rocket_scientist

Here's my next Scotland team: - Clangfield (until I can think of someone) Paterson - Jack - McKenna - Tierney Armstrong - Brown - McGinn - Christie Fraser - Griffiths Robertson the best of the subs, challenging Christie's position, or McGinn if he's struggling cos Ryan is so versatile he could go inside to feed off and in front of Brown.

I'm desperate to see the back of Gordon. Deserved to be hung, drawn and sixteenthed after the England 2-2. Would Jack be good in the middle of the back with Scott McKenna alongside him, with Paterson and Tierney covering the wings?

I would include Armstrong too. Problem is Centre Back. I don't want Tierney in there so that leaves two to recruit and therefore struggling to find a position for both Tierney and Robertson. Would never have thought of Jack as a Scotland starter let alone RB but he did more than enough last night to earn the chance to play there again in the next friendly.

Ha ha. I forgot about him or possibly erased the cunt from my consciousness. Interesting comment before the game by Willie Miller. He was saying that Mulgrew shouldn't be near this game as we know what he can do (and not do) and this was an opportunity to look at the future prospects. Of course who did the fud interim manager put on for the lamentable Berra - before he injured any more of our players, running inexplicably into Tierney and McLean when they were best positioned for the clearing header and unfortunately not wiping KM out of the game in the process - but the said Mulgrew.

I'm having a brain freeze here wtr. Who was the 5th? I only count 4.

Although they weren’t “top opposition”. They failed to qualify. Willie Miller was very specific in articulating their failings and highlighting their glaring weaknesses, more glaring to him of course given his life background than to some imbecile who rates a footballer for being good at taking corners.

I heard Regan talking to Jim White on talksport yesterday as I was driving to a lunch appointment. You’re right by the way, Garlogie min, the Garlogie Inn does a very good meal. Never let us down. Regan spoke a very good game, reeling off the recent achievements of the U17, U18, U21 Scotland teams, achievements I was totally unaware of but they had to be true, he wouldn’t make shit up on national radio. But his tone was dead and he mixed in tons of consultancy-speak and establishment cliches, performance reviews and strategies and blah blah blah. This is the problem. I come across this in other sports. I come across this all the time. An incompetent manager, promoted into a position beyond his capabilities does nothing other than talk up the organisation, highlighting only positives and spinning averages and mediocrity into plus points too. But they never tell us the whole picture, they ignore the failings and they never give the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. They delude themselves and they try to pull the wool over all of our eyes because holding on to paid employment is their sole aim, their only goal, protecting their own arse even if the organisation is broken. He should never have been recruited. His mouth was the give-away, not just the shite that comes out of it but the eerie and creepy way he uses it to shape his words. It’s like it was built to suck cock, maybe not literally but he’s a professional arselicker for sure. As is Malky. Malky. What sort of name is that? Fucking penis.

Harsh. I thought Jack was very good. I agree McGinn impressed in terms of his potential for the future but I expect a few others tonight to become good international players, not that Andy Robertson got anywhere near pass marks tonight. Christie wasn’t effective in terms of “assists” or goals but he showed magic feet and great desire. I really rate Callum McGregor but unfortunately his fuck-up cost us the goal. I doubt Tierney has ever been asked to play in that position before but he’ll be excellent for Scotland in the years ahead under a (hopefully) semi-competent manager. Ryan Fraser is a very good footballer too but I don’t know much about the other sub Cummings but the Sportsound team rate him as a prospect. I heard Malky Mackay’s interview. The boy’s a balloon. A deluded arse-licking establishment self-protectionist.

I had to pick up the wife after the game so heard the commentary team. Michael Stewart had to check himself but what he wanted to say was McLean was shite tonight. He was incredulous that Shinnie didn’t start ahead of him nor come on for him. McLean’s crime tonight was being a fake charlatan arsehole. He was showboating in a Scotland shirt, trying to look so composed and in control the few times he did find the ball at his feet but did fuck all other than a simple couple of cross field passes. So lacking in pace and energy, particularly in the mind. The way he was holding his arms out like he was directing traffic was hideous and embarrassing. He was pretending that he belonged at international level. He was fucking appalling and contributed nothing of value. He positioned himself in space often, but in spaces when they had the ball where he wouldn’t be involved, doing nothing, neither man-marking nor zonal defence. If I cared enough about Scotland, I may have seen another equally shocking debut but I doubt it. I was only watching him on the telly cos we pay his wages and the game was at Pittodrie.

Note to next Scotland manager, whoever the fuck that might be. Get a tape of this game. Watch it. Then make sure that Berra, Phillips and McLean are never selected for any squads in the future.

I reckon this will be the first cap of many for Ryan Christie. He was suffering from over-enthusiasm when he overhit three consecutive passes but that turn and cross before they scored should have had a hungry centre forward on the end of it. Ryan Jack very good first half at RB. Sub McLean for Shinnie NOW.

How unfortunate that our two best young footballers were culpable for their goal. Shocking give away by C McG but then Tierney was poor anticipating the ball going out behind him. As the replays showed clearly, they were offside, twice but I can’t fathom what goes on in the McLean brain? Why would you stop tracking the goalscorer going back once they were inside the box?

Scotland look fresh and sharp. Crisp footwork by many and bright start from Christie. McGregor is class. The game is passing McLean by, predictably and Berra is a fucking liability. Forrest doesn’t convince me. Holland are shit so far.

Agree re Shinnie in Midfield. Good to Very good but not international class. He is an excellent LB but as you say, very strong competition for that position right now. Agree Christie needs to be given a chance. Very Good to Excellent midfield player although prone to the odd going absent. No way McLean.

Scott Brown is a far superior footballer to anything we have had at AFC this century. That’s just a no contest situation. Unfortunately. The pathos in attempting to compare Shinnie to Brown is this; Shinnie has never been played consistently in his natural position. He’s the best footballer at AFC by a street longer than Great Western Road, let alone Union Street. Unfortunately he’s been deployed mostly in a position to hide McInnes’s inadequacies.

I give up. You go to Pittodrie to escape the wife with zero dreams and zero appreciation of what the key factors are for success in sport. "Freak one-offs" happen in every sport, every year. We all know how the money stacks the odds but great men, great visionaries, those who burn with desire, those who work their fucking bollocks off can, have done, and will move mountains. Your aspirations total a good day out. If things get worse after McInnes it will be because our board is inept and didn't recruit a better manager than the one we have just now.

Maybe you miss mine. I said in the Ullevi when Hewitt scored that this was the pinnacle. You sound like Willie Miller and Calderfuck last decade, blaming the fans for the abysmal record over the 20+ years since the glory days. It's been miles better since McInnes - as I have acknowledged - but McInnes is NOT a great manager, as time will prove.

Leicester proved that it's NOT all about money. Leicester proved that it is possible to win a trophy against the odds. The best trophy. Comparing DM to SAF. Dearie fucking me. Comparing our chairman to provenly-corrupt chairmen is hardly the standard? Trying to build a better stadium? Since before the paint was dry on the RDS? Why is the club debt-free? What is Wm Donald getting out of it? How did it get into debt? YOU pay your money to get away from the wife? Get a better wife.

Neither was I until the wife sent me it last week. She's good at "following" the right stuff on social media whereas I'm rarely on it and have never had a Facebook thingy. She sends me the stuff she knows I'll be interested in.

You already did

Good argument, very well made. The clarity of your words allows me to identify our differences. I don’t consider him to have done “an amazing job restoring some pride” but I fully understand why you, and undoubtedly many others, think this. It is directly related to how utterly shambolic AFC had become before him. He therefore definitely deserves credit for not being as bad as many previous incumbents. The “aura of class and professionalism” is our second point of contention. This again references the past, as you specifically said - “sadly lacking for years”. I’ll grant that he’s articulate in front of the camera but I see no “class” about him, neither in his professional record nor him as a person. I don’t dispute that “he’s never let us down” in that he is trying his best and doesn’t turn up drunk, he doesn’t lie about what the fans did to him and he doesn’t play pocket billiards in an embarrassing manner whilst havering a lot of bollocks and accusing us of having unrealistic expectations. But if he’s going to be “a hard act to follow” then this will be because his record has been excellent at AFC or there isn’t much quality in the managerial gene pool to select from. I don’t agree on the former but definitely acknowledge the latter. “All he’s ever asked for” is another area we see differently. They’re at Aberdeen Sports Village every week and he has access to the same facilities that every previous manager has had. Ok, these are not a bespoke club-owned facility but they are not a barrier to performance. It’s embarrassing that a business of AFC’s size doesn’t have a bespoke training centre but it’s not an excuse for poor performances. His “ambition” has always been to make progress but where most managers burn with a desire to win, his focus was always to use AFC to get a bigger-paying job next. That’s evident in him not relocating his family, unlike McNeill and unlike Fergie. Agree with miserable nimby wankers, something not unique to Aberdonians of course. You “wouldn’t blame him for leaving” but this has always been his goal. You’re “grateful” for his record here and you say that Milne was “spot on” in his recruitment of him. I agree that he has been the first and only of many managerial appointments under Milne for a quarter of a century to have been competent but I see nothing on the pitch or in the trophy cabinet to celebrate about his tenure, unless this is all we think were capable of? You reckon he’s great compared to previous and I don’t disagree. But the previous were shocking and McInnes isn’t actually very good, as his next employer will find out. It’s already apparent to some of us here but others, comparing him to a bunch of incompetent complete balloon human beings that preceded him, are over-rating his capabilities. Time will tell. He doesn’t impress me neither professionally nor as a person.

The wearing of poppies by people who never consider the origins of war. He didn’t see the poppies grow down in Flanders Field, It was over in Afghanistan where they cheered a record yield. A bumper crop of skag that would spread across the earth, Compared to wealth and power, our lives have little worth. Was he fighting for the Queen, America or Shell? When the lines are blurred, all shades of grey, no way that he could tell. The War on Terror, the War on Drugs, it’s all a filthy lie, Because there is no honour in queuing up to die. For nations, flags and worthless men, One hundred years since world War One and here we are are again. His search for pride and virtue, all ended with a blast, He trod upon an IED and now his future is the past. Although he’s three years older, he’s still just twenty-one, His life already over before it had begun. And now his mam weeps bitter tears as she empties out his pan, Of the stinking shit that gurgles from her broken damaged man. Still, he got a medal and a poppy that he could wear, When they wheeled him to the cenotaph where all the children stare. At the empty space where once he had two legs like you and me, Exchanged in wilful ignorance so profit might be free. To carry on destroying lives for power and their greed, A war upon their wars is the only war we need. Kill the Other, kill him now and make your country proud, Their token thanks is all you’ll get when they wrap you in your shroud. Then you can join the ranks of the millions gone before, Nameless, faceless forgotten dead; no one’s keeping score. A dozen here a thousand there, they really just don’t care, As long as you keep dying so they can get their share. So stuff their poppies, stuff their wars and stuff their tunes of glory, They’ll never care about you and me, it’s the same old dirty story. https://harrypaterson.com/2014/11/11/tunes-of-glory/ Even that Kirkcaldy wank Broon was stating the obvious yesterday re the war in Iraq. Although with a different spin, being “misled” into it. Lying cunt.

I watched it too. It reminded me that I’ve never liked Tom Cruise. Any and every religious person is insane.

Well isn’t that jolly? A reaction. A multiple reaction. And three questions to deal with... 1. I’m not employed to employ football managers. I wouldn’t have appointed the next AFC manager back then, nor now, or at any time in the future. 2. “Better return”? Than what? 3. You’re obviously delighted with the improvements since Brown. You therefore missed my point.

Most on here talk like losing McInnes would be some sort of disaster. Like he’s a great manager. On the match thread, the imbecile said that beating Hamilton would have been “awesome”. Are most thinking that McInnes is great basing their assessment on previously incompetent managers appointed by Milne? Or am I missing something? If winning at Hamilton and coming second in the SPFL is the height of ambition, then Milne has won.