| Topic: The Lennon Factor |
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| 61. Author: wee eck Date: Sun 4th May 2025. 13:08 No one expected us to stroll League 1 playing cavalier football after our previous experience down there and the fact that Falkirk had spent three seasons there. Everyone would have settled for promotion but now it`s considered as if it was inevitable we would have gone up and should have entertained the fans more. McPake wasn`t around when we were relegated so players` form then was irrelevant to him. If McPake had a squad of League 1 players as claimed we would have been stranded at the bottom with Arbroath. And who knows how the first season back in the Championship would have panned out if we`d had normal luck with injuries? Reply |
| 62. Author: 7 Eleven Date: Sun 4th May 2025. 13:24 wee eck, Fri 2 May 11:10 Were the January signings made based on AI? Has this been publicly stated anywhere & if so, by whom? Based on the lack of professional minutes played I’d be amazed if that was the case. Reply |
| 63. Author: CitizenPar Date: Sun 4th May 2025. 13:25 Hypothetical, but I sometimes wonder if McPake could have kept us up if he`d been given the same backing the new owners gave Tidser. I feel a bit of sympathy for McPake, to be honest. Reply |
| 64. Author: cammypar 1995 Date: Sun 4th May 2025. 13:26 wee eck, Sun 4 May 13:08 It’s all buts and maybes when we talk about how things might have gone if we didn’t have those injuries. Reality is, McPake lost his job and left the other three managers with zero pace and absolutely no cutting edge up top. That’s where our issue is,no goals, no threat, nothing. Our recruitment was shocking under mcpake and reeked of desperation under Tidser. Now we’re sitting here the lowest scoring team in the top 4 Scottish leagues. Things got slightly better when we binned the terrible mcpake and Tidser style of play and went back to basics. I reckon Lennon will stay on and be given the chance to put his stamp on the team. I expect a big clearout with plenty of dead wood to shift and I think he`ll bring in players who fit his style and can actually take us forward. It won’t happen overnight, but with the right backing, we could finally start heading in the right direction. c'mon the pars Reply |
| 65. Author: Never10yairds Date: Sun 4th May 2025. 13:31 Mcpake hamstrung himself by handing out long term deals to players who’d won league one. Most of these had already proved they were of limited use in the championship in the grant/hughes relegation season. To mcpakes credit I think he realised the mistake by the end of last season and wanted an upgrade on a few of these players for the start of this season (he had a shortlist of 8 players and got none of them) but the Germans had cut the funding by then. Three or 4 key players at the start of this season could have made the world of difference. Reply |
| 66. Author: parathletic Date: Sun 4th May 2025. 13:46 The form at the tail end of last season wasn`t much better with a full squad. I thought we only won 1 of our last 6 matches? Even when we were depleted we should have been competing better at times imo. I remember the Queens Park away game being a particular low when things were going against us and Fenton was brought on. McPake looked like he was throwing the towel in at that point. I just had a look at our team that day Mehmet Comrie Edwards Benjamin Otoo Chalmers Hamilton Allan Summers O`Halloran McCann Subs Moffat Holmes Sutherland J Sutherland T Young Little Fenton That was about the peak of our injury crisis and whilst not the strongest team it was still one capable of better? This season I did feel it was more out of McPake`s hands. The owners were obviously looking for a way out. The disappointing thing was McPake had talked about a big summer. Once he realised the situation his heart wasn`t in it in the same manner imo. Post Edited (Sun 04 May 13:47) Reply |
| 67. Author: wee eck Date: Sun 4th May 2025. 14:11 Yeah, we only won 1 of our last 6 games but didn`t we also just lose 1 of them? In fact if you extended the sequence to our last 8 games we won 3 in a row against DU at home and Morton and Arbroath away. Reply |
| 68. Author: parathletic Date: Sun 4th May 2025. 14:35 McPake knew the squad wasn`t good enough as he talked about a big summer, even the owners admitted as much albeit a few months too late. Of all the players who were injured last season it`s not as if the majority have set the heather alight this season? McPake did get to bring in Wotherspoon, Mebude, Clay and Cooper this season and they were all on the bench at best within weeks. The other 2 he brought in were Kane and Ngwenya. Reply |
| 69. Author: wee eck Date: Sun 4th May 2025. 15:04 But wasn`t the problem that, by the time the purse strings were loosened, his preferred targets had gone elsewhere? Reply |
| 70. Author: parathletic Date: Sun 4th May 2025. 15:44 He certainly wasn`t helped as I said initially. It was the likes of Mehmet, Wighton,Fisher and O`Halloran that he signed previously and who never performed for him that didn`t help him.Even KRH has been disappointing for me this season, 0 goals and 2 assists is a poor return. Reply |
| 71. Author: cammypar 1995 Date: Sun 4th May 2025. 15:58 7th instead of 6th and 10 points and 15 goals worse off than last season… The squad just hasn’t been good enough, and the whole attempt by McPake and Tidser to get us playing this possession based,build from the back style was a complete failure. Not a single player has improved under it. Trying to play tiki-taka on a ploughed field with this squad it was never going to work. Credit to Lennon for coming in and getting us back to basics. He clearly saw what wasn’t working and binned it quickly. Switched us to a back 5 and to be fair, it stopped the soft goals we were leaking. Problem is, going forward we’re still absolutely toothless. That system just highlighted how little threat we carry in the final third. It’ll be interesting to see if Lennon sticks with the back 5 going forward or if it was just damage limitation. Either way, we desperately need someone who can deliver a decent set-piece. Todd, KRH, Chalmers , each of them’s had a go and all been dreadful. It’s a basic requirement and when we lost Paul Allan, who again was probably league 1 standard but could at least give us a chance at set pieces. Lennon seems to rate the importance of set pieces and will likely bring someone in to help us in this area wether it be a coach or a player. c'mon the pars Post Edited (Sun 04 May 15:59) Reply |
| 72. Author: ParfectXI Date: Sun 4th May 2025. 16:23 McPake was shocking, Yes he brought in youngsters which is what the board at the time wanted but completely failed in getting a mix of experience to help the youngsters along! Bene did his best at the back of the park but when he wasn’t playing the team just fell to bits even more than they had before! Tidser was a bizarre car crash that everyone except the board saw happening- he had a couple of weeks to bring players in but didn’t sort the areas where we desperately needed to sort (strikers and experienced players) then decided to play the worst tippy tappy rubbish you’ve ever seen! Lennon came in and saw how bad we were in his first game in charge and the change from the next game was huge, we played fast free flowing football with an air of confidence and positivity (unfortunately we still had nobody to finish and that cost us more than anything). He brought in Wanyama, although completely unfit, when you did see him on the park he was marshalling the players into the right positions and helping them along, I’d think that his help on the training ground would have been invaluable and giving the youngsters a chance to learn off someone who’s been there and done it, would have helped massively. Now it’s time for a major rebuild and if the rumours are true he’ll have a large budget to do it! If that’s the case this off season will be very interesting indeed and I’m sure the feel good factor could be back at EEP for the first time since the Calderwood era, bringing more fans back out to support the mighty DA. Reply |
| 73. Author: Berkey Date: Mon 5th May 2025. 00:53 Although tidser made a total balls up of it the only player signed in Jan who he had a say in was Stevens, the rest just appeared and as we know the other 7 of them were pretty dire including Stevens. I don’t think Lennon got any more out of the players than mcpake would have got this season. Lennon just gets the benefit of following tidser. In saying that I would much rather go into this summer with Lennon in charge than mcpake. Twice mcpake had the benefit of taking over a newly relegated team and got them back up there was no evidence to suggest he could take us further than mid table. The post below replying to me is by one of .nets finest champions of mediocrity! Reply |
| 74. Author: PARrot Date: Mon 5th May 2025. 03:02 Berkey, Mon 5 May 00:53 No, you are wrong. By the time Lennon got them they were much more lacking in confidence. He picked them up enough to get them over the line. Not many available managers could have done that. Reply |
| 75. Author: parathletic Date: Mon 5th May 2025. 10:06 Here is the breakdown of the league season. McPake P18 W4 D3 L11 F14 A22 PTS 15 Lanza P3 W1 D1 L1 F7 A6 PTS 4 Tidser P8 W2 D2 L4 F5 A9 PTS 8 Lennon P7 W2 D2 L3 F2 A6 PTS 8 Some pretty grim reading. We scored 25% of our goals in John McLaughlan`s 3 matches. Reply |
| 76. Author: Hunter78 Date: Mon 5th May 2025. 10:35 parathletic, Mon 5 May 10:06 On seeing that you’d clearly fail to see why our naive members of our fanbase see Lennon as the messiah. Just because he’s been at Celtic I’d presume. Record virtually the same as Tidsers Reply |
| 77. Author: wee eck Date: Mon 5th May 2025. 10:57 Maybe because he didn`t have the opportunity to operate in a transfer window and had to make the best of the players he inherited, although it seems Tidser didn`t have much say in recruitment when he was appointed. Were fans really expecting Lennon to transform the squad and the style of play in the space of 7 games given the restrictions he was operating under? Reply |
| 78. Author: PARrot Date: Mon 5th May 2025. 10:58 Hunter78, Mon 5 May 10:35 Yeah. Why don`t you save time and just start the, "Lennon must go" thread now, before it`s too late? Reply |
| 79. Author: jake89 Date: Mon 5th May 2025. 11:11 You could put the best manager in the world in and that team would still be guff. The difference I see with Lennon is the confidence he can instill in players and the connections he has. He`s a very well spoken guy. It`s refreshing not to hear the same old clichés. Saying that, if he stays and we have a bad start, I`ll have that Lennon must go thread up quicker than you can say "Dunfermline - 0". Reply |
| 80. Author: doctordandruff Date: Mon 5th May 2025. 14:30 Absolutely convinced with Tidser staying we would be in the relegation play-off and heading down. McPake may have kept us up with this squad, but not convinced. Either way, he should`ve been fired 2 or 3 months before he actually was, and we really had to get away from his style of football. Reply |