vikingTON

Much happier to take a gamble on a player like Savoury. We're already retaining quite a few in that area of the park, albeit more defensive options, so can and should be taking that type of risk to freshen things up plans potentially add a game changer. It's much better than going back yet again to players who either failed the first time or didn't impress at all recently.

Hawd me back from buying a dozen for this titanic occasion.

1) The number of players that we've successfully coached to achieve the potential of rough diamonds is also very, very small. For every Nicky Cadden there have been about 50 other players who either performed at par or were duds. 2) The rough diamond category could be applied to just about any signing - especially those who came through a youth setup at the likes of the Old Firm, who are ten a penny. Despite being rolled out for pearl clutching purposes when a new player signing gets criticised every summer - though you are not using it for this purpose - it doesn't justify signing any specific player, many of which are highly likely to be dung at Championship level. 3) Given the above points in addition to your otherwise accurate summary, we need to be considering the point of being one of the smallest full-time clubs in the pyramid - in budgetary terms at least. The only remaining justification I can see for persisting with a full-time model is if the Estrella group are brought on board, and can offer a totally different pool of players who desire full-time professional training in order to join the club. The scraping the barrel exercise within Scottish football, an occasional English non league ringer and relying on key loans year in and year out is achieving nothing.

You can make an individual case for any one or two of these players (as well as the likes of Longridge etc.) re-signing. The issue is that when these cases keep being made for all of the same players of marginal value as last season - only another year older - then you are not improving the squad by a sufficient degree to expect any significant progress next season. Between contract renewals and offers on the table, we are committing too much of our resources too soon to a squad that simply didn't deliver in the campaign just finished. While next season is going to be yet another transition, the squad still merits greater renewal than this.

I'm taking an objection because certain posters are: 1) claiming that poor finishing of waves of great chances has been objectively quantified, as a justification to 2) re-sign useless sand dancers who contributed nowhere near enough in genuinely objective output to merit a new deal As for the finishing being anomalously poor - that's given the lie by the players in our squad. None of the attacking players behind our lone front man had any credible track record of scoring goals - MOH's was in a completely different part of his career. The main reason why said players like Moffat, or Garrity, or Shaw have ended up near the very bottom of the full-time pecking order - despite some clear technical ability - is because they never deliver consistent returns where it counts in front of goal. This was an obvious flaw in the squad building fully 12 months ago. We should not double down on a squad building strategy that has just failed, and just plain hope that 'luck' or a magical 30 goal a season hotshot will come along to change the outcome.

I don't watch PSG every week either, but am 100% certain that Kvaratskelia and Dembelé created more very good chances than Michael Garrity and Nathan Shaw. I don't think you understand how football works tbh.

I fail to see how signing Lewis Strapp for the third time would be in any way a show of 'ambition'. Baffling logic. I wish Strapp well at his new club, and am relieved that we can finally move on from this constant and bizarre fixation. As for skooshing the league below - that was Ross County's aim when building a squad 12 months ago and it didn't exactly work out for them.

A - There are plenty of other mediocre teams in this division, who could make similar and entirely selective claims. The assertion that we were uniquely wasteful in front of goal is not supported by any credible facts, and B - If you choose to play a formation with one striker and three sand dancers behind them, then the onus is on all of them to chip in with goals, not just the striker. The proven failure to reliably contribute either assists or goals was why our squad assembly under Imrie last summer was always likely to fail. Blues was the most prolific goal threat in the entire squad outside of whatever Adeloye/Brophy/Main option played no. 9 - and rightfully excluding O'Halloran's previous stats from his late career reality. So why is anyone surprised that a squad that had no demonstrable record of reliably converting chances failed to reliably convert chances? This failure was fully predictable 11 months ago in large part due to the weakness of our sand dancer options, regardless of the striker position. So the revisionism about keeping those options based on chances missed is simply sticking with a losing bet and expecting a different outcome. Enough.

With even a semi-competent team shape or pressing off the ball from January then we'd also have finished comfortably midtable. And had Storer not been injured then we'd also have finished comfortably midtable despite both issues - and many others too. The bar was so ridiculously low to clear for that this season, which is what makes our final league position and method of getting there so completely risible. This reality requires a much more thorough purge of the squad that brought it about. Revisionism about our wide players being anything other than a clear and obvious net drag on the team last season is why we can't have nice things.

Did we create at least 20 more big chances than a Saint Johnstone side, who scored fully 30 goals more than us over the league campaign? Watching the games with eyes shut indeed.

We could - get this - not replace sand dancers with yet more sand dancers, by shunting this completely useless function out of the squad altogether. You pay a premium on any attacking player of quality in the market - which we cannot afford to do, which is why our options are generally crap and/or move on very quickly indeed. But unlike a centre forward that you need to have in order to score goals, you don't actually need to play two wingers or pay for 4 gubbins squad options. All to field a garbage 4-2-3-1 every week, that belongs in the bin alongside the scratched disc of 'LMA Manager 2007' that dates this approach. To make best use of our restricted but not miniscule resources, we need a different approach to squad building. We need more players like Wilson to build the team around a dominant physical presence in the middle of the park and use full/wing backs for width.

NB: And the first 'stat', on scrutiny, is actually even more ridiculous than the second. Morton created fully 25% more major chances last season than any other team in the division - with league champions Saint Johnstone (who created about 20 big chances in their 4 games against us alone) nowhere to be seen? That is an objectively ridiculous claim, that takes the slightest scrap of critical thinking to verify, and confirms that 'Fotmob' can be filed in the bin where they belong.

So an online scores app with zero physical footprint in the Scottish lower leagues then. And that lack of footprint is really shown by the second 'stat'. If you think that there has been a near 2x difference between Morton's performance in converting 'big (undefined) chances' to any other side in the division, then you don't understand how statistical significance works. That is an enormous outlier across 36 points of data - which is either explained more by our breathtaking attacking football (given our actual goals scored is nowhere near 2x lower) or by the tallying of 'big chances missed' being a subjective, dud measurement. I know which explanation best fits both the statistical outlier and the eye test of last season's performances.

I've seen this stat get peddled on here - but have yet to see any provenance provided for that claim. If you think that the story of last season was one of breathtaking creative football and wide play, only to be cruelly wasted by strikers, then I'm not sure what games you were watching. How many chances were we racking up in the final two games of the season against seaside league bound mince? But by this seems legit version of events, then the same logic must apply to re-signing Garrity and Shaw too. As opposed to the correct option which is to rightly ditch all of this garbage and try a different approach altogether.

More created than Nathan Shaw and Michael Garrity. The Balón d'Or is surely in the post. It is the toleration of all these flattering to deceive sand dancers that explain precisely why our league campaign was so poor. Indeed, it was pointed out in advance by yours truly as a woeful set of options with no credible record of delivering when it counted.