Reekie_Red

Malta! Haha! Awesome. My grandmother is fae Malta. It's like Sicily, but with nae as big mafia gangs. Seriously, the biggest city there, Valetta, has a population of around 6000 - and most of them are retired! When I was last there on holiday, I tried to find a radio station and found only one that played anything resembling music that I knew ... when I say "knew", this station succeeded in playing "Life Is Life" by Opus five times in the space of an hour.

And still Severin doesn't sign a new contract!

I'm wondering if this is a masterstroke from the board ... I know, that's one of those oxymoron thingys! They've realised that the fans are slowly, one by one, turning on Jimmy and the JMG mob is gradually gathering momentum. Yes there was only 20-ish protestors out there. But it's no secret that Pittodrie folkies prowl DT and The Hat on a regular basis. One quick look at the first page of posts of either board will see a string of anti-JC posts. Now, whilst cutting JC's contract short on the board's terms would be a costly move, freezing JC out by removing any form of summer funding from him would make him think carefully about seriously considering parting ways with Aberdeen. I mean, the fans really are bored of him and his style of football. If he sees that the board can't promise to back him with the funds to continue strengthening his squad, then he's bound to start looking elsewhere and say "screw you Aberdeen, is this the thanks I get for five top-six finishes?". That way, no severance package has to be paid out by the board! Just a radical thought, but for the club to announce record profits and the repayment of massive chunks of the debt, saying "we can't give you a single penny this summer" is a bit suss, tbh.

Wewease Woddewick. He's a wobber, and a wapist ... yeah and a pick-pocket!

Did any of us know much about Roberto Bisconti before he arrived at Aberdeen? If this new guy is even half the player our last Belgian was, I'll be happy

Whilst I admit that challenging the OF year-after-year is a task that is just too far for any other Scottish club, I agree with Kennedy in saying that treating a top-six position as success is a sign of how far Aberdeen's expectations have dropped since Kennedy was at the club. A club of Aberdeen's size, strength and stature should be at WORST 4th every season. In Scottish terms, we are a MASSIVE club in terms of operational structure, finances, fanbase and overall professionalism. Any fans who think we should not be in the top 4 every year has sadly let their standards slip ... or they've never known better!

He got two different sides promoted to the Premiership.

Daft Punk - Da Funk

Jewell proves that his sides can get the required results out of the matches against lower clubs than his one - something JC's side currently struggles to do. Rising to the big occasions such as the Old Firm matches would not be a problem for us, as it is in Aberdeen's nature to raise their game against Celtic and Rangers. Aside from Jewell, I don't know who else to consider. But we need to be looking at a mid-upper table Championship manager if we're expecting JC's replacement to take us to the next level. Bringing on a young, fresh-faced manager is, in my opinion, a move in the wrong direction for us. We got our fingers burned with that scenario by the likes of Willie, Aitken and Paterson.

Depeche Mode - Just Can't Get Enough

Jewell isn't with a club at the moment, as far as I know. He left Leeds Utd nae that long ago. So no fee for him. I'm sure he'd love the challenge of managing a top SPL side that have more chance of regular European football than Bradford, Sheffield Wed, Leeds or Wigan.

Oh, I thought JIG stood for "Jimmy Is Gone". I think Jimmy is a good manager. He has steadied our ship and brought us back up to a position of respectability (in the league, at least). After the shambles that was Steve Paterson's reign, I must admit that despite his tombola team selections, bizarre tactics and apparent allergy to everything related to our Youth System, Aberdeen hasn't been this stable a product on the park for about 17 years. But it's time for a change. He has taken us as far as he can. Yes, he's made Aberdeen a respectable team name again. Yes he's made Pittodrie a difficult place to come for EVERY visiting team. But he's not going to take us any further than he already has. I think the current clutch of players is actually okay. What we need though is an experienced manager who knows how to take Aberdeen from where Jimmy has taken us and push us up to the next level. What is the next level? Consistency! Craig Levein had Hearts at a good consistency level before he left them. They were always a difficult team to beat, and not many teams went to Tynecastle thinking they could take any points whatsoever. A draw at Tynie was celebrated like a win! Now I'm not saying we get Levein in as manager, cos he's NOT the man I want at the helm. Butcher is a good manager if you want to win a dog-fight, so he's not the man I want either. Jeffries can get tae fuck. Yes he's the longest serving manager in the current SPL. But his teams are boring as fuck. At least with Jimmy you can spend the first 20 minutes of the game with yer mates trying to figure out what the formation on display is! Mixu has not got the experience or the track-record that suits us. Eric Black, whilst having quite a lengthy and impressive CV in terms of the clubs he's managed, doesn't really have a track-record of managing teams at the upper end of their respective leagues. McGhee seems to have a track record similar to Butchers, whereby he does well with teams who are in a dogfight, but runs aground when it comes to building teams who want to push up the table and stay at the upper end. Gary McAllister has a pretty shite managerial record so far, having lost more than he's won. Strachan is out of our league now, as is McLeish (although whilst he'd probably do very well to begin with, he seems to have a track record of winning with teams he's inherited, but then gradually losing his way as he gets rid of the old players and takes in his own). So who does that leave us with? Ozzie Ardilles applied for pretty much every single Scottish job out there. We probably need to start looking at someone from the Championship. We probably really need to push the boat out in terms of wages and ambition, and I think we should possibly look to get in a manager who has come close to promotion from the Championship ... maybe even look at someone who has already brought Championship success in previous seasons?! I feel the likes of Paul Jewell would do very well in the SPL. He's not Premiership quality, but has proven that he can get his teams promoted from the Championship.

KLF - What Time Is Love?

Some folk still believe we almost signed Gabriel Batistuta. The auld stand-free.co.uk site reported that we'd signed a keeper from Oldham called Hugh Oakes. Funnily enough, both of these signing rumours occurred on 1st April of their respective years.

Suppose that's the same as Tam McManus. He's a wee gobshite who the Hibs fans hate. But whenever he played against us, he'd score

Not replacing Russell Anderson

Getting rid of Esson, Stewart, Clark (and getting a fee!), Muirhead, Winter, Prunty, Tiernan

I think that the fairytale of bringing the likes of Deano or Rico back should be killed off. These two, whilst fantastic players for us, have not done ANYTHING worthy of noting in a managerial sense. I'm not too keen on the Black/McGhee ideas either purely from the point of view that it again seems to just be one of those "he played well for us, so he's got to be a good manager too!" stories. We've got to look outside the bog-standard seven or eight managers whose names always do the rounds whenever we're thinking of binning our manager. We need experience. We need someone who maybe has a history of keeping sides consistently good. I'm not talking about a manager who has a pedigree of winning titles or bringing sides up through the divisions. I'm talking about a manager who has maybe kept his side at the upper end of The Championship for a few successive years, for example. Maybe an overseas manager from Scandinavia (or somewhere such) who has got his side pushing for runner-up spots year after year in the league. I still think there's got to be better managers in America, Canada or Australia who have produced wonderful results with the limited resources that these leagues have. Lets face it, the MLS and A-Leagues are pretty much graveyards for former SPL and Premiership players. But if managers in these leagues can still get good performances out of our old used tyres, then surely they've got something that we're looking out for ... the ability to work wonders with the relative shite that they are given. I'll push the boat out and say Frank Farina. He's currently managing Queensland Roar, and prior to that he was the first coach in the history of the Socceroos to get his nation to the FIFA World Cup finals.

+1 Priceless response, Chuck! Probably the biggest smile I've had whilst reading DonsTalk in about a year and a half!

Darren Young was a better captain than Seve! At least Darren Young was vocal ... albeit he was usually shouting stuff like "you're a radge, ya bassa"

You reckon? He's got a REAL soft spot for the New Firm, to the point that he's the first to defend the Dons and the Arabs when the likes of Gerry McElbow and Hugh Keevins throw shit at us. Dons fans stick out a mile (see Richard Gordon) so I very much doubt he's a Dandy. So surely he's an Arab. Unless he's that very very unusual breed of hun who actually likes other football clubs. Chick Young just pretends to be a non-hun to fit in with the likes of Stuart Cosgrove and Tam Cowan. But Spiers seems to be genuinely non-hunnish

Haha! Jimmy Must Stay

Spiers is spot on again. For being an Arab, he's often spot-on with his views about the Dons. When was the last Spiers article that we didn't agree with? I think deep down there's a number of Aberdeen fans who were desperate for silverware this season because JC mentioned that his job at Aberdeen would not be done until a trophy was in the cabinet. Wish he'd hurry up and finish his job cos (a) we'll hae a trophy and (b) he'll piss off

Good point. You don't see Simmie or Jess or Willie Miller going on record to say how bad the huns finances are. Why the hell is Hately all of a sudden interested in Aberdeen's downfall?

Dammit, cannae find it