon. On paper, the team line up looked reasonable, with the exception of the defence. I’m not a fan of playing McGinn and O’Donnell in a 3 man defence and I really thought we’d ditched that failed experiment. If Blaney can’t displace a 32 year old wing back in central defence then the chances are that he’s heading out the door. That line up lacked physicality, height and leadership. We started off brightly enough but after the initial 10 minutes, struggled to compete against a physical, energetic and well organised St Mirren. Fortunately, for all their aggression and endeavour, they proved pretty toothless. ( I hope the BBC doesn’t read this). The defence, from start to finish, was disorganised and allowed Saints too much time and space in and around our box. As expected, they caused us problems in the air. Although we created a few chances early on, it was no surprise when they opened the scoring with the obligatory gift; again schoolboy defending. Saints then shaded the first half. At times, it looked as though they had 14 players on the pitch. I felt sorry for Bair and Vale. The service to Theo was poor and he was often left isolated. Vale was played far too deep – just not his type of game. Bair and Vale just couldn’t link up. That tactic was a clear mistake and should have been changed early doors when it became clear it just wouldn’t work. Maybe one reason too why Spittal was anonymous? A clear case of managerial overthinking? Captain Hindsight here - at the break I’d have introduced Mugabi for either O’Donnell or Devine, Miller for Halliday and Nicholson for the anonymous Spittal. To be fair Saints had done their homework on him and snuffed him out. After the break we did improve and shaded the second half. I was glad to see us break our scoring duck against St Mirren. The Nicholson for Bair substitution had me baffled. Why take off a striker and introduce a midfielder when we had Moses on the bench and we were chasing goals? In the main, I thought our substitutions were too late in the coming and somewhat conservative. Its not as if those on the field were playing well. Still, we just deserved the draw. Our performance was error strewn and we looked downright rusty. I absolve Bair and Vale from criticism for the above reasons. Spittal didn’t play badly he just didn’t play at all. Georgie Gent was my sole and clear contender for MOTM. He caused Saints problems on the left flank all day with his surging runs.

So the window is closed. How do we reflect on it? On the one hand, we still have our prize asset who is 2-4 weeks away from resuming training. Probably too late to effect whether we end up top or bottom 6, but hopefully with enough time to come in and flourish under a new manager and generate the kind of revenue we are hoping for at the end of the season. Ive always hoped he might get a Scotland cap before he left and with 2 friendlies at the start of June, it would be nice to see him sign off like that and get his dream move. As for the rest of the squad...... GK - Balcombe and Ward. Injured - Oxborough Bit of a chaotic window in this regard with Heygi being recalled, Ox and Mair both breaking fingers and having to go out and source 2 more keepers. Given the circumstances, Balcombe looks like he will do fine for now and Ward, well, we will see. Defence........ Kaleta, Koutroumbis, SOD, Casey, Balmer, Gordon, Blaney, Wilson, Thompson. Injured - McGinn, Seddon. Certainly sufficient cover for all positions, whether there is enough quality remains to be seen, but the new manager will certainly have sufficient numbers to work with to try and identify a successful formula. Thompson coming in at least allows Wilson to be rested long enough for Seddon to get back and provide competition. Midfield....... Halliday, Davor, Paton, Sparrow, Slattery, Andrews. Injured -Miller, Callachan This has been the problem area of the team all season and we dont seem to have addressed it in any meaningful way. It restricts our ability to alter formations and we dont have enough legs in the team to allow us to press higher up the park and win the ball back. Our best hope is that Slattery can build his fitness up and he and Miller can form some sort of partnership. Sparrow is a willing runner and Paton, although much maligned, does flourish when playing with better players alongside him. Andrews has talent and may also come under that category, but unfair to ask him to shoulder the pressure on his own. Much will depend on the new manager, formation and our ability to get guys fit and keep them fit. Still missing a proper defensive mid. Forwards......... Armstrong, Maswanhise, Nicholson, Watt, Moses, Plange, Dickson. Injured - Robinson, Tavares, Vale, Stamatelopoulos. There should be enough there for the new manager to work with. Key will be getting them enough actual possession to create chances and score goals. Summary..... We have covered most of the problem areas with numbers at least. Midfield is a problem, but with a different manager, set up and outlook to playing the game there looks like there could be sufficient to turn results and performances around to at least keep us out of a relegation dogfight. The huge BUT, is that it all hinges on the right managerial appointment. First big test for the new Board / Chairman. Get it right, and we could have a positive end to the season. Get it wrong and we could be up shit creek.

It's possible that we have more injuries - heard that Vale might be out again.

i've not been his biggest fan but Halliday is getting picked just now because he is playing well. The one that needs binned is Robinson with Vale, Ebiye and Tavares starting on Friday. With Davor missing out. Allowing Miller to play in his best position. All three of those substitutes were the reason we nearly grabbed a point yesterday. Vale driving forward made a huge difference. But I fear Kettlewell will again start Robinson despite him being terrible anywhere near goal. Might be a confidence thing but we cannot wait forever on him finding the net.