Lack of knowledgeable person in a strategic technical/sporting director role seems increasingly like it is causing a problem. This type of an insight was needed going in to the transfer window. It seems that our recruitment was focused on buying talent for “year 3” and was naively expecting that Yengi and Adil were the immediate answers to our attacking approach. Which was a gamble given lack of depth in these positions and the risk they would struggle to settle (much like Morris and Gueye). In this sense I feel for Thelin because it seems he is trying to get the balance between player trading, long term planning and immediate results. But of course is only being judged on one of these.
Said the same to my dad. If we are asking Thelin to buy into a 3-year plan and a good chunk of his budget/squad spots is going to future prospects then you could see why he could be frustrated if he gets the dunt for short-term results.
If we had a sporting director doing the same, it might be a bigger issue as head coach is going to be focused on day to day rather than longer term.
It can still work however getting the right players for the here and now is vital and it looks like we’ve made some big misses this year.
That’s not to absolve Jimmy. Clearly his fingerprints on a lot of the purchases now but it’s definitely worth considering.
I suppose the sporting director should guard against succession issues in terms of squad and systems which I fear we are about to run into in the next few months…
The preparation for the season and some of the recruitment look like big errors. But the fan base seem to have latched on to the 5 wins in 31 stat and chosen to ignore everything else. And now there is a level of pressure that seems unhelpful. Personally I think we need to actually stick to the plan and try and benefit from the longer term recruitment. Only a real threat of relegation should change that. And considering we are 5 points off 3rd that is hard to argue right now.
The three year project has become a bit of a joke but I think it is worth trying to better understand it - and how it could be impacting past and current results. The club have not said much about what the aim of the project is - but I think it is clear they are trying to build a team able to play dominant positional play against a low block and fast counter attacking against better teams. So in more games we feel in control and less of a battle. Like a low-cost Celtic as opposed to Hearts strategy of becoming a high-cost St Mirren. But to do this takes time to find and coach low-cost players who are able to play that way. And we have definitely made mistakes in recruitment. But I think this aim has meant that when we went on a bad run Jimmy decided to keep playing our way (we had the points cushion) and we could try and improve players rather than panicking and filling the team with big strong defenders/strikers. Maybe this went too far but it may also have helped. Perhaps the relentless positional play helped when it came to the tactics for the final. We have rarely been so disciplined. Would Pape, Palaversa and Morris have combined in the way they did for the goal if we hadn’t been working on those patterns all season? Would we have been better playing a McInness man-for-man tactic?
I find the current discussion across fans/media/podcasts very hysterical. I consider the Dundee away victory in February as a bit of turning point - we put the dreadful run behind us. In the remainder of that league season we won 5 (including Hearts and Hibs), lost 5 (including 3 against Celtic or Rangers), and drew 3. And we won the Scottish cup. So on those stats the latter portion of last season was far from sackable territory. If we consider this season in isolation it hasn’t been good enough but our points are below expected. Anyone who thinks results this season are sackable offence is kidding themselves. The truth is these results are not unusual. Only Falkirk and Livingston can be considered historically poor results and we were at least reasonably unfortunate in each and certainly not outplayed. Just not good enough. But if we are sacking managers for drawings against Livingston or losing to Motherwell in the cup then we will struggle to keep hold of one.
Lack of knowledgeable person in a strategic technical/sporting director role seems increasingly like it is causing a problem. This type of an insight was needed going in to the transfer window. It seems that our recruitment was focused on buying talent for “year 3” and was naively expecting that Yengi and Adil were the immediate answers to our attacking approach. Which was a gamble given lack of depth in these positions and the risk they would struggle to settle (much like Morris and Gueye). In this sense I feel for Thelin because it seems he is trying to get the balance between player trading, long term planning and immediate results. But of course is only being judged on one of these.
Great point Ian.
Said the same to my dad. If we are asking Thelin to buy into a 3-year plan and a good chunk of his budget/squad spots is going to future prospects then you could see why he could be frustrated if he gets the dunt for short-term results.
If we had a sporting director doing the same, it might be a bigger issue as head coach is going to be focused on day to day rather than longer term.
It can still work however getting the right players for the here and now is vital and it looks like we’ve made some big misses this year.
That’s not to absolve Jimmy. Clearly his fingerprints on a lot of the purchases now but it’s definitely worth considering.
I suppose the sporting director should guard against succession issues in terms of squad and systems which I fear we are about to run into in the next few months…
The preparation for the season and some of the recruitment look like big errors. But the fan base seem to have latched on to the 5 wins in 31 stat and chosen to ignore everything else. And now there is a level of pressure that seems unhelpful. Personally I think we need to actually stick to the plan and try and benefit from the longer term recruitment. Only a real threat of relegation should change that. And considering we are 5 points off 3rd that is hard to argue right now.
The three year project has become a bit of a joke but I think it is worth trying to better understand it - and how it could be impacting past and current results. The club have not said much about what the aim of the project is - but I think it is clear they are trying to build a team able to play dominant positional play against a low block and fast counter attacking against better teams. So in more games we feel in control and less of a battle. Like a low-cost Celtic as opposed to Hearts strategy of becoming a high-cost St Mirren. But to do this takes time to find and coach low-cost players who are able to play that way. And we have definitely made mistakes in recruitment. But I think this aim has meant that when we went on a bad run Jimmy decided to keep playing our way (we had the points cushion) and we could try and improve players rather than panicking and filling the team with big strong defenders/strikers. Maybe this went too far but it may also have helped. Perhaps the relentless positional play helped when it came to the tactics for the final. We have rarely been so disciplined. Would Pape, Palaversa and Morris have combined in the way they did for the goal if we hadn’t been working on those patterns all season? Would we have been better playing a McInness man-for-man tactic?
I find the current discussion across fans/media/podcasts very hysterical. I consider the Dundee away victory in February as a bit of turning point - we put the dreadful run behind us. In the remainder of that league season we won 5 (including Hearts and Hibs), lost 5 (including 3 against Celtic or Rangers), and drew 3. And we won the Scottish cup. So on those stats the latter portion of last season was far from sackable territory. If we consider this season in isolation it hasn’t been good enough but our points are below expected. Anyone who thinks results this season are sackable offence is kidding themselves. The truth is these results are not unusual. Only Falkirk and Livingston can be considered historically poor results and we were at least reasonably unfortunate in each and certainly not outplayed. Just not good enough. But if we are sacking managers for drawings against Livingston or losing to Motherwell in the cup then we will struggle to keep hold of one.