the saline hill puma Posted March 15 Report Share Posted March 15 Cheers @Digs & @Piracy for the update 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grant Posted March 15 Report Share Posted March 15 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Digs Posted March 15 Author Report Share Posted March 15 8 minutes ago, Grant said: 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. That wasn’t present, he said it was earlier in the season. It was part of a wider point about making chances aren’t necessarily the problem, he was acknowledging we need to be better at taking chances. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DougieDave Posted March 15 Report Share Posted March 15 14 minutes ago, Piracy said: I'd suggest that the recent noise from the Patrons meeting and on social media, and the email I sent were influencing factors in the club calling last night's meeting. They're obviously keen to quell any unease, which is the right thing to do. But I'm still not convinced by the answers given. That's my issue. What would it take to convince you ? I thought David Cooks explanation of the losses were credible and contained just enough detail to quell my fears - I’m not sure what else he could have said to satisfy concerns - I thought he did a good job convincing me that GMBH were in it for the long term and that getting income increased and expenses reduced were a priority. Some things this year will have a huge impact to our numbers next year, medical bills, postponed games, loan players wages, energy costs etc so each season can be a lottery financial wise - I hope its maybe a wake-up call to be a bit more open about our costs and to keep fans onside with our Mission & Objectives - it helps when we are winning as well - less time to think about the concerns…. great writeup from Digs and Piracy - my notes were detailed but would be wasting my time writing them up as you’ve captured all I’d written 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piracy Posted March 15 Report Share Posted March 15 2 minutes ago, DougieDave said: What would it take to convince you ? I thought David Cooks explanation of the losses were credible and contained just enough detail to quell my fears - I’m not sure what else he could have said to satisfy concerns - I thought he did a good job convincing me that GMBH were in it for the long term and that getting income increased and expenses reduced were a priority. Some things this year will have a huge impact to our numbers next year, medical bills, postponed games, loan players wages, energy costs etc so each season can be a lottery financial wise - I hope its maybe a wake-up call to be a bit more open about our costs and to keep fans onside with our Mission & Objectives - it helps when we are winning as well - less time to think about the concerns…. great writeup from Digs and Piracy - my notes were detailed but would be wasting my time writing them up as you’ve captured all I’d written 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 What would it take ro convince me, well, I suppose the answer is you let me worry about that. Like I said its my issue. I do not think that 3 seasons of consecutive losses is a great situation for any business. I'm not sure that Fussball continue to keep throwing in money longer term. What I will say is I think by having the communication session it's the right thing to do. But rather than it being reactionary I like to see it a drumbeat meeting and actively working to rotate fan representation. I'd like to see a clear and coherent plan laid out at the start of a season, it can be detailed or high level as they choose, call it a mission statement even. You heard what I asked last night, we both heard the answers, up to each of us to process the information as we see fit. They didn't respond to my email. In fact I realise why they didn't. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tartan Army Par Posted March 15 Report Share Posted March 15 (edited) Thanks to both of you for taking time out your night to attend and provide an in depth overview from the night. Well done to the club for facing up to pertinent questions that many fans have been asking over the last couple weeks. Sounds like our owners are happy to pay for our huge shortfalls, which is the biggest concern to me right now. Not sure why they haven't cashed in their loan to take ownership yet though? Happy to cover millions of pounds of loses but still not the owners? I'm not on board with this part 11 hours ago, Digs said: They left Fife Elite and put that funding into building our own instead of funding the development of players for them to go to other Fife clubs, which did happen. DC - I'm sure the fans wouldn't have been happy if we hadn't invested in youth - He does have a point here IMO I question how much value we will get out of local youth. It costs a fair bit to maintain and the top Fife talent can still be picked up by the bigger clubs around Scotland. Not many top players have been produced by Fife Elite over the years. If we unleash a gem then great but we won't maximise our fees by playing Scottish Championship football or lower. I would rather invest in the first team at the start of the season and gain money from the prize money of finishing higher in the league. More realistic than our chances of churning out sellable assets from the academy every year. I'm really not that bothered about youth players. It's a nice to have but not if it's effecting first team performance. In terms of our biggest problem on the pitch (not scoring goals) they seem to be lost. Too much training, calming down training. Surely a clear indication that we need new strikers next season if we stay up. Still stuck with Deniz, Chalmers, O'Halloran, Wighton, Breen and Comrie next year. All been poor this season. Really bad contract extentions last summer on players that failed in the league previously including O'Halloran who was relegated last year. Negative post I know but just how I feel about this season. Much respect for you to guys providing the feedback from the meeting. I'm just not convinced by our owners or football management team in all honesty. Edited March 15 by Tartan Army Par 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grant Posted March 15 Report Share Posted March 15 (edited) 28 minutes ago, Digs said: That wasn’t present, he said it was earlier in the season. It was part of a wider point about making chances aren’t necessarily the problem, he was acknowledging we need to be better at taking chances. 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? Edited March 15 by Grant Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Digs Posted March 15 Author Report Share Posted March 15 1 hour ago, Grant said: 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? 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? 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. 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 I'll take each one in order as they are above but a few things. Also, I'm not arguing their corner or defending anything said, this is partly my opinion and partly my perception of how it was said. You have to remember this isn't verbatim, and doesn't reflect the whole stream of conversation so there is a danger things can be taken slightly out of context of how they were said as it's difficult to get that across in a summary. Budget - I had the same questions/concerns as you but I think they realise how it came across. I still don't think the second place argument makes much sense. I do agree though that is is more prudent to budget for that rather than 1st place. Having said that, I;d have thought that they would have had a contingency/expectation in place to pay bonuses as I'm sure they must have been agreed at the start of the season? Wotherspoon - It's been said before, and I thought everyone knew this, we didn't just miss out on him. He was offered a deal, two weeks he was given to make his mind up, and a deadline was set. We were signing him to play in the hole, and in the meantime, after the deadline has passed, we signed Summers for that role. Wotherspoon then came back and said, he'd had a change of mind and was the deal still on the table and we said no, sorry pal, you're too late. IMO that is absolutely the right way to go about things. It's not like we were waiting on an answer from Messi. Make your mind up, if you don't take what's on offer, we move on. Tommy Smith - That came straight from JM, not Cook and he said he didn;t blame him for taking the Australia gig, as he'd have done exactly the same in his position. I've no reason to think he made up a reason or story to change the narrative on this one. Chris Kane - He never said it was a good thing he had a recurring injury. He said, it's good that he would recognise the signs within himself to say when he was ready to come back and not be rushed. Also, a recurring injury doesn't mean he is a cripple or there is an inherent defect in him that means he should be avoided like the plague. Players get recurring injuries, it's no big deal. It's not like he's a cripple and will have to retire from it. It's part and parcel of being a professional sportsman. I disagree with the 'fold like a deck of cards' assessment. We've rarely been battered this season. Lots of games we have had loads of the ball then given away daft goals but when you've got an ever changing back line though this is going to happen. We've rarely capitulated completely though, Rovers in the Scottish, Morton at home aside. I can't think of many other games we've been battered out of site. The group as a team is solid, and I believe him when he says that. The coaching thing? Of course it does. There is often an assertion that we need a striker coach, or we need a defensive coach etc. The point I'm making is that they do this already in regards to the strikers. It's not just about taking the chance or creating a chance with a pass. If you've not got strikers making the right runs or even making dummy runs to create space, the creative players have got nothing to hit. Also, we often do put great balls into great areas, and there is no-one there. For me, that's a personnel issue and I think without saying as much, he probably agrees. That is very much my personal opinion though. I'd completely disagree with your assessment of us being 'turgid' for the entire season, so we'll have to agree to disagree on that. Statements - I hear what you're saying and I agree with you in general but it was more a case of him saying there is no point in frequent statements saying either the same thing or nothing of substance. I made the point to him that we went from being treated like mushrooms (kept in the dark and fed ****e) by Masterton, to a whole new way of working with clear and honest updates when things happened to back to less frequent updates. I said whilst I agreed with no point in coming out to say nothing of substance, there is probably a balance between now and the way it was required. (I'm paraphrasing quite a bit here but this was the gist of the convo). 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DougieDave Posted March 15 Report Share Posted March 15 Remember where Statements got Ross Macarthur - hounded out the job by hooligans, spat at and insulted with family in tow and car vandalised - we have a responsibility to discuss things openly - in good terms - I think this forum does a brilliant job at that - Digs and Piracy have done a great job capturing what was discussed last night but as Digs said above - if you’d been in the room you’d have captured more of the semantics…..words don’t do it justice sometimes… 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grant Posted March 15 Report Share Posted March 15 39 minutes ago, Digs said: I'll take each one in order as they are above but a few things. Also, I'm not arguing their corner or defending anything said, this is partly my opinion and partly my perception of how it was said. You have to remember this isn't verbatim, and doesn't reflect the whole stream of conversation so there is a danger things can be taken slightly out of context of how they were said as it's difficult to get that across in a summary. Budget - I had the same questions/concerns as you but I think they realise how it came across. I still don't think the second place argument makes much sense. I do agree though that is is more prudent to budget for that rather than 1st place. Having said that, I;d have thought that they would have had a contingency/expectation in place to pay bonuses as I'm sure they must have been agreed at the start of the season? Wotherspoon - It's been said before, and I thought everyone knew this, we didn't just miss out on him. He was offered a deal, two weeks he was given to make his mind up, and a deadline was set. We were signing him to play in the hole, and in the meantime, after the deadline has passed, we signed Summers for that role. Wotherspoon then came back and said, he'd had a change of mind and was the deal still on the table and we said no, sorry pal, you're too late. IMO that is absolutely the right way to go about things. It's not like we were waiting on an answer from Messi. Make your mind up, if you don't take what's on offer, we move on. Tommy Smith - That came straight from JM, not Cook and he said he didn;t blame him for taking the Australia gig, as he'd have done exactly the same in his position. I've no reason to think he made up a reason or story to change the narrative on this one. Chris Kane - He never said it was a good thing he had a recurring injury. He said, it's good that he would recognise the signs within himself to say when he was ready to come back and not be rushed. Also, a recurring injury doesn't mean he is a cripple or there is an inherent defect in him that means he should be avoided like the plague. Players get recurring injuries, it's no big deal. It's not like he's a cripple and will have to retire from it. It's part and parcel of being a professional sportsman. I disagree with the 'fold like a deck of cards' assessment. We've rarely been battered this season. Lots of games we have had loads of the ball then given away daft goals but when you've got an ever changing back line though this is going to happen. We've rarely capitulated completely though, Rovers in the Scottish, Morton at home aside. I can't think of many other games we've been battered out of site. The group as a team is solid, and I believe him when he says that. The coaching thing? Of course it does. There is often an assertion that we need a striker coach, or we need a defensive coach etc. The point I'm making is that they do this already in regards to the strikers. It's not just about taking the chance or creating a chance with a pass. If you've not got strikers making the right runs or even making dummy runs to create space, the creative players have got nothing to hit. Also, we often do put great balls into great areas, and there is no-one there. For me, that's a personnel issue and I think without saying as much, he probably agrees. That is very much my personal opinion though. I'd completely disagree with your assessment of us being 'turgid' for the entire season, so we'll have to agree to disagree on that. Statements - I hear what you're saying and I agree with you in general but it was more a case of him saying there is no point in frequent statements saying either the same thing or nothing of substance. I made the point to him that we went from being treated like mushrooms (kept in the dark and fed ****e) by Masterton, to a whole new way of working with clear and honest updates when things happened to back to less frequent updates. I said whilst I agreed with no point in coming out to say nothing of substance, there is probably a balance between now and the way it was required. (I'm paraphrasing quite a bit here but this was the gist of the convo). 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? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piracy Posted March 15 Report Share Posted March 15 8 minutes ago, DougieDave said: Remember where Statements got Ross Macarthur - hounded out the job by hooligans, spat at and insulted with family in tow and car vandalised - we have a responsibility to discuss things openly - in good terms - I think this forum does a brilliant job at that - Digs and Piracy have done a great job capturing what was discussed last night but as Digs said above - if you’d been in the room you’d have captured more of the semantics…..words don’t do it justice sometimes… This ^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SanguinePar Posted March 15 Report Share Posted March 15 1 hour ago, Grant said: 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. Follow up to that - I wondered how Xg (which I'm a bit on the fence about in general, but for the sake of argument...) compared with actual goals scored this season. In case anyone is interested, here's the numbers I got - Pars are right at the bottom of the heap for goals/Xg, with Ayr right at the top! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SanguinePar Posted March 15 Report Share Posted March 15 Big thanks to @Digs @Piracy and all other people reporting from the meeting. A lot to digest from that. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grant Posted March 15 Report Share Posted March 15 1 minute ago, SanguinePar said: Follow up to that - I wondered how Xg (which I'm a bit on the fence about in general, but for the sake of argument...) compared with actual goals scored this season. In case anyone is interested, here's the numbers I got - Pars are right at the bottom of the heap for goals/Xg, with Ayr right at the top! 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. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piracy Posted March 15 Report Share Posted March 15 Great discussion folks. It's what we want from the forum. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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