Leaderboard

Not so sure about that last sentence, from his first Interview I've felt Nisbet genuinely has some affection for the Dons and I think that will have grown. I also think he is very career focused now, he was talking in his last RTV interview about how much better he is looking after himself, and playing for Aberdeen got him back in the Scotland squad. I think he will want to stay unless a better career opportunity (and I've no idea what that looks like btw but I know it ain't Millwall) comes up not a salary 2bh. If we could get him for 750 k that would be a bargain I would say. He's only just turned 28 and we could easily get 4 good seasons out of him..... probably more given he's never been a player that has relied on pace.

Goes under the radar but knoester has been a fantastic addition

To be fair, Hearts are doing their best to promote it and galvanise their support. Aberdeen in comparison are doing very little to push semi-final sales. Hearts have posted as much about their semi sales this morning as Aberdeen have in a week. They're now up to 19,000 and have asked for more. Meanwhile no-one really knows what Aberdeen have sold and it's been up to fans to try and work it out themselves. It's almost like Aberdeen are in a huff over the venue and kick-off time. I get it, I wouldn't be trying to shame anyway into going, but at least try and generate some interest from your support.

More like the Saints Dons games of old,none of this goals nonsense...

No phone? What did they look at while you were talking to them?

Lunchtime kick-off confirmed. Both clubs, SFA and police wanted 3pm on Saturday without any TV coverage, but on behalf of @goldie03 we fought hard for a lunchtime KO. Have also convinced ScotRail not to put on any extra trains, and transport Scotland have agreed to begin roadworks that weekend.

I have been at every semi final we have played in both domestic cups since 1976. I don't really recollect much about that '96 semi final. There is little doubt I was completely pished.

Be careful with the apostrophes.

Not to mention goals for Fyvie and Megginson. They owe us big time.

Clarkson was a joy to watch yesterday, he's the type of player you go to see and hope that he's on form. It requires a level of patience though, as he tries things that have a low percentage chance of coming off, and can often be risky, or wasteful. His form has meant that many had lost patience, but hopefully his recents displays have shone through. He tried a first time cross yesterday, on a moving ball, that was just magnificent technique. The Utd defender put in a superb diving header to prevent Nisbet connecting, but it was such a difficult ball to play, and there wasn't a player on the park capable of doing it other than Clarkson. That said, Clarkson benefitted massively from Jim Goodwin's tactics of throwing away leads (I can only assume by now that it's deliberate). Clarkson was collecting deep and quickly releasing, reminiscent of the time under Robson where he flourished. That requires a team sitting in, and lots of space for Clarkson to work in, which means either two high pressing midfielders (Shinnie and Ramadani previously), or some derivative of that (high fullbacks and a front two like we had in the second half). It's quite high risk too, and needs a directness that maybe doesn't suit Thelin. All in, I'm not sure Thelin will go for Clarkson from the start of games because of that, in a similar way that Morris doesn't start. I think he'd be happier playing out from the back, trying to draw players in, and hope that something comes off up front to give us a lead rather than trying the risky approach from the start and then maybe not having the bench to change it. It seems to me that after 6 months, Thelin is still no closer to knowing his best eleven, or even his best formation. Perhaps that's a good thing, as it suggest we have options.

This is only being done to benefit the usual two and not the rest of us. If they want to reduce fixtures for rest of top flight then ditch the league cup group games and go back to straight knockout format. Means could start league games earlier and create space later in calendar. Would not benefit either of the bigots but might others.

Wouldn't happen as we'd be 3 up by the time the sniper's wet dream got anywhere near enough to take out Knoester. And also we'd had been given the free kick so could launch it straight into touch to allow Mats back on.

I don't think there's any way back for him at Millwall to be honest, or anywhere down South, I reckon they'll be cashing in at a significant loss. I don't think we'll get him for £500K either, but £750K I don't think would be unreasonable. I think the player himself will be the biggest sticking point. If he wants to stay then he'll probably try and negotiate his way out of his Millwall contract. I don't think he'll feel any particular loyalty to us though and will take who is paying the highest.

Not too bad. I thought the clubs might have got together to do a bit of joint marketing and really tried to make a big deal about the fixture. Obviously, the exorbitant cost of tickets is unhelpful in this. It's a far better fixture than playing either of the scum in semis or finals.

I'm very glad I started a new thread for him. Been hugely justified.

Thought they all lived in Portlethen. ETA - The boss has advised I am paying for a hotel in Aberdeen on the Saturday night so early train no longer an issue for this one.

Adolescence on Netflix. Look out for the Dons supporter in episode 3.

Possibly. You could announce the commencement of nuclear war over the main stand tannoy and naebidy would understand it.

Can you also make sure it rains, and/or snows. Doesn't need to be all day, just during the drive down and the match itself.

Proximal Humerus I have managed to break. Apparently clavicle would have been worse.

Just hoping the main stand will be bit quieter and less chance of some pished cunt falling on to me celebrating our 5th. ETA yes I am aware I am usually the pished cunt.

His clavicle's banned from the dick donald stand

I'm familiar with the phrase "listen to your body", but I never knew it could go as far as recommending seating arrangements.

Well since you work for the BBC can you ask them for Saturday lunchtime for us please since that is what suits me best

He played one more game in the league and scored one more goal, two more games in the cup but one less goal, 10/34 for Ambrose, 10/31 for Miovski. Roughly the same, basically. Difficult to say what that tells us, other than data doesn't tell us much about a player! In theory, we should have been able to take data from Ramadani and Miovski, and populate that back into other data in the Hungarian league to get a good feel for what works between the two leagues. Because that is the key issue we have when scouting. We could look at actual performances of Devlin and McGrath and have a very good idea what they offer in the SPFL playing against SPFL players, but we can't make those same assumptions when buying foreigners. The other difficult is knowing whether they were just good because a team could carry them, or if the quality was of their own making, which you can get a fairly good idea of when buying in Scotland. I seem to remember that Ambrose's YouTube reel was even fairly gash, but I could be wrong! Are there reasons, such as failure to settle in the city, extreme nerves etc that could have effected him? Possibly. Or is it more likely that the Hungarian league, for the most part, is at a level below SPFL and that a player like Ambrose could manage 10 goals at his peak, whereas Miovski was being under-utilised by his teammates abilties and had acres of development potential? I'd guess the latter. It'd be really interesting to hear how the club used its data, not only to find Miovski, but to feed it back in to find Ambrose. What sort of quality checking occurred beyond the data by watching in-person, and looking for areas where we see opportunity for improvement. I'm hoping the club can really build on their recruitment strategy, but it does feel a little like data-based guesswork at times! A bloody difficult job, certainly. An interesting comparison for Ambrose might be Rudden for QP at the weekend. When he was coming through for Partick, he looked very good: scoring goals, making a nuisance of himself and being strong and aggressive. Dundee (I think) took a punt on him to make the step up, but he never managed it. He was always lacking the pace over ten yards, the touch to take it down quickly and bring others in, or the quick feet that might win him space. A good all-round performer, that could be made better with fitness coaching and so on, but with a limited ceiling at Championship and maybe lower end Premiership with a lot of work. I think Ambrose has a similar ceiling. The couple of good layoffs he had at the weekend were after 2 seconds to get the ball under control, and safe offloads to a guy in space - something Rudden could easily have done at the other end. Only one of the two scored their only chance (although Ambrose did well with his header).

You’re assuming we are away to Ross county on the Monday night?

See, this is the inconsistency. You've gone from saying Morris shouldn't start to Morris shouldn't have come off. So you've accepted Thelin giving him more minutes than usual was good and beneficial to him and the team. You're then saying Nisbet and Dabbagh should have stayed on, but @RicoS321is saying why didn't Boyd play with Nisbet. So someone would be unhappy here. You were one of the ones saying Dabbagh - despite his goals - didn't play well, so why should he stay on? Does he even have the fitness to play longer yet? Likewise, Nisbet hasn't had much luck with injuries, we've got to be careful not to push him especially when you see his importance at the moment. Ambrose actually did okay when he came on, that's the benefits of giving a guy minutes, and we might need him at some point over the next two months. Others wanted Gueye to play on the left, which they got. Others say Topi should have stayed on. Essentially, Thelin was damned if he did and damned if he didn't. Personally, I think it was a very good day, and Ambrose, Gueye, Boyd, Milne and, to a lesser extent, Polvara all getting a decent run out was a bonus.

Good shift from Morris but as said, it’s against a championship team. Think it’s relative.

Been here since 95. Considered myself a democrat until seeing first hand the country change under Obama. Gone from being an arrogant mother fucker to the biggest woke pussy and trump is taking the country back. The minority have been focusing on all the wrong things for 4 years. In my opinion. Lived in LA for 17 years and witnessed first hand the results of a left/far left government, saw the decline in society, homelessness, drugs, crime, high costs, woke agenda etc. Said here back in 2020 that I wasn’t a trump fan but I really feared where a democratic government would take us. What an awful 4 years domestically and abroad and while I still don’t particularly like trump and how he conducts himself, I agree with the majority of what he’s doing. It’s got very expensive here, the country way overspends, economy is shit, housing market is shit, influx of illegals and the challenge to local economy and resources, and we’re going bankrupt fast. There’s also world conflict and we didn’t really have that before under trump. His methods may not be ideal or pleasing on the eye but I think he’ll be more effective than the previous administration. Extreme change was wanted by the majority of the country, the minority are crying about it, but when your media is democratically owned it’s the crying and the pushback you hear on tv. Like that musk is an independent auditor providing insight, exposing and reporting corruption/fraud, amazing the money and misspending he’s finding. Many politicians left and right are freaking out because of years of mismanagement and the lining of their own pockets. Interesting when you see the ‘reported’ net worth of a number of politicians when it’s publicly known what they earn, doesn’t add up. im sure it’s a media reality show drama/comedy but its the change the country needed. It was never going to be pretty. I am also 100% behind an America first agenda. If you can’t afford to live and care for your own you shouldn’t continue to throw all your money away. Billions have been given to Ukraine for example, and from what I understand, much of it they cannot trace. And for what? don’t particularly like expressing my opinions here as I know I am in the vast minority but I can only express my opinion based on how my life has been affected and the environment I live in.

I would add that's the second game in a row that Clarkson has come on and provided some necessary guile. Negatives. We really need to start dealing with crosses better but Mitov defo needs to be doing better with that first one, he went pure jazz hands. On his day he's a great goalie but he's dropped a few clangers this season. The general lack of penetration was incredibly frustrating but I will give utd credit where it's due, they were very hard to break down and out goals were about moments of quality rather than defensive failure. Positives. Attitude was excellent. It would have been easy for heads to go down as the second half progressed given the lack of opportunities but they kept plugging away and got their rewards. Nisbets first is underrated imo and I think Jensen deserves a mention for both assists, the second being a peach of a cross. Dorrington looked pretty tidy when he came on also, is there any update on Tobers yet btw? I do try to be patient with new signings and let them settle etc but I agree Okkels doesn't seem to be offering much. As I said prior I think Pape should be put back there as he was really effective wide left at the start of the season. Re Mackenzie, he's looking like a player that doesn't want to get injured just as he goes OOC

Get that apostrophe to fu... never mind. Shinnie has to play. The "Morris can't start games", well this would be the one to give him his chance.

Ha ha, not on this occasion! It was aimed at the article writers, who are essentially putting out unquestioned PR, I suspect leaked from one of the two cheeks. However, I would absolutely include the number one broadcaster in my criticism. Doncaster has appeared on radio Scotland numerous occasions and never been adequately questioned. It almost always concentrates on a single small issue rather than the bigger picture of Scottish football. To the extent that things like league construction become an abstract concept that focuses on a number. You might as well ask a group of fifty kids what their favourite number is out of 10, 12, 14 or 16 and just go with the most popular. The format of the league in and of itself is largely irrelevant. Given that this is the fortieth anniversary of two teams solely winning our league - the worst period in Scottish football, if measured by sport - maybe you could write an article discussing the problem? If you were critical enough, and direct enough, then it might start some discussion. Do you think it would, hypothetically? Or do you think it would simply be brushed off (it's just the way it is, look at countries X, Y and Z) for tedious discussion about VAR or the Huns new manager? I think the latter. The point I was originally making is that fairness doesn't even seem to be a consideration by those that are paid to regularly discuss our game on the BBC (radio. Other broadcasters are exempt from criticism as they actively pursue the inequality as their business model). They don't see it as integral, when it should be the number one consideration. They should be discussing it every single week, and planning how to reduce the staggering inequality. Yet, it isn't even acknowledged as a problem. It's like some natural phenomenon that just happens, controlled by the gods. We can't even name the problem. Numerous discussions go by about the state of the game, or the state of the national side, but inequality has not once been pinpointed as the single greatest problem that underpins the rest. Which it undeniably is. Does it not seem ridiculous to you as someone who writes about the game that league reconstruction is being mooted without recourse to fairness? I think the answer is that it doesn't seem ridiculous, because fairness is so far removed from discourse that it would actually seem weird to hear it being discussed. My preference would be a 16 team league, so that we reduce the number of scum games per season and so that can never again be used as to strong arm clubs that apparently require the blue/green pound. It would also prevent TV companies from holding us to ransom in a similar vein. Thus, it would be targeting fairness first. I think 30 games is perfect, we could ditch three shitey midweek fixtures. However, if clubs require it, then create playoffs for European and relegation places. Second to fifth play off for European spots, and eleventh to fourteenth for third relegation. Teams in sixth to tenth have a set of playoffs designed to give young players a chance, with four youth players required in each starting eleven and two on the bench. Give it a promotional name like the youth presentation cup and get a sponsor. Fairness would come from the European spots being shared, with several teams given the opportunity to play champions league qualifying if Scotland has that route, and others given the opportunity to play Europa or conference. League winners could be given the opportunity for a lucrative fixture elsewhere, or bask in their glory for a few weeks. There should be no monetary prizes for league placing, as these exacerbate inequality (and no player is playing, or trying harder, so that their club can win X amount more money). European prize money should be declared a product of the league itself - because it is - and captured by the SPFL and apportioned equally. Again, this would negate the unearned compounding effect of European qualification that ruins every league in Europe (bar the English, who have discovered that the difference between having £200M and £100M in spending has a lessening effect). The steps towards something like the above begin with those paid to represent our game actually discussing fairness. Every time Brendan Rogers is interviewed, don't say "Brendan, how was that for you today?", say "Brendan, you have eight fold the budget of your opponent today, do you think a three goal margin is enough at home?". Celtic are one goal off of a three goals per game average over an entire season. That is horrific and something to be ashamed of. It's not sport. That should be the default position of anyone paid to discuss the game in our country. If they're not interested in sport, not interested in fairness, then they shouldn't be on our national broadcaster. That shouldn't even be remotely controversial.

The main driver? What about increasing fairness, and the competition as a sport? Surely that should be the number one driver of all changes within the game? We're going through the worst period in Scottish football history, with no end in sight, yet no journalist or commentator will ever address the root problem.

Like I say, I wouldn't criticise anyone for not going, and the Dons twitter accounts losing the plot over fellow fans choosing not to go are pathetic. Any other country would think 11,000 tickets sold three weeks before the game was an effort worth praising. Hearts have sold out, great. But as someone else put it, if the national stadium was in Peterhead, the Edinburgh and Glasgow clubs wouldn't be so keen to use semi-final ticket sales as some sort of barometer. I was actually at Hampden for both Hearts' semi-final and final in 2012. They had 12,000 for the Scottish Cup semi with Celtic (Aberdeen actually outsold them the day before) and the Celtic end was also far from sold out. Attendance was 36,000, a good 16,000 short of capacity. But I would have argued as loud as anyone else for them to get a 50/50 split for the final no matter who they were playing, so it's sad to see fans (and it's not just Hearts, Hibs seem to be piping up too) about Aberdeen being given a reduced allocation if they reach the final. Some folk are too ignorant to see if the old firm & SFA are allowed - with the support of others - to fuck Aberdeen over, they will do the same to the rest.

I think it means that they can mathematically lose the league at Pittodrie now though.

Yes I agree but, if say their CB goes down holding his head and the ref. stops the game, physio comes on, gives him a bit of TLC and confirms that he's good to go on but the ref. says he has to go off until the next time the ball is out of play. Bet many CBs wouldn't be quite so "sensitive" to challenges in the air.

Nae use mate Been to both of them before Would rather a trip to Liechtenstein or Malta for a European qualifier

That’s twice their number 5 has gone down pretending to be caught by Gueye. Shitehouse behaviour like that should fall under the remit of VAR, it’s just cheating.

Good to hear. Was paying attention for this specific reason, but clearly not close enough. Mctom, gilmour, and Ferguson is a very strong three for us. Doak on the left, shady mo on the right!

Didn't vsee the day coming where a Scottish national team lined up with FOUR players currently playing in Serie A

Is there any team that we beat in the cup that still retains their manager? Critchley must be shiteing it.

Eyebleeding stuff. Would've been quicker to just take a screengrab of the score at kickoff and give us all 90 minutes back.

You weren't joking. As seen through the eyes of someone falling asleep.

Really? Someone who had actually seen him play wanted to sign him? Seems unlikely.

Don’t know why we give Ambrose minutes. Nobody has seen anything to suggest he’s near good enough.

If I'd known it was Considine, I'd have stayed at home to watch it. Queens v Livi would be a great final. Although I'd grudgingly settle for us versus Livi.

Thumbs up for the graphics. Thumbs down for the line-up and tactics. Keskinen deep? Nisbet out wide? Shinnie presumably a sitting midfielder? Explain yourself.

Playing from two different teams as well. ETA - I thought it was a typo but there are indeed two Cole Burke’s.

forgot to add: Celtic beating us last week secured the league for them, as mathematically we now cannot overtake them. 2nd place still up for grabs though.