Ajja

I think the world of him as a player and I appreciate everything he did for us but he is not likely to be the player we think he will be. He has passed his best and we cannot afford to have a player in the team or squad purely on the basis of his 'leadership'......which, as far as I remember was to lead by example not by talking and managing.

All very true. I'd suggest there are cleverer and more organised ways of doing it than trying to teach everyone to score though. A good starting point would be to organise your midfield and general support play to the front men so that its based on a solid, tackling, ball winning heart and creative, pacey, delivery focused wide men. Fergusons teams were always structured this way and strikers are often made to look pretty fucking good if you get the model to work. With Pawlett and Aluko we are getting somewhere but we still haven't really got that crunching centre. I would say it is a priority now as Kerr will never be that player but he might be more effective alongside a harder partner.

Is it Calderwoods formation for the last 10 minutes at Ibrox when you are 2-0 down and chasing a point ?

Is it the number culled in the great afc-chat cleansing experiment ?

Two to seven. Must be the sort of range of times that Sevilla expect to bulge the hun net in the home fixture.

I thought he did quite well at Falkirk when he came on. He was marked tightly by two men at times but still looked more dangerous than anyone else on the park.

Calderwood did something similar but never quite got to grips with the goals bit. Hopefully McGhee will not fall on the same sword.

Even still, certainly back by the first few days of October. Fit to face UTD and Hearts, thats a big bonus.

TBH I think its a matter of time before that side of things comes good. As the side grows in confidence from back to front, the pressure of Pawlett and Aluko attacking from the flanks and MacDonald pushing up behind the front line the strikers will not be able to resist the desire to bulge a few nets. Patience my friend.

No worries. Hopefully McGhee will bring our boy home now to avoid any further injury risk against the hatchetmen of Tahiti. He could be in the team to face Killie.

They lost 1-0 to Venezuala in the opening game so are out. Regardless of the Tahiti game.

Hence the use of the words 'fragility' and 'situation' in close proximity.

Don't be a prick. You know what is being said.

Nigeria look like they are getting pumped out of the U20 WC already. Losing to Spain I think. Aluko might be back sooner than we think.

5 clean sheets in a row is a very positive platform to build from, that is all. Good sides will be built from the back, if we can get that right consistently (the collapse against Dundee shows the fragility of the situation) then we will be in great shape to kick on. Naive teams like Hibs, Falkirk and even Motherwell, to a degree, try to build from the front with attacking and goal scoring ability and it gets them next to fuck all over the course of a season. It might not be pretty but grinding out results with a solid back line has to be the way we get our confidence back and become hard to beat first and foremost. Then we can start to tear teams up with our young 'uns. It will come, believe me, it will come. I predict the second round of fixtures will see us handing out some spankings.

With Hearts, UTD and Hibs coming up in the next 4 weeks its a fucking disaster!

Anyone heard any news about Ifil's injury ? Fingers crossed he won't be out too long.

Sounded like McDonald had a good game, was he playing wide in a midfield 4 ? Sounded like he was getting forward a bit more. Assume Fyvie and Kerr were holding the midfield. Hun midfield was a bit light weight so probably made it easier for them all.

If you had gone for the fool hardy investment as a die hard fan and it had blown up in your face and you had then decided that the long term future was to build sustainability and self-sufficiency but that was also struggling to take hold would you plough yet more money in to see if the first time around was just misfortune or mismanagement ?

The Scotsman has not been a quality paper for some time now.

Or maybe now is the perfect time ? If we are to accept that Messrs Kerr and MacDonald have not suddenly unveiled themselves as turds in sheep's clothing (pardon the bastardisation of a metaphor!) then what better time to talk contracts. They will not be coming to the table with big demands. Charlie on the other hand, he will have inflated his own sense of self worth to no end after scoring a few free kicks and delivering some half respectable balls. I would still have Kerr and MacDonald in our squad, if not our first team because I believe they are good players. I might be proved wrong but I am glad that MM is planning to talk contracts now rather than wait until the eleventh hour. As Paulinho says, we have been looking for this activity for some time, surely lets applaud it ?

You may well be right and I don't dispute recent performance and the need to earn a new contract, tht goes without saying. However, if we are going to make judgements on the future of our squad structure after half a dozen performances that are inconsisitent with recent history then we might as well fit revolving doors at the club. There are few players, if any, who will not find themselves permanently sitting under the sword of damocles.

I'm not so sure that investment is the panacea for the problems that we have. From what I am seeing this season the 'investment' in quality players like Lee Miller, Mark Kerr, Gary McDonald is exactly the place where we are being let down. The modern game is increasingly full of big time charlies who think that as soon as they are earning £1.5K+ a week they think thyey don't have to give a fuck. If Milnes money is going to bring more of that to our club then I say keep your cash. We need excellent quality management from managers who understand how to get the best from players who are interested in putting their shoulder to the wheel and meeting the challenges facing a club like Aberdeen. Increasingly I think this is about investing in youth and bringing players through without egos. It remains to be seen if McGhee will be the guy who can do this but that is where our focus should be. As has been said before, Milne would be a fool to throw money at the problem because its never enough. When there is money being tossed about you can be sure there will be a queue of greedy bastards who have little or no interest in how Aberdeen FC are performing from week to week. Its not the solution and its not sustainable.

This thread typifies the myopia amongst supporters. We are 5 games into a league season. Granted Kerr and MacDonald have not covered themselves in glory but they have not just become shit players in 6-7 weeks. In the latter part of last season this thread would have said keep Kerr and MacDonald and bin that lazy bastard Mulgrew. Suddenly, after a few decent performances from Mulgrew and some awful ones from Kerr and MacDonald people want them binned. Some people need to start looking at the long game here. Its laughable the hysteria that a few bad results can create.

Good on the young lad for talking the shit, we need balls out football on Saturday. He could certainly teach a lot of DT posters how to pick themselves up after defeat, its fucking suicidal in here these days. Paton is one of the good stories this season and should be first pick up front as Miza says. We are going to beat the hun on Saturday, no doubt. Its exactly the right time to play them as they are poor and not scoring goals. We are angry and looking for a kick on. If we have the balls to play the young 'uns and run their ageing defence ragged we will beat them comprehensively. By Saturday afternoon the mood among Dons fans will have flipped on its head.