The Gaffer

[Beckford]

Wanted to gauge our collective views on John going into the new season.

My own view is that he should have gone at the end of a dreadfull season. There have also been some media statements that have resulted in a lot of fans loosing respect for him.

However, I guess being accies manager comes with its own unique challanges due to the backroom and boardroom shambles, so for me the slates wiped clean (for now) and guess we need to get behind him?

Recruitment wise, gut feeling is Kilday should be a solid start. Please be a bit more "conventional" when it comes to team selection though John and if we could at least try and be a bit more attack minded. Maybe just play guys in there natural positions?

Think midfield is a concern for me as is goalkeeper. The perenial problem of lack of proven goal scorer persists also. (Problem for most teams to be fair)

[TerracingTomas]

Unless the new owner Serif pulls a rabbit out the hat and appoints a new coaching team John and Daz it is. He can’t argue that this season’s squad isn’t his but it will be interesting to see what kind of budget he gets which will be evidenced by the quality of the signings. The minimum acceptable is a play off place and if we get to New Year and that’s not looking likely I’d show him the door.

[manxaccie]

Big season for Rankin. Although I think he should have gone when we were relegated, I have a funny feeling he might excel with a young team. He’s obviously a good coach and I hear he is well liked by the players. As we all know, last year was a disaster and should we have gone down with the players we had available? Probably not, which begs the question why is he still the manager?

He needs to hit the ground running next year and go out attacking and trying to play football on the front foot. I would also like to see an end to the big guy through the middle and two others outside attacking formation. Will we ever see two upfront again?

We just didn’t look threatening last year at all. Hopefully with a season under his belt and an overhaul of the playing staff, he can get his ideas across. No excuses. It’s promotion or burst.

[Beckford]

Big game tomorrow and should show how serious we are taking this competition. Hope we come up with a big performance and keep the positivity (around the squad anyway) going.

[Nike01]

He’s a good No. 2. Was he not employed on that basis. I’ve seen enough. Or rather I’ve not seen enough.

[Beckford]

He’s a good No. 2. Was he not employed on that basis. I’ve seen enough. Or rather I’ve not seen enough.

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To be fair we did look a bit more attack minded yesterday. Could say we resorted back to sitting in second half but think that was more to do with Livy.

Think we have a much improved back line so hopefully this will build confidence to push on. Still early for a new squad bedding in.

Totally get why folk feel the way you do though, going on last season

[porcupine]

Think we have to give Rankin full support now as this is his team, not someone else's!
His team set-up yesterday against a team two divisions higher looked really good and we dominated the first half. Sure we backpedalled a bit in the 2nd, and the missed some opportunities as well, but we still had threats going forward.
If he can find a way of us not defending the last five minutes in our own penalty box, then we should NOT leak these last minute goals which were a feature last season.
It's almost a new team out there and both the manager and players have to settle in, though we look far, far better at the back than 2022/23. Our two home games against Cove will be the test of whether we can convincingly beat them this season, where we failed last time.