St Mirren V Aberdeen

[barassie_afc]

Does the handsome one not count?

 

In for free, out for circa

[barassie_afc]

haha yeah but you cant jump around like that

 

he signed gorgeous for free and mcghee got circa

[barassie_afc]

yup.

 

bloody lot of money to us.

 

imagine we spent 3/400k on a player, we'd think we'd gone mental!

 

 

thing is we wont see a fkn penny of it

[Foster14]

have we got to any finals?

 

No, but we have got to within 90 minutes of a final twice in the two years since he left, something only achieved twice in the five years he was here. Tougher semi-finals on paper too.

 

have we finished anywhere near 3rd/4th in the league?

 

No, and it should be expected that we should be competing for that. Jimmy got us 6th twice though, and 4th once when there was no European place. McGhee being the wrong choice does not mean Calderwood going was wrong on this point anyways.

 

have our attendances improved?

 

No. Apathy rules, it started under Calderwood.

 

has our financial situation improved?

 

No. See Setanta and previous question.

 

is the football any better?

 

Probably not much difference, but the defence is worse. Again, see McGhee being appointed as not meaning Calderwoood going was wrong.

[Foster14]

yeah? did he back it up with stellar league form too, which is at the end of the day, the most important?

 

Where was the stellar league form in his last 18 months? A 14 game spell is where. Wasn't form as such, a purple patch that seemed to gloss over the abject sh*te the other 30-odd games.

[tup]

if we were THAT bad in the last 14 games, but finished 4th...then how good were we in the first 20 odd games!!

 

league table doesnt lie

 

we were 4th best team that season

 

wat a change now eh?

 

Not really, we were poor then and we're poor now.

 

We did have a good team at one stage under Calderwood but frittered it away due to a chronic lack of investment at the vital moment.

 

They all either left or were sold, and we got very little in return.

[Foster14]

if we were THAT bad in the last 14 games, but finished 4th...then how good were we in the first 20 odd games!!

 

league table doesnt lie

 

we were 4th best team that season

 

wat a change now eh?

 

Well we were bottom after about 8 or 9 games and very average the last 15 or so, hence the comment about a very good 14 game spell. That spell should have seen us compete for third, not scrape in to 4th place. Dundee United blew their chance more than we did that season as well. They kicked on from there though, keeping their squad together. We did not have that option, regardless of manager due to out of contract players and needing to cut costs after Calderwood not spending well in his last summer to bring money in and the impending Setanta collapse.

 

The problem with Calderwood was that after getting us in to third after building a good squad able to compete, he could not build on that and kick on from there. Coupled with our cup form at the time, I do not see how anyone can say that it was not time to part company and move on.

[afc_blockhead]

2005/2006

 

3 Rangers 38 21 10 7 67 37 30 73 UEFA Cup 2006-07 First round

4 Hibernian 38 17 5 16 61 56 5 56 UEFA Intertoto Cup 2006 second round

5 Kilmarnock 38 15 10 13 63 64 -1 55

6 Aberdeen 38 13 15 10 46 40 6 54

7 Inverness CT 38 15 13 10 51 38 13 58

8 Motherwell 38 13 10 15 55 61 -6 49

 

2006/2007

 

1 Celtic © 38 26 6 6 65 34 +31 84

2 Rangers 38 21 9 8 61 32 +29 72

3 Aberdeen 38 19 8 11 56 37 +19 65

4 Heart of Midlothian 38 17 10 11 47 35 +12 61

5 Kilmarnock 38 16 7 15 47 54 −7 55

6 Hibernian 38 13 10 15 56 46 +10 49

 

2007/2008

 

1 Celtic © 38 28 5 5 84 26 +58 89

2 Rangers 38 27 5 6 84 33 +51 86

3 Motherwell 38 18 6 14 50 46 +4 60

4 Aberdeen 38 15 8 15 50 58 −8 53

5 Dundee United 38 14 10 14 53 47 +6 52

6 Hibernian 38 14 10 14 49 45 +4 52

 

7 Falkirk 38 13 10 15 45 49 −4 49

8 Heart of Midlothian 38 13 9 16 47 55 −8 48

 

 

2008/2009

 

3 Heart of Midlothian 38 16 11 11 40 37 +3 59

4 Aberdeen 38 14 11 13 41 40 +1 53

5 Dundee United 38 13 14 11 47 50 −3 53

6 Hibernian 38 11 14 13 42 46 −4 47

 

7 Motherwell 38 13 9 16 46 51 −5 48 2009

[madjockmcferson]

Did Calderwood once in his 5 seasons at the Dons have his budget slashed?

 

Calderwood was consistently having to replace and get rid of players because of finances. His European team of 3 years ago deserved to be invested in - the fact it was our best team for 15 years and i we didn't invest is depressing.

 

I find it difficult to forgive him for our cup exists but I don't think it would matter who was in charge of us it wouldn't make any difference. Talent dictates where you finish in the league, and we don't have enough of it.

[rossafc92]

Calderwood was consistently having to replace and get rid of players because of finances. His European team of 3 years ago deserved to be invested in - the fact it was our best team for 15 years and i we didn't invest is depressing.

 

I find it difficult to forgive him for our cup exists but I don't think it would matter who was in charge of us it wouldn't make any difference. Talent dictates where you finish in the league, and we don't have enough of it.

 

I wouldn't agree that the 07/08 team was the best team we'd had in 15 years. Besides the european run, the season was pretty rank. We sat 8th for most of the season and lost a ridiculous amount of goals as well. The defence was absolutely terrible, although we didn't look too bad as an attacking force.

 

Whilst the cup win at Celtic was a moment to remember as well as the euro run, the defeats to United and QoS in the cups just made it quite a depressing season. How on earth we managed to thump Copenhagen and draw with Bayern yet get embarrassed 5-1 at home to Celtic, get beat by lower league opposition in a semi-final etc was beyond me.

 

I agree that if that team had been invested in then yes, we may have been a force to reckon with the following season. To be fair you could argue that it was invested in. We spent

[Foster14]

Calderwood was consistently having to replace and get rid of players because of finances. His European team of 3 years ago deserved to be invested in - the fact it was our best team for 15 years and i we didn't invest is depressing.

 

Only because after getting taken in on big deals, they wanted bigger deals. There was no point in his tenure that I can recall where there was all of a sudden a big drop in the market he had to deal in and squad size he could have other like he would have had to deal with in his next season.

 

I agree we should have pushed on with investing in the team a season earlier than we did. I don't know if Calderwood would have done any better than he ended up doing though. Jackie Mac would not have been a cheap signing and I don't think De Visscher would have been either, on the basis of him not being a bad player but not suited for the SPL. Had some of the Anderson funds been released, he may have been able to attract a decent player or two, but Anderson was the only player of note to leave the summer of 2007. It should not have led to the stagnation that occured domestically in 2007/08...

[madjockmcferson]

There is no guarantee it would have made any difference but my feeling is that there was a genesis of a useful team there. I'm just expressing a frustration that we f**ked up at the only point in the last 15 years when I felt there was a chance of something better.

 

The last 15 years have been f**king hopeless and the only moments of any joy were mostly when Calderwood was in charge.

 

Ugh...QoTS, Queens Park, Dumpfermline, Dundee were amongst the lowest aswell though....

[OddJob]

Just saw the highlights of the game just now. Only positives i can take from that is Pawlett in that brief spell looked like he might be getting back to a decent level, here's hoping he can shake off these niggly injuries as we badly need him to stay fit. And even Bebo looked decent enough, otherwise our defence looked horrendous yet again.

 

Not so sure that goal for us should have been ruled out for offside either.