Squad for next Season

[ChampTon]

On top of his quite justified comments on not having funds available, Imrie also having a go at the officials today. Seems careless. 

There is just no way, after the improvements in support, season ticket sales, new shirt sales, the Celtic game, Dalrada etc that we should be in the position right now of not being able to fill a bench. We offered contracts to the likes of Grimshaw and Miller - surely they'd have been on more than the likes of Mullen and Boyd?

Back the manager or lose him, rather simple.

 

Edited July 23, 2023 by ChampTon

[vikingTON]

Where to begin with that utter horseshite? The most obvious fail:

1) The Celtic game. This was already accounted for in last season's budget - including the addition of new players at that time, and the club recording a profit for the second time this century. You don't get to count that revenue again this season - that's not how finance works. Ditto the Dalrada investment - only ongoing funding and sponsorship contribute to this season's budget. 

2) You point to improvements on the revenue side without even once considering the other side of the coin: an inflationary environment where costs have risen by 10% across the board - and likely much higher for utilities. Simply retaining existing squad players increases costs for the club: they will quite rightly want an increase in their wages based on performance as well as their own bills to pay. The club's balance of income to outgoings is a constantly moving target - the costs do not magically stay the same from one season to the next, least of all right now. 

3) 'Back the manager or lose him'. Utter nonsense - the reality is that the club will lose the manager regardless because he is a young, ambitious and clearly effective coach. Imrie is under contract for the foreseeable future though and signed up under conditions that were far more difficult than right now. While Imrie has every right to fight for the needs of the first team squad, we need to ensure that there will be a club years and decades after the current or any other manager has gone - that's the primary goal that GMFC has to ensure, every single year. 

Which leads us to the logical black hole in your foot-stomping tantrum: what is your causal explanation for the current budget stand-off? Do you believe that the GMFC board are squirrelling money away in illicit offshore accounts? Are they asset strippers looking to run the club into the ground? Why else are they withholding funds that you and others insist are definitely just sitting around waiting to be used on wunderkinds like 'Frankie Deane'? 

Edited July 23, 2023 by vikingTON

[HamCam]

Unless I am missing something the funding from Dalrada is ongoing. It was an initial one year deal with the option to extend which was taken up. The Board and MCT have, however,  been clear our business model is to be sustainable, avoiding the annual losses run up under the Raes requiring the family to fill the hole they dug. 

[Pedrodelawasp]

I’m definitely on board with the target of sustainability and ensuring we all have a team to support for the long term.

Imrie has done incredibly well in the job, improving the team significantly, both through canny use of his limited playing budget and by coaching the squad to improve individual and collective performance levels.

While of course I’d like to see him able to name a match day squad with a full bench with options to change things up and ample cover for injuries, I am also glad we’re not spending beyond our means. The impression I’m getting from Imrie is that he’s managing expectations - ours and his own - with his goal being to try maximise the utility of every signing, biding his time for the right opportunities to arise, etc.

I expect we’ll see a defender come in relatively soon as his priority given that he expects Baird to be out for at least two months. Besides that it may again be a case of looking at younger players available on loan for little outlay towards the end of the window and keeping an eye out for free agents who may be holding out on signing for anybody for now, but may become more amenable to lower their contract expectations as time goes on.

[TRVMP]

We've been here for 149 years and we'll be here for 149 more as long as stay the course. Selling the family silver for a center-back is a crap idea.

[Alibi]

Regarding the “not able to fill the bench” thing, the number of substitutes allowed has increased over the years from zero to whatever it is now, 7 in our league, but do we really need that many? Seems to me that having a smaller number is fine in practice. A keeper and 3 other subs should cover most eventualities. Having more subs maybe gives a bit more flexibility to tailor the tactics and if you have more players available and being paid anyway it probably doesn’t affect costs, but I doubt it really handicaps the team.

[port-ton]

2 hours ago, Alibi said:

Regarding the “not able to fill the bench” thing, the number of substitutes allowed has increased over the years from zero to whatever it is now, 7 in our league, but do we really need that many? Seems to me that having a smaller number is fine in practice. A keeper and 3 other subs should cover most eventualities. Having more subs maybe gives a bit more flexibility to tailor the tactics and if you have more players available and being paid anyway it probably doesn’t affect costs, but I doubt it really handicaps the team.

You could maybe make that argument if our opposition had similar amounts of substitutes however if the team we are playing has more flexibility from the bench in terms of numbers and quality then that gives them a distinct advantage over us in a league where most of the teams are seperated by fine margins. 

[irnbru]

32 minutes ago, port-ton said:

You could maybe make that argument if our opposition had similar amounts of substitutes however if the team we are playing has more flexibility from the bench in terms of numbers and quality then that gives them a distinct advantage over us in a league where most of the teams are seperated by fine margins. 

One or two injuries or suspensions needs to be accounted for too. 

[vikingTON]

18 hours ago, HamCam said:

Unless I am missing something the funding from Dalrada is ongoing. It was an initial one year deal with the option to extend which was taken up. The Board and MCT have, however,  been clear our business model is to be sustainable, avoiding the annual losses run up under the Raes requiring the family to fill the hole they dug. 

The contribution from Dalrada isn't necessarily identical in Year 2 to what it was in Year 1 though. And I doubt that they were paying for *one year* naming rights to Cappielow regardless of any other ties to the club going forward. 

[Alibi]

1 hour ago, port-ton said:

You could maybe make that argument if our opposition had similar amounts of substitutes however if the team we are playing has more flexibility from the bench in terms of numbers and quality then that gives them a distinct advantage over us in a league where most of the teams are separated by fine margins. 

I'm not disagreeing that 7 subs gives more options.I'd be interested to know what size of squad teams had when subs were first introduced - with only a single sub available at that time, the sub had to be versatile as they could end up in almost any position depending on how the team was reconfigured.  4 subs gives you a reasonable chance of covering most positions with someone who has some idea what is required.  If we're happy not to have a sub keeper, it's hard to argue that you absolutely must have 6 outfield players on the bench.

BTW is a sub keeper allowed to come on to replace an outfield player or are they only allowed to replace the original keeper?

[Pedrodelawasp]

6 hours ago, Alibi said:

Regarding the “not able to fill the bench” thing, the number of substitutes allowed has increased over the years from zero to whatever it is now, 7 in our league, but do we really need that many? Seems to me that having a smaller number is fine in practice. A keeper and 3 other subs should cover most eventualities. Having more subs maybe gives a bit more flexibility to tailor the tactics and if you have more players available and being paid anyway it probably doesn’t affect costs, but I doubt it really handicaps the team.

It’s not so much the necessity of filling the bench as much as it is prudent to have cover for different eventualities - injury and suspension chiefly, but also for tactical flexibility, accounting for a drop in form, etc.

We can see already that having only four substitutes for a game has hampered us at this early stage of the season. We absolutely need defensive cover at a minimum, ideally someone versatile enough to play across the backline, and another utility style midfielder wouldn’t go amiss.

In our existing squad you can predict where we’re going to see players missing some games - Broadfoot won’t play every game, Gillespie will have to be rested and Quitongo has had a couple of injuries pretty much every season he has played (and likely a suspension or two in to the bargain!)

[vikingTON]

Imrie stated that he'd be happy running with a squad of 18. I don't think that Garrity is really included in that head count though and sub performances have done nothing to suggest that he's equipped for Championship football. 

[RossMcC1874]

I think it will be interesting who else we will be looking at. Not heard any rumours of anyone we are linked with I presume Imrie will have players in mind. 

Also do we have any sort of a youth team or a development squad or has that been done away with? We had decent players through the past few years so it would be a shame if we stopped trying to get younger players in it could help at a time like this where we are so thin on the ground. 

[DreamOakTree]

4 hours ago, Alibi said:

I'm not disagreeing that 7 subs gives more options.I'd be interested to know what size of squad teams had when subs were first introduced - with only a single sub available at that time, the sub had to be versatile as they could end up in almost any position depending on how the team was reconfigured.  4 subs gives you a reasonable chance of covering most positions with someone who has some idea what is required.  If we're happy not to have a sub keeper, it's hard to argue that you absolutely must have 6 outfield players on the bench.

BTW is a sub keeper allowed to come on to replace an outfield player or are they only allowed to replace the original keeper?

I’m pretty sure Dundee United won the SPL at the time of one substitute, and only used 13 or 14 players over the entire season

[Ton in Shawlands]

I've seen this quoted about Dundee Utd a number of times down the years since they won that championship but I never heard it said at the time. I've a recollection one of their ex-players corrected this one time saying there were actually 17 or 20 players involved across the season.

[Cappiecat 1.2]

51 minutes ago, DreamOakTree said:

I’m pretty sure Dundee United won the SPL at the time of one substitute, and only used 13 or 14 players over the entire season

2 subs were allowed in Scotland from season 1966/67, Dundee United won the league in 1982/83.

[Ton in Shawlands]

Done a bit of checking on the Dundee Utd thing, they actually used 20 players, so a fair squad & a loan player. The loan was a surprise to me, John McNeil of Morton briefly on loan mid season one sub appearance. I'd totally forgotten that.

[AyrshireTon]

The "won the league with only 14 players all season" was done by Aston Villa in 80-81.

[BishopBrennan]

A conversation about substitute numbers from years gone by. How riveting. 

[irnbru]

At the end of the day if there's no money there's no money but the club MCT should be saying something and not leaving Imrie to answer questions about it when he's clearly annoyed.