Michael Nicholson

My understanding of Tisdale’s role at the club was him taking a look at the club in an audit kind of basis … you would think he would take one look at how we operate in transfers and have a few suggestions, whether we actually take any advice like that from an outside perspective is a totally different story.

 

In what way has it shown we've improved?

It's an entirely new format in the CL this season. Who is to say we wouldn't have finished in these play off spots in any of the last number of seasons? A couple of standout performances from 8 games, with one or two stinkers and a few average performances.

We sold our best striker midway through the season and never bothered replacing him. We've signed a backup utility player from Crystal Palace to cover about 3 positions because we're too cheap/unambitious to go out and properly deepen the squad with quality.

All the while turning another profit this month and sitting on tens of millions of pounds.

Aye, nae ambition. It's blindingly obvious.

 

The last outsider who tried to change things, including how we do business in the transfer market, was Dom McKay and he lasted about 3 months before the board got rid of him

 

His mad scramble at the end of last window wasn't a sign of competence... nor is selling our first choice striker and refusing to pay the obvious premium fee for a replacement which comes with the January window.

 

Signing players on deadline day is * desperate stuff and a club our size should never be doing it. A competently run club should have business 90% done before the window is even open.

But our board don't work or think that way. They are so out of touch they still think deals should be done like the Bellamy or Keane deals and announce them late at night as the window is closing to the crowds outside and treat it as a celebration. It's why every window they hold a signing announcement back hours because they think it looks better or more dramatic to announce it last minute like some * EastEnders cliff hanger.

 

The domestic stuff is our bread and butter. We're the richest, most dominant side in Scotland by a country mile. It isn't arrogant to say that stuff should take care of itself unless we completely lose the plot.

The club's ambition is sorely lacking outside of Scotland. Selling Kyogo and punting Valle before the Villa game was a massive red flag. Not replacing our best striker in years this window is a huge slap in the face.

If the club had more ambition we'd very likely have a real chance of reaching the last 16 and beyond. Instead we celebrate not conceding 5+ goals vs Aston Villa and pat ourselves on the back for almost reaching the last 16. I find that a bit embarrassing to be honest.

We've improved in Europe this year, definitely. But that is massively down to the new format, a very favourable draw and a few very good performances, namely Leipzig and Atalanta.

With that said, we were minutes away from being dumped out the competition altogether if not for an own goal vs the worst side in it. There's still a lack of quality and depth to our squad, which suggests we haven't shown enough ambition in recent windows.

The only bit of ambition I've seen from us is signing Engels. But even that isn't much to write home about when you consider how much money we bring in every year. We're ridiculously cash rich.

The club could be doing so much more, but as this window and many others have shown, they simply aren't interested. It's all short-termism and big bank balances for them. Beat Rangers a few times a year, win a couple of trophies in Scotland, sell a bit of merchandise, crack a few jokes at the AGM and make sure we qualify for Europe. That's the extent of their ambition.

People call me harsh and negative, I just tell it the way I see it and want the best for this club. I'm not happy with just making up the numbers in Europe. It's blatantly obvious we aren't doing all we can to bridge the gap and that's extremely frustrating for me. Insulting, actually.