An extensive interview with Les. As others have said perhaps not a lot new here. He reiterated a few messages that we have heard before and I wouldn’t disagree with most of them.
- The clubs' financial model won’t be jeopardised in pursuit of instant success
- Both he and Ronnie are as ambitious now as they were at the start
- We won’t go out and spend lots of silly money on players that might or might not work
- Andreu and Curier had to leave in Janaury (although for different reasons )
In respect of the future the Board “
now have a new strategy in place based on the start we had to the season but I’m not going to reveal that at this stage that would be a silly thing to do
No I didn’t understand that either.
Already he and Martin are planning for next season and have sat down and discussed what is needed to strengthen the team. Looking for 3/4 experienced players in the summer to strengthen the squad.
Then he goes on about the fans needing to lower expectations.
They need to have a reality check. In the pecking order of of 42 clubs where do fans think we should be.
This is where I start to disagree. Fans want the club to be the best they can be. To finish as high up the league as possible and in time be an established SPFL club who like Motherwell, Saint Mirren, Killie and Saints might just win a Cup. If Les is saying that with our fan base we should never expect top six or even a consistent SPFL future then his version of ambitious is not mine.
So what could have been done to stabilise the team? Andreu’s departure was not a surprise and no club refuses a million pounds. Curier’s attitude has always been a problem and while it would have been good if we could to have kept him I’m not surprised by his departure just maybe the timing. His explanation of what happened with Loy confuses me though. He claims Falkirk wanted £250,00. A convenient figure that I think we would all agree we wouldn’t pay but Peter Houston was quoted as saying Falkirk wanted £100,00 a not unreasonable sum all be it for a soon to be out of contract player. Whose figure is correct?
I certainly agree we couldn’t compete with Dundee in offering him a 3 year contract that would be reckless in this day and age but I still think we could have spent some of the money we have received over the last 9 months on a couple of good players without bursting the financial model had the club had a list of targets for the january window.
Whatever it is clear that unless Martin jumps ship he will be manager at the beginning of the next season. “it takes time for management team to settle in” (Well the 2/3 that are left after swailes went). “he needs to settle in , bring in his own squad and develop his own players.”
And yes the word ‘ethos’ isn’t mentioned once. Hurrah!
Finally I note that Les says
if we could get paying season tickets doubled that would make a difference to our budget.
I don’t want to be a pessimist but if this run of form continues you can add whoever you like to the squad in the summer but I would have thought the number of paying season tickets will go down not up and for the record I will be renewing.