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Not sure that's completely fair on Clarke. We've had Devlin x 2, Considine and Mackenzie all called up. As was Bowie when he was playing for dross like Hibs. Let's not forget Brophy has a cap too. I'm assuming he wanted to look at a winger with Doak having legs made from toilet roll tubes and Curtis has a bit of form. He also usually takes a youngster along with the squads to give them experience in case they turn out to be good, which I think is a good thing. I'm guessing most other youngsters are sitting on the bench of some English second string side. Can't think of another wide player that would be better to have.

A Sevconian on loan at Killie..... Would he have been in had he just been a Killie winger?

The fuck has Findlay Curtis done to warrant a call up? Defo would have had Bowie in ahead of him.

It's an experimental squad, that's for sure. But then, that's what friendly matches are for.

Thought this was a piss take when first got sent this.

Steely Dan -Dirty Work

Aye, it's the McInnes approach, basically. Which is actually the approach of most Scottish managers. I've been saying for years that we need to enforce quotas if we're to get any value from the youth system. There really is no benefit to a manager from letting a youth player make errors in the first team. Not compared to winning games with a few athletes.

This is all on me it has to be. There is no other logical explanation. Was down with my Sunderland supporting mate at their game on Saturday and they lost only their second home game of the season to Brighton. Further evidence that it is me. Oh and San Jose lost 0-1 last night.

Here’s a dump of the post; I can't really speak to what he did/didn't do at St Mirren other than what I've seen from the outside looking in (ie: Mooney barely getting a look in but still getting picked up by Arsenal, Taylor getting bounced about the lower leagues etc) but his time at Motherwell has a bit of nuance on that score. The long and the short of it is, he absolutely played players from the Academy. He's not wrong in saying that. It's factually correct. The likes of Chris Cadden, David Turnbull, Allan Campbell, Jake Hastie (eventually after two loans), and James Scott all got regular games under Robinson (and some made us a lot of money - Cadden excepted who snaked off to MLS when we would have been due a development fee). However Cadden was given his debut by McCall, Campbell and Hastie got their debuts from McGhee. There's a school of thought from pretty much anyone who was watching the Development League that David Turnbull could have been in our first team 6 months before he actually started getting games (except Robinson insisted he had to learn to do the "free stuff" better). So, yes, players from the Academy got games under Robinson (moreso than his time at St Mirren I'd say) but a lot of these were players who were broadly speaking already around the first team. I've said it before but there is absolutely zero chance that we'd have seen Lennon Miller in our first team at 16 (or subsequently captaining the side) had Robinson been our manager at that point. I mean, he deserves credit for the breakout season we got from David Turnbull but also...David Turnbull was a generational player for us. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth. We had players like Stuart McKinstry (who moved to Leeds) and Reece McAlear (who moved to Norwich) that never kicked a ball for our first team in competitive games but only started to appear on the fringes of our team when it became clear that Premier League clubs were interested and we were making a 'too little, too late' attempt to show that there was a pathway under Robinson. There's also a laundry list of Academy players that he simply binned off. Barry Maguire actually played more games for Graham Alexander than he did for Robinson. He signed Deimantas Petravičius and had him in the Scottish Cup final squad ahead of someone like Ross Maclean, he released/sold Jack McMillan in his first full season as manager, he released Alfie Agyeman. We "sold" Dom Thomas to Killie for a sell-on basically because Thomas didn't think he'd get an opportunity. Then you've got someone like David Ferguson whose career was pretty much ended by the chasing he got from Jordan Jones at Fir Park against Killie. There are a litany of players from our Academy who maybe got 1 or 2 appearances under Robinson but were simply disappeared at the end of their contracts. I'm not sure what that actually means for Aberdeen, if anything. Ultimately some of those Academy players may not actually have been good enough and he was right to release them but if "Developing Youth" is actually a KPI that he's going to be judged on then I'll be interested to see how he actually aligns this because based on the fact that it's *Aberdeen* (and he's already spoken about the resources he has available now) I'm not sure that his approach of filling a squad with cheap dross that unintentionally ends up blocking the pathway for Youth is actually going to fly and on the flip of that he's the sort of manager who would (IMO) always favour an established Pro ahead of giving an Academy player a run. I dunno, I guess there are maybe parallels between McInnes stumbling onto McKenna after we'd leathered them in a Cup game and how Robinson approached "bringing youngsters through".

There was a pretty interesting post on P&B by a Motherwell fan about Robinson approach to youth. Worth a read in terms of what he did at them with quite a few emerging youngsters there at the time. Not necessarily a firm guide to what he will do with us but interesting insight nonetheless. I’ll dig out a link

Alfie Stewart getting good reviews this season as well. Scored a cracker on Saturday too. You'd think he must be worth a chance Not much more he could do.

Why would Dave Cormack be to blame for @Jute dragging every team he supports down to a level worse than they could ever possibly be?

It’s in our favour that there are a couple of sides below us. Chances of both chasing us down are less. St Mirren look to have less fight in them and Killie have def found some spirit at home but not sure they’ll go on any kind of run. Suspect if we can pick up a result in Paisley we’ll probably be ok. Reckon we’ll start to build some solidity at Pittodrie too so Hibs might have little to play for in the last game before split. Have to target that. As others have said, Ibrox is probably a write off. Best we can hope for is that SR gets a spirit instilled in them that we don’t lose, back 5 and midfield 3 will be tough to break down and if they are throwing themselves at a win late on maybe we sneak in behind. It’s not impossible, don’t concede early and they might get jittery.

Kate Bush - This Woman's Work

Don't blame yourself. I blame Dave Cormack.

That is further evidence of it being me.

This is no surprise to me after you were not at Hampden in May

Falkirk and Livi wins at the weekend would be superb mate, but sadly I can see the wheels on our bus really starting to shoogle about as Kili and St Mirren both win (we get humped) and then the gap is three points with two games before the split And obviously post split we are playing the teams in same boat as ourselves fighting for survival, and from what I have seen then I don't hold out much hope for any of our lot being up for it and showing that fight and grit that it is going to need to avoid the playoff spot. Sadly we don't have the option to put on a starting 11 with them all having the same character and desire as Nisbet does Worrying times and certainly squeaky bum time ahead if scores all fall against us

Had seen that. Was surprised when St Louis said they were bringing him as a centre back. Didn’t think he looked like he was good enough to play there regularly. That said thought he would do well there as a midfielder in MLS as league isn’t as physical or fast as ours so he would get the time on the ball.

Yeah was reported in P&J a couple of weeks ago that he had been told to go.

On the subject of MLS, I see Dante Polvara has been a regular starter at St Louis at left centre back. They're currently sitting winless, rock bottom of their league.

It’s nice of you to have this realisation, before we get relegated.

I noticed they said bavidge had already been told. Did we know that? He I understand, Stewart, didn’t really know enough about.

I mean surely Birchnall is staying no? Thought he had links to lutz or was it just that he might help the assumed Norwegian manager at the time? Our club seems to be making a cock up of everything at the moment. Can’t buy good PR.

I've written this game off too, so if we do get anything, it is a bonus. They raise their game against us too and they will be well up for putting us further in the shit. The important thing is to keep the scoreline respectable. If we have a shitshow, it could knock what little confidence is left, out of the players. I really hope I am wrong. Falkirk and Livi wins at the weekend would be a nice wee bonus too.