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Both Rama and Shinnie could look up at a team with forward wide passing options. Put yourself in the shoes of whoever plays defensive cnetre mid for aberdeen rn. What are your passing options forward for a two touch pass? Imagine back to when we had jack mackenzie and shady mo or calvin ramsay vs now. Robinson insists on not playing mitchel frame, gyamfi, devlin was frozen out until the manager had no other choice. Now it doesn't matter if you're Rama, Shinnie, Aremu or Andrea fucking Pirlo you pick the ball up in your own half there's no wide forward pass, only ever sideways, and the centre of the park is congested so it's trying to thread the needle or play into feet where the receiver has his back to goal, and then inevitably it's hoof ball. People criticize Aremu for giving the ball away, for poor passing he's the one presenting for the ball every single time and every single time he tries to get his head up and pick a pass there's nothing on and it's just a food fight in the centre of the pitch. And it's not so much Robinson had no sense of midfiled strats it's that he has no sense of the importance of shape and the importance of developing players in clearly defined positions according to a clear identity, which is what managing a big club is about. He's about playing the averages and jobbers filling utility positions on the team sheet. That's fine if you're Livingston or Killie it's not if you're Aberdeen.

Ramadani would stroll into my most overrated Dons XI Bisconti would be captain

Aye, that's reasonable. I thought we got rid of kjartansson too quickly, and always wondered if he could sit behind Aremu and Ronan, tidying things up and making good use of the ball with his very careful style of passing, whilst the other two pressed high. We need another player, basically, that can cover for Aremu, and we probably don't have that, unless Briedl can do it. A good comparison for Aremu might be Ramadani then? Goodwin spent six months shoehorning him into that position that Aremu is playing and he was very average. As soon as Robson put him further forward with Shinnie, Ramadani was excellent. I don't think Aremu is anywhere near as good as Shinnie or Ramadani, but could do a job.

Talking Heads- This Must Be The Place

Still to hard on Aremu. We didn't sign him for his footballing brains we signed him b/c he's a unit and a warrior and can follow instructions. All his inconsistency is down to being poorly utilised and managed. View him as a like for like Shinnie replacement where what you loose in some areas you make up for in raw physicality, height, muscle speed etc then he's done nothing wrong. What's wrong is he's asked to be more than that b/c the manager and the players around him aren't pulling their weight properly. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

It goes wrong several times a game. He constantly gives away the ball when trying to make a simple pass. He got booked in just such an occasion at Hampden. Agree about the lack of roles being problematic though, I've mentioned it numerous times. Aremu, for me, would suit sitting in front of the defence in a 4-1-4-1, or in a two with Ronan and to a lesser degree Lyons. A bit like when Shinnie provided the legs for Nilsen under Thelin. Nilsen a significantly better passer than Aremu. I think Aremu's issues arise when he tries to do too much and tires, but I also don't think he reads the game that well horizontally and lacks discipline and quality on the ball. He's a frustratingly in-between player I think. Someone like Jack, who was able to do both horizontal cover and move the ball efficiently and reliably is what would be ideal, or a player who could provide the aggressive press through work rate like Ramadani. I'm singling out Aremu, not because of him, but the position(s) that he is expected to play. It's such a key role, and I thought it was fairly clear last season that he wasn't going to be able to do it, and I don't think anything has changed even though his performances have improved. Ronan and Lyons have been equally poor this season but have less impactful roles that can be largely papered over with work rate. When GW or Cadden vacate the space and Aremu doesn't come across, we have immediate issues, but perhaps your point about clear roles is relevant there. It was noticeable how much better Briedl was at that reading of the game in his brief poor appearances. Instinctively I feel that has to be Aremu's role, but maybe it's being left to any one of the three as you suggest. In terms of Armstrong, it should have been clear within five minutes of him joining that his days as a number 8 were well behind him (if they ever existed), and that his role was no 10 or 11. Robinson clearly doesn't see it that way. He switches off back the way, runs out of steam and then as a result misses opportunities to deliver in the forward areas too. He had a great chance to hit it first time against the hun on Saturday but was shattered from a run he'd made ten minutes before and did a ridiculous pirouette before giving it away. We're definitely missing the best of Armstrong by expecting a level of fitness of someone five years younger. It's effecting his ability to play multiple games in a week too. We're probably largely in agreement though, Robinson is a clueless midfield tactioner.

Motorhead - Ace Of Spades

I disagree about Aremu, you stick Aremu in a double pivot and tell him to win the ball, control the ball and play a short pass, do the David Batty thing, I don't think it's possible to go wrong. Problem is everyone in centre mid ends up being a water carrier and has no clearly defined role. Same with Armstrong, ideally you'd want him to be a number 8, 10 or 11 in the classic sense, in the end he's shovelling shit no matter where he plays. The root cause of this is no width, and particularly no attacking threat from the full back and wing back positions this is how Robinson gets away with this fraud of 'looking nice and compact and battling' against Rangers but then to break effectively you need shape and width, no just balls over the top and channel balls, especially when playing Nisbet. We rely on the other team fluffing their lines, like St Mirren and Motherwell did. Not even our set piece conversion rate and defending are good when Robinson said that's the main thing he's going to turn around. So we're just a team of try hard jobbers. Up until the Falkirk game I was optimistic still, but I'm looking at a defence that Robinson had every opportunity to put together and make coherent it's not, not in a 3, not in a 5 not in a 4 and then b/c of that neither is the midfield and then b/c of that neither is the attack especially when our club captain and main striker is a ghost and also fat.

Girlschool- Race With The Devil

There was an interesting comment from the St Mirren manager in that article bemoaning the fact that there isn't one overall authority in Scottish football that can dictate any rules or stipulations about player registrations. He's bang on but unfortunately I don't see a way out of it as the ship sailed when the clubs - including our beloved AFC - broke away from the SFA. The Norwegian angle of investing in country-wide artificial pitches was also a sad reminder of how shite our state of affairs in Scotland is. Football is our "national sport" but really it only gets paid lip service from the politcians and as part of sport in general is often the first port of call when budgets need to be cut.

Yes and no. McGrath would have been with us for an entire season and would have effected the other signings we made, so it's not a case of deciding whether he could slot in to this side or not. What was scandalous about the McGrath situation is that it was obvious at the time, and not just us pining in hindsight. Armstrong was only brought in to replace him after the window was closed. We've then proceeded to play Armstrong in a series of roles that he is unsuited (just as Robson did with McGrath) instead of understanding that he was a direct replacement for the McGrath position; either the no 10, or left in a 4-2-3-1. There's a good chance that we'd have fucked that up with McGrath too I guess. It was clear when we re-signed Nisbet that we'd quickly come up against the limitations he places on the side. It was doubly clear that it should have prohibited him from being Captain too. Nisbet is a player you need to build a team (or forward line) around, and we seem to have signed a bunch of players that does the opposite. A 4-2-3-1 suits Nisbet perfectly, but our centre backs don't suit a four (although Knoester and Mayo seems to work, potentially). It's a formation that needs two good midfielders, and Ronan is possibly the only one who can manage to perform one of the roles, with Aremu too inconsistent and Lyons not good enough without a better Aremu type alongside. We end up playing a 3-5-2, just so Nisbet can be accommodated with another striker, which brings out the worst in our fullbacks and we end up bypassing midfield for large parts, aiming for two strikers too close to one another, neither of whom can hold up the ball when under pressure.

I'd agree but it's not the worst: worst has been right full back/wing back. We'll be playing Hibs where if our first choice right back is fit he'll be the third choice right back they didn't even want. Since Ramsey was sold we've had Devlin who was only ever expected to be first choice for 2 seasons, Shady Mo, who took a few seasons to get into it then was sold for a fraction of true value at his peak and isn't a full back anyway, we've had Jensen who was a show pony and fragile, now we have Cadden and Devlin, both too old to be playing that position for 90 minutes for Aberdeen. We have zero Shady Mo type attacking players who can drop back to wing back in a back five, and then on the left we don't get any of that with Guinness Walker who is a full back being asked to play wing back, like asking Gary Neville to play wing back. Then because we can't play four at the back also (CB injury crisis plus Robinson signing jobbers like Happe, Milne being a space cadet) and we can't play a 3/5 with any proper width, we have Mahou, Smith, Yogane, Olusanya who could play in a 4-4-2 or a 4-5-1 they can't play in a 5-3-2 regularly and even if we try to go 4 at the back on midfielder is inevitably left babysitting the 2 CBs anyway either defensive cover or the easy short pass. So I think it's too easy to say we're missing a McGrath, there's no proper width and shape for a player like McGrath to flourish in this team, no consistent way to give him he ball in the final third where he could make an impact, he'd be the first to question the manager for that and the first out the door b/c of it. We have many attacking players and there's only two, sometimes three, slots for them in the current starting eleven and Kevin Nisbet takes one no matter what he does.

McGrath is the player that we’ve missed most after two savage clear-outs. There’s been no signing that replaces him and our midfield creativity - and goal contribution - is sorely lacking. All over a disagreement about a year in his contract offer. That convinced me that Thelin was left out of such discussions. Fucking cheapskates.

Shinnie?

I guess we are now hoping that was a one off, adrenaline driven performance in a big game against their rivals. Hearts completely surrendered the midfield on 15 when Magnusson was replaced by Dhanda. Lost all their physical competitiveness and were overrun with the extra man. Hibs needed Mulligan and McGrath to step up yesterday and they did. Thought Boyle looked threatening as well. Point to prove maybe.

Jack Milne. Hampden legend.

Do you think another player will ever get in the Hall of Fame? Most of them are shite & only here for a year

Vote on these proposals being delayed until December according to BBC this morning. No reason given on why in the brief article I saw.

Mitch Ryder And The Detroit Wheels - Devil With A Blue Dress On

I said it when David Gray was Hibs manager that they look like they have a decent squad, but Gray didn't have enough about him to get enough from them. It's only one win for Reedijk so let's not go crazy, but Hibs' performance at Hampden was far better than maybe any Aberdeen performance I've seen in 2026. If I'm being kind then maybe the 6-2 win over Livingston, but even then that was January, and Livi were shite. Hibs knocked it around well, battled well, have pace. Yes, they have many deficiencies; a big one being Jason Kerr, and another being their lack of goals. But they were excellent. Dominated Hearts in a way I don't think we would be capable of doing. God I miss seeing us have possession and pass the ball. Feels like a lifetime ago.

Kylie Minogue - Better the Devil you Know

I can assure you that Derek Giles, whose by-line is under the gaffe, abhors the Huns as much as anyone who supports the Dons and who has a tolerable sense of smell. I suspect the publisher.

Athletic Club back in front with a penalty that looked really soft and the keeper should have saved.

Sociedad equalise against the run of play.