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So since posting that initial post about Phillips yesterday morning, I haven't read a single reply to this that has remotely convinced me to change my opinion on him Upwards of £500k ? No fucking chance

I mean, that's a who's the tallest dwarf competition if ever i heard one

Being meaning to post this for a few days. I had been trying to find out a bit more about Andrew Fasanyas background to no avail so ended up asking Claude AI for some help. The conversation progressed and I ended up asking it about Robinson on a whim and I found the resulting conversation really interesting. I know AI can get things wrong and you need to treat what it says with caution but I must admit I find Claude the best of them. Anyway, thought some of you might be interested. What are your thoughts on Stephen Robinson? Good track record on paper, and the context of the appointment tells its own story. He was brought in in March 2026 from St Mirren, where he'd delivered three cup finals including a League Cup win over Celtic, multiple top-six finishes, and two European qualifications — that came after Aberdeen sacked Jimmy Thelin, with the club sitting ninth after a wretched run including a 3-0 defeat to second-tier Dunfermline in the Scottish Cup. So he walked into a genuine rescue job, not a project being built from strength. What stands out about his CV is the consistency of "overachieving with less" — at Motherwell he got them to third in the league and two cup finals, and he repeated a similar pattern at St Mirren. That's a useful profile for a club like Aberdeen that wants European football regularly but doesn't have Celtic/Rangers-level resources — he's shown he can punch above his budget rather than needing star names. The honest caveat: it's still very early days at Pittodrie, so there isn't much of a body of work there yet to judge him on directly — my read is based on his history elsewhere rather than what he's actually delivered for Aberdeen so far. Given you're the one watching every week, I'd genuinely be curious how he's looked tactically and whether the squad's buying into it — that's the bit I can't tell from results and appointment write-ups alone. I think he's done about as well as could be expected bar a very poor performance away to Dundee 2 weeks ago. It's too early to say tactically as there has been a huge overhaul in personell. We won't know what Robinsonball really looks like until the winter. I'm actually interested in what you think of his record pre Aberdeen. Dive deep if you can That's a genuinely good question to dig into, because the pattern across both jobs is quite consistent — and so is the way it ended each time. Motherwell (2017–2020): He inherited a club and initially played a fairly unglamorous 3-5-2, direct/long-ball approach that got results early on — firing balls long for the two forwards to win — but he then deliberately ditched the long-ball game after a Scottish Cup exit to Ross County, recruiting more technical players and evolving into possession-based, high-pressing football, often a 4-1-4-1 shifting into 4-3-3. That's a real managerial trait worth noting — he's shown he'll change his own approach when it isn't working rather than being ideologically stuck to one system. Over his tenure he took Motherwell to a Scottish Cup final and League Cup final in 2017-18, and a third-place finish in 2019-20 that secured European qualification — genuinely elite overperformance for a club of Motherwell's size, and Robinson himself compared the League Cup run to Celtic to Leicester winning the Premier League in terms of relative achievement. Football Bloody Hell + 3 But — and this matters for reading his Aberdeen tenure — that attacking, high-press style came at a real defensive cost: Motherwell conceded a lot of goals, especially in game's final 15 minutes, suggesting players couldn't sustain the physical demands. And he ultimately resigned in December 2020 after a nine-game winless run left them just above the relegation zone, admitting he felt "drained" after nearly four years and that recent signings "hadn't turned up." So there's a real pattern: strong 2-3 year upward trajectory, followed by a slump when recruitment misfires and energy dips. Football Bloody Hellbbci St Mirren (2022–2026): He delivered three top-six finishes (their first in 36 years), a League Cup win over Celtic, and two European qualifications — arguably an even more remarkable overperformance given St Mirren's smaller resource base than Motherwell's. One detail worth noting from that spell: opposition managers have specifically praised his tactical setups in cup ties — a Motherwell boss called a St Mirren League Cup semi-final win "a tactical masterclass" where Robinson's team set specific pressing traps to nullify the opposition's key players. That's a good sign for the "in-game management" side of things, not just recruitment and philosophy. SPFLbbci What this means for Aberdeen, honestly: His record says he's an excellent culture-and-recruitment manager who can transform underperforming or resource-poor clubs into consistent overachievers within 1-2 seasons, and someone tactically flexible enough to change wholesale when his first approach isn't working. The risk flag from Motherwell is that his methods seem to have a shelf-life — high energy demands, and burnout/staleness set in after 3+ years, especially when recruitment cycles turn sour. Given he's only a few months into a huge personnel overhaul at Aberdeen, that Motherwell trajectory (initial struggle → tactical reinvention → peak years) is probably the more useful comparison than St Mirren's steadier three-year rise — worth watching whether the "reinvention" phase (which you said won't be visible until winter) mirrors that Ross County moment where he tore up his own gameplan. I don't think so. I recognise the 352 at the start as that's what he went with when he came in and just wanted to steer the club away from relegation. This season though it has been 433 mostly but he went 442 last game against Dundee and got a convincing 3-0 win. The tricky 3rd season can get a lot of managers. I suppose can only hope he has the relative success to have the potential tricky 2rd season a thing to be conquered relevant That's a really good structural point actually — the 3-5-2 at Aberdeen mirrors exactly how he opened at Motherwell too, both times used as the safety-first system to stop the bleeding before building something more expansive. If the 4-4-2 against Dundee was a genuine tactical shift rather than a one-off, that's consistent with his history of not being precious about system — he changes when what he's doing isn't working, which given his patterns, actually happened earlier in the Motherwell timeline than the crisis point (that was a specific reaction to a cup exit, not gradual drift). On the "tricky third season" hope — worth being precise about the actual Motherwell timeline, because it wasn't really year three that got him, it was pushing into year four. He had two building seasons, then a genuinely strong third season (the third-place finish and Euro qualification), and it was the fourth year where the wheels came off, specifically tied to a poor transfer window rather than some inherent shelf-life on his ideas. So if that pattern holds, year three at Aberdeen (which by his statements would land around 2028-29, coinciding suspiciously with the end of his current contract) might actually be the peak rather than the danger zone — the real risk period would be a year or two beyond that, and probably hinges more on whether Aberdeen back him properly in the transfer market than on some natural expiry of his methods. Genuinely reasonable thing to hope for given the data. The tighter question is whether Pittodrie's recruitment structure gives him what Motherwell couldn't in year four. I would hope so, he's been well backed so far. Having Darren Mowbray back as chief scout is big as well I feel Searched the web Yeah, that's a genuinely significant signing, not just a nostalgic one. Mowbray was originally Aberdeen's Head of Recruitment from 2021 to 2023, and in that spell was directly responsible for Bojan Miovski, Ylber Ramadani, Duk, and Shayden Morris — all of whom the club later sold on for major profit, with Miovski alone going to Girona for £6.8m. Since he left for Southampton (where he helped them win promotion to the Premier League), Aberdeen's hit-rate on speculative signings had reportedly slowed noticeably despite continued spending. He came back in stages — initially in an advisory/scouting capacity, before formally returning as Head of Recruitment in March 2026, the same window Robinson arrived. That timing isn't a coincidence worth glossing over — you've essentially got a manager and a recruitment chief both starting fresh at the same moment, with Mowbray specifically being someone with a proven track record of finding undervalued talent (mostly from smaller European leagues) that fits a possession/press-based identity. Given the pattern we discussed with Motherwell — recruitment misfires being the actual trigger for his year-four collapse there — having Mowbray back plugging that specific hole feels like exactly the kind of structural support that was missing last time. If his profile-finding matches what Robinson wants tactically (and Ramadani/Miovski were technical, mobile players suited to progressive football, not the long-ball era), that's a genuinely strong alignment rather than just two separate good hires. Thoughts on the Lutz Pfannestiel contribution to this mix? Searched the web He's an unusual character to lead this whole structure, but the more you dig, the more it fits together as a coherent piece rather than a random appointment. Background: Genuinely one of football's most eccentric CVs — he was the first professional to play in all six FIFA confederations across 25 clubs in 13 countries as a "global goalie," and along the way was jailed for 101 days in Singapore on match-fixing charges he was later cleared of. The "stole a penguin" tabloid line is a real anecdote too, so he arrived at Pittodrie with genuine colour to his story. But behind the novelty, the actual sporting-director track record is solid rather than gimmicky: two seasons at Fortuna Düsseldorf that delivered their best Bundesliga finish in nearly three decades, then five years building St Louis City's academy and infrastructure from scratch, culminating in a Western Conference title. The one real red flag: his St Louis City exit wasn't clean — fans and local media accused him of misaligning the head coach's tactical philosophy with the roster he'd built, and of contradicting his own public statements when parting ways with Mellberg after a short, unsuccessful spell. That's worth flagging directly against what you're hoping for at Aberdeen — it suggests a genuine risk around manager/recruitment misalignment, which is exactly the failure mode that got Robinson in his fourth year at Motherwell too. If that pattern repeated at Aberdeen, it'd compound rather than offset the existing risk. Why it fits your Robinson/Mowbray read, though: He arrived first (November 2025, appointed under the outgoing Thelin regime), and it was Pfannenstiel who then brought in both Robinson and Mowbray in March — so he's the architect of the current setup, not a bolt-on to something Robinson built himself. He's been explicit that alignment between sporting director and manager on transfer targets is non-negotiable for him — no signing a player one side doesn't want just because the other likes them — which reads directly like a lesson learned from the St Louis City breakdown. If he's actually applying that stated principle here rather than just saying it, it directly targets the exact failure mode that ended his last job. So the honest read: it's a three-person structure (Pfannenstiel, Robinson, Mowbray) that on paper is unusually well-suited to avoiding each other's known weak points — Robinson's risk is recruitment misfires in year 3-4, Mowbray's whole track record is finding value signings that fit a system, and Pfannenstiel's stated post-St-Louis lesson is exactly "don't let manager and recruitment drift apart." Whether that's genuine self-awareness or just the right talking points remains to be seen, but it's a more coherent bet than most fanbases get to make.

Surely Hearts are bigger bottlers than Hibs?

Another good one gone.

I was one of the few that liked Phillips, plus with your guy, I’d like to see us gamble on players like that rather than an unknown journeyman or foreigner. Pretty much gone are the days when we sign players from Scottish teams, I know the finances most often don’t work, but your guy won’t be too expensive and if we are punting palaversa why not both, especially with the injury records of lyons and Ronan, possibly afeez too. Plus I don’t want Armstrong starting, think we get more from him fresh for 30 mins or so. I have to think we can do a better job finding affordable Scottish based talent than the funds we’ve blows on lazetic Ambrose palaversa aouchiche karlsson yengi milanovic Mcgarry etc, when we should be finding the next McLean Ferguson shinnie Hayes McGinn….

No way, that's Tim Curry away today. Edit: Or maybe yesterday.

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I’d say it’s a significantly bigger gamble signing someone who we all saw was worse than shite for us, for £500k. Swings and roundabouts I suppose. Neither transfer will happen

What’s his decent level? Weren’t they just promoted from league 1? Has he played more than a handful of games in the championship? I’d say a significantly bigger gamble than Phillips, regardless of money.

He’s a winger, but we badly need a winger too. I remember seeing decent games from Armstrong but also thinking at the time he was no better than Matty Kennedy who ultimately wasn’t good enough. Maybe he’s improved. Also not sure he has legit pace, I think that’s what we desperately need, hence olysanya pigeon holed out there.

Suppose it depends if you think there’s a big difference between top of the championship and the premier league blob of dross where we currently play. He’s never played in it so it would be a gamble in that regard but he’s got 200+ games under his belt at a decent level and he’s getting better. Whether he’d be good enough if Aberdeen were where we all think they should be is another matter but we’re not. He’s better than a lot of midfielders we’ve had on our books the last few years Edit - @redordead watches Stenny so will know better than me but every time I’ve seen him he’s been a stand out

Danny Armstrong is performing well for Dinamo Bucharest, 3 goals and 3 assists in 6 games so far this season. Could be a better option? Can't remember if he's more of a winger or more central.

No clue who that is, not saying he’s good or bad, but that’s an unproven player at our level. Less risk going with Findlay Marshall. Like it or not, Phillips has already proven he can play at this level and has maybe even in the last 12 months proven he’s one of the leagues better center mids.

I just don’t see the point of throwing £500k at a total fanny with questionable football ability I’ve said it before but I can’t believe Mikey Anderson at Stenhousemuir hasn’t been picked up by a bigger club. He’s a better player, isn’t a total fanny and wouldn’t cost £500k.

Bit surprised at the reaction to Phillips, I get the negatives but there is another side. Thought the ‘on base’ moneyball comment recently was really good. We’ve proven a team of pretty technical players doesn’t work. We’re rebuilding now and starting with foundation. It’s not going to be another team of pretty players. Players like mayo happe afeez Lyons olusanya, even nisbet, are on base players to me. Nisbet isn’t great and is limited but is showing if given chances he’ll score. Olusanya drives us nuts but is involved in the majority of our goals. Of course he could do more, but he’s already given more than lazetic yengi and Ambrose combined, all more glamorous players. Glass is half full comment of course. We’re still signing flair, yogane smith Ronan, I’d put Marshall there too, plus I expect one or two more. And we still have Armstrong, bilalovic (for now). It’s not like we’ve gone from one extreme to another. Just more balanced, definitely more on the worker side understandably. Phillips is another on base player. He was poor on loan with us, but in a failing team who sacked their manager and went through the leven warnock Thelin fiasco. Hard to excel during that time. He’s 24, a good age, and an internationalist. He had a good season last year, Robinson a part of that, and has started this season well. He’s box to box, works physical and scores. We’re a bottom 6 team from last season, for 500k or so we could certainly, and have proven, could do worse. And we could punt him for more down the road. Given we just got close to a million for Kjarten, I think Phillips would be good value. Don’t give a shit how he celebrated against, I think players with that type of passion and desire add to a team, and he’d give the same for us. We all grumbled about Lyons and while shit at Dundee away, I think he’s been a good addition so far. I see Phillips in the same way. We knew Lyons would pick up knocks, hence the depth in center mid needed and adding Phillips would certainly help.

I did say “probably couldn’t manage” tbf… 😂

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