Source: Team_Talk
MacPherson plans for next season
St Mirren boss Gus MacPherson waved goodbye to an exhausting SPL season on Saturday and immediately started preparing for the next one.[LNB] The Paisley side finished up their campaign with a 1-0 home defeat to Aberdeen who needed an own goal from their former defender Lee Mair to give them the three points.[LNB]MacPherson welcomed the fact that the Saints have protected their SPL status for another season but is already looking towards the 2010/11 campaign.[LNB]"It was disappointing to lose the game but some of the players looked as if they were on their last legs because of the physical and mental exertions over the last four or five weeks," he said.[LNB]"It has been an emotional rollercoaster but the objective has been achieved. Now, we start preparations for next season.[LNB]"I will sit down with the chairman next week and see what resources we will have.[LNB]"The chairman has said that there will be cuts but we will need to see how many.[LNB]"We have nine or 10 players out of contract as well as the youth players.[LNB]"So lots of St Mirren players need to know about their future."[LNB]With one eye on those impending cuts to his budget, MacPherson moved to dampen down expectations of the Buddies' fans for next season.[LNB]"It's been a good but a frustrating year although we did reach the Co-operative Insurance Cup final," he said.[LNB]"People might say that to make progress we have to finish higher up the league and win a national cup competition.[LNB]"That sounds easy but people underestimate what it takes to do that.[LNB]"It's difficult to predict what will happen next season, as always.[LNB]"There is a fine line between success and failure in the SPL.[LNB]"We will have to make use of the resources that we have and it becomes harder but that is the challenge."[LNB]Mark McGhee used the final game of the season to give 17-year-old striker Dominic Gibson a debut and 16-year-old midfielder Clark Robertson his first start.[LNB]The Dons boss summed up his side's season as "rubbish" and promised radical changes to his squad but he took heart from the teenagers' respective performances.[LNB]"I thought Dominic did well," McGhee said.[LNB]"I said to him before the game not to worry too much about how he played.[LNB]"He obviously wanted to play well and score on his debut but more than anything I was making it a benchmark for him, so that he can go away and say 'this is where I am and this is how far I have to go to before I can realistically be a first team player'.[LNB]"So that was a good exercise and he can start pre-season with that in his mind.[LNB]"Clark has been involved a couple of times and he is the one out of all the youth team players at the moment who has done the best and has looked promising.[LNB]"So he is maybe a little bit closer than Dominic."
