rocket_scientist

The key word you miss was "committed". People who succeed are obsessed. They fully commit to the programme. They immerse themselves in everything involved in making it work. Of course we're not the biggest club in the world but it's only by being successful that the bigger opportunities come knocking. That's one of many aspects - too numerous to mention - where SAF and McInnes are totally different. McInnes has never warmed to the NE and we've never warmed to him. He's a fraud who thinks he's a good manager. The evidence of the last six seasons proves he's barely competent at best.

^ good post. Sad but if he had committed to AFC and had enough about him to make it work, this would've been a much more rewarding position from both a lifestyle and professional perspective. He always saw us as a stepping stone and so he can fuck right off the sooner the better.

You don't take drugs and have never done so! Doesn't make you a bad person. Edit: there's another example of how we can determine aspects of personality from the words we use and how we put them together, this time from the written word.

These are diversionary and unnecessary. Your use of "arrogant" is also noted and once again, it fails to upset me pr otherwise get me to lose my cool, for reasons that will become clear. All I said was "older and wiser". You pick up on that to go off on a tangent? Grow up. And you may think you're being clever by asking me to "quantify" but it's too obvious to warrant further explanation. Now we have your proof that what you're doing is wrong. My retort was in response to you saying that we can't judge a man based on what he says and how he says it. That's all. Your words that I've highlighted prove that you don't understand what I've been saying. Of course transfer dealings are very important "in the overall scheme of things in a season" but I am talking about McInnes the man and why his personality defects are fatal if the objective is to be the best that we can be. I also did NOT say anything about McInnes' interview before the huns semi, as I never saw or heard it, downing many pints as I was doing in the closest bar to Hampden. Actually, I didn't even talk about my well-known issues with our manager and our chairman. I was talking about your diatribe about tactics, when you spelled out in too many words the fucking obvious, like you like to do. I referenced what Souness was saying yesterday and it was only when your other McInnes apologist, your fellow-denier of AFC reality jumped in by taking one line from my post to leap to McInnes' defence that you then backed him up. Like I give a fuck about the many insults I face in "an online debate". It's true though, your "snake oil salesman" like your "arrogant" and like your suggestion that I was so foolish that I ignored the financial reality between us and Celtic are attempts to rile your opponent... and yet, we're not even disagreeing on anything other than how we can judge a man, you having started with a search for "evidence" to justify my having such a position. I accept that you didn't deny Leicester's achievement. Maybe I was twisting the record like you had done but I do not accept that AFC beating Celtic would have been bigger achievement. How the fuck do you know what I would have said about Ranieri? He had a solid record in the game and I never cast any opinion about him at that time. I apologise if I misread your words but I'm pretty certain that you DID say that the "day-out" occasion of the thing was an important factor for you. Even if he did caveat it, you once again miss the whole point, not that I've heard him speak about silverware as often as you have. He DOES speak about getting to finals and this of itself reveals his true ambition, which is to keep on taking a wage. We may or may not disagree on McInnes the man but we clearly have life experiences that differ which as far as I can see, is leading us to some misunderstandings on this issue and on this thread.

No you don't. Lawrence Gatland in his interview on North Tonight said "you can't coach experience". When you are older and wiser, you won't say that we "meed more" (than interviews on TV) to "judge a man's personality". The truth is that we judge people on immediate impressions and more often than not, our initial impressions are true. This is a function of instinct, another aspect of the human (and animal) condition that gets overlooked by atheists for example and people who demand empirical proof all the time, even for subjects where it can't be offered. We have seen LOADS of interviews by McInnes over the years. Did you see his interview tonight? Did you BELIEVE him? Did you think he BELIEVED that we would "get on the coach with a semi-final to look forward to"? Did you notice how he brushed his forehead? Did you hear the tone of his delivery? Did you see the rabbit-in-the-headlight eyes in his skull? Either you can see and understand body language, tone delivery and word construction and what they mean or you can't. Most don't even have the imagination to acknowledge let alone understand this subject. Your attempted insult about "snake oil salesman" is noted but it again highlights your lack of experience because it most certainly is possible to get an insight into a man's character from what they say and how they say it, particularly when we see the same aspects being trotted out year after year after year. That's just a fucking lie and also a further insult. Only a fool would fail to acknowledge that there is a financial disparity between AFC and Celtic. On the contrary, I HAVE recognised this and have never denied it (and how could anyone?). You are twisting the record. It was YOU who failed to acknowledge that the remarkable achievement of Leicester two seasons ago was achieved despite a massive financial disadvantage (against many teams, not just one) and that it happened because of many other reasons, the prevailing culture being the most influential, a culture where they saw the possibility and believed that it could be done, something you've already admitted (wrongly) AFC can't do because boo hoo hoo, they've got more money than us. And fuck off with "there have been plenty of unexpected league and cup victories". I only remember one. Rangers in the semi-final was phenomenal, the best bounce I've had as an AFC fan since the SC final in 1990 but it means fuck all if we can't back it up. Even in his interview tonight McInnes said that it was a "narrow" defeat in the final? Was it fuck. We were there. We never had a chance of any note for 90 minutes. We don't win games if we can't score goals. This was yet another piece of evidence (since you're desperate for some) that McInnes is a bullshitting midget charlatan loser cunt who talks himself up to a better game than he can deliver. Nobody remembers losers. Any "unexpected victories" are meaningless if we don't win anything and the fact that they are unexpected shows how low we have sunk. Another phrase he uses which proves his mindset is "getting to a final", exactly what Calderclown used to say. SAF and indeed any winner doesn't even think of getting to finals. The whole point is to win the fucking thing, or at least that's my point, it's certainly not yours as we have a major aspirations-disparity, a "day out" being your whole objective.

No you do not understand what I'm saying, let alone "understand entirely". If you did, you wouldn't ask for "evidence" because you would know that aspects of personality doesn't belong in a science or an empirical data set where "proof" can be delivered in the same way. Either you recognise what the man is, his agenda, his aspirations, his honesty, his potential or you don't. Either you have experience of managing men successfully, or managing them unsuccessfully and then learning from that and managing successfully thereafter, or you haven't. Either you have studied aspects of the mind in high performance in management and/or sport, or you haven't. We can however look at the results, the effects of the personality, as indeed we should. In EVERY year of his tenure, I see the same bullshitting small man failing to get anywhere close to winning the league and bottle collapsing every big game. You don't want to believe that I may be right and between you and kitns, you make excuses that don't stack up.

You miss the point again. Because the subject is blind to you. I was talking about the interviews and the men who said what they said. To understand, you would need knowledge of men.

Not that I like Real Madrid but that's a good move for them. I couldn't believe some Real fans chanting for Mourinho last week. Aren't they watching? Can't they see what OGS, a very inexperienced manager has done with the same group of players? Interestingly when we talk about mindsets, did anyone see the OGS interview before the game in Paris? And compare that to McInnes' interview before Parkhead. It's chalk and cheese. OGS was totally HONEST, he acknowledged the task in hand but he said that we can do it, we have come here to do it and you never know in football, delivered with his trademark impish grin. He BELIEVED that it could be done and we can just imagine how that transmits to the players. It was a shocking ref and VAR decision that took them over the line but it was a stunning win nevertheless, scoring 3 against the millionaires and breaking all sorts of records. He also played a heap of youngsters last Wednesday, mostly forced by injuries etc. but they performed like heroes and lions, again which would have been because of the excellent management, inspiration and guidance that they received. Where our manager NEVER believes we can beat Celtic at Parkhead (and the 1-0 at the end of last season was contrived), I fail to see how our footballers can perform with the requisite belief and expectation, whatever their age because like Sarri at Chelsea (and Alan Hansen etc.), McInnes is a dinosaur. He's also dishonest in that he says whatever he thinks he can get away with, whatever it takes to keep his job, to satiate the chairman and keep on picking up his hefty income. He's a charlatan who's been cheating our club for six years now but he's not even the biggest problem. We're not fucking Dundee, Hamilton or St Mirren, who have won the same number of Scottish Cups that we have since SAF left, the same as Motherwell, St Johnstone, Kilmarnock, Hibs and ICT, one less than Dundee United and two less than Hearts. And yet some of us still don't see that we're underperforming and have been since the day Milne wormed his way into our club. They can keep on clapping happily with the 2nd place trophy and it will never change whilst the shit keeps on continuing.

There is a great book called Overachievment (or Overachieving) by "Doc" Eliot, grandson of T S Eliot. Doc was sports psychology or something at Rice University Texas at the start of this century and his book is a brilliant synopsis of the mind in sport, based on heavy and detailed research as it was. It takes imagination (and a winner mindset) to recognise his subject matter and therefore the vast majority won't understand. His is one of thousands of texts written on the subject of course, mostly invisible to most.

1. It isn't a "theory". There are commonalities between EVERY successful individual or organisation, plus many variances too of course. 2. Yes, like Andy Murray and his obvious limitations but without a winning mentality, it's NEVER gong to happen.

It is absolutely no surprise to me that the two biggest apologists on this forum for McInnes take exception to my words. You don't want to believe that McInnes is a shite manager. It would make you question why you spend so much time, money and energy supporting AFC. You don't even understand what Jute and I are saying. It's actually a very good example you raised about Murray. He did well because he DOES HAVE the right mentality to succeed in sport. He got the max out of himself where he was clearly fourth best in his generation in terms of actual talent. That however is an individual sport and an endurance sport, a totally different kettle of fish to football. Most people lose. Only a few win. I don't expect the majority to understand but the simple truth is that McInnes is NOT a winner, he has never been a winner and he will never become a winner. Unlike Andy Murray or Sir Alex Ferguson or even amateur and Highland league footballers I played with (who you've never heard of and who never made money at the game), McInnes isn't made of the right stuff. His ONLY priority is to get a wage and build a career. He can't inspire winners because he's not one himself. This is why we have numerous examples over the years of players performances going backwards at AFC under him. He tolerates mediocrity because loyalty and not upsetting the apple cart - his apple cart, the one where he doesn't get exposed - is his sole aim.

Or, as Graeme Souness said yesterday, there's too much emphasis placed on tactics and formations these days because it's all about the quality of the players. Wolves kept their shape and discipline superbly yesterday and were unlucky not to win. They have excellent technical footballers who make few mistakes and they are capable of doing the simple things well, passing and controlling the ball. Mourinho and Benitez have built careers, and indeed not an inconsiderable amount of success on a rigid style of play which demands keeping shape and discipline, limiting the opposition to a minimum number of attacking options but they have/had highly-paid footballers who are technically capable of passing and holding. The problem with this over-emphasis on shape and tactics is that it stifles individual creativity and expression. We all know about the split between Pogba and Mourinho but what's been coming out in the aftermath from Man U diehards is that the football under Jose was just rank rotten to watch, despite them winning the Europa League and getting into the Champions League, where they've been fortunate enough last week to still be in it. Man U and Celtic are clubs who consider themselves to have an attacking flair style of play and the backlash against Rodgers also includes criticism from some long-standing Celtic fans (who unlike the majority of them are intelligent observers of the game) that despite the continuous stream of trophies (a perfect 7/7 and the SPFL being almost certain in May), the football under Rodgers wasn't great to watch week in week out. This doesn't apply to AFC of course as we don't have highly paid footballers who are technically capable of doing the basics consistently well. When 7/1 underdogs going to the champions as we were on Saturday, of course the manager needs to insist on sitting in, maintaining shape and discipline in defence and hope to grab something on the break. The fact that the home team had two thirds of the possession on Saturday was unfortunately highly predictable because they have superior footballers than us and therefore the "tactics" deployed by McInnes were forced upon him. He has never once in his career gone to that stadium and tried a high-pressing attacking game and given the disparity, who can blame him? The problem is the disparity in player quality and player mentality. Where jute rightly refers to the past, famously illustrated in that example from SAF's first days at AFC when Dom Sullivan and others felt like doing cartwheels on gaining a draw in Glasgow, the winning mindset manager ALWAYS wants to win and wants his players to want to win. I would go further and say that our fans should want to win every game too but as we all know, we have aspirations-disparity within our ranks too. We defended brilliantly on Saturday and that's all. Much of that was down to a poor day at the office by the home team, who were surprisingly inept in unpicking our locks but let's not start doing cartwheels here. We are 16 points behind with a further 27 up for grabs. It's not working.

The reduction in traffic at the Brig o Dee at peak times is significant. The AWPR is a wonderful thing.

Excellent solid performance. Limited them to fuck all. A rare recent day of being proud to be AFC.

I also have no idea how that team is lining up. The back 4 plus Shinnie and Ferguson speak for themselves but I'm nervous at Ball at RB. He was horrific in that position when he tried it for the first time last season when Logan was suspended for Parkhead and was hapless as the first went in off him, deflecting into the net before the end of the first half (we lost 3-0). My problem is who's providing and who's finishing? There is no doubt that if it goes tits up again (7-1 at the bookies) that McInnes can't be accused of putting out a defensive 11 but with Cosgrove and Wilson on the pitch, are we honestly expecting Stewart and Maclennan to be feeding them? Stewart wide doesn't work and he should be deployed more centrally so arguably we have 3 x natural striker capabilities on the pitch, not that Wilson has ever shown much, leaving only young Connor as a natural provider. Fuck knows how he sees it but hopefully McInnes has a spark of tactical genius up his sleeve, like he showed in big games against... um, them... and also.... against... fuck it, he's got no previous for pulling rabbits out of the umbrella. This is play and hope again.

I was hoping you were able to see it more simply than that. Bookmakers always made a profit before the days of exchanges. In a nutshell, why do they ALWAYS win? What's the biggest, most obvious reason why they win? The clue is in the title.

I guess that's true but it doesn't provide any clarity. You said I was a mug and a laughing stock for having a position that you said was wrong and yet you stubbornly refuse to tell me WHY it is wrong. Let's park that and fry a bigger fish. The biggest fish there is in fact, for a pro punter like you. Do you know WHY the bookmakers always win?

@mininjc I've got a Norwich Valencia double (Valencia won last night) and a Norwich Sevco double running. If I cash out, how does the bookies win?

I'm in love with a German film star playing on 6 just now. What a classic tune. It's a glamorous world. It really moved me.

CHO came on for the last 10 minutes and scored the 3rd last night. This kid has still not started an EPL game. He came on for Willian who's free kick for the 2nd was superb. For me, I would have to have Willian on the pitch when CHO makes his EPL debut. There's a chemistry and understanding there. Hope they both fuck off to another club together in the summer. Norwich should buy them. Or Feyenoord. Edit: just seen Willian's interview where he said that CHO can be one of the best players in the world. Sarri in his interview said that his development is at a very "dangerous" stage, citing that it won't be until he's 22 or 23 before we see the best of him. The Chelsea manager is a dickhead. Like the Chelsea owner, a different type of dickhead.

Like the author of this piece, I similarly don't specifically know what happened in Salisbury. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/03/pure-ten-points-i-just-cant-believe-about-the-official-skripal-narrative/ But like Karyn Dunbar, as soon as I saw the tone of the PM breaking it to the house, I smelt shite. It appears my instinct was right. It's been a total lie from the start.

We are going back almost 10 years here rumpus (I would imagine) but minijc has mellowed in that time. I similarly was the target of his weird obsessions and gratuitous insults, an immaturity that we can't possibly forget. You might be man enough to forgive and forget but I'm too immature and unchristian to turn the other cheek.

Watching Channel 4 News the noo. I know they're as establishment as the rest but give them their due, they're like a dog with a bone when they get their teeth in. It's Arron Banks getting slaughtered this week. They exposed Cambridge Analytica and ultimately put them out of business and they got Grayling over Seaborne so there's at least a semblance of independent investigation going on.

My wife has been devouring it since we found it 2/3 weeks ago and what I've seen so far, it's pure genius.

Really good programme on Peggy Guggenheim last night. BBC iPlayer. Already been to Venice 45 years ago but will have to revisit now, for the sole purpose of seeing the collection. Really looking forward to MOMA and the (Solomon) Guggenheim in NYC in May. Modern Art as a title or category should be dropped now. It's just quality art. They've got a Joan Miro exhibition on when we're there. He done the mural outside the airport at Barcelona that you walked past and never noticed, cos you're fucking blind and unfathomably stupid.