Grant

Obviously not ideal that it impacts us, but I like the Friday games. Gives exposure to the league which can only be a good thing.

Is there dates out for the promotion and relegation playoffs?

I've no idea why the club aren't doing a weekly twitter post saying what players are going out etc.

Aye, I meant it as no disrespect to Fisher when I said I didn't think him coming back was a huge boost, but that was based purely on how good MFW has been. Aye, I was putting the little guy to bed at 1900 and just couldn't be ***ed going, glad I did.

Aye? Thought he was very good in centre mid, felt we lost control of the game a bit when we had to put him to left back. Jakubiak, what a performance. And MFW is some player.

Same eleven as against Raith.

Apologies Salvo I'm not quite grasping you there. My point was (And I may have put it across poorly) is that it would be an assumption in itself that if we reached the playoffs then we would have definitely have had 2 playoff games. Worth noting that our closest challengers for the title (Falkirk) only had one last season after a quite incredible scoreline against Airdrie. It just doesn't really make sense to me why we've brought it up/said it. I feel it would've been better received if we'd came out and said "Big loss, but we're building a training ground and it's expensive". The whole missing two playoff games is odd IMO.

Outstanding use of the multi quote function 👏

Aye, if the statement had been "We have under performened with regards to how clinical we are at converting chances" I'd have agreed fully, I'd still say that we need to improve our xG (not a massive coincidence that the top four, are the top four). It would be interesting to see how our xG & xGA compare with our four and five at the back formations, it might be that our XG rises with the 4231, however so does the xGA. It wouldn't shock me for example if Partick had quite a high xGA. My bugbear comes in that Cook is looking at bloody footystats for his data. We are not, and to my belief never have been, the second best side in the league for xG, just by watching us you'd know that.

Aye, appreciate the reply 👍 On Wotherspoon that's how I remember it, what my dispute would be is that during that two weeks do you reckon there was no negotiations ongoing? From my understanding Wotherspoons camp had a figure, we had a figure, we didn't come to an agreement and we then got Summers, when Wotherspoon lowered his demands we didn't have space. Now dependent on who's told you I'd imagine there's loads of different figures popping around for what that difference was. Kane - I'm not saying he had the plague, however since signing him it feels like he's missed as many games as he's played. I'm not sure with that it's any sort of positive that he's felt a recurring issue pop up. Fold like a deck of cards - The game at Starks last week wouldn't be classed us as folding? Once it got to 2-0 the heads firmly went down, likewise Airdrie the week before. Daft because both teams have history in this league of being susceptible to a come back but we showed absolutely no sign of it, no intensity, just a whole lot of nothing. Just because we've not ended up shipping 5 doesn't mean we've folded. Even McPake himself, when things aren't going our way recently just seems to give up. The difference in him from when it was 0-0 at Starks, and when it was 2-0 was wild. The game wasn't over but the ref may aswell have blown for full time. Coaching issue - Aye we look at it, but we're not getting any better at it. Are we just saying that our coaching is as good as it gets, and absolutely no other coaches or methods would improve us in that regard? We are a dull, dull, dull side, McPake got allot of deserved credit for winning us the league with the caveat that while it wasn't pretty, it was sure effective. Now it's not effective and it's still not pretty, that's not a coaching issue? Even if we stick firm to it being a personal issue, is there a player in this squad McPake hasn't either signed, or given an extension too? Certainly not with regards to strikers. We ended the summer window with Jak, McCann and Wighton as our striking options? Jak and McCann look at there best coming off the left with the caveat that neither look like the main man in a striking partnership, while Wighton is at his best when he's allowed to drop deep. However if he does that as a lone striker we then often have no one coming into the box for these deliveries... I'd agree there's a personal issue, but that's down to our fairly poor recruitment over the past couple of windows, and who's fault is that? It's interesting they talk about the improvements of Todd and Otoo and not McCann, coming off the end of last season, and at the start of this season he looked like could kick on and do something major. However he's been absolutely run into the ground, and it's now at the stage where fans are saying they'd release him. What has happened there?

Oh aye, prior to the last supports meeting he brought it up, with the story being he'd sent a screenshot to McPake to illustrate how unlucky we'd been. https://footystats.org/scotland/championship/xg At the time that link had us as being second, It's an absolute nonsense website though so using the data from it to back up a point about xG just makes whoevers presenting it, look silly IMO. As well as that how would our xG compare when playing 4 at the back and 5 at the back? I'd argue that we've had a far more success recently when we've went 4 at the back (Airdrie, Ayr, first half of Inverness), however if David Cook is using "footy stats" as his source for data then I suppose looking into it in more detail is out the window. Rather, I think he seen the website, and then just accepted it at face value which is worrying, or he's using it to try pump out a wee bit of "fake news". It's a small point admittedly, but for me when someone presents facts or figures which you strongly suspect to be bull****(xG, prize money, account history) , whether that's through poor data collection or an outright attempt to mislead you to make the situation seem better than it is, then it calls into question other points where there you have to put your full trust in them. If you can't trust them to tell you a figure like xG which can be quickly debunked, should we then fully trust them when they're talking about other figures?

This is how the xG looks on wyscout which matches better what we've seen this season imo. We are a long way off second place Partick in terms of xG.

You are, I have concerns about a few aspects of the club, Primarily financial sustainability, with me not quite believing some of the communication that's coming out with regards to that, which in turn leads me doubting a few more things the club say. However there were also good things that came out the meeting. The German investors seem commited*, us having a look and getting second opinions so we could make changes with regards to the injuries (And not just calling it bad luck), and I genuinely beleive the Rosyth training ground if done well, will be massive for the club. There's many areas of the club that we could improve on IMO, if we were a well run club we could be a established Premier league club, that we were in league one last season, and we're in a relegation battle this season would say we're not quite at the level where we could say that we're a well run club. We're not utterly ****ed, things aren't brilliant, there's a middle ground to that.

Youth Academy – I’m not going to make out that I speak for many fans, but myself, and those in the friends group I go to Pars games with couldn’t care less where the players came from. Another team who were involved with Fife Elite were Raith Rovers, who do you reckon is the happier fanbase? I’m still yet to be convinced that having a youth academy is at all financially viable at this level. Dispel the myth – Sounds a bit like sour grapes tbh, either way with the Nisbet transfer fee coming into this year’s account we should surely be ready to break even in these sets of accounts? Winning the league 120k – The first couple of bits I just didn’t agree with based on opinion, this though conflicted with that I’d read previously. The 120k seems to low, there’s a twitter account called @SPFLWatch which has a pinned tweet detailing the league prize money, It estimates we got just shy of 150k, now if you don’t want to take this as gospel which is fair enough you can go on the SPFL website - https://spfl.co.uk/news/spfl-prize-pot-reaches-25m which has the breakdown from the 2018/19 season, where the league one winners got 125k, I’m going to lay it out there, I don’t think the prize money has went down. It also has a breakdown of how they’re distributed through the leagues, to get three times that you wouldn’t have to finish mid table (5th place in the championship does get double), you’d have to finish 3rd. For me this just set a few red flags going, if Cook has used hyperbole here where else has he done it? It’s fair to not budget for first. However again I’m going to cry bull**** that finishing second was more lucrative. For one the extra 20 grand in prize money would be nice, but secondly, and this is huge for me. What crowds were they bloody budgeting for? Due to us finishing first and being in that title race we had a fantastic number of tickets sold, far more than we had in the previous season at Championship level, is Cook saying that we did budget for the sold out game against Falkirk and the trophy day against QOTS? Surely it would be more presumptuous to hope for a run in the cup to compensated for their budgetary mistakes. Surely, it’s more presumptuous to think we would have two playoff games? (If they cast there mind back, in the previous seasons Championship playoffs we had one) Extra 100 quid – Well what was the case with Wotherspoon? Targets going to the premier – I’ve not got it in me to pull up the quote, but I’m absolutely positive this was also said last year and it annoyed me then. “Not going to apologise for the club having ambitious targets” A couple of paragraphs ago he didn’t want to sound presumptuous by saying we were going for the League one title! International player – Now it might again, be a nonsense but there was a post from a family friend of Tommy Smith who said the issue was that he wanted a deal to the end of next season, whereas we wanted one to the end of this season. I don’t think anyone accused Malakai of being a panic signing. Xavier and Holmes on the other hand… Again with the £100, would he put a monetary value on how much we lost out to Wotherspoon? Good thing about Chris Kanes injury – I’m not sure at all it’s a good thing it’s a recurrence of an old injury tbh, I’m looking at my third knee surgery soon and the last thing I thought when it flared up was “Awch, it’s good that I know the rehab for that”. Not far above the relegation playoffs either – Correct, it’s one point above the relegation playoffs, and I’d imagine if you offered that to people at this stage they wouldn’t be pleased, the reaction and mood of the fanbase reflects that, is this a fanbase that is happy to be 5 points off the playoffs, or is it one that is concerned with how close they are to relegation? To get this team to the prem – How long do they think that will take before we put in a sustained push for promotion? If they thought this year was about consolidation, should next year be considered a year for challenging, and will McPakes performance be measure against that? They will run through brick walls for each other, and us – Would’ve liked to have heard McPakes thoughts on why the group seem to fold like a deck of cards when we go a couple of goals down then tbh. Xg – A massive concern/bugbear of mine was this, the screenshot that Cook had of the Xg is from an utter nonsense website that doesn’t reflect Xg at all. Does anyone genuinely believe having watched us all season that we are created numerous gilt-edged chances a game? Absolutely not. We’re also joint 3rd bottom now; we have the 5th best defensive record. Whilst having the second worst number of goals scored, those aren’t tight margins. Dispels them not being coached – Does it? I could go in and coach the team next week on how to score more goals, would it work? Probably not. I don’t imagine I would be very good at it, I don’t doubt that the coaching team are working on it, what I have massive doubts about is that they’re actually solving and rectifying the issue which is the real measure of success. We weren’t good at it last year, we’re worse at it this year. For me the problem isn’t the lack of converting chances into goals, the only this season I thought that was a real issue was Inverness and Airdrie at home recently. We just don’t actually create chances to bloody miss, for all the domination of the ball we had against Raith Rovers we had one chance where you felt we were unlucky to score, that’s awful. Discussion on how good a lot of our play in games has been – I hope this was a short discussion, we’ve been turgid and awful to watch for the most part. Putting out frequent statements would be repetitive – Would it? Keeping the fans informed wouldn’t be adding a great deal of value? As was mentioned we did get a new physio weeks ago, why wouldn’t that warrant an article on the COWs? Likewise the director? Our communication is about as far from repetitive as it can be because it’s non-existent, it’s little wonder the board aren’t putting out a detailed and coherent business plan outlining there plans, for one it would give the fans something to measure there progress by, and two we can’t be ***ed with the little things, let alone the important things. Accounts – I’m also not an accountant, but is this on Page 13 what you were meaning @Piracy https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://dafc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2021-05-31_DAFC_Annual_Report_and_Financial_Statements.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiblMCz7fWEAxVsQUEAHW-OD4gQFnoECCoQAQ&usg=AOvVaw3YrM15Xb2pjMAWVvL2bxel 2021-05-31_DAFC_Annual_Report_and_Financial_Statements (2).pdf ? As well as this you would also have a detailed breakdown by the previous board at the end of the season etc. Apologies for how negative this comes across, but I remain utterly unconvinced with a few things by the club. Again though massive thanks to Piracy and Digs for going along in the evening in there spare time, and then spending more time in the evening writing it all up. While I may feel uneasy about some of the information given out, it’s undoubtedly a plus point that these meetings happen in the first place.

Massive thanks to @Digs and @Piracy for going along and for the summary, cracking effort. There's a few bits in the summary that give me a bit of the fear tbh, I'll try and type them up tomorrow but it's not for lack of clarity in the post, it's just the information conflicts sharply with things I'd heard previously.

On the flipside he still wasn't a part of the side that conceded 2 goals in the next four games, which included two clean sheets. I think that's the best defensive run we've had this season. On that evidence we can manage just fine without him... Pointing at those two games also ignores that compared to now - - Benedictus is back -MFW has gotten upto speed -Benjamin isn't a starter If everyone was fully fit I'd have no idea about what squad we'd play, but I just don't see Fisher as being that much drastically better than MFW. To play them all you then go for the 5 at the back formation where we have looked utterly dreadful going forward this season, is that an improvement?

Our issue recently hasn't been restricting teams to chances though? It's been our utter paucity of attacking threat that's been the problem. Has anyone thought over the past few weeks that the defence has been the issue? I don't think Fisher being back will be massive, not because I don't think he's a good player, but I genuinely don't think there's been much of an issue with the defence. I was hoping that Benedictus coming back would benefit us with his leadership qualities, but we still folded like a cheap Ukrainian deckchair against Raith when it went to 2-0. I'm just a bit tired with the constant "When so and so comes back it'll be huge", and well, we've had players coming back all season and it's not really making a massive difference. The latest player is Kane, a player we didn't sign until the 13th of February but apparently our attack now can't function without him. Does that mean that even if we did have a fully fit squad, we still would've been poor for the first half of the season because we didn't have a proper striker?

Aye? I'm not sure I'd have him above Fagan Walcott tbh.

Aye, was only a matter of time. Must've happened during the second half. Lord knows what was going through the respective parties heads during it.

Said it before but fair ****s to the youngsters that have started following us, the last good time to be a Pars fan in this division where you could go to games was 2018. If only the ball had gotten squared at that game at Tannadice... Wondering what your problem is with me and my post is perfectly reasonable. Aye, the second half of that campaign was good, you had a good defence with Williamson having a Toty season, Ashcroft and Morris at CB with Martin reaching his peak at left back. Centre midfield was a problem but you had Cardle, Higgy, Patin and in particular the very good Aird out wide, we even had Dan Armstrong on loan who's went on to have a good career. Then upfront you had Clark and McManus, if we could have sorted out the centre of midfield we could've been onto a good thing. Beadling made a difference but was injured for the game at Tannadice I'm sure. Lost Clark, Morris and Aird in the summer? Built a squad to play 532 then ditched it 45 minutes into the season and it's been differing levels of sadness since.

Not particularly, it was just a very odd post. On the game, it's easier to accept when things don't come off, when you can see the logic behind them. The starting lineup and shape wouldn't have been what I would have went for, however I can see why McPake did and it could be argued that for 70 minutes it kinda worked, we had restricted Raith to absolutely no chances from open play and there goal came from some awful refereeing and poor goalkeeping. That should be tempered by the fact that outwith that Otoo chance, we'd also created nothing so change was needed. That Otoo for McCann sub though, **** me. The crowd reaction said it all, I just don't get what he was trying to achieve, what he was hoping to do, and the effect was almost immediate where we lost a grip on the game. McPake was quick to blame Mehmet for his mistake yesterday, maybe he should have a look in the mirror? Raith scored just under ten minutes later and that it was it, game done. Here comes my second big moan about McPake, at this stage we're 2-0 down, with the amount of added time though there's still 20 minutes left, what do you do? Well you do what McPake had done for months now and give up, do nothing. The Homles sub was getting prepared before the second goal so it went ahead but after that, hee haw. No change of shape despite it being clear it wasn't working, no more sub, no instructions from the bench, just nothing. This is the same Raith who concede three second half goals (in 16 minutes) to bottom of the table Arbroath last week, but we went out with a whimper. The thought of watching another couple of seasons of his awful "brand" of football is a right kick in the chuckies, we weren't good to watch last year but at least we won. We're now still bad to watch, but without the defensive results that actually resulted in us getting points.

Are you alright?

Going to be a hard sale for season tickets to watch a team managed by McPake, overseen by this board and played by these players.

Seen in McPakes pre Match interview he's assessing the fitness of Kane and Welch Hayes. Got the strong fear Kane will be out tbh.

Agreed @DA-go Par Adonis 👍