New thread for the League of Ireland.
Previous one is currently behind itself but may return another day. Old thread:
I understood that he only promised to keep the first team going until the end of the season?
More money taken out than put in apparently. We're doomed.
The club is in the worst state ever. I said this from the word go. Dundalk won't survive this. Temple is a patsy. Hasn't a bob.
I don’t think there is a hard and fast rule as regards imports and where they come from. It’s more down to doing your homework properly on players that you bring in. I’m sure we’ve all had successes and failures with imports. Sligo have always seemed to me to rely more heavily on imports than most teams. Whether that’s down to difficulties getting Irish lads to move west I don’t know. Dublin clubs have a huge advantage in this regard of course.
Good to have you back.
I had feared for you after the Shels collapse.
They banned me for a month, for being too knowledgeable on the game.
Back in time for Shels to win the league though!
I don't think we abandoned it because of a few failures so much as now having the smallest budget in the league dictates our current transfer policy. Most of our signings this year were lads within the league nobody else wanted or cheap loans from the UK. The only non UK/Irish signing would have been Smit, but he wasn't a big earner and plays a position where you sort of have to look overseas as there's a shortage of center forwards in Ireland.
Looks like Smit decided to quit football which is why he asked for his release.
Sure are. But it's less risk, as you know more about them. Many would have played in the league before.
"You kind of have higher expectations of lads with exotic names for some reason." That's pretty much my point. You have a foreign international, often on huge wages for the club, you think well this guy must be good, and they often under perform. I didn't mention Bogdan Vastuk earlier, he was another example for Sligo, on very big wages I believe, a total disaster.
It seems to have failed often enough for Russell/Sligo Rovers that they have abandoned it.
I reckon there's plenty of Irish/British duds but you don't tend to notice those as they don't have exotic names. You kind of have higher expectations of lads with exotic names for some reason.
Russell is learning from his mistakes. The 2 big ones for me were 1. stopping this endless passing around the back 5 and getting nowhere, he stuck with that for well over a season, and 2. stopping signing these foreign internationals.
Russell seemed to think international caps equals a higher standard of player, and for us it simply didn't work. Personality, drive, commitment etc are all so important.
We had so many duds of which Radosavljevic is the only 1 left because of the stupid 2 year contract as you say. Some others that come to mind was Frank Livak who was ok, and that Melvin lad who was genuinely afraid of the ball. Pedro Martello another embarrassment with his feigning injury who was not an international, and a terrible, terrible finisher.
It also seems to me that the non-native English speaking lads didn't gel with the squad. Fabrice Hartmann from Germany seemed to have good English and he was definitely a good signing overall. And we had that Dutch guy who only stayed for a few games but Dutch people in general have great English and come from similar culture, climate, physical league, though we didn't see enough to make a call on how good he was.
Pijnaker and Max Mata from NZ were successes, we had another Kiwi a few seasons back who was ok, a brick sh!thouse of a forward whose name escapes me. Twardek from Canada did well for us, Jordan Hamilton was a disaster, but there is a higher hit rate from native English speaking countries.
But it seems he realised that getting Irish and British lads is the lower risk, more squad togetherness, fewer unknowns. Pearce and Henry-Francis are decent loan signings right now, so I think that will be the way forward for us now.
Radosavljevic will be the final remnants of that policy disaster gone. Hold on to as many of our best players as we can, add more young, hungry lads on loan and we could be in a good position for next season.
In game 1 this season we outplayed Bohs in Dublin, conceded an equaliser very late on, I watched on LOITV and Bohs started bringing on some internationals and I thought to myself "Hmm, have they paid attention to what happened to us?".
Dundalk blew the money on substandard players, the best example of this is Zahibo who was supposedly on a figure of around €200,000/year if the rumours are to be believed. You could kind of understand it if he was a striker with a pedigree but he was a defensive midfielder. When he left Dundalk he played a few games in the French 4th tier and retired by 30. Last year, he was reported to be looking for €50,000 in unpaid wages.
Their squad towards the end of the Peak 6 days resembled a United Nations of lesser internationals from places like Latvia, Lithuania and the Faroe Islands.
Even now their wage budget must be the highest of any relegated side in the history of the LOI. €20,000/week to finish bottom of the table. Droghedas' must be a fraction of that.
If nothing else, their capitulation should lead to a serious review of the licensing process when they were granted a license carrying that debt and an owner who openly stated he didn't have the funds to back it up and was looking for "investors" from day one of his ownership.
I'm not sure what point sanctions kick in but the current and past owners fighting in the stands should warrant a stadium ban. The whole thing is a circus that has brought the league into disrepute.
It's unfortunate at a time when the league has plenty of good news stories around it.
LOI clubs should probably stop signing Faroe Islands internationals on big money contracts and expecting them to be good. They're one of the worst international sides in the world and their players show it. There's been a few of them in the league in the last few years and I can't remember any of them being decent. I can only imagine there's an agent in Torshaven living a life of luxury on the back of flogging these duds to LOI clubs.
Frustrating night at the showgrounds. Great crowd of about 3.5k but we just don't have the depth to overcome the injuries and suspensions.
Apparently our top earner this season is Radosavljevic, who was one of Russell's awful signings from last year who he gave a 2 year contract to. Barely played this season because he's not very good, and seeing him come off the bench tonight and jog around not giving a f**k really leaves a sour taste in the mouth. No interest in being here really, but he knows he'll never get a contract like the one he's on again so he shows up and does the bare minimum.
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They shouldn’t be allowed do that next season. Everyone loves their club enough to have sympathy for Dundalk fans who have done nothing wrong, but the league should have moved on from the worst days gone by.
You can’t have a loophole to ditch all your debts and obligations to just resume playing football the following season in the same division that you would have been anyway.
The latter. You'd also be surprised how quickly a football club burns through that kind of money, particularly if you aren't generating it year-on-year.
where did all the money go from the last euro group stage they were in? Did peak6 actually put in any money or just spend what Dundalk had in the bank?
I can't see Dundalk emerging after the New Year.
They don't seem capable of forming a group like FORAS and running a fan owned model. That means it would be left up to private owners to start up a Phoenix club and I think we all know how that model has gone for them.
Stephen McGuiness said a couple of months ago that if they go it'll be incredibly difficult to get a club back and running. How would a new club get the support of local businesses who were burnt by the previous entity?
If they were to fold at the end of the season there's no chance there'd be a club ready for the 2025 season at a minimum.
The fighting between current and former owners won't help things
It certainly looks bad for Dundalk. Could a new entity arise from the ashes, like in Cork or Limerick ? It’s hard to imagine that a town with the football tradition of Dundalk would be without a senior club for long.
Licenses were awarded for this season at the end of November 2023. That means they'll be announced within the next 4 weeks. Presumably Dundalk are going to struggle to even get a First Division licence. Irregardless of the debt, if Temple is refusing/unable to fund the youth teams that's curtains for the club.
In the region of €1.5m - €2m
Looks like the Temple fella doesn't have any money either. The FAI pushed for a sale to whoever would guarantee Dundalk could fulfill their remaining games and that's where their interest ended.
Everything about the club is a joke. Former owners making a show of themselves. New owner refusing to fund things beyond the first team and reportedly issuing legal threats to local media. They've also got at least 2 different fan trusts up and running now. Even the fans can't come together and pull in the same direction.
Someone slapped/punched the new owner last night after the match apparently.
From a purely selfish point of view, I really hope that Shels and Derry revert to recent type next week as it would be pure entertainment for the neutral if it were a 4-way shootout for the title on the last day.
If Bohs win then Drogheda have nothing at all to play for other than the cup and their playoff game.
Derry not beating Sligo and or Bohs recently will haunt them I think ,Shams should win their two games so they defo have a real chance .Drogheda might be thinking about the play off and cup if Bohs get a result tonight that could suit Shels .
Realistically, do Dundalk actually survive this?
What's their current debt?
Sounds there was a bit of fisticuffs at Oriel last night between ex and present owners?
Top red Kev?
I don’t think Doherty gives it up unless it’s mathematically gone with Bohs winning in Sligo.
